It's Monday morning and I'm hustling to recover from a weekend away with Shelby in Pennsylvania. We were only away for three days, and Kaitlyn did a great job of taking care of the kids and keeping up on house chores. So, a little bit of laundry to catch up on and some other odds and ends, including a trip to the grocery, is all I need to get back in gear. The weekend was awesome, once we got past the suck traffic jam on I-70, which added three hours to our trip because everyone was detoured off of the highway (eastbound and westbound) around some sort of an accident. The source of our trip was a work event of Shelby's with Duquesne Light. We were able to help with a bulb giveaway at Home Depot on Saturday, which was a lot of fun and happened to coincide with some beautiful weather. Besides the event, we were able to visit  with the Duqquesne and surrounding Pa. ECOS teams for pizza, a cookout, and drinks - everyone was awesome :) We also were able to  have a little "s...

Well, I am sitting in the lobby of the dentist office waiting for Shelby to get her teeth filled/refilled by our amazing friends at the Dayton Dental Collaborative . This will wrap up visits from me, Gage, Drake, Cora, Kait, and now Shelby...yay! This office is awesome and has made every experience very pleasant – SO glad we found them :) Anyway, I figure it is a good time to catch up after a brief time away from my blog. School has started for the kids. Today they are ending their second week and I've got to say that they've been doing very well getting up and going in the mornings, and doing their homework at night. So far, so great. Kait starts back to Wright State after Labor Day, and the fall routine will fully kick in at our household. Looking backward, we had an incredible week-long working vacation a few weeks ago in Philadelphia. The kids and I tagged along with Shelby to do many, many store visits, and we somehow managed to fit in visits to Hershey World, Historic Phi...

We just returned to Ohio (last night) from a relaxing, fun week in Chittenango , NY. We stayed at Shelby's aunt's house on the lake, Oneida Lake to be more specific, and it was gorgeous! Chittenango was home to L. Frank Baum, author of The Wonderful Wizard of OZ, so the town is full of Oz references, including its own yellow brick road. We woke up each morning to coffee on the deck overlooking the lake and ended the evenings with a campfire and marshmallows, or a drink on the deck, again overlooking the lake. Since this is Shelby's hometown, we visited all the things that make hometown memories, including Eddie's (mmm!), Sylvan Beach and amusement park, New York Pizzeria, Chittenango Falls , Jreck Subs, Gulf Road (scary!) to the top of the world, old home and school drive-bys, and, of course, visiting with family. I dare say that it was one of our best visits to Chittenango, since the kids are not babies any more and were able to brave the attractions we brought to the...

Busy, busy, busy! Well, a relaxed kind of busy - no alarm clock and the days have lost their names, but not their purpose. We are on holiday at Shelby's parents' house, which is a wonderful break from not-so-homey apartment. We love drinking our coffee on the patio in the mornings, grilling out in the evenings, and not having to deal with the drama of our neighbors...for the time being. I am in the middle of getting my motorcycle on the road again, finally. I renewed my insurance and tags after letting them lapse over the winter (my bad), and my battery is getting tested and charged as I speak :)We're getting ready for my graduation on Saturday (Hoot!), and the picnic celebration on Sunday, which will both be awesome events marking this transition in our family's life! This is as much of a celebration for my family, the support and sacrifices that they have made, as it is about my accomplishments in obtaining my degree. Next week will be my first week teaching a camp pr...