What a week! A vet visit (pets are healthy, thanks for asking), a really cool trip (for Emily) to a glass factory, good runs for Mommy and Daddy, a fun time at our church picnic Saturday night, and a nature fan trip to a park on Sunday for a little walking and splashing. These past few weeks, for whatever reason, have been glorious. We’ve been happy (which really means that David has been happy), and there has been a lot of laughter in our house. We are a blessed family, and these are moments we remember and treasure. Whoever you are, we wish you were here…

Still recovering from our week at the beach (the sand is still in between the floormats on the Prius both out of nostalgia and sheer exhaustion that thus prevents either one of us from going out there with a Dustbuster), we hit the State Fair on Thursday and ate our way from the 4-H building to the poultry barn. The weather was beautiful all week, we ate a lot of yummy food, we did some pretty hefty running, spent some time weeding the garden and installing a new shower door, and ended the weekend so tired but happy. A pretty near-perfect weekend. Wish you were here…

OMG, did we ever earn this vacation! After a long but manageable overnight drive to Raleigh and a chance to spend 24 hours with good friends, we headed as east as we could go and spent the week in Sunset Beach with Nana, Cappy, Aunt Sara, and Uncle Kevin in a fabulous house just steps from a beautiful beach. It’s so easy to slip into vacation mode: napping off and on throughout the day on the beach, snacking on processed cheese-flavored crackers by the handful, agonizing over what kind of cocktail to start with, and laughing all the while. What a blessing to have this time with family, to see smiles on everyone’s faces, and to enjoy the beautiful weather and stunning beach. Thank you, my family, for this wonderful memory

After placing our order in April, our new Prius finally arrived, just in time for vacation! Hooray! We had a pretty great weekend, between taking a “class” (and making s’mores) Friday night at Richey Woods), getting the car on Saturday, and playing around and just spending good time together on Sunday, we end the weekend exhausted but happy. Emily’s last class session (this semester) is on Monday and then she has most of August off, so we’re looking forward to some less-stressful weeks ahead (especially this coming week, which signals the start of vacation!). Next photo album will feature lots of sand…but in the meantime, we’d have taken pictures of the delicious sweet corn we ate for dinner, but it disappeared too quickly. This is what summer in Indiana is about

We used to think we were tough and could handle the hot weather, but when it’s this humid, we turn into a bunch of whiny babies. Actually, David tolerates the heat way better than we do.

So what did we do? We did venture outside so we could go to the store and buy a Wii, which now allows us to play games inside the house that are supposed to make us feel like we’re outside the house. Ironic, hun?

This was a pretty good week, if not very very busy. We had a great weekend, though, seeing everything from awesome trains and Lego models on Friday to hanging out at the Kellers’ house Saturday night and just hanging around on Sunday. Class is almost done, vacation is almost here… and we’ll be ready.

We had a pretty tiring week (it’s hard working five days in a row!) but the weekend looked promising. Saturday morning we made it all the way downtown, walked several blocks through thunder, lightning, and horizontal driving rain (don’t worry… David had the plastic bubble on the stroller, so he stayed bone dry) to find out that our Unite 2 Fight Race Against Prostate Cancer was canceled.

So, we headed home towards the farmers market where about four vendors were set up. Somehow, we still managed to get just about everything on our list, though, so that wasn’t a total bust. Next was the online update that Fishers Fire and Safety Day was canceled due to weather… Emily was more bummed out than anyone, since she had really been looking forward to a) sitting in the medevac helicopter and b) entering the contest to win a Wii.

That evening we had a picnic at church after Mass, and everything started out OK until the clouds started rolling in. Not long after we had to move the whole set-up indoors, the skies opened up (again) and we had torrential downpour #2. We then spent the next two hours listening to and watching about 30 shrieking children run laps around the Social Hall. No playground? No problem!

Sunday’s beautiful weather made up for Saturday’s 0-3 performance. Emily took a run, Chris did some yardwork, we cleaned a bit, went to Conner Prairie, took a bike ride to the grocery store, made some awesome carne asada, and enjoyed our first sweet corn of the season (we’d been waiting since October!)

Meanwhile, the human capacity for procrastination continues to astound, as we both labor through this semester’s homework. We both have papers to write, and neither of us really has the motivation to work on schoolwork on days as beautiful as today. Ah, come December, we’re going to waste more time than anyone. And start reading fiction again.

We joined the Hansen (well, the Kuhn aka Grandma’s people) side of the family to celebrate the 4th of July in Columus OH. The next day, we celebrated the marriage of Aunt Sue and Tom Potts (now known as Tom Tom, thanks to David). What a trip! David started out sick, ended up raring to go and charming most everyone around him (giving high fives, walking on ice, and keeping good track of his borrowed fire truck and police cars).
Aunt Sue is incredible, hosting brunch and dinner at her house the day before the wedding (where the reception, too, was held afterwards). We ate well, we played well (and Emily and Christopher did manage to get in the “Four on the Fourth” run on Friday morning… which, by the way, went uphill for 3 miles, down for .5, and then back up again, including the last .25 miles up a steep hill… thank goodness for Kanye on the iPod…)

At any rate, we made it home in time to relax and unwind and get a few errands and chores done, so we’re happy and blessed as we face an entire five day work week. How many more days until our next vacation? (25, if you’re counting)

As is the custom the weekend before the 4th of July, we gathered in downtown Fishers for a 5K, an avenue of fried foods, and all the police cars and fire trucks a little boy could ask for. Alice and Paul arrived Saturday evening and David enjoyed some playground time and giggles with Grandma and Papa. Emily and David went downtown for the Festival Parade and then we all enjoyed some super awesome ribs for dinner. We’ll roll into bed shortly

We got up early Saturday morning and made our way (with the Kellers) to Santa Claus, IN. Yes, there really is a Santa Claus IN, and it’s home to Holiday World. Very clean, free sunscreen, lots to do, and dude…free soda all day long! We stayed for nine hours (no naps) and still encountered no major meltdowns (at least from David). We spent most of the day at the waterpark, so apologies for not having too many pictures of that, but you understand. The weather was beautiful, and we even convinced the nice ride attendants to let us go down the big water slide with David (who really is 36” tall!) so we got to do one or two big people rides, too.

We arrived back home by lunchtime on Sunday and spent most of the afternoon napping, tidying, and puttering in the kitchen. By day’s end, we’re all tired again, but we had a lovely time. Even if we were a little crabby

Chris was on a (really super awesome I love my company can I have some more Kool-Aid please?!) business trip all week, and his first night back in town we acquired two more boys for the evening. Emily and David missed Daddy a lot this week, but they had a lot of fun hanging out just the two of them. Friday’s visit with Jake and Toby was a lot of fun, and David got to play with 17 different versions of Mater and Lightning McQueen. Over the weekend we ran a little, biked a lot, and just enjoyed the lovely weather and each other’s company. We went to the pool (where David got stung by a bee…at least we now know he’s not allergic to bee stings), took a trip to the hardware store (not that noteworthy except that David likes to sit on the riding mowers when we go to Home Depot) and had a delicious steak dinner in honor of Father’s Day. To Jerry and Paul, thank you for making us the people we are. To Christopher, thank you for being the kind of man that I want my son to grow up to be.