Tuesday, July 8, 2008

Lots of things....

Its been quiet here in blogland, but not for lack of things to write about. Simply, I have been busy, and I didn't want to post some things without the corresponding pictures. Said pictures are in camera, awaiting being downloaded into my husbands laptop. The camera is only about 8 months old, and the laptop less than a year old, so I'm still learning how to really use it.

Everyone here is good...just busy as usual. Maria, our Fresh Air child has been here a week already. Is that possible? Wow. She will be here another month before heading back to Brooklyn and her sweet family. We love having her here. As she was getting off the bus last week, a videographer from Channel 13 news asked me if I would mind answering a few questions for him. He told me our clip would likely be on the 5:00 news and possibly the 11:00, and very likely to be on the web. Well, we didn't see ourselves on the 5:00 news, although they did report about the Fresh Air kids arriving in Rochester. I assumed they decided to not use us for the story. I checked the web and we were not on there. The next morning I get an email from a friend saying she was surprised to see us on the news. Me too! Well, I have had plenty of people tell me they saw us. I wish I had seen the story so I could assess how much of a dork I made myself look like! Hopefully not too bad.

Last week when Maria arrived, I told my niece Madyson that she could spend the night if she wanted to. Her little brother Brock wanted to come as well. Not a problem as he and Noah are such good buddies and he usually just goes with the flow. When we got home, the neighbor kids, Peter and Emma saw that Maria was in town and they were excited to see her. We invited them over to play after dinner. Fast forward an hour or two...I now have 8 kids here at the house, and we all decide its a great idea for them to all have a sleepover together in Rylee's room. They all enjoy a dip in the hot tub, I make strawberry smoothies for them, and they all were great. I seriously did not even have to tell them once to quiet down and go to sleep. It was too easy! I wish I took a picture as they were drifting off to sleep. The 3 boys were on the floor together, Maddy and Rylee were on the lower bunk, and Maria and Emma were on the top bunk. Before heading off to bed myself, I checked on them. Peter was sitting up. He said he was "protecting the boys from the coyotes so the coyotes won't get them. Its OK, their safe!" How cute is that?

Yes, I did mention a hot tub in that last post, didn't I? Those who know me well, know I love a good bargain and can be quite the "deal finder". I have wanted a hot tub for years, but didn't really think it was in the budget. Yet I would still tease myself and search for hot tubs nearly every day on craigslist. Well, one day I saw there was a hot tub being sold at an upcoming estate sale. People were demolishing their cottage on Conesus lake and were rebuilding a new cottage in its place. They were selling all their stuff, including a working hot tub. Assuming it was out of my price range, I still contacted the people for more info. I was told it was an older model (about 12 years old), seats 5 to 6, and is in good shape other than the wood needing to be stained, as it has been left unstained for a while and has thus weathered. It even came with a cover. The man said he was asking $50. Yes, you read that correctly...$50. I immediately replied back that we wanted to buy it. The next morning I drove the 30 minutes to his cottage, checked it out, and paid him. Two days later we returned with help and moved it. (By the way, that was an adventure. Lifting a very heavy, large hot tub off of a deck, onto a trailer below, then pushing the trailer up a steep hill to the car, knowing the car would not be able to make it up the hill on wet grass, towing a heavy trailer.) It sat in our yard for 2 weeks until my very sweet cousin, who is an electrician could hook it up for us. We have since been loving the experience. Even the kids love it. Matt put our screen tent over it and we can now enjoy sitting in the hot tub without bugs divebombing our head.

The rest of this week is busy...a trip to the library, having some good friends over with their kids for a playdate, having one of my best friends and her husband over for dinner, having dinner at another good friends house on saturday with our husbands and kids. Good stuff! Hopefully, I can get Matt's help and can put up some pictures in the near future.

3 comments:

Kate said...

$50!!?? I'm so jealous! ;-D I've wanted one for a while, I will now start watching CL too!

carole said...

Jen, we should make a date to get together and I'll show you how to get photos and links to work and we can talk home school a little bit more.

Anonymous said...

I've been in that hot tub and it's AWESOME!! Definitely worth the money and the wait time to get it set up!
Hannah

 

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