Thankful Time!

1. First and foremost, the poison ivy and mysterious rash are both GONE!! All that's left is for the skin to heal from the major trauma it endured.

2. As the end of summer break nears (Sadly, the high school kids head back to school on Aug. 3.), I'm trying to take a few hours of one-on-one time with each kid. This week, Cuckoo went to volunteer with me at St. Elizabeth's (The boy loves to work. He tags along with me all day, helping me pull weeds, trim trees, clean bathrooms, do laundry. And he's old enough to actually be helpful!), then we went out to lunch.

3. I also had some time with Giant. He had an orthodontist appointment, so afterwards we went shopping for school pants and a few new shirts, then out to lunch at the place of his choice.

4. I love summer break for all sorts of reasons, but one of my favorites is the morning time with Cuckoo. He is always the first one up (by far!), and he'll always come downstairs and cuddle on my lap for a while. That just doesn't happen during the school year. We talk, we laugh, we sit quietly. This week, he made the comment, "I want to grow to 48 inches and then stop growing." Can you guess why?

At 48 inches, he will be big enough to ride most of the big roller coasters at King's Island and all the coasters at Disney, but he'll still be small enough for people to carry.

5. Funny things happen all the time around here, but this week a non-family member got to be part of the craziness. Buttercup's best friend has been spending a lot of time with us this summer. She went to Ohio for 4th of July, but she also spends plenty of days with us thanks to the driving laws in Indiana. She has her license, but she isn't yet old enough to have passengers in the car with her. She can drive to our house, but she can't take Buttercup anywhere. So, she stays. One day this week, she left her window down while it was parked in our driveway, not knowing that our cat loves to sit on, under, or in our vehicles. When it was time to leave, as she was putting the keys in the ignition, the cat jumped from the backseat and landed right next to her on the front seat and scared the poor girl half to death. She screamed and screamed as Buttercup laughed and laughed and came inside to tell us so we could laugh and laugh. Eventually, when her heart got back to it's normal speed, she was laughing, too. :)

6. My dad's sister is closer in age to me than to my dad. She has two boys, and the younger of the two is only 10 days younger than Phoenix. They live in Michigan, so we only see them a couple times of year at family gatherings in Ohio. My cousin is a very good baseball player, and his team this year has been playing in tournaments in different cities every single weekend this summer. They didn't get to go to the 4th of July party this year, and we were very sad about it. BUT, this week his team is playing on the north side of Indy, so we went up to watch him play on Thursday. (He's a pitcher, so he doesn't play every game.) It was so nice to see him play and catch up with my aunt in the stands. To make it better, it was a great game, with my cousin's team coming from behind in the last inning to tie the game, sending it into extra innings, where they pulled ahead and won!

7. Friday fun day this week included hiking at a new-to-us state park on the west side of the state. Normal walks through the woods are no longer enough for my kids, so we are always on the hunt for the "rugged" or "very rugged" trails, preferably with hiking through water. Shades State Park had one, and it was a fun 1.25 mile jaunt.

Unfortunately, the trail didn't take us that long to hike, and they don't have another rugged trail. Fortunately, this state park is only 12 miles from our favorite state park, Turkey Run, so we jumped in the van and headed there for another hike on their very rugged trail.

8. Funniest quote from the day came after the hiking. We had brought extra shoes and dry clothes and changed into them when we got back to the van. We stopped for dinner on the way home, and when we got to the van Cuckoo said of the van, "it smells like cinnamon on the outside, and toots on the inside!" One major negative of a big van is the lack of trunk space/ability to keep stinky hiking clothes separate from the rest of the van.

9. Long story short, 'cause this is already a long post and I need to get this wrapped up, had an appointment to get furnace regular, routine service, the furnace heard me reschedule the appointment and stopped working within hours, called the company back and was able to get back on the schedule for original time. Furnace is fixed and the fix was free as the furnace was still under warranty.

10. I get to laugh throughout every day. Thanks to my kids, Bryan, and friends, I do a whole lot of laughing.

I'm off to watch my boys play soccer. Expect lots of photos, seeing as how this may be the only time all three of my teen boys will play on the same team together.

Tell me the good stuff, Readers! What has made you laugh this week?

Have a lovely day!

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