keeping busy!

 Sunday before church we decided to go check out the rising waters of the Maumee river.  We drive over the river every day on the way to the Y- but we hadn't taken a close look yet.  It was fun to see- but the rugrats couldn't resist the mud and sticks and we ended up with some dirty shirts and shoes for church.

 Here's one of the spots where we can usually run and play- totally flooded.

 Memorial day we made a last minute trip to Ashland to see if Dr. Starkey could work some magic on my hip :)  It feels great and I even did an hour run today with no problems :)  So now instead of praying for my hip - I need prayers that the weather won't be so INSANELY HOT. Seriously.  It will affect me more than my hip on race day! the weather yesterday and today has been just ridiculous. Dishwasher hot and humid. 94 degrees with 90% humidity.  Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!!  so- really- June 11 in Carmel Indiana I need some non insanely hot and humid weather!!

We went to a memorial day parade in Ashland and had a blast. 

 Every small town parade needs a crazy or two. This guys is the old mountain man who sits on street corners and yells about Jesus. He got his own spot in the parade.

 And here are the kiddos with their hands on their hearts as the flag passes. So cute.

 After the parade and my hip work- we went back to the Starkey's place for a little water fun and barbecue.  I'm so glad we'll still be pretty close to these guys!  Check out the excitement on Ike's face. Pure happiness.

 Check out how beautiful their backyard is!!

 Here's ya-ya sneaking around the house to get these rugrats wet.  So fun.  And the barbecue did not disappoint.  Ya'ya's dirty dessert was amazing!

Thanks for everything, Starkeys!  Can't wait to come back!!!

thumbs up for soccer!!!!

this kid is so stinking cute sometimes!  his 'thumbs up' is one of my favorite things he does!!

and thumbs up for soccer?! even better!  Somehow this kid became the real deal. David Beckham overnight. He is honestly the star of the team now!  The last two games have been amazing. He's throwing elbows, stealing the ball, taking it down the entire field, and SCORING like crazy!  We told him we'd already paid for the season plus he'd made a commitment to the team and that he just needed to suck it up. Now look at the kid.  Maybe there is some athletic blood in there somewhere!

Today was his last game of the season- and here's their last team huddle.

Can't wait for fall soccer :)

  Really- since almost my first day here I have loved this place.  Every time I tell native Toledoans how much I love it here- they are flabbergasted.  Not very many people truly love Toledo! and I really really do.

I love the green. I love the parks. I love the zoo. I love the libraries. I love the YMCAs. I love the weather. I love Meijer.  I love the friendly Ohio people.  I love where I live.  

But, really, more than anything. I love my friends. The ones that have already moved- the one's leaving- and the ones still here. It's terrible that it's time to go. I can't believe that I only have ten days left.

Even with the INSANE weather and tornado warnings- we all gathered for one last big party and it was WONDERFUL. 

 

our day of chess

Please say a little prayer for my hip :)  I've been having some pain lately and it's making me CRAZY. I've got the big race coming up on the 11th so I'm trying to not make it worse. So today- instead of gym time- we had chess time. I had to go and do something to take my mind off of my leg so I took the rugrats to the mall to play around outside.  We got to feed the MONSTER scary fish - I swear these giant fish would eat my children if they fell in!- and play giant chess.

The rugrats pretended that the chess pieces were moving to dayton!  they took them ALL off the board and moved them to the grass to 'pack them up' and then moved them all back.  They were working so hard that they were sweating!

Here's Ike saying: "no pictures mom! no pictures!".  He was such a nasty little bugger today.

and sorry the pics are so low quality- they are cell phone pics!

I love that right now neither Kent nor I have any church meetings on Sunday besides actual church!  It's so nice to take one car, to be able to get ready together, and to have some time in the mornings to enjoy our Sunday as a family!

Today we had popsicles down at the swings here at our place.

The blue drips on Ike's chin and red on his face are indicative of his happiness.  His cheesy grin is also a dead giveaway.

Zeb loved all of the 'super high' pushes from Kent.

 I can't believe that we've only got two more weeks in this wonderful place! I already miss Toledo and we aren't even gone.

 Hello terrible twos. Welcome back to our house.

I somehow thought Ike had skipped this phase altogether.  Zeb jumped into it a little earlier when Ike came along at 20 months, so when we passed 24/25 -and even month 26- with pretty rational behavior from Ike, I thought we were safe.  I was wrong.  Irrationality has arrived.  Only he's older and talks and is pretty strong this time around.

Exhibit A.  Arms crossed. foot stomped. "I don't want to play with you" has also been shouted.  Unfortunately these have all been learned from Zeb :)

 Exhibit B. Zeb's soccer games. Ike is inconsolable and just wants to play. He wants to wear Zeb's jersey and he wants to kick the ball into the goal.  He becomes a raving lunatic when each game begins and he comes to the realization that he's not playing.

 And finally- Exhibit C.  Do you see Zeb's nose?  Ike loves to throw things when he gets really mad.  This wound happened to be from a flashlight.  And you can't see the bruise on the other side of his head that came from a huge roll of giant packing tape.

It's a rough phase.  But- then again so is the 'almost four' phase.   We are playing spring soccer this year and it's been a lesson for all us. A lesson in patience, competition, crying, frustration, etc.

Zeb just doesn't get why no one will give him the ball.  Stealing toys has never been an issue for this kid- but for whatever reason he can't grasp the idea of getting in there to 'steal' the ball.








He's getting better, though.  Last night we even got him to run around and try his hardest (without the help from one of us) to get the ball from somebody!  He even got in there a few times :)

O, Cananda!

We spent a day in Canada checking out their side of Niagara Falls while we were visiting Laney- but I didn't actually get many good shots of the falls :)  The Canadian side is far more exciting than ours! much better taken care of as well.

Strangely enough - there are about a dozen haunted houses right on the falls main road. weird.  But we got a family picture in front of one. Zeb was not happy about it.

And here's the Hawes family on the world's tallest man's chair.

We did a lot of walking and ended up completely sunburned.  But- it was a lot of fun.  Here's Ike with his 'happy' face.  You can just tell he's having fun.

 Zeb loved the falls thanks to the fact that Leo, Quincy, June, and Annie have taken a trip over them in their rocketship.  He was excited to see them in real life.

 These rugrats played in this puddle for ever.  And EVERY asian tourist (there were quite a few) stopped to giggle and take pictures.  These kids are all over Asian family vacation pictures.






 Then Henry fell and got soaked and demanded to take off his wet clothes. He ran around like a little orphan while we sat and ate lunch.  Speaking of lunch- we really need a Wegman's here. I mean Meijer no grocery offense- but Wegman's is amazing.  Our entire lunch came from there and was DIVINE.

Ike loved smelling all of the flowers.  He thinks that smelling them is blowing on them. Weirdo.

 

I can't believe how lucky we've been to have these boy cousins all so close in age and that we are all on this side of the country. It is so much fun!

And I can't neglect the little Milly goat.  I think she's looking more and more like Laney.

 After seeing the falls we walked around the city for a bit longer and explored. They've got some beautiful gardens- and a Giant Hershey's store.

 

 These two could be brothers.

 Under the giant Hershey's Kiss!

 The moment we got into the car all of the kids crashed.  We made it through the border without any problems and returned to Buffalo for some rest!

Thanks for the great trip, Laney and Taylor!

On our way to Buffalo we made a stop at one of Ohio's famous indoor waterpark/hotels- "Great Wolf Lodge"!  Remember how I said that May is the best time to go ANYwhere?!  We were four of TEN guests in the waterpark.  Basically it was our very own park.  There were 14 lifeguards and ten of us.  The hotel workers said it had NEVER been so empty!  I took a gazillion pictures and we all got crazy waterlogged. 

Ike wanted to play water basketball the entire time.

 They had this giant jungle water gym with all sorts of cool knobs and buttons that made water dump on you (or other people)!

 And our rugrats were surprisingly quite brave. They went on every slide that they were allowed to- and some of them were pretty scary.  The lifeguards kept asking their ages and couldn't believe that they were doing all of the slides by themselves!!!

 Ike's favorite slides were the kiddie ones, though.

 And Zeb loved the tube slides.

And so did Ike!

Here are the monkeys doing a water dance at the totem pole.

 aren't they the cutest kiddos?!

 

 Ike was the first to get cold and tired.  We went back to our rooms around 7:30 to get ready for evening storytime!

 There was one other kid there with us.  They have some pretty creepy animatronics sing and dance to the kiddos-

and then the wolf comes and reads a story to them.

 The whole thing was super fun!  We totally lucked out that it was super uncrowded and it definitely made things better.

 Our kids are spoiled rotten :)