Memories of Melody

After thirteen wonderful years with our friend Melody she passed away today. Words cannot express our sadness. We are grateful for the time we had with her. She taught us all about unconditional love and what it truly means to be devoted.

Rest in Peace Melody... we will meet again someday:)

Penny's From Heaven

We have welcomed a new addition to our family last week. Her name is Penny. Penny had a rough start in life as she was found with her sister dropped off in front of an Ohio Hospital. Luckily the person that found her was my Mom. Now, if you don't know it already, my mom is one of the most caring and giving people you'll ever meet. She could never walk by and not help a person or animal to the best of her ability. So she took the time to get both frightened kittens into her car before they ran into the busy nearby traffic. I was blessed she asked me if I could care for one of the kittens. At first I didn't think we could have time for another animal, but when I saw Penny and her little eyes meet mine it was love at first sight! She is truly a once in a lifetime cat. Already she has purred her way into our hearts and is one of the family.

It took longer than we expected to name her. There were many ideas but none seemed to be the "purrfect" fit. One day the boys were spinning pennies on the floor and she ran over to join in the play. She loved stomping on the pennies and chasing them across the floor. Penny just seemed to fit! She also has a copper circle on her head the same size as a penny. It's almost as if she was giving us a clue all along:) We are blessed to have her in our lives and are thankful she and her sister are safe and off the streets.

When Life gives you Lemons....

...Make lemonade!! Summer is here and it's time for simple family fun. Making lemonade is a blast for my kids and working together is the best part:)

I've found a fool proof lemonade that comes out perfect every time. Here's the recipe:

Ingredients:
1 cup sugar
1 cup water
1 cup lemon juice
3 to 4 cups cold water


1 Make simple syrup by heating the sugar and water in a small saucepan until the sugar is dissolved completely



2 While the sugar is dissolving, use a juicer to extract the juice from 4 to 6 lemons, enough for one cup of juice. (Making silly lemon eyes is required for laughing purposes only)



3 Add the juice and the sugar water to a pitcher. Add 3 to 4 cups of cold water, more or less to the desired strength. Refrigerate or add ice. If the lemonade is a little sweet for your taste, add a little more straight lemon juice to it.

Serve with ice, sliced lemons.

Serves 6.


Enjoy your summer!

Finally a Patio!

As most of you know we started building a patio in early April. I pulled out my back the first week moving the 100lb stones that orignally were in our patio. The end of April ended with Joe slipping a disk in his back and me with bronchitis. We needed to call in the big guns to help by the second week in May and were blessed that my oldest brother Ken came out to help! Within one week we had brought all the material to the back yard and finished the walls and leveled the gravel. This was a family job and we are very blessed to have Joe's mom Kay, his brother's Jim and Mike out to help when they could! We owe all the thanks to you:) This has been one monster of a job and took two months to complete. Finally yesterday we put our patio furniture and grill on and had a wonderful BBQ! Here are the pics of the before, during, and after:)

Joey on our school Video!

Check out the latest video from our school! See if you can find Joey and his robotics team at Discovery Days! We LOVE our school:)

Discovery Days - Colony Clues #8 from PA Virtual Video on Vimeo.

spring Recital 2009

It's been WAY too long since I've had time to update our blog! I have so many things to post about so check in often. Now that school is almost over I can catch up here:)

Here are the latest videos for Joey and Ethan's spring recital! We are so proud of all the hard work and long hours of practice they have put in! Isaac also just recently took his piano interview to get into the beginning piano program and will be starting next January! Great job Isaac:)

Geocaching

Today we went on our first geocaching adventure! We had been talking about going geocaching for over a year and finally went today. It was a blast! The boys had a wonderful time searching for "treasure"! It was a beautiful day and quite a long walk to get to the spot where the geocache was. Luckly we took Jaxson who seemed to be an expert geocache finder:) He also seemed to be having just as much fun as the kids were!

If you don't know what geocaching is, or want to find out where some are hidden around you, click my "geocaching" title link to go to the geocaching website!