Home Sweet Home

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It was fantastic to take a vacation, but it is always more fantastic to come back home!!

You all know I am a home body – I really enjoy being home.

The Friday that we got home was like a marathon.

I am old enough and wise enough to know that vacations come with a cost – there is always much work involved and a lot to catch up on once back home!!

Somehow Blake and I stayed awake long enough on Friday to get grocery on Friday night – it was a two cart night.

Super good to be stocked back up though!

Saturday morning was the day I started “filling all the bellies” again – even though I did that while in Florida too!

It was also a BIG kitchen day as we tried to get ready for the week ahead and also get ready for our Easter celebration.

I had very tan great helpers though!!

I put this next photo on Instagram, and then immediately posted the second photo after it.

This IS the reality of social media, is it not?

The perfect photo of your perfect grain-free waffles…but not showing that half of them stuck to the waffle maker and were much less than perfect?

Don’t be fooled by those little squares on Instagram!!

By the way, I kept the ones that were a mess too – they reheated just fine and tasted just like the other ones!

I had planned our menus for the week after we returned home from Florida before we left on vacation.

I guess I thought it would be warmer by then – so a summer grilled meal for Saturday it was!

Even though it was 30 some degrees!

It tasted delicious!!

After Blake and Lane had went to La Crosse for parts on Saturday morning, Blake fixed our van.

It was a BIG job.

It took him 12 hours.

But it saved us hundreds of dollars!!

When he finished at midnight that night, something was still wrong.

Thankfully on Sunday evening when he pulled it all apart again, he found what was wrong and it was an easy fix!

It has been running great ever since!

Thank you, babe, for all your hard work for us!!

Before we left for Florida I had asked Kayla if she would host Easter dinner this year.

She was glad to!!

It was wonderful to head over to the farm after a beautiful church service on Sunday!

Kayla and I had planned the meal and both made parts of it – it turned out great!!!

Kayla had planned an egg hunt for the kiddos and of course they loved it!

Thankfully it was a little bit warmer on Sunday!

Believe it or not, Monday morning we were back to our full routine!

I had planned school before we left for Florida too, knowing there was no way I would have time to do it before Monday once we returned back home.

All three of my trio told me on Sunday night that they were SO excited for school the next day!

How sweet is that?

We had a great week back in our rhythm, which included getting back to piano lessons, read aloud and art class.

I was super happy to be back in the kitchen and enjoyed making yummy food this past week too!!!

The weather this week is NOTHING like Florida – think cold, windy, rainy, snowy, cold, cold, cold.

Winter will you ever end??

This week ahead doesn’t look like it’s going to be any better.

We were creative with our time inside!

Friday afternoon also became a time of serious rest – the pace of last week was crazy!!

This Saturday was another big kitchen day – or so I thought – but these two cuties are getting so efficient and good at working in the kitchen that by 9:30 they were headed outside because we were done!!

I still needed to make dinner and dessert for Hymn Sing Saturday night, but that was all!

Good job, you two!!

I made an abundance of chocolate chip cookies for Hymn Sing Saturday night.

Hymn Sing is a FAVORITE!!!

We had the best time!!!

Here’s another shout out for my amazing trio of helpers – they are the BEST at putting away grocery each week.

We have a system I’m telling ya!!

I also asked my hubby to pick up a case of bananas, because I am believing in spring and smoothie season.

It has to arrive eventually, right?

Another very fast, but GREAT week in the books!!

It is so good to be HOME!

Are you a home body like me?

I don’t take it for granted that the Lord has filled my heart with a love for keeping our home and homeschooling our children!!

It is a gift!

Thank you, Jesus!

Did you all have a great week too?

Here’s hoping you did!!

Until next time!

A New Home Owner!!

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Our Grant has been looking to buy a house for awhile now.

He had put offers in on several homes (four? or five?)…but this market is C.R.A.Z.Y!!

Finally he found a home that was a great fit for him, and his offer was ACCEPTED!!

That was back at the very beginning of March.

Grant closed on his new home this past Monday!

We could not wait to see the inside of it!!

The four kiddos (who were home on Monday) and I headed there right after an early lunch to check it out.

Thankfully his new place is only about 12 minutes away!!

Grant’s home was built in 1910 and has had only two other owners.

It is FULL of character and old home beauty!

If only it could tell its story!!

We are very excited to help Grant make his house a home!!

Since Chad does remodeling for a living, his input was SO valuable on what Grant could do to spruce the place up!

Right away we realized there were the original hardwood floors under ALL the floating floors, tile and carpet that had been placed on top of them – LET DEMO BEGIN!!

We all helped out on Monday with hauling out all the old flooring, cleaning, and pulling wallpaper off the one bedroom’s walls.

Many hands made light work and we got a lot done!

We even had some cute visitors while we worked!

Friday night Blake and I headed back down with Grant to finish prepping things for a big weekend of work.

We devoted this weekend to getting those beautiful floors sanded!

They are going to be MORE BEAUTIFUL!!

I especially couldn’t wait to see how the floors with the glue on them would turn out!

The living room had a floating floor over it, but the dining room and entry way had floors that were glued down.

They had a lot of residue on them.

Grant rented some sanders and he and Blake worked on the floors most of Saturday and then again on Sunday afternoon.

The rest of us stayed away because of the noise and the dust!

We did visit though, and I took the guys food!

Watching the progress was exciting!!

Look how wonderfully they sanded down!

Not any of that carpet glue left at all!

It is just the sanding dust that you see in these first two photos.

Aren’t they turning out SO pretty??

Because Grant has a place here at Twin Oaks to lay his head, he is going to work as he can on his new home to get it ready to live in.

It needs some tender loving care for sure!

Lots more planned to do there, and we are all excited to be able to help Grant!

It’s FUN to work together – especially with a vision that is a wonderful goal!

HAPPY NEW HOUSE, GRANT EVAN!!

WE ARE SO HAPPY FOR YOU!!

A Trip of a Lifetime Part 3

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Tuesday was another beautiful and warmer day for us in Florida.

We spent most of the day hanging out by the pool enjoying that sunshine!

We made breakfast for dinner that evening (do you all do that?) and knew it would finally be the PERFECT evening to watch the sunset on the pier without freezing to death or being blown away by the wind!

We headed there after dinner.

We were right – it was a gorgeous evening!!

So different than just a few nights before!!

Standing at the end of the pier to watch the sun go down is a favorite thing of mine!!

We knew those clouds would give the sky SO much color as the sun started to dip down!

Then the big ball of sunshine peeked out below the clouds right before it went completely below the horizon – make sure you look carefully at the last photo in these next ones!

Isn’t that so, so pretty?!!!

Wednesday was our last full day in our home away from home.

My hubby had made a BIG plan for us as our FINALE to our trip of a lifetime!!

He had booked us a boat ride – just the six of us and the captain and his son.

Not only was it super fun to just ride on the boat, but we got to watch dolphins swim, see some eagles and beautiful properties – and we got dropped off at a private beach called “the secret spot” to play and find shells!!

We got to stay there for almost two hours.

It was BEAUTIFUL.

UNBELIEVABLY BEAUTIFUL!!

And the shells were everywhere – I have never seen so many!!

You could not even walk barefoot by the shore line because all of the shells hurt your feet!

We couldn’t even choose there were SO many perfect shells!!

I took mostly video of the children looking for shells and also of what they found.

Tate found the shell of a crab in one piece and Lane found a sand dollar!!

Isn’t that sand dollar so neat?!

Can you see all the beautiful shells in his bucket?!

They had a blast on that beach.

The houses around the area where we were boating were beautiful, but ridiculous!

This first home sold for 35 million dollars.

I will never get that – but it is pretty to look at!

After our grand finale outing, we headed back to the pool to cool off and stay outside as long as we could!

We cleaned out the fridge for dinner and managed to fill all the bellies on a bunch of random stuff!

Blake and I had some errands to run after dinner, but we brought back ice cream for our last evening in Florida!

Thursday morning came.

We were all ready in different ways to get back home, but also not ready to leave the warm weather and sunshine.

We knew what the weather had been like and was going to be like upon our arrival back home – it was still winter!

We spent a little bit of time at the pool Thursday morning before heading in to shower and pack up.

One last photo of the pool and the palm trees with the sky in the background!

We got ready quickly and then took our luggage downstairs to be locked in the conference room since our flight was not until 9 p.m. (but we had to be out of our room by noon).

We headed out to fill the rest of the day with lunch, some window shopping, and some gift shopping for our favorite peeps back home!

Pretty soon we were out of ideas of what to do with ourselves, so we headed back to the hotel to change into warmer clothes and get our luggage.

We decided to just head to the airport, check-in, get through security, and then hang out sipping coffee and reading books until it was time for our flight.

Finally it was time to board and head home!!

We landed in Minneapolis after midnight.

It was SNOWING.

And somewhere around 15 degrees.

We weren’t in Florida anymore!!

Blake did a great job getting us home from the airport safely, only stopping one time to jog around the van in the cold air to make sure he would stay awake!!

I stayed awake the whole time too, don’t worry, as a good co-pilot would.

We arrived home at 4 a.m.!!

Blake, Chad and I slept till 7 a.m. and then had to get up and start the day – the guys needed to head to work, and I needed to get after laundry, grocery, and the three other million things I did that day!!

Life has been full speed ahead ever since I woke last Friday, but I am loving it.

Loving being back in our kitchen.

Loving teaching Math, and reading aloud to my trio.

Loving spending time with ALL of our crew, especially on Sunday for Easter!

Florida, you definitely were a trip of a lifetime!

Time will tell if we ever get to do anything like that again – but I am not taking these memories for granted!

Thank you, Blake, the most wonderful husband and father, for planning this trip and making it happen!!

It was BEYOND wonderful and I am so thankful we got to be there with the kids like we always talked about when we have been there in the past!

OK, Wisconsin – get the memo!!

It’s April and we are ready for SPRING!!

Definitely missing the weather we enjoyed last week!!

Hope you all had a good week last week where ever you were!!

And I hope you had a good Easter too!!

A Trip of a Lifetime Part 2

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We woke on Saturday to the most beautiful, sunny, cool and breezy day!

We swam in the pool for a little bit in the morning, but it was chilly!

Because of the temperature, we had decided the night before to go and visit the zoo on Saturday after lunch.

But first we stopped at Target for some things we needed and Blake bought the kiddos a coffee treat!

Over the last month, the kids have been watching a show called San Diego Zoo on the channel Animal Planet – which shows all kinds of behind-the-scenes care of the animals at the zoo.

It is a fascinating show!

Blake and I knew it would make a trip to the zoo all the more interesting after everything they have learned on that show.

The Naples Zoo did not disappoint!

It was the most beautiful zoo I have ever been too!

I could not get over the trees, flowers and greenery!

Just look at these trees!

Isn’t it beautiful?

We saw some amazing animals that were hard to photograph with a cell phone!

When we got to the giraffe exhibit, we saw that you could feed them some lettuce for $5.

Of course we had to do that!

I only have a photo of Chad feeding them because I took video of the rest of the kids doing so.

We ended our afternoon at the zoo with a show about the animals.

It was awesome!

Such a fun way to spend a beautiful day!

After the zoo we went back to our home away from home and fed the kiddos quick.

Next up we headed to the beach to watch the sunset from the pier.

Little did we know that the temperature was dropping and the winds had increased to 40 mph!

It was COLD and SO WINDY!

I have great photos, but we didn’t last long.

There was a mama with this crew (that’s me!) who was huddled behind her hubby trying to stay out of the direct wind gusts because she was frozen to her core, ha, ha!

Please notice how the palm trees are bent way over in that wind!

And notice how big the waves are too!

We drove around for a little while before the sun went down, just to look around and see all the things!

Naples is beautiful!

Sunday morning was another beautiful day.

The winds and clouds of the last three days were gone!

Blake researched on line and found a church for us to attend.

We enjoyed church SO MUCH!

Our church here at home loves to sing, and this church we visited in Florida was the same!!

What a beautiful time of worship we had and were also challenged and encouraged by an amazing sermon.

We had driven by a place called Seed to Table on our way to church and went back to check it out after church!

It was very neat!

Think Joanna Gaines kind of neat.

It was packed with people though, and was not allergy friendly.

We bought some guacamole and salsas to go with our lunch and that was all.

Sunday afternoon had us back at the pool – the first time it was warmer and completely sunny!

We made a delicious meal at our home away from home Sunday evening.

Then Chad kicked Blake and I out on a date!

Why, yes, thank you, Chad!!

We went to check out a bakery we hoped to enjoy with the kids, and of course went grocery shopping.

Date night was just like here in Wisconsin really!

Monday morning brought the promise of a super yummy breakfast at an all gluten-free bakery.

It did not disappoint!!

I was not able to eat anything there because I do not eat grains or sugar, but Blake and the kids said it was the best gluten-free baked goods they have ever had!!

We ate on their patio even though in the shade it was a little chilly!

Thankfully Blake had a sweatshirt for Eliza to borrow.

She is so cute.

Because of Monday’s predicted temperatures and clear blue skies, we decided to go and play at the beach for the first time during the day.

It ended up being a great choice!

We were turned away from the first beach we went to because it was at capacity, which meant there was no parking.

I told everyone that finding a different beach was going to be a happy accident, and it was!

We found one and Blake let us out so he could go and find parking.

We ended up walking quite a ways through a construction area, which no one else was bothering to do, and had an entire beach almost to ourselves!

The other side of the construction was packed with people.

I am so glad we decided to take a chance on that long walk!!

After getting back to our suite Monday evening and getting everyone cleaned up and fed, Blake took me out on another date – for dinner and a smoothie!

It was fantastic.

The date and the food!

Pretty great vacation so far, wouldn’t you say??

I am SO thankful I have all of these photos!!!

They will be such a joy to look back on!!

Stay tuned for the HUGE finale to our trip that Blake planned for us – that will be up in the next post!!

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