Friday, April 26, 2013

(Semi) Retirement Recognition...


Late yesterday afternoon, we loaded up the kids (minus Ryan because he was already down there) and headed down to Athens.  My parents didn’t know it yet, but at the banquet that they were attending, the accounting department at OU was going to honor them as my mom retired last year and my dad is kind of planning to retire this summer.  Although in academia-land, that doesn’t mean they’ll actually stop working…my mom still teaches one semester a year, and my dad is planning on doing that as well…when he actually goes through with retirement.

We dropped the kids off with John’s dad and met my sisters before heading in to the “cocktail” hour.  I say that loosely because there were no freaking cocktails – silly school-sponsored event :)  My dad was very confused.  He said he saw our nametags sitting there and just figured whoever made the name tags had just printed all accounting alumni or something.  I could tell, even as he was trying hard to socialize and introduce us to people we didn’t know, that he was worried/stressed/baffled about what was in store.  When my mom walked in she too was quite confused.

We moved into the banquet room, the president of Beta Alpha Psi said a few words, and we were up to get our food.  We ate dinner, and about an hour later the presentation began.  There were a couple of awards, including one for my dad for “faculty innovation.”  Then they brought up a former student who gushed and talked about how my mom had convinced her to change her major to accounting and how influential she and my dad both were.  She then invited my mom to come up and say a few words.  Then another student came up and talked about his first encounter with my dad, and how he changed his life forever, and then my dad went up and said a few words.

The rest of the banquet was pretty boring…I browsed Pinterest most of the time :)  But afterwards, there were rounds of congratulations, talking to professors that I hadn’t seen in years, and then a family picture.  Then John and I left to go pick up the kids and make the hour and forty minute drive back to Columbus.

I was lucky enough to have my dad as my professor for two sets of accounting classes (my mom had not yet begun teaching when I was in school).  He was everything everybody said he was.  He taught with passion and gave so many real-life examples that really brought the books to life.  His most recent achievement is writing the textbook for each year of Accounting 101.  He updates it with current students’ names (and also with kids’ and grandkids’ names) and the students seem to love it.  I can’t see my dad ever being done with teaching…his heart and soul belong in a classroom.  It’s amazing to think that the courage it took to change career paths so many years into a career would pay out in so many ways.  My dad went back to school to get his doctorate when I was 5, which would have put him in his late 30’s.  I don’t remember my parents making that decision, but I do remember when they were trying to decide between moving from State College, PA to either Peoria, IL or Kent, OH.  I was playing outside and they kept telling us they would take us for ice cream once they had decided.  I don’t believe we ever got ice cream because they talked late into the night.  My mom and I had even gone and visited Bradley University (in Peoria, IL).  In the end, they decided on Ohio, where my dad taught for years before moving down to Ohio University in Athens.  I was always pretty upset about that move…I was a Junior in high school after all.  But I did meet John my senior year and it was very apparent that Athens, OH was where God wanted my mom and dad to be.




Wednesday, April 24, 2013

An April Weekend...


Another weekend came and went (and another week is coming and going as we speak…why does it have to go so quickly??).  Friday night was the school’s skate night at the nearby ice rink.  So after racing home from a late night at work, I sent Colton over to my parents, and John and I took Ryan and Josh over to the ice rink (Ky was at gymnastics).  We only ended up getting to skate for about ½ hour, but it really was the perfect amount of time :)  Josh kept falling (but he insisted on skating by himself), and Ryan was killing our arms and backs after a while :)  After that we went and picked up Kylie from gymnastics and then went home and ate and relaxed.

Saturday was a crazy day, as usual.  We decided instead of making our usual big breakfast, we would go out to visit the “new” ihop.  So we picked up the girl that we were taking to gymnastics and headed over there.  We only had about an hour and a half until the girls had to be at practice, and unfortunately, there was a long line at ihop :(  So we headed over to Bob Evans – specifically the one closer to the gym.  We got seated right away (surprising with a party of 7) and put our order in right away.  About 35 minutes later a manager comes over and explains to us that there was a back-up in the kitchen and a ticket was lost and they were trying to hurry to get us our food.  I explained to him that we needed to leave in five minutes in order to get the girls to practice on time.  Our food came out about five minutes later and the kids all scarfed it down.  Outside of being stressed about the time, the breakfast was extremely enjoyable!  The manager then came over and told us that when we were done, we could just leave; he was taking care of the check.  We were shocked!  John and I explained that he didn’t need to do that, but he insisted that it was their fault that we were so late and he needed to take care of it.  Let me tell you, that left a huge impression on me about that particular Bob Evans!  And the girls only ended up being about 5 minutes late to practice (although if you asked Kylie, that’s the same as being an hour late, ugh!).

After we dropped the girls off, we headed home so that John could take the boys to football practice and I headed out with Colton to do the grocery shopping.  We had a great time!  At least until I ran into another gym mom and spent what Colton thought was too much time talking.  I finally ran out of things to distract him, so we wrapped our conversation up and finished the shopping.  After that we headed over to pick Ryan up from football practice so that he wouldn’t have to stay there the whole next 1 ½ hours for Josh’s practice.  Then it was home for lunch and naps.

I spent the rest of the day doing miscellaneous stuff around the house like laundry, and then I ran to the store to get the ingredients for the family-voted chimichangas.  We had a great dinner and then everyone relaxed and then went to bed.

Sunday was the usual church and football :)  It was chilly out, that’s for sure, but it was sunny and did get progressively warmer as the games went on.  After the games (Ryan had an awesome flag pull and a great catch and Josh had a bunch of flag pulls and scored), we went home and the two little boys napped while John and I went out and sat with the neighbors, which we haven’t gotten to do in a while.  It was so nice that all of a sudden it was 5:30 and we had to go in and get ready for some friends that were coming over.

I went in and whipped up the cookies I had started baking before we went outside and we ordered the pizza.  Our friends, who is also the children’s pastor at church, arrived and scarfed down their dinner and headed out to play.  Us adults started talking about and planning our VBS for this summer.  It was really exciting starting to think about all of this already :)  We talked for a while, and then it was time for them to leave and us to get the kiddos into bed.  And then John and I collapsed into bed…again :)








Friday, April 19, 2013

Catch-Up :)


Holy cow…where has the time gone?  Every day I tell myself that I’m going to write a post about the cool things we did the night before, and then before I know it, the week has flown by!

Two weeks ago Ryan and Josh had their first football game, and then they had another one this past Sunday.  Both times the weather was decent (a little chilly for me, but sunny and no coats!).  They both did fantastic!  This past Sunday Ryan caught a pass, pulled a flag and threw a touchdown pass!  He was on fire!






Last week, I was able to take Josh and Ryan to a CBJ season ticket holder appreciation event.  The girl I work with has season tickets to the Blue Jackets and wondered if I would want to bring the boys, and of course, I jumped right on it!  We had so much fun!  I swear it was the fastest three hours!  We got a bunch of autographs (got the ones the boys said they “had to have”).  They also got to go out on the ice and shoot pucks at a goal and play air hockey on the giant air hockey table.  Definitely a super fun night!











That following Saturday I headed to Cincinnati with my mom and sister to pick up her wedding dress.  We made a stop at the outlets and I got some cute clothes – it is so weird shopping by myself…I kept turning around looking for my kids :)

When we got to Cincinnati, one of my sister’s other bridesmaids and I went into the cupcake shop and had a cupcake while we waited for everyone else.  Then we went over to the bridal shop and she put her dress on and it was gorgeous!  The dress looks so beautiful and she looks so beautiful in it!

After we were done at the bridal shop, we headed to dinner.  The restaurant that she picked had a really nice atmosphere and the food was really good!  Then we packed up the car and headed back to Columbus.






This past Tuesday was a big day for Ryan – Kindergarten screening!!  I just can’t believe he’s going to school next year!  I brought him home from the hospital just weeks after Kylie had started Kindergarten :)  When it was time to leave, we headed out the door and Ryan practically ran the whole way to the school.  When we got there, he got his little bus name tag and walked around to all the different stations while I filled out all the forms.  He did very well on everything!  He was one excited kid walking back home afterwards :)

That night, we had Josh’s wax museum presentation.  The 2nd graders do a research project on an individual and then “perform” for the parents in a wax museum setting.  We walked around pushing the buttons of all the kids and listening to their presentation of facts.  I was super proud of Josh because most kids read note cards and he had his whole thing memorized!  He did a fantastic job!


So a pretty busy last couple of weeks!  And it’s only going to get busier as baseball for Josh is about to start up!  Thankfully, Kylie only has one more gymnastics meet, so we won’t have to worry about weekend traveling until next December :)  



Wednesday, April 10, 2013

Finally, Nice Weather!

The weather has finally decided to get nice here in Ohio (I mean we only had to wait until April 9th, geesh!). It will be short lived this week - we have a cold front coming in and the weekend will be chilly again (go figure). But it was so nice to be outside last night...I definitely saw a glimpse of summer :)

When I got home from work, I got dinner into the oven (cheesy chicken lasagna) and then I told Kylie and Colton that we were headed outside! John had Josh and Ryan at football practice, so it was just the other two kids and I. Kylie jumped on the trampoline (I can't believe how good she's getting - gorgeous back handspring back tucks, front handspring front tucks and beautiful split jumps) and I pushed Colton on the swing. After a while, he wanted to jump with Kylie and it was so funny watching them jump together (or rather, Kylie lay down and Colton jump). After a little bit, dinner was ready, so we went inside, without any protest from Colton (probably because he had been outside with Miss G. a lot earlier and he was beat!). 

We ate dinner (very yummy!) and then Colton asked me to snuggle with him on the couch, so we turned on Bubble Guppies and snuggled together. John and the boys got home pretty late (around 9:00), and just about then I sent Ky up to bed and got Colton into bed. The other boys ate their dinner and then got showers and went to bed. 

It was a wonderful, laid-back night!