Landowners!

We bought some land! We have been super blessed to live in two wonderful personages ever since Andy has been a pastor and we are SO thankful for that. At the same time, we’ve also had a dream of owning our own home. A few months ago, we found 3 acres of property that we really loved and we finally closed on it! The plan is to build a home on it someday. We’re not exactly sure when that will be, but it is fun to begin with this first step.

After we finished up with the closing, we celebrated with dinner out at one of our favorite restaurants, Taku. Then we drove out to the property to look at it for the first time as landowners!


It currently has a crop of soybeans growing. 1.5 acres of our lot is woods and the other 1.5 acres is cleared.


Happy!

My FORTIETH Birthday!

I’m usually the first one up in the morning, but on this day, Andy and Curtis were already at work making me my birthday breakfast.


Perfect way to start the day!


Bella decorated the kitchen to look incredibly festive.






When I arrived at work, I saw that a friend decorated my office!


Andy had these flowers delivered. So beautiful!


During my morning car duty, several students and parents wished me a happy birthday. Whenever I’d pass someone in the hall, I’d get birthday wishes, and whenever I went to a classroom to pick up a student, the whole class wished me a happy birthday. When I was a kid, I never got to celebrate my birthday at school (and they didn’t do half birthday celebrations back then), so all of these birthday wishes made my heart so happy.

When I got home from school, these flowers from the Kreusers were waiting by the door. Gorgeous!


A friend bought me this shirt and I wore it the whole day. Proud to be 40!


You might say that I was a little spoiled on my birthday. I received so many wonderful gifts!


One highlight was this fancy purse from my sister to go with the wallet she had gotten me a couple years ago.


And the best gift was my mom and sister coming down to surprise me! Having them here made my whole weekend even more special! They arrived that evening and we all went out to a Thai restaurant I’d been wanting to try for dinner. The next day, we did some shopping and wine tasting in Brown County. I had so much joy in my heart the entire weekend. I love birthdays!


And a bonus selfie with Curtis - just because.

Random August Life

When we got back in to school at the end of break, it wasn’t surprising to see calendars set to March or signs on the white board like the one Bella made before Spring Break. However, I really have no excuse for this message on my letter board in my school office that was clearly from Christmas!


Here is one of my bulletin boards to start off the school year.


Here is the other one. We focus on a different character trait each month and I thought that flexibility would be a good one to start this school year off since everything is so different than we’re used to.


I ordered a bunch of plain black masks from Amazon and I am slowly decorating them. I thought this design was cute.


Graydon has expressed a recent interest in carpentry, stating that he wants to be a builder some day. He’d been talking for a while about wanting to build a chair. One day, Andy took him to the store and bought some lumber. Together, they are figuring it out!




Graydon has a lot of unique interests. During quarantine, juggling became the big obsession. He learned how to juggle balls and clubs. He recently ordered some hoops, which are a bit harder. He is also learning to juggle four balls. Lately, he is really motivated to solve a Rubik’s Cube in under 20 seconds. He’s been able to solve the 3x3 in about a minute for quite some time. He has also learned how to solve the 4x4 and 5x5. But now he is going for speed. He has sheets of paper filled with sketches and algorithms. It’s like a completely different language! But he is determined and I am proud of his effort. Two other hobbies include speed cup stacking and unicycling. He definitely keeps life interesting!


They entertain themselves in unique ways after school while I’m finishing up with my work.




We have a new niece or nephew coming in a couple of weeks. I still had some newborn girl hats from my Etsy days, but didn’t have any boy stuff, so I got out the yarn and hooks and made a couple of baby things. Now my sister is prepared either way. It felt nice to crochet again and to have time for hobbies again! (Have I mentioned how happy I am to be done with grad school?!) As fall approaches, I think I’ll be doing some more crocheting.




Although we’re back to school, it is technically still summer. Making the most of pools days.


I got some new glasses! I really like them and would wear them more often, but they always fog up when I wear my mask (which is most of the day at school).