Back to School 2017

 Tuesday Sept 5th arrived and it was time to head back to school. This year I had a FOURTH Grader and a KINDERGARTEN! How is that possible?

 Lets see how the backpacks do this year. I scored one with Max's name on it for him this year.

 This little boy might not have his daddy to take him to school but he was all daddy.. Carhatt shirt and jeans. The camo boots are all his idea, but he follows the idea of quite a few of his favorite farmers who wear boots.

 This girl is getting so big.  She was so excite to head off to school

 We did stop for donuts and ate them in my classroom before the bell rang.

 First day of school classroom pictures

 We did post school ice cream. Growing up my mom would always bake a special dessert. It's not possible for me to do that, so we decided ice cream at Wedl's was our tradition :)

 Then this happened! 

A peek into kindergarten. A little rest time. I miss this little guy but so happy that i can see both him and his sister through out the day.

Memories of Outdoors

This past week has flown by. It was crazy and I'll admit i was totally off with having the Monday off. Don't get me wrong i was grateful for it, but it puts my already unknown day another days. While we had that holiday break, Summer arrived in full force. We have had 80 degree days, some thunderstorms that brought with it humidity that makes you feel like you have just showered.   The kids are ready to be done with school and it seems like all that is left in school is the fun stuff: extra recess, games, treats and field trips :)

As these days have approached, the loss of Josh has appeared more evident. Last summer, I was in denial and shock through most of the summer. I was also distracted by trying to get a house built and learn how to be a computer teacher.  We have been spending every night out on the patio before bed playing outside. The kids just need that extra fresh air to not fight falling asleep. While we are out there, a cardinal has visited our bird feeder each night.

I know that Josh would totally be outside with us if he could be, so seeing that cardinal reinforces I'm doing the right thing, since it's shaves 30 mins off bedtime. OOPs.

We also have spent time outside planting our garden. IT's not the best or more organized, but it's ours and it has the few things we really enjoy, corn and pumpkins. I'm sending lots of prayers up that our corn will make it.

I opened my phone up yesterday to be flooded with memories from our times outdoors. From times on the farm(first harvest) to swimming at my sisters to celebrate my nieces birthday to the big father's day fishing trip we did early because Josh would be in the hospital for father's day.  That fishing trip got me the most. We had such a blast. Max was only 7 months but he was happy as long as he was with us, that's all he needed was Mama, Dada and sometimes Bella. Bella was so into fishing and wanting her and daddy to catch the big fish. We moved to quite a few locations so she never got bored. She was was Josh's shadow when we went fishing.

Seeing all those photos makes me mourn the fact that we haven't been out fishing yet this year. yes i could take them to the mill pond by us,but what do i do if we caught a fish? I have no luck taking them off the hook.  I just want someone to take us out fishing, take the boat out for a ride and just let the kids explore the lake/pond/river.  How does one even start to look for that person when i know who i want to do it, but yet he's unable too.
In my mourning state I went to a vintage /craft sale in the rain. So many things reminded me of Josh and how he would love them. I did get a couple pictures to put up that combine Josh and I. They don't scream Josh unless you know about our history. I don't want our house a shrine to him, but so much of my life has been with him.
Then i took a little me time and got my hair done. It was nice to catch up with my hair stylist and not worry about anything else. But afterwards i was back on mom duty, picking up my kids from my mom's and heading to farm and fleet. No better place to mourn your husband then his favorite store..or maybe the store he always spend the most money in.  I did the same as him before coming home. The kids picked out a slip and slide. Since it was warm enough and we have enough hills now. So we broke that out first things we when got home. Granted we aren't able to put it on a big hill yet, since the hose is too short and they wanted shade, but they still had a blast using it.

Somehow i manged to pull them away from it to get dress for church, which we showed up late too. Ugh, but we went up to the balcony, which was good because Max needed to be rocked to sleep and then slept through Mass. My arms were jelly by the time I got him to the car. I guess I was exercising my spirit and arms. We ventured to The Corner for supper, as i wasn't up for making it after a long and busy day.

I could have gone home after we ate, but after my day, i wanted to be closer to Josh. So we went to the cemetery and hung out for almost an hour. The kids just ran and played. I sat on the bench taking it all in and feeling close to josh. I hate that i have travel 20 mins from my house to be close to my husband, but at least i'm able to do that, I know some people aren't. With the shade tree and open area around us, it's perfect to hang out at.  Again we are outdoors.. it seems to be a theme or a calling

A day of hooky

So Tuesday I did something that I thought I never would, I pulled the kids out of school to make a fun day in Madison. But now that I say that, I knew that someday it would happen. Josh and I had talked about it back when he was farming since farmers go nowhere from April to October.  It's not something that I would want to do if my kids were going to miss something big like a test or if they were falling behind on something. Also once they get older and the classes get harder and there is more work, it won't probably happen, but right now they are at the age that experinces are important and sometimes those can't be controlled to just the summer or weekends.

Anyhow Tuesday morning we had a lazy morning. Didn't race, but yet we still manged to make it out of the house by 825am. it was nice to just be relaxed, hang out in our pj's for a bit. Bella got to play with the calf and chickens.
Our first stop after home was the zoo. Silly me thought they opened at 9am, but its' really 930am, so we decided to hit up the park first.

he looks so much like his daddy these days. 

Once the zoo was open we were off and running. We saw just about everything we wanted to but the lions and tiger. Not too bad. It took us just over an hour and we road the train and carousel.

They were big into reading the maps. 

Always with the giraffes 

First time we've caught him laying down

These giant rodents are so funny

 Not as good as the How tall sign, but still as cute

 He was so close, it was pretty awesome

 Badgers!

 another zoo tradition.

 This little boy so badly wanted to do the train. So we had to do it first. He was so excited and happy to be on the train. Totally worth the money

 This was bella's choice. So we all rode it. The kids had a blast here too

after this we went into the photobooth to get pictures. that was fun as the kids had never done that before. Then we wrapped out our time int he zoo with the gift shop tour.
Next stop was the dentist for max. It was just a check up from his previous dental work. I think i forgot to post about that, but he had to go into the hosptial to be put under for two crowns and a few fillings. Poor kid got the bad end of the draw with teeth. This appointment went pretty well, but you could tell he held it against the dentist since he bit him. oops! But it earned Max a token and he got himself a new bouncy ball.

We then raced to Noodles to meet Aunt Diane for Lunch. My kids were starving since the missed thier normal snack break. it was really busy but we got a good spot. We managed to hang out there with Aunt Diane until the kids just couldn't' handle it anymore. We then stopped at the donut place before heading back to Aunt Diane's place. I promptly stop taking pictures, why i'm not sure,but somehow it happened. The kids did have a blast running around Aunt Diane's place.  We then manged to make it home before the traffic got crazy.