Pulling the tooth

I don't think I ever published this short clip of Miriam actually pulling her own tooth.

Big Kid Blues

How does that sound? I feel like I'm in this world of 'where are my little kids'? Miriam is in 1st grade, and loving it. She had her first spelling test last week. Huge deal, she did great and is off to a great start on this weeks words. But, on the flip side, she's growing up so quickly. She doesn't ever want me to walk her up to her classroom, she wants to me say good-bye outside. I always knew she was independent, but by the first week of school she was asking me if I had to walk her up. Then there is Zach. He's home with me all day, which is great in itself too. It gives him time to rule the roost so to speak, but he's also acting like he can rule me. Now that's it's just him home during the day it's like he thinks he should get 100% of my attention, okay maybe 80%. He does enjoy going and playing with his cars and stuff in his room. He's been quite the mouthy boy lately with me too, so I'm trying to ask God to give me patience and consistency with him so that I'm not letting my guard down, but also not harping at him all the time. He's been really fun to be with some days though. I've found us just sitting around building LEGO's for an hour or so, and he's actually getting to the age where he's playing with his LEGO's and not destroying them in 1/2 hour. Anyone out there remember Zach the lego-maniac?
I know we never savor the times we have with our kids and then we look back and wonder how that time passed by so quickly. Sort of in one of those moments.

Blog Cookbook

One of the fun things of living overseas is trying to make most things you like by scratch because you can't run to Kroger, Meijer or other grocery stores and pick up what you would like. One of the moms here has begun a blog cookbook http://cookbookforhungary.blogspot.com/ which many people are contributing to and it's all with ingredients we can get here. I finally put two crock-pot recipes on there so I feel like I am part of it. Check it out and see what you think of our recipes.

Charlie and the Chocolate Factory

Sunday night the kids got to watch Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, which was one of my favorite books growing up. The kids really liked all the funny things that happened to the other children. But unfortunately one thing 'stuck' with Miriam. In the movie there is a little girl named Violet who is a champion bubble gum chewer. In the factory she is shown a piece of bubble gum that is a three course meal and so she wants to try it and puts her current piece of gum behind her ear. Well, this morning as I'm watching Miriam get ready for school I notice her pulling something out from behind her ear. Yesterday she had received a piece of gum at school for good behavior and that's where she decided to put it when she was done with it. She even slept with it there, it actually was not too messy, just a little sticky back there, but we talked about how that's not the best place for us to put our chewing gum. There's always something interesting happening around here.
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How was our Summer?

So, I've heard several times from a couple friends that I haven't blogged anything from the summer, and I know I didn't, but we were having so much fun. Hopefully you're checking this because you either got our e-mail about final updating this, or you've received our prayer letter and want to see some pics from our time in the States. This is probably going to be the longest entry I've ever posted, but I thought it might be a fun way to re-cap how much fun our summer was.
You know we arrived in the States via Pittsburgh, and had a couple weeks of waiting for a car and having people pick us up so we could spend time with them. We had fun at Grandma Martha's watching the girls play softball, spending Father's Day with family and good food, and playing outside in the sprinklers.

We went out to lunch with the kids "Where a Kid can be a Kid". Yes, that's right, we went to Chuck E. Cheese. Miriam and Zach had already been asking so it was fun to let them run around and play whatever they wanted. There was even one employee who would, at random moments, throw handfuls of single tickets in the air and let the kids scurry around to collect as many as fast as they could.

We were a little nervous around Chuck E., but I did get Miriam to pose with me, but I don't think she was very happy about it...

We always enjoy getting to spend 4th of July in the States, spending it with family and seeing fireworks. The kids had a great time running around and playing waiting for the show to begin.

A couple days later was my birthday. I had a lot of fun watching the kids, especially Miriam, help my mom make me a family speciality called eggcakes. It's something my grandpa used to make for me when I was little, and my mom has continued the tradition with my kids. Miriam really likes them.

After church we went to my favorite restaurant, Olive Garden. The kids loved it because they could get Macaroni and Cheese and free refills. It's always the place I love to go, I even got gift cards for my birthday so we could go back later. After lunch we drove to Bellefontaine and spent the afternoon with family.

We went to dinner with Grandpa and Grandma at an Irish Pub. The kids had a good time walking along the creek and looking at the ducks...

Center of Science and Industry...

Nationwide Children's Hospital puts on a free night for it's employees and we were able to accompany my mom. It was a lot of fun for the kids to run around and try experiments and different gadgets and gizmos.

If you can't see it, there is a car on the other side of this pulley. WOW Zach is strong.

Aaron's sister Rachel wanted to organize a special picture of the cousins...it was something really neat to have.

The kids had a sleep over that night and got to watch some movies. Miriam was the last one to fall asleep because there was a new movie she was watching. I think it was 'The Bee Movie'. Aaron said when the movie was done she sat up and shook her fist in the air like she had won the battle of not falling asleep.

One of the biggest bashes this summer was the big birthday party we had for the kids. Zach picked Ohio State for his theme, and Miriam had a Luau Party. We had a blast getting ready for this and the whole family was able to come. Our sweet neighbor let us use the pool for the party. The kids had fun playing, eating, swimming, doing the limbo and opening presents. It was a jam packed day!

The day after the party we decided it would be fun to go to Young's Dairy Farm and hang out for the afternoon. So, we got to go to Patterson Park Church in the morning and then headed off to Yellow Springs for some sun, ice cream, putt putt, and goats....I think we did almost everything that could be done at Young's, except the driving range.

On of the fun things for Aaron was to get to play disc Golf with his brother. They played on courses in Columbus, Marysville and Bellefontaine. It was a good time for them to get to hang out and the kids had fun playing on the playgrounds in Bellefontaine when they used that course.

The church we normally attend while in the States is Xenos, which is right around the corner from my moms house. The year they had their Summer Institute that Aaron was able to attend where he heard speakers like Mark Driscoll, D.A. Carson and many others. If you are interested in hearing of the talks just follow the below link:

http://www.xenos.org/teachings/db/index.php?BibleBook=conference

We were treated to the Columbus Zoo by my step-brother and his family. The kids love to play together. The kids got to ride the ponies, the train, the boat, play at the playground and have a yummy picnic lunch before watching the bird show. We really packed it in that day. Went home exhausted and happy!

My mom and I enjoy going to Amish Country in Ohio. The kids like going because they get to see the horse and buggies, ride the train and get yummy things to eat. We usually get side-tracked somewhere along the way doing other things too and this time we went through a town with huge garage sales. We of course stopped being the thrifty folks that we are and had a great time finding some deals. Here are some pics of the kids and grandma.

Cooling down after a long ride home!

Aaron and I were able to get away for a Date Day. What a gift! My mom was taking the kids fishing in the morning at Hoover Dam (they had practiced casting in the front yard a lot), then doing some shopping, and then going to a Karoake night at her church in that night. Aaron and I got up, headed to Jeffersonville Outlet Mall until around 2:30. Got to shop and walk around without saying 'get over here', 'stop touching that', 'no, we're not getting that today' and actually got to talk to each other. We drove back to Columbus, checked in the the kiddos and grandma and then went to an early dinner at Olive Garden, thanks to a birthday present from Caleb and Kristen, and to a movie and more shopping at Easton. It was so good to get to spend the whole day with him.

After grandma took them fishing, they had the bug for it. They begged for us to take them again, so we headed off to Sharon Woods park. We were trying to be as patient as we could, but the fish weren't biting. We were determined we weren't leaving until we caught something so this was our prize. Everyone was so proud of our little fish. We played at the playground afterwards and I almost made myself sick swinging with the kids.

The Ohio State Fair is a tradition in my family. We enjoy taking our kids now, especially on the Family Day. Kids got in free, ride bracelets were buy 1 get 1 free and we were 1/2 price. What a deal. Leaves money left over for yummy fair food. I think the kids rode every ride they could possibly ride, and without fear...I was so impressed. One of the highlights was playing in the Ohio State sports Area. As we looked around we spotted Brutus and I had my Buckeyes go get a picture with him. We are going to print this and hang it in Zach's OSU room.

Our final place before we left was Pittsburgh since that's where we were flying out of. We stayed in the hotel that's at the airport, and it was such a treat. The beds were so fluffy we decided to experiment with some Lang acrobatics.

We wanted to try and hit an Olive Garden as the last dinner, but the traffic was horrible. But one of our other favorite restaurants is Bob Evans, so we had a good time having that as our final meal. The hostess was nice enough to take a picture for us. We found a back room in a restaurant at the airport and were able to have a nice breakfast and catch some final snapshots before going through security.

We praise God for our summer and the great opportunities we had to spend time with family and friends. Thank you for your prayers as we continue to transition to life back in Budapest.