September ~ A New Arrival, New Job, Sad Goodbye and Fall Fun

Wow, we had a lot happen in our family in the past 30 days! We finally found Rebekah a car that we could afford. It is a 2008 Subaru Impreza with about 160,000 miles on it. But it is in very good condition and was taken very good care of before coming to us. We, of course, plan to nurture it so it can have a very long life. Rebekah only drives about 40 miles a week. Having another driver and car in the house to fetch Elijah and Tim, both non-drivers, when I am at work is invaluable!

David and I  planned to go to a bed and breakfast for our anniversary a year and a half ago. We set the date and made arrangements. Then a pile of issues came up and we had to cancel. The Bed and Breakfast saved our reservation and said we had two years to set a new date. We finally made it this month. It was the first time we had a 20 hour get away from home together since becoming parents to four kids! That is a lot of years to wait. We had a lovely time exploring this gorgeous Queen Anne right in our town. At every turn there were Tiffany windows. We went out to a nice restaurant for dinner and had a lovely breakfast at the Bed and Breakfast. It was a lovely get away, and we plan to make it a yearly thing. One upside of living in a tourist town is that there are more than a dozen  B&B's to explore without being more than 20 minutes from home. 

We also enjoyed the mountain state fair. We get a smaller version than the main state fair held in the capital. Only Timothy and Rebekah wanted to go. Elijah is such a homebody and doesn't like to change his routine unless it is something really spectacular. I realized that I didn't get a single picture of him this month...but he is doing just fine. 

My new job is wonderful. I am really enjoying being a nanny. It is a bigger adjustment being away from home for 16 to 20 hours a week than I thought it would be, but all the prep work I put into place is working for the most part. The little guy I care for is so smart, and we are really enjoying getting to know each other. I brought bubbles to play with the first week, and he started calling me "Bubbles". So far the name has stuck and he has no interest in learning my real name. My family is really getting a kick out of my "new" name and like to tease me. We have fallen into a nice routine that includes playtime, crafts, lots of reading books, a long walk to the park/library/stores (depending on how far I want to walk) and naptime. He is a real sweetheart. 

Rebekah, Tim and I ran off to an apple and pumpkin patch one day this month. Rebekah only had two days off this month that didn't have any school, dance or work. I wish she had a reset/rest day each week, but so far the schedule hasn't worked that way. 

Lastly,  my husband's father passed away this month. He had a short period of suffering before passing away peacefully in his sleep. We were blessed to know him and he was a kind father, father -in-law and grandpa. My husband will be traveling to Salt Lake City for his funeral soon (we can't afford to fly all of us there). Then we will all attend his internment in his home church that he helped build (St. Andrews in Northern Virginia) sometime this winter. 

Blessings, Dawn

August Recap ~

August started off pretty relaxing. We prepared for our relatives to visit and got Rebekah squared away with back-to-work clothes, college books, and a new laptop for her college classes. We are searching for a car in which Rebekah will be the primary driver, but our budget is a bit lower than what the market is right now, so it is going to require some patience. On the driving front, Elijah is making a bit more progress with me. We are driving three to four times a week and have started driving on a four lane road near us. He sticks to the right hand lane the whole way, but he is slowly building confidence. 

My stepmother and her partner came down for a one week visit. It was nice to see them, and we did some fun activities while they were in town. We took a long walk on the riverfront one evening and played several board games. 

We spent a day at Lake Lure (some of the movie, Dirty Dancing, was filmed in this little town near us). We went in the middle of the week and pretty much had the lake to ourselves. It was lovely. We then went into town and had lunch and played a bit on the rocks in the river. My husband was there, but took the photos, and Elijah hates lake water so decided to skip this event. 

 

Sue and Rebekah

Another evening was spent at a horse show in a neighboring town. The carousel was free so we HAD to go on it. 

By the end of the month, life really started to pick up. Rebekah is taking three college classes, one in-person and the other two online. She is working on a business degree in Retail Marketing. So far, she likes the in-person a lot. The online classes are good, too, but a little bit glitchy. Hopefully, the hard parts will be straightened out soon. Ballet is going great and she is very happy in her new dance studio. Her part-time job at H&M is proving to be the hardest transition. The training is poor due to a lack of staff, plus they are understaffed and a bit desperate all the time. We will see if this works out or not. I don't want her school or dance to suffer in any way, but she does need to make money to help with her dance classes. She plans to stick it out for the 90 days that she committed to and then reevaluate. 

Our hairdresser is still doing backyard haircuts. We went to her house, and her pug insisted on sitting on Elijah's lap during his haircut. So cute. Dog therapy and a haircut all in one!

I start my new nanny job three days a week in September. I am really looking forward to it. I will be working at the child's home. We are going to have a blast!

Blessings, Dawn

What We Were Up To In July ~ Painting, Dancing and Bears

 We had a pretty busy month. Rebekah was at summer dance intensives for most of it but was home for about two weeks in the middle of the month. She spent her time at home registering for college classes, auditioning for a professional ballet program to attend in the fall, and finding a new job. She accomplished all three.  She will be working at the H&M clothing store starting next week. Rebekah passed the audition and was put in the highest level at the ballet conservatory. She will start that at the end of August, four nights a week and all day Saturday. She is excited about it, because it is right here in town and does four different shows each year with multiple performances of each. Rebekah will be taking three classes at the local community college in retail marketing. She is working toward a certificate and then perhaps a diploma or degree in Business Administration and Marketing. She is going to be very busy this fall!

The second two summer dance intensives were a wonderful experience. She absolutely loved all of the ballet at the Ballet Conservatory of Cary. The teachers were kind but made excellent corrections. She felt like she improved a great deal under their care. She was a little less thrilled with the living situation. She was in an apartment with three other girls who were a bit younger and a bit catty. They didn't really interact with her much and mostly left her to do the majority of the house work in the apartment. They reported to the conservatory for the days worth of classes and then to the "mother house" at dinner time for dinner with about 20 other dancers. It was loud and chaotic and required a few miles of walking in the extreme heat each day. However, it was  a great experience over all.

The last intensive was contemporary dance and was held at UNCSA. She got to live in the dorms and dance her heart out for about nine hours a day. She made some incredible friends and loved almost every minute of it. I am so glad she got a little taste of the nice parts of college life, since she will be going to community college instead of living at a university. They created a film that I can't wait to see. It should be edited and released by September.  She came home absolutely exhausted but happy. 

I walked around the campus the morning that I picked her up. It is a gorgeous campus filled with lots of nooks and crannies. UNCSA does a very nice job of taking care of their students. It is a really sweet place. 

This little street on the campus is all fake and used by the film students to do outdoor films. 

All the Rest ~ 

We tried out a new food place at the mall that makes carnival food.

I had the Street Corn.

We played a ton of Scrabble games in July. It seems like some combination of us played it every other night. 

We visited a cute covered bridge that is one of only two left in the state. This one was built in 1895 by four local men who read a popular book on bridge styles and went out and built it. I wish our society hadn't lost so many of those skills. 

We have had many visits from our mama bear with her youth cubs. They are getting pretty big. I think she will send them on their way into adulthood soon. 

Elijah has been busy working away at Target. He has now been there for a full year. He has made some great friends and had to say goodbye to a few who have moved on. He is doing well and keeping busy. Driving is going very slowly. I wish he would take a few lessons from a professional but he absolutely refuses to do so. We now are driving on a few back roads rather than parking lots. He is making very slow and steady progress.

I spent much of the month of July working on the rec room. I am very pleased with the results so far. We still have to save for and buy an electric fireplace and paint the bricks behind which only have a coat of Kilz primer at the moment. We had a huge multi week debate about the color of the room, and in the end the kids won. We painted it a very bright and a bit dark green. I am shocked how good it looks and creates a continuation to the green outdoors. Sometimes, you just have to throw caution to the wind. Dear Husband and I also replaced all of the baseboards so they would match,  fixed the overhead lighting shades (with parchment paper!), and painted all of the doors and trim in ultra white. My main goal for this room was to bring it all together and make it more uniform. With five different wall textures (yes, there are only four walls) and three different styles of baseboard, it looked a awful. The guys were insistent that we keep the brown cedar shake wall (from when that wall was the exterior to a previous rendition of this house), and since I could not afford to have it replaced, they won and we made it a focal point. Even the outlet covers were all different until we changed them. 

We added more floor lamps to bring in light and decided to match the outlet covers to the walls by painting them in the same color as the wall they were on. If you look carefully, there is one near the bottom of the stairs.

They guys' game table is a drop leaf and we folded it up and covered it with a table cloth when it is not in use. The mirror was a super find at the thrift store for $20. It adds so much light to the room.

The next project in this room is finishing the fireplace area. The brick used to be red and there were about six bricks missing. I couldn't find a match so I made styrofoam bricks and painted them with a primer.  We do not have to worry about heat getting to them because we are installing an electric fireplace which can go against any wall and doesn't put off heat in the back. 

Can you find the fake bricks?

The brightest white one is one of them. They will disappear completely with a final coat of paint. 

We also have really old fluorescent lights in the basement. It wasn't in the budget to replace them, but the diffusers were hideous and didn't fit right. I was looking for a budget-friendly solution and decided to use parchment paper. Once again, they are heat resistant and cover the ugliness for now. We just cut them to the right size and glued them to the frame. 

We budgeted $200 for phase one of the project (phase two is the fireplace) and came in a little bit higher at $285. Those pesky baseboards were pricey. However, I am very pleased with the results. 

I hope you all are having a fantastic summer. 

Blessings, Dawn

A Recap of June 2022

It has been a busy month filled with celebrations, trials and an abundance of learning.  I received a new cell phone for my 50th birthday. The kids, my mom and husband all joined their money together and got me a much newer cell phone off of eBay. I love it. It has three cameras and I have so much to learn. Check out what it can do in the picture below. I look forward to improving my photo taking with it. 

My husband and I also celebrated our 24th wedding anniversary by having our rings resized (my rings were crazy tight)and cleaned, in addition to getting some minor repairs to my engagement ring. To say I was spoiled this year is an understatement. 

Rebekah is deep into her summer of Ballet Summer Intensives. She started with two weeks at The International Ballet Academy in our state. She really learned a ton from the experience...some positive and some negative. It wasn't the greatest fit for her, and some of the teachers were very harsh to all the students.  She did enjoy living in an apartment with roommates and a house mom. However, the dance experience was exhausting and painful. Some of the girls who have been to many more intensives said this one was very different from most. She was glad to move on. 

Day One at IBA.

Rebekah came home for a few days in between intensives. They are actually very close to each other, but the cost of staying in a hotel for a few nights was still more expensive than bringing her home. She enjoyed the very brief break to see her family and cat. She is currently almost a week into her second summer intensive. She loves this one much more. She texted me that she is 10 million times happier in this one. The teachers are super sweet; the boarding is working out great; and she feels like she can make lots of progress in the level in which she was placed. She was placed in the highest level for both intensives so far, but this one had placement tests on the first day and she feels more evenly matched with the teacher's expectations. 

While she was in the first intensive, she discovered Boba Tea. Has anyone else had this? We picked up two for the road when I picked her up. They really are good. I am so glad she is having this amazing experience. She is learning so much about herself and what she wants to do with her life. It is well worth the 1300 miles I drove this month carting her back and forth. 

Elijah also had an exciting month. He has been saving a portion of his pay check for months now. He set a goal to have a certain amount in savings before making a big purchase from his pay (he didn't touch the savings). That day came and it was time to buy a seven string electric guitar. He searched and searched until he finally found an affordable one, but it was back ordered. He ordered it and then the waiting began. After two months (!) of more delays, he found the exact one he wanted and in used but excellent condition) for several hundred dollars less. He snapped it up and has been playing ever since. Now he has a new higher savings goal before buying another big purchase.

I spent one week in June painting Rebekah's furniture. This crazy cat loves to climb and be as high as she can be. She climbed to the top of the box spring that was leaning against the wall. 

I can't believe it is already time for July. Life just flies along. Rebekah is gone for another week and then home for a few weeks. Another busy month on the horizon.

Blessings, Dawn

A Murder Mystery Dinner Party

 We decided to have my 50th birthday party a few weeks early since Rebekah will be out of town on my actual birthday. She really wanted me to have a party and wanted to be able to help plan and attend it. We decided to have a murder mystery dinner party. We used Masters of Mystery which is an online site that has lots of game options. We purchased the 1940's post war party set in a London Mansion. It came with all of the character booklets, the game, invitations, costume ideas and the host instructions. Each character received their own booklet that was about 11 pages long and led them through all of the rounds with scripted answers to questions that other players would ask them. We were very pleased with the Masters of Mystery game. It was very detailed and easy to follow. 

We decided to have the party outside since Covid is climbing in our area and my mother is having surgery and Rebekah is leaving for a dance intensive this week. It would be a devastating time to get Covid. Fortunately, we have a carport which has proven to be especially useful in recent years. We decided to add an extra layer of protection by having everyone sit in family or neighborhood groups. This allowed us to use our multiple sets of dishes which are in small sets which was an extra bonus of using multiple tables. 

As each person arrived they gave their secret letter to Dear Husband who was the host/investigator.  He placed their letter in a jar for later and gave them their booklet and character name tag.  After round one he took one random letter from the jar and announced the murderer by letter. They then played off the guilty side of their booklet (with out the rest of us knowing). After a little bit of socializing, we did round one and got our plates of food. 

 

We served rotisserie chicken, roasted vegetables, dinner rolls and strawberries. We also made mock Champagne (ginger ale and white grape juice) and spa water (lemons and strawberries). 

We bought the cake at Harris Teeters. It was lemon filled white cake. We picked it because it looked the most retro, but it was also tasty. 

It was all around a lovely birthday party. We had a blast and it was so nice to have some social time with some of my friends. Dear husband did a superb job of leading us through the game. We some how missed getting any pictures of my husband or Rebekah and only got the above picture of me. The boys opted out of my party and will do something special with me on my actual birthday. 

Blessings, Dawn