Lucky, lucky
We have been very lucky to have had some special visitors in October.
The first weekend, Meredith came to visit from North Carolina. We had beautiful weather and really enjoyed some great time outside.
“Aunt Mer” was a big hit when she did E & J’s nails… they were riding on Princess Cloud 9 for quite a while.
We also had a nice visit… as ever… to Living History Farms. They were harvesting corn, so we enjoyed doing that (by hand), and seeing all the different varieties… yellow, red, orange, and mixtures.
We really miss having Mer nearby, and it was so nice to have the time together.
The following weekend, Nanny & Granddaddy came to visit.
Besides the usual visit to LHF (We admit it… we’re junkies), where we learned a lot about how they are training their oxen and where the girls got to collect eggs from the laying boxes again (they love that), we also got to do the evening Light the Night Walk to raise money for the Leukemia and Lymphoma society.
While my grandmother, Nana, who died in March, did not die of Leukemia, she had a chronic slowly-progressing form of it that created some health issues for her in her last couple of years. In addition, my parents lost a very close friend after a 15-year battle with Leukemia in 2007. It was pretty special to be able to walk in Nana’s & Mike’s memory… and in honor of one of my John Deere colleagues who is about my age, has a newborn, and is fighting Lymphoma. It was pretty special for all of us to do the walk together. The balloons had little lights attached to them, which was pretty cool, and it made for a pretty inspiring vision as we walked.
We also put Granddaddy to work staining the deck.
Watch out visitors– we will have you paint something (decks, toenails, etc.) while you are here!!
An exciting week we had… Iowa has early voting, so Michael and I took the opportunity. It’s actually an in-person absentee process so I turned out to be a liar…. I told the girls they would get to feed our ballots into the scanner…. no scanner. But there were 2 envelopes to seal, so E thought that was pretty cool. When I picked up the girls at daycare and told them we were going to vote, E asked in a very excited voice, “Is Barack Obama going to be there???” It was really hard to explain why he wouldn’t be there… we got into a converation about the size of the US and campaigning and all sorts of exhausting things to explain to a 4-year-old….
Michael was on a short trip from Wednesday until late last night. We are glad to have him home. The girls were really good helpers while he was gone. J gets very upset these days if you say she isn’t being a good listener… “But I AM a good listener!!,” she will wail. It is really about the worst insult you can give her.
E had gymnastics and a birthday party this morning. Michael and J went on a little hike at a park they found. Michael is mowing the lawn (last time this year? Who knows…) and the girls are sleeping…. all is well here.
