Ride to Silence the Stigma

My brother has gotten very involved with a local suicide group and helped to organize a motorcycle event in which we all participated.  It was a good day to remember Shelby and be with family and we had an absolutely amazing turn out.  

Mom is ready to work wearing her "Team Shelby" tee

Wendy was a volunteer rock star that came out to support us and lend a hand.
Here she is showing off yummy granola bars! ;)

Cody started out at the silent auction but soon got recruited to be on parking duty!

Me in charge of the raffle? Shocking.
But let's be honest, I love it! ;)

Wendy and I made a great team though and we sold $100s of dollars worth of tickets.

a couple of my brother's friends made their own tees and I loved them.

Joshanna is a good friend of my brother and her family used to live down the street from us.  She also came out to volunteer.

Team Shelby
my brother is part of a motorcycle club and Brothers from 3 states came to join him in this ride.  It was truly very moving.  I was touched and I know my brother felt very honored.

Team Optum Rx
So my husband is awesome.  He not only got his company to be a corporate sponsor for this ride but also organized a competition between 4 riders to see who could raise the most money.  They raised over $2,000 in only 1 week.  Way to go, Optum!

Stacy and his crew

Mer and the ladies

everyone getting ready to ride

This was the top fund raiser for team Optum

Charlie, me, and all the kiddos
While I was working all day at the ride, Charlie was working all day at home with our kids and Mer's kids.  Luckily they get along great and Charlie is a super dad who rigged the slip-n-slide to the new playset and bought them McD's for lunch! :)  He brought the brood up for the end of the ride welcome and raffle drawings.

Charlie finally got to see his team!

Uncle Stacy needed a post ride snuggle

after the ride we all went back to the motorcycle club's clubhouse.  Thankfully our Sean was on the job and helping with the kiddos because Charlie and I were wiped out! :)  It was a good day and I hope with the money we raised we can help at least one person choose life over suicide.

Thank you to everyone who donated money and/or time.  We all appreciate your continued support.

Dust and Noise Abound!

For years, Charlie and I have been debating on remodeling or moving.  We went back and forth and looked a few houses and neighborhoods, but really I just did not want to move...but on the other hand, Charlie had bought our house just a few months before we met and had I been involved, we probably never would have bought this house.  I'm so fickle.

In the end, we felt remodeling was our best choice financially and physically, meaning I am not ready to move further away from my mother and brother. :)  It's nice having family so close and the only thing better would be to have my brother actually move onto our block.

Anyhow, we all know that when I commit to something, I go full force...the same applies to remodeling.  We are making our main floor an open floor plan which means we have to remove a load bearing wall.  That is the hard part.  I meant to add "before" pictures but forgot, so you just get the "during".  When the project is complete (and God help me, the sooner the better) I will post befores and afters.

This is the entry way looking into the kitchen.

living and dining.  The half torn out wall is the load bearing one

kitchen into dining

we moved the sliding glass door from the kitchen into the dining room

here's the window they had to remove to move the door

here is my laundry/kitchen area in the basement
utility sink for dishes
old changing table for dish rack

fridge and stove
Thank goodness they at least hooked up our stove!
The rest of our make-shift kitchen is in the family room, I'll have to get a picture of that.

Here you can see the door on the far wall and the wall from behind the stove is now gone.
They boarded the door b/c there is no deck there (yet...we will have to extend our current deck) and they have met Leo.

We are adding a fireplace to the living room

Walter just doesn't know what to make of all this but he's happy to get cooled by the fan!

T-Ball Adventure

Leo didn't want to wear his hat, so Sophia was happy to have it 

Sean was back with us, and again brought the English rain with him!

Sophia entertained us by making up various umbrella dances

Sean is so awesome and always willing to play with the kids

So Leo's "playing" T-Ball.  I don't put playing in quotes because they're 3 and no one really plays an organized sport at 3, no, I put it in quotes because it's a struggle to get him to do anything at T-ball, especially things that resemble playing.

This is something we are really struggling with lately.  Leo says he wants to do all kinds of fun stuff, gets super excited about it, but when we get there he  is immediately not interested and says he wants to go home.  I cautioned Charlie against this before T-ball season but as a dad, he really wanted his boy to play.  And Leo does love to play in the front yard and will hit, run, field, etc.  So, after some debate we decided to give it a try.  Hmmm.  Maybe a bad idea?

He's only 3 so we don't want to force him but then again what do we do?  Do we just lose the money and let Leo stay home?  We didn't love that idea either, even though the rationale of him only being 3 does factor into it.  So we decided that we will take Leo every week and he can choose to sit out or he can choose to play.  This strategy seems to work well with Leo's contrary nature.  If we don't force him to do anything, he can't do the opposite.  :)  

So far, after week 3, this seems to be the best idea.  His 3rd week was his best yet and he did sit out some but he did play.  Charlie does get out there with him sometimes and play along side him, but he played a lot by himself and even sat on the bench patiently and waited for his turn to bat, which was miraculous!

There are only 3 more weeks left in the season and after that I think Leo will be taking a break from organized activity for a while!

Time for a New Set

Before 

The kids were so excited to just watch the action!

During

After!!!

Leo starts testing things out!

We have been looking at new play sets for a couple of years now.  We had planned on buying one last summer but it just didn't work out.  The kids are getting bigger and they both love to swing, plus, and this is the big one, since we were doing the remodel we needed to have an outlet for the kiddos to run around and get rid of some energy.  After much looking and comparing we decided on this Sky Fort model and we are very happy...and we're not the only ones! :)

We hired a team to put it up for two reasons...one was obviously the time commitment.  Charlie works long hours and we are pretty busy so we didn't want to have him stuck in the yard for days on end...plus, it's quite a behemoth and we weren't sure it was worth it for him to even attempt such a job.  So we hired it out.  Charlie was convinced we made the right move when the engineer working on our house saw the boxes in the garage and told Charlie that it took him 4 days to put it up in his own yard and if he had to do it all over again he'd pay the money for someone else to do it!  Those are pretty convincing words coming from a structural engineer!

It's gotten lots of use so far and the kids love it!