barn dancing, leaf blowing and coffee sipping kinda weekend

The kids stayed the weekend with my mom and dad so that Roger and I could have a bit of a break from being parents and spend a whole weekend just being a couple.

I am always suprised by how freeing it is to drop my kids off at the grandparents.

This MASSIVE weight lifts off of my chest and I can't help but think "man, raising kids takes so much energy."

When I am in the midst of raising them, tending to them, playing with them, I am completely consumed with them and although I have set times throughout the day and week for ME TIME it is not the same as having a whole weekend of FREENESS.  

Paul and Anna are at a very interesting age right now.

They don't need me as much as when they were super little yet they need me MORE than when they were super little.  If that makes any sense.

Rog and I met my parents at the halfway point between Etown and Somerset which is about an hour drive for both of us and an hour drive back.  Making the round trip 2 hours instead of 4 hours.  

When we arrived back home, childless, we crashed on the couch and did the lame married thing of catching up on the sitcom that we both LOVe, Modern Family.

We went to bed early.

The next morning, although it was saturday and the kids were not there, I got up at 6am.

I am an early bird!!  I love, LOVE, those early morning hours before the sun has risen or my family is up. I take that time to eat my breakfast in the quiet, read my Bible and some sort of classic Christian writing. I love sitting by myself, sipping tea, reading and watching the sun move through our house as it rises.

That is MY happy time!

At about 9am, after 3 hours of HAPPY TIME, I took a shower and got dressed for the day.

Roger has been going to this local coffee shop since before we moved to Etown. The owner, Julie, her husband, the main barista and a few locals who frequent the place have become good friends of his. Julie has decided to close the shop for personal reasons so Saturday was her last day open. Roger and I went into the coffee shop to share a bagel, some coffee and good conversation with everyone.  It was so nice to meet all the people that Roger has been chilling with in the wee morning hours while he studies for seminary and/or prepares a sermon. 

After saying goodbye to Julie and her husband, Roger and I decided to head on over to Freeman Lake for a hike.  We have this BEAUITFUL man made lake beside our house that has wonderful hiking trails through out the woods and around the lake. We take the kids out on nice days for a  hike but you can only hike so far with a 3year old and a 6 year old before having to turn back for the car.  I have wanted SO bad to hike the whole thing.  So that is what we did.  It took us about 2 solid hours of fast pace hiking to get around.  We spent about 30min sitting out of the dock area taking in the beautiful day and watching the ducks.

And you are never going to believe this but while we were walking I happened to look up and see a massive bald eagle perched in a tree. I have NEVER before seen an eagle outside of the zoo.  It was seriously the highlight of my weekend!

Once we hiked back to our car we were COVERED in mud. It had been raining the day before and that combined with the construction that is going on around the lake, our shoes were caked in the yuck.  We really wanted to go have lunch together somewhere so we opted on Cracker Barrel.   "yeah, you're suppose to go in there in your farm clothes and muddy shoes, right?"  We cleaned our shoes off as much as possible and headed for lunch at cracker barrel.

We spent the rest of the afternoon chilling at the house. We took naps and did the old person thing and watched 20/20 while I knitted on his cardigan that I am determined to have done by the end of this month.

Then we packed up and headed to our friend Tyler's house for a barn dance/potluck.

Tyler bought a little farm outside of Etown a while back and has been fixing the place up. He had everyone (old friends from college, new friends, family members) over for an open house sort of thing.  It was so nice to get together with old college friends that we hadn't seen in FOREVER.  We spent the night eating, singing karaoke and catching up with each another near the bonfire.

Yesterday (Sunday) after church, lunch and a quick walk, Roger and I headed down to Somerset to get the kids and see his family.  We all met at Roger's grandmother's (gran) house for chicken and pie before retiring back to my parent's house to sleep.  We decided that since Rog can work from anywhere and since Paul is out of school on Monday and Tuesday, that we would just spend the night and head back home Monday afternoon.

Last night, in the middle of the night, I heard a small cry. I went in to check on the kids in my brother's old room and didn't find anything. I went back to bed. I heard another little cry. I went back to check and found Paul in miserable pain, screaming out "MY EAR HURTS!!  AAAAHHH"   

The first night back to being full time parents Roger and I were frantically running around my parents house trying to find some ear drops, pain medicine for Paul and a heat pad.  We sat by Paul's side, each rubbing his back, as he screamed out in agony while we waited for the pain medicine to kick in.  I felt so incredibly awful for the little guy.  I guess we are headed to the doctor today when we get back into town.

Roger is at the local library working on some stuff and I am sitting here at my Dad's computer typing this blog while the kids play throughout mom and dad's house. They are so incredibly loud and have drug tons of stuff out into my parent's livign room that we are going to have to clean up before we go.  

I am so thankful that Roger and I got to spend so much time resting and catching up with each other this weekend. Having a quiet weekend was just what we needed.  I'm telling ya, raising children is a LOT of work.

Here are a few pictures from the weekend:

barn food

Becca and Bethany

Adam playing and Roger singing

showing some love 

can you believe that Tyler painted this?

 Later in the evening a bunch of us gathered in a circle and sang together.

When we got home this afternoon (monday) Roger and I had a lot of fun (not joking) working in the yard. I started up the leaf blower then could not for the life of me figure out how to get the leaves where I wanted them to go.  They were blowing all over the place, Roger was laughing hysterically.  He took the leaf blower from me, I grabbed the old fashion rake and the rest of the time Roger chased me with the leaf blower.  I got leaf all OVER me.  Roger claims that next time it might be a lot more fun if I wore a skirt.  HA HA HA.  

He ended up climbing up on the roof and blowing the leaves out of the gutters.  I was standing underneath it when he got to the ends, where all the water was piled up, and I got soaked with old leaf/rain junk.  And of course we laughed pretty hard at the yuck stuff all over my white shirt.
We seriously have too much fun playing in the yard.

Roger and I decided to clean up some leaves when we got home.  

Paul was loving all the leaves blowing everywhere. Rog and I are a big source of entertainment for our children.

 

flying

look at the difference. It is CRAZY. We have leaves raining from the sky constantly.