Starting again

Its been almost a year since I posted.  No excuses just reasons.

No time as I’ve managed to accomplish a REAL school year for 2012-13.  We are close to finishing it all up and having a few weeks off for the summer.(PRAISE GOD!)

My mom has pancreatic cancer, lives with us & I am often away at doctor appointments.

My dad has a delusions and that has been taking up bits of time.

Blogging can take over my life and it is better to just live it some times.  But that said I know that I want to post more here.  Enjoy these random pictures from the past year.

You never are too old to play dress up

New puppy in the house—meet Bear

A new boy scout!

Still a kid—looking for Easter eggs!

Having fun coaching again

Michael & Rebekah announcing . . .

Something exciting in their future!

Summer’s End

I hate to see it coming.  But I know it is inevitable.

The days are shortening, the university students are back in town.(and my student is -packing up his junk to move back on campus)  I’ve gotten a bunch of projects accomplished around here in the last 2 months and we went on vacation for 10 days. 

I haven’t been blogging because I’ve just been to busy finding my life again.  The past 9 months have been really rough for our family.  It probably isn’t permanent but we’ve had almost a 2 month lull in the craziness.  I can’t tell you how thankful I am.

At the beginning of the summer I had the kids make sand bucket lists(not life lists just summer lists).  We needed some focus on what we were going to do with our time. It’s been good for all.  Here are the lists and what we’ve marked off.

Joshua

1.  Swim a lot with whole family

2.  Have a picnic(a real one instead of in front of a movie)

3. Have a sports afternoon

4. Have a lemonade stand at the garage sale

5. Game nights

6. Star Wars Quizzing

7. Catapulting Contest

8. Hide and Go seek in the dark night

Megan

1.  Go to the pool lots

2. Have play dates with friends

3.  Get things in their places in my room(recently moved around)

    

4. Watch Return of the King

5. Have lots of game nights and movie nights

6. Camping

7. Go to Silver Dollar City

Elizabeth

1. Go to Colorado Springs on vacation

2. Go to Silver Dollar City

3. Start a blog

4. Spend time with friends

5. Finish my skirt

6. Have a Lord of the Rings Marathon with Kendra

7. Begin driving

8. Go to the pool some

Michael

1. Swim a lot

2. Listen to thunderstorms—umm this may be the cause of the drought in the mid-west I guess

3. Play games with family

4. Go to Silver Dollar City

5. Have R family over for dinner or dessert

6. Go on a vacation

7. Random things with bro & sisters

I think I am ready for a list for the fall.  I am feeling super overwhelmed about getting back in to school and all our regular activities. It will be fine but I am needing that focus again.  And I want to try to knock off a couple more of theses things on the kids list.  It will be fun trying anyway!

A Day to Acclimate to High Altitude

Living in Missouri in the summer is HOT!  At home the temperatures are at least in the 90s and we’ve been seeing the 100s lately.  Makes for great days at the pool!

So to be in Colorado right now is quite the switch.  Today I wore jeans and a sweatshirt!  Not complaining it is just kind of odd!

Yesterday it rained off and on all day so we spent it getting used to the high altitude.  Some were headachy and all were tired.

We are pretty close to Hoosier Pass which is 11,500 feet altitude. 

But the view is AWESOME!(if not a bit cool)

Michael played games with his newest friend, Lancelot(don’t ask). 

This morning his cousin came for breakfast.

We were all well rested and ready for adventure after our day of down time!

Getaway Vacation

It has been a three years since we’ve packed up the kids & enough groceries & clothes for a week. 

Last time we went to Yellowstone & I was pre hip surgery so walking & sleeping on anything besides my bed was not a happy thing!

We saw some amazing country and had a lot of fun!  So as we planned to getaway this year we thought of going several places.  There are some who prefer warm beaches & salt water(ME!) and there are some who yearn for cool pine forests and mountain vistas(Steve)! 

Since Steve’s taken me to a beach for the last several years for his continuing education trip I didn’t fuss(much) when Colorado was the vote from every one!

One BIG difference this year is that Grandma & Grandpa Brush declined our invitation as they’ve had a very busy summer. 

They’ve gone with us on many of our trips and we always enjoy having them along for the trip.  The other difference is that we have Rebekah along for all the fun. 

So far we’ve seen some beautiful mountain vistas and amazing rocks that all the kids want to climb. 

After arriving at the house we rented, we had a desire to just chill out for a day.  It is a good house for that.  Lots of room & places to gather or hide out.

So games, naps, puzzles, reading & munching on popcorn are our goals for the day.  If we get motivated we might venture out and find the local grocery store or go for a hike.  But only maybe.

Removing Soap scum from Tile

Soap scum

I hate the way it looks and  hate how difficult it is to clean off my beautiful tile we put up the big bathroom remodel a couple of years ago.

I’ve tried many cleaners & nothing really does a good job besides my scrub brush and some elbow grease.

I like how vinegar does works on smells in my washer and how it takes hard water deposits off faucets but it is hard to get vinegar to stay on the tile walls long enough to clean the scum off.  So when I saw this idea on Pinterest I was very excited!

The link doesn’t go to a website but here are the instructions to clean tile.

Source: Uploaded by user via Kim on Pinterest

“Hot Vinegar and Dawn Soap! 1 cup of HOT Vinegar (microwave 1-2 min) and 1 cup of blue DAWN liquid soap. Shake into bottle and creates a gel that will clean your showers."

Well I had to give it a try so here are my results.

I was so excited to start I forgot to get a before picture on the faucet but here is a during and after.

It did a good job getting deposits off the faucets but truly they weren’t really built up as I’ve tried to wipe them down with vinegar every so often.

Here is a good close up of the tile.  The grout is supposed to be dark brown but it is a chalky grey.

A bit messy to apply but the Dawn is thick enough to cling to the tile and give the vinegar time to work.

I had to let the grout dry after rinsing to get a good picture and there was blue goo left so I headed to the kids bathroom in the basement(which I haven’t cleaned in ages—kids are in charge—yikes!)

Here is the worst tile before--very gray & chalky    

After cleaning—back to the original dark gray(YES!)

Now back upstairs after a couple hours of dry time.

Better in places.

As you can see I got mixed results.  Near the faucet I deliberately didn’t apply the solution to the left side so I could see if there was a difference.  So this solution does a good job but you have to be careful with your application to hit all the spots or come back and hit the ones that were missed.

I liked how easy this was to mix up and apply but I will be more careful and particular in my application next time around.