Oops

So I promised to blog every day this week, but I got preoccupied today with wedding reception scouting visits with Janice and treats to my mom's classroom and then dinner and then Crappy's.

Please forgive me. It's actually been a very fun, I-feel-like-I'm-on-vacation kind of day. More tomorrow...

All-Around-The-Farm tour

It was such a nice night tonight I wanted to share it with all of you. (Can you tell I'm looking for things to do on vacation?)

Here's a tour of the Tolley Farms homestead, complete with an appearance by the loveable (and stupid) family dog, Otis.

Down the road

As I rode a bike down the two-mile stretch of country road to Grandma Cathy's this afternoon on a perfectly wonderful spring day in Illinois, I got to thinking about the particularly memorable times I've made that trip:

• The years when I was old enough to ride a bike by myself but not old enough to drive. Many summer days involved back-and-forths to Grandma's and Grandpa's for milkshakes, lemonade, ice cream, or just conversation.
  
• Whenever I got sick and mom was working I'd head down the road. This included a two-day stretch in college after a brief hospital stint and when I came down with the flu my junior year in high school, stopping at home just long enough to pick up my pillow before showing up so pathetically on her doorstep.
  
• After arguing with my mom at the age of 9 or 10 (I was a strong-willed child), I decided to run away from home. I packed my little suitcase and Mom found me walking down the road halfway between our house and theirs. I'm pretty sure if I had made it all the way there that I would have just been taken home, but they may have fed me first.
• With our entire bridal party on our wedding day (four years ago tomorrow) when we played croquet and took pictures by an old barn and enjoyed a low-key celebration in the midst of wedding-day chaos with some of our favorite people in the world.

My day with Miriam

Several weeks ago, I blogged about my aunt-guilt over not sending my niece a birthday present. In addition to something my always-accommodating-and-helpful mother-in-law, Brenda, picked up from us, Miriam's present was going to be a day out with me while I was home.

So, today was the day. I picked Miriam up at 10:00. We went to the park, Discovery Depot, McDonald's, made a quick trip to Walgreen's and then another park for bubbles, a slide, a merry-go-round, swings, and probably something else I'm forgetting. I dropped her off at 3:00. I have a new appreciation for stay-at-home moms, especially because I really thought I was going to fall asleep at the kid center around 11:00 (not that she was boring, I just didn't get much sleep last night).

It was so much fun and Miriam was incredibly well-behaved. It's fascinating to see how kids that age learn and understand things. Still, it was nonstop running (and talking) for five hours. I'll sleep well tonight!

My favorite quotes from the day...and believe me, there are many I've forgotten because Miriam talked the. whole. time.:

"I miss daddy when he goes to work, and so does Dodge [the dog]."

I pick Miriam up and tell her that we can go absolutely anywhere she wants. The response? "Let's go to grandma's!" Shows where I rank, doesn't it?

In the car on the way to Galesburg from her house, Miriam asks if I'll tell her a story. "Sure," I say, "About what?" She says about a yellow truck. I tell her this great story about a yellow truck who was so sad because its owner upgraded to a new blue truck when the yellow truck got old but then the blue truck broke down and the man drove the yellow truck again and the yellow truck was happy. I was quite proud of my story. I finish with a very triumphant "the end," thinking about how the fabulous life lesson I have just made up on the fly, then get this opinion from the back seat:
"Wow, that was a long story. Can you tell me a shorter one now?"

We were at Discovery Depot checking out a long tube where you whisper in one end and can hear the person talking at the other end of the building. Miriam wanted to see how it worked, so I told her to stay at her end of the pipe and I'd whisper to her from the other end. I walked down there and turned around and she was gone. After looking around for a few semi-panicked minutes, and being assured by the woman at the front desk that she had not left the building, I found her:
E: Miriam, where were you supposed to be?
M: You said to stay right by the pipe.
E: But you didn't.
M: WellIKnowIWasGoingToButThenIHeardTheTrainWhistleAndIReally
WantedToGoRideTheTrainBecauseIt'sSoFun
E: But I got scared when I looked back and you weren't there. Are you sad that you made me scared?
M: No
(Bonus points for honesty but we still had quite a discussion about this.)

Cabin fever

Now that I've figured out how to embed movies in my blog from YouTube and have a few days of nothing on my calendar, I'll fill you in our on days at the cabin last weekend. The best part was that the trip was pretty cheap because we just tacked on a few extra days from the free weekend we got after the three hours we spent mopping up water while we were there in January. Manual labor does have its perks!

We spent our days canoeing, building fires, reading books (me), fishing (Chad), exploring (Lucy), sitting in the hot tub, and watching it rain. Rachel and Paul joined us Friday night through Sunday for our canoeing fun. The video below includes footage from before RT took me down the Class-2 rapids using the absolute wrong directions from our trusty river map. I'm lucky my camera made it out of the Shenandoah River, honestly.

I have posted Snapfish pictures as well, but this video pretty much sums it up:

Celebrating...

Happy anniversary to Chad's grandparents, who have been married 60 years today! Here are a few photos from our fun get-together Saturday night.

The whole crew

Our guests of honor

Chad and Grandpa DavisBrenda and AbbyHanging out with my two niecesMiriam waiting patiently for dinner

Now what?

We had a great weekend in Illinois celebrating Chad's grandparents' 60th wedding anniversary (more on that later -- including pictures).

Now, here I sit, at my parents' house on vacation for a week. I'm meeting an old high school friend for coffee at 2:00, taking my niece out on Tuesday, tagging along on some scouting out of potential reception sites on Thursday for Janice's upcoming wedding, and other than that I have nothing planned. It's both strange and glorious to have a completely open calendar.

When I wrote about this trip two months ago, I was just looking forward to some time off work. With the craziness over the merger and excitement over Chad's new job, I'm ready for this week even more!

As I was literally wandering around the house trying to figure out what to do after unpacking my suitcase, I realized I need to find a short-term hobby. Or at least a book!

So, here's the deal...to keep my faithful readers entertained, I'll make a special commitment to post every day this next week so you can get a sense of what I'm doing (or not doing). It will be proof that I'm being productive at least once each day. Past that, I make no promises.