"March"ing Along

March, for our family appears to be coming in like a lamb. Nothing too large has been happening but I guess that all depends on your perspective. If you were, say Emily, you might disagree but the reasoning behind that logic will be shared in just a moment (see #8).

Here's a rundown of our events since the last post...

1. Emily performed with the Junior High praise band at church for the Boys Brigade overnight, they helped to set the tone for the evening.

2. We went to the annual Cakewalk in Deer Park (bonus for us, we got to spend a second weekend in a row seeing my BFF Jennie and family!).

The Cakewalk, for those of you who do not know is a big fundraiser for the band. They set up about 10 circles with 30 chairs in each circle. You have to buy a ticket to walk in a circle and music is played during each one of the "walks". Each of the bands (6th grade to high school jazz)play during the evening and when the music stops everyone takes a seat. The MC then randomly pulls a number from a bowl and whoever is sitting in that number seat wins a cake! Our family did not win a cake but my friend Jennie's family won three (as evidenced by the photo above of Matthew and David carrying one in a box).

3. Ella performed at a "wax museum" at her school by being Clara Barton.

The kids in her class and in the whole grade had to choose a famous American to research. They read a book about them, wrote a speech, memorized that speech and then had to dress up as that famous American. During the performance the family members were invited to come in a press a "button" on the kid's desk and the kids would stand up and recite the speech about their famous American. Clara Barton founded the American Red Cross and the First Aid Society. My mother was kind enough to make Ella's outfit (Thank you Mimi!!)

4. David found a funny critter in our backyard.

We've found crawdads in our backyard before but continue to find them amusing. Ghia, our cat had to come over to investigate and at one point it appeared the crawdad was going to steal the car!

5. We went roller skating as part of a larger church group at the local roller skating rink.

6. We are AGAIN battling our unwelcome guests (see previous blog post on who they are).

7. I am so anxious for spring that Ella, David and I started some seeds.

8. AND, last but not least Jason and I made Emily's teenage dreams come true by getting her a cell phone. This is her birthday present from us, it's a little early but we got a good deal!

I'll leave you with one last photo. Ella was having fun sitting over the heat vent in our kitchen and showed me what it did to her dress, you've just got to laugh!

It's A Small World After All

A quote I've been saying lately is "It all come back to The Park, we just can't escape it!" I've been shown recently (to quote Uncle Al) that "it's a small world after all". I'll explain in just a moment.

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First, I'll share what has been happening in the Hartman family since our last post. On Sunday February 8th we attended our church's annual Spaghetti Dinner. This is a fundraiser for the youth to start raising funds for their summer missions trips. Both my sisters, their families, and my parents were in attendance. Emily was there as a waitress and we also took advantage of this time to celebrate my mom's birthday. It wasn't the ideal place to celebrate but it was the only time we could all get together.

The next event on our list was Emily's Valentine dance. This exciting event took place on Friday Febuary 13th. Emily had a great time but thinks that her junior high dances should be called "Stand and Talks" because that's all that anyone really does.

Early on Saturday the 14th we headed up to New York state to see my best friend Jennie and her family and spend the long weekend with them. We had an absolutely great time and the kids played nonstop! We visited lake Erie, ice fished, sledded and got to see a house (inside and out) that Jennie and her family are hoping to purchase sometime soon. While at their house the kids were playing dress up, making crafts, playing on the computer. Jennie, Emily and I were busy chatting and making buckeyes to snack on, it doesn't get better than that!

Provided just below is a video of Jennie and Clint's youngest child, Caroline. She got in the spirit of dress up and put together two very unlikely costumes. P.S. Pay no attention to the boy in the pink princess dress in the background.

Last night Emily performed with most of the other people in the Junior Hight Praise Band from church. They were asked to lead the Boys Brigade in some praise songs at the beginning part of their overnight at church. The kids did a great job and were hopefully encouraged by their performance.

Tonight we're headed to the Cakewalk, an annual event in Deer Park. It's a fundraiser for the band sponsors and is a really good time. It's kind of like musical chairs but on a much larger scale. In each circle (there can be up to 10-12 of them) there are 30 chairs and each person gets a chair and walks around in the circle while the band plays. Each of the school bands play one at a time through the evening and during each one of the "walks" the band is stopped suddenly and everyone in the circles finds a chair to sit on. At this point the MC picks a number (from 1 to 30) randomly out of a bowl/hat/whatever and calls out the number. The person sitting in that particular number chair in each circle wins a cake!!! The cakes are provided by each of the school band members, in our day each member brought two cakes to the walk earlier in the day. It's been a long time since I've been to the Cakewalk and even longer since I've won a cake. We've got a strategy worked out for this evening though so hopefully we'll be eating cake tonight!

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The first event that caused me to see how small and connected our world is, is when I went to go pick Emily up at a friends house up north of where we live now. They have a beautiful horse farm and as I was getting to know Emily's friends' parents I found out that her father was also from Deer Park. He graduated some years before Jason and I but was good friends with some of our neighbors just down the street from where I grew up and would frequently go past my childhood house. Weird!

The second event that was even weirder was when we got to Presque Isle (at Lake Erie) we were talking with one of the park rangers and found out that his wife was from Cincinnati. We then found out that she was from Deer Park!!!!! Although we didn't recognize her name it was still surreal to find a close connection to home five hours away!!

It may seem a little silly but these events have caused me to pause and reflect. I've been on Facebook for a better part of a year now and this has brought me together with a lot of people I haven't seen or heard from in many years. I enjoy seeing what they've done with their lives, who they've become and see also how they're still the same as I remember them. I try not to dwell too much on the past afraid that I'll miss what's going on today but it does help to remind me from where I've come and how God has blessed me and my family with His grace and mercy time and time again.

I'll leave you with another quote, one from Ravi Zacharias that I heard
this week and that has me thinking.

"The shortest route is not always the best route because it can bypass some of the most precious lessons in life."

Think about it....

Three in a week!

Wow, three blog posts in a week! It must be your lucky week!

We've had quite a lot going on around here and this blog post is dedicated to our latest adventure this past Friday to Saturday. We spent an overnight at The Great Wolf Lodge! I had been planning this for awhile and only last weekend told Jason what "Plans" on the calendar meant. The kids though had no idea that we were going until I got home from work on Friday and announced where we were headed. I had packed their bags the night before and so it was into the car and we were off!

Once we checked in and got settled in our room, which by the way took awhile because the room was so cool, we got changed into bathing suits and headed to the indoor waterpark! The kids had an awesome time looking around and trying to decide what to try out first. David stunned us all by going across the water holding onto a rope ladder and balancing on floats on the water. Jason and I were both sure that he would freak out just after starting but David proved us wrong and went across the entire course without a peep! We were so proud of our guy!

After spending a couple of hours at the waterpark our trip ended abruptly when Ella fell and skinned both knees and feet. We then went back to our room and had the kids change into pj's and went to one of the several food places there and got some ice cream! You may be asking, "Why did you let your kids run around the hotel in their pj's?" Well, having people running around in their bathing suits seemed a lot less formal and so I figured pj's were safe! We retired to our room and watched "The Dog Whisperer", a show I enjoy but don't end up watching because we have no cable.

The next day was spent at the waterpark (surprise) and we had a great time riding the tubes and even got to ride one together as a family! Ella and David spent a lot of time in the wave pool but Emily's favorite entertainment was by far a tube ride we nicknamed "The Toilet bowl". This particular ride shot you down a tube and then into a big round area that had you go around and around in the water (as if you were being flushed in the toilet) and then down another tube to the pool below! It sounds weird but was quite fun, I must admit.

What excellent family time we had together! I'd also like to thank Maureen for helping to get us a discount!!!!

Pictures of our room

Pictures of the waterpark