Technical Difficulties

This post is a long time coming. I actually started the draft at the end of March, and in anticipation of events to come I held off on posting it. We had spring break, Easter, etc. We also ended up with an unseen misfortune, our computer totally crashed. Jason and I are not really sure the reason behind this but my suspicions are on Facebook. I enjoy Facebooking but I suspect we got some unwelcome computer viruses, etc from the site. Our computer has been totally wiped clean but not before (by the grace of God) I decided to buy an external hard drive and Jason backed up all our files (this was only a few short days before the surprise crash). So, a word of advice, get some type of backup system in place for all your important documents, pictures, music, etc. We would have been sorely out of luck without having done this!!! I'm currently working on a laptop that my brother gave Emily as a birthday present last year, we outfitted it with Internet access only for this short period of time. OK, enough about our computer woes, onto the update!!

I'm happy to report that my parents made it home safe and sound from their month long trip to Australia and New Zealand. They had an absolutely wonderful time, and I have yet to see the photos. In fact when they went to Alaska a few years ago I never actually saw any of their photos so I'm still suspicious if they actually went!

Here they are at the airport when I picked them up!

As a family we had a second weekend in a row (last weekend in March) down at our "land". We were able to tow down Jason's parent's new trailer but unfortunately did not get to put it in place because it was much too muddy. For awhile there we were not sure we would be able to get it down to the land. The day before we were to leave Jason's father's truck blew a spark plug. We were scrambling to find a way to tow the trailer the next morning but fortunately a good friend of ours towed it down for us, thank you Shane!!!

Here are a few photos from that muddy weekend!

David's precious umbrella did not make it home in one piece. He played so roughly with it that all he ended up with was the handle, it's now his "cane".

David and Ella had a blast playing in all the mud and puddles! They were busy splashing away and at one point, as you can see from the photo below, David jumped right out of his boots!

During spring break we had all types of plans to go to museums and the zoo but Emily came down with Strep throat and on top of all that the weather didn't cooperate with going to the zoo on the day we had designated. Instead we had to make our own fun. We got movies from the library, colored eggs and did some baking together.

Later on in the week the whole family did end up going to COSI in Columbus, a wonderful science museum for children. The photos from that fun trip ended up as the only casualties from our computer crash, glad that's all we lost!!

We had a wonderful Easter at our house, celebrating the resurrection of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. The weather was beautiful and we were able to go over to my sister's house for an egg hunt and dinner. (I, unfortunately did not enjoy this dinner, I had some type of stomach bug that kept me otherwise occupied). Here's our photo from that day!

I have two stories to tell you about Ella. She is becoming quite the punster. Telling puns is our family's favorite form of humor and Ella has taken to this very quickly. A couple of weeks ago Emily was telling us her bad news of the day, that the band director kept changing where they were sitting and she kept on sitting in the wrong seat and it made her feel silly. Without blinking an eye Ella asked Emily "So are you guys playing 'musical chairs' in band then?" I was laughing so hard it was very difficult to stop. Her Boppy should be proud!!

My second story was reported to me from my parents. It seems that they were in the car with Ella and David and David started up with complaining about something (his new habit is to complain that he doesn't like things, I think just to be difficult). He started to object about something and said "Yeah, but ...." when Ella promptly cut in and told David "Hey, that's MY line!" Apparently Ella has claimed "Yeah, but ..." as her personal line!! My father was very impressed to hear something so adult coming out of her mouth. It's no real surprise to me to hear that she identifies with this particular phrase, she is always ready with some type of logical argument when thing don't go her way. I'm wondering if we have a future lawyer?

Hoping that you are enjoying the glorious nature that surrounds us all by our Heavenly Father, until next time!

Oh yes, oh yes, it's Springtime!!!

Notice anything different? I decided to update the look of our blog thanks to doing some blog research of my own. I hope to change the look to accompany the season or the mood of things around our house. Enjoy!

Well, it's officially spring!!! In reality my favorite season is autumn but no one can deny the excitement in the air of the first warm day of the spring season. Looking around and seeing the first crocuses of the season blooming, trees budding and the birds preparing nests for their next batch of offspring. It gives me a thrill to see it all.

March came in like a lamb for us but quickly transformed into more of a lion. Jason has been extremely busy at work and has been putting in 60+ hours a week. Emily started soccer practice and of course it coinsides with Ella's Wednesday night programing so getting the girls to their respective places on time and picking them up at the same time has been quite a chore.

We have had time to relax and enjoy a little bit. Jason and I attended a wedding the beginning of this month, Jason was actually in the wedding.

Ella's class, along with the other second grade classes, performed "Jack and the Beanstalk" that their music teacher wrote all the dialogue and songs.

This past weekend we went down to our land to play "musical trailers". What I mean by this is that we moved around the existing trailers to make room for Jason's parent's new trailer that they bought this past winter. This whole rigmarole sounds a lot easier than it actually was. I will spare you all the details but it involved extending decks upwards, a lot of cinder blocks and one extremely talented truck and trailer driver (Jason).

Here we are literally raising the roof, the deck roof that is, to make room to move out and then back in the trailers.

All three trailers moved, halfway to our goal!

One trailer into it's new spot.

Second trailer into it's new spot, and DONE for the weekend, YEAH!!

Moving trailers wasn't all that we did. Emily found it amusing to record short videos on her new cell phone and created "The Adventures of Teddi". Teddi is a Ken doll dressed in a Barbie dress and later on in the adventures puts on black pants made up of a stretchable glove. I'll post a few of these videos for you, they are very funny.

Emily and Teddi!

Ella spent her time playing and eventually making a huge mess of herself and the dog with some Styrofoam she found.

David played around too.

Emily also got to drive Papaw's truck and my minivan around the land a little bit. She was so excited to be entrusted with this privilege, although I was sitting in the passenger's seat to help guide her.

David's 5th birthday was the 23rd! He awoke to find that the Five Bunny had visited our house. The Five Bunny is a tradition on my side of the family where when a child turns five the Five Bunny visits the house and decorates the house with the number five to celebrate their special birthday. Here's a video of David waking to find what the Five Bunny had left behind!

David also got a goldfish for his birthday. He had been asking for a pet of his own for awhile and we decided to wait until he turned five and he could get a fish. He decided on a goldfish and named her "Goldie". Here he is after just putting her into her new home.

Also for David's birthday we went to one of our family's favorite restaurants to celebrate. David has a huge pile of presents to open. His favorite one was his new blue umbrella!

On top of all this excitement my parents have been out the country, continent and well this hemisphere for two and a half weeks now. They are visiting Australia and New Zealand in what my dad calls their "trip of a lifetime". I miss them very much but we are looking forward to their return in early April. In their absence Jason and I have had to buck up and learn to fend for ourselves when it come to babysitting. We are extremely blessed (some may say we're spoiled) to have my mom coming over very early one day a week to get the kids going in the morning and to babysit David the rest of the day. Also, my mom is also usually very willing to help out whenever needed if Jason has work pop up on Fridays and I'm working too. I thank God everyday for such wonderful parents and also thank God for Jason's parents who also love spending time with the kids and helping us out whenever their schedules allow.

Until the next update!

"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....