Bad Blessing?

Can there be a bad blessing?
We had a delivery person say on his way out, "It looks like you have poison ivy right there." My thought was yeah right, right by our front door in our bushes? Yes, there were some weeds growing in the bushes right next to our front door but something as bad as poison ivy couldn't possibly be RIGHT there. Chris went out and looked and said, I looked it up and NO it is not poison ivy. I had never seen poison ivy before, and actually didn't even really know what it was. I was VERY naive and thought, well if it was THAT bad then it wouldn't be close. I really thought that it was poisonous and thought you could die from it and that is why it wouldn't be close. Like I said, I was very naive.
One Saturday when I went to do the yard work, I told Chris jokingly, "Well if I come back with a rash or something we will know it was poison ivy." I went and pulled it out of the bush and was not careful with it at all, except that I had gloves on with a t-shirt and pants. I am glad I had gloves on at least. I really didn't think something that bad could be so close to our house. I pulled those weeds out and just stuffed them in my lawn clipping bag and that was it. I came in and there was no rash.
HOWEVER, on Sunday my arm started itching but just a bit. It wasn't bad but I decided on Sunday that it must have been poison ivy when I just wanted to scratch my arm off. From there I actually started doing research online as to what poison ivy actually was.
It was very itchy. I am SO thankful for many things regarding this experience:
1) I didn't get it as bad as some people do
2) It was me and not the kids
3) Since I was so unaware of what poison ivy is and does things could have been SO much worse.
4) I got to learn the phrase "Leaves of three, let them be"
As much as it was painful and itchy I am grateful for this experience. It was so informational.
I also am surprised that we hadn't gotten it before because there was more in other bushes that Allison and I had been around a lot and we wouldn't have known or ever thought it was poison ivy.
This is how my arm started after it was itching a lot.
 

Here is another culprit. I wanted to take pictures to always remember what these things looked like. As you can see smaller leaves in here too, those were the bushes that this terrible plant was in. I learned that they have a poison ivy spray. It is suppose to just kill the poison ivy, oak, or sumac, but it has killed the bush leaves that it came in contact with. As long as it kills the poison ivy, I don't care what else it kills. This has also been a good teaching opportunity for the kids. They have seen what I have gone through and then I was able to show them the plant that is bad. When I was spraying these ones I was searching many other bushes and found more in other bushes. It is crazy how much there was. Though everything is wilted and dead I am going to do another spray  and make sure the roots and stuff are dead also.
I touched the poison ivy on June 1st. Finally three weeks later it is all about gone. However I have stuff that would prevent it spreading like it did and go away faster. I am knowledgeable.

 

It started getting to be a little blister. I had put cream on it to help prevent it from itching but that didn't always work. Some on the internet says that it doesn't spread but I say it does. Where this part of my arm touches my shoulder it got a rash. It spread onto my waist and everywhere. I finally went back to the pharmacist and he showed me this stuff to spread on it to pull the oils out. It finally started getting better on my arm but the rest of my body still had to go through the process. Very itchy I tell you. If I would have had this stuff, called Tecnu, when I just had this small amount it would have been so much better. Live and learn I guess.

This is after putting Tecnu on it. It pulled the oils out.

 

 

This is actually looking better

As I mentioned, it spread.

Going away!!!

After three weeks I can finally say I am getting closer to being done with this. 

 

Lunch Bunch

We had a monthly group meet in TX for Lunch Bunch. It was just a very casual come and go potluck lunch, sometimes held at a home or a park. We brought the kids, the moms talked and the kids played and we ate and had a great time getting to know each other. It is hard to actually talk to people at church with everything going on. I had been a little hesitant about mentioning doing this because I am new and didn't want to step on any toes or anything but I just kept thinking about it and how great of a thing it was in TX. Finally I decided to just try to start it up here. Since I was starting it up, I figured I would have it at my house now that I have a house, and I had my new dining table. I LOVE having more seating for people to come over and gather. There were probably about 10 ladies that showed up and it was so great. Others have volunteered to host so I am excited for this new monthly event.
 

 

First Grade Comparison

Because this is just me, I went and found what clothes the kids were wearing on the first day of school to take these pictures. Yes, Chris thought it was ridiculous but oh well. Here are the comparison pictures from the first day of school in first grade and three schools later on the last day of first grade.

 

 

 

Last Day of First Grade

What a year Matthew has had. He has been such a trooper with all the things he went through. He started first grade as a new student at Johnson in Bryan, TX. Johnson was a great school and we walked to and from school. Though I didn't know until a week later, Matthew was nervous his first day of school since he didn't know anybody. He loved his class, teacher, and school. At the Christmas break we pulled him out and then he went to Longan in Glen Allen, VA. He was excited to start school and didn't question anything. After three months of going to that school he decided that he would like to start going to his new school, Chamberlayne in Richmond, so that he was not the new kid AGAIN in the fall. He started in August and if he were still in TX he would have gotten out of school in May. Here in VA they don't start school until after Labor day which is in September so they go until June. Poor boy had a longer school year then other kids but we never told him all of his friends were out of school in TX. He never knew the difference.
The last day of school FINALLY came and I decided to take pictures of him before he left:)
 

 

 When Matthew got in the car after getting off of the bus on his last day, Chris jokingly asked Matthew if he passed first grade. Matthew was so worried and wasn't sure if he had. He immediately pulled out his report card and started reading it. He was so excited when it said that he was promoted to 2nd grade. It was hilarious to listen to how worried he was. Maybe that is why they have a Kindergarten graduation. Then the kids actually know they are moving to the next grade. It was too cute, love my little boy:)

Neighbors

Matthew was really wanting to have one of the neighbors over to play Pokemon with him. After they got home he came over and so did his sister, and they were watching the youngest of our next door neighbors so he came too.
Then when the other boys came home, one of them came over.
 They were at our house for about 3 hours playing and having fun.
Here is Jordan. He will be starting Kindergarten in the fall.


Kennedy showing us her piano skills.

Matthew REALLY wanted Isiah to come play Pokemon so here they are.

 

Justin pretending to know how to play.

Kennedy is really good with the younger kids.
She was teaching Allison a dance routine, and Allison was loving it.

 

At the end of the routine Allison jumps on Kennedy's knee and they end like this:)

 

New Picture

I got a new picture to hang up on my wall. I took this picture of Lake Bryan last September when we went camping there. I love this picture and so Chris got it put on a canvas and now I have a beautiful and nostalgic picture.
 

 

I love it!
I have a wonderful husband that thought of this idea all by himself.
Yep, he is pretty amazing!!

New Table

 I never understood why people liked having dining rooms and dining tables to only use them once or twice a year. I wasn't a big fan of ours, it just kind of seemed like wasted space. However then I went to my brother's house in Connecticut and they have a dining room and table and they said they use it whenever they have people over. Their kitchen table just fits them so they use their dining room and table a lot.
Since then I have had a different thought about dining tables and rooms. I have a big family (which I hope come to visit me some time) and I like to be social and have people over. So we have been looking for a dining room table since before we moved into this house. I have looked and looked and looked on craigslist and never ever saw what I was looking for. I wanted at least eight chairs but not big fancy ones. Just regular sitting ones.
We have been going to a store called The Dump. It is a store that gets its stuff from another store that is way over-priced. The prices at normal price are better but still not want we want to pay. They have clearance items all of the time and so we go in almost every Friday and look for the clearance items. One week we found couch/love seat set and almost bought them. We found something different on craigslist but when we went back the next week that couch/loveseat was 60% cheaper then the week before. We would have been so mad if we paid their full-price for it. So we have just learned that we don't pay their full-price for anything and just look for the sale/clearance items.
They are only open Fridays, Saturdays and Sundays. We went a few Fridays ago and found this table on clearance but it was to come with 6 big chairs. As we were walking around we noticed these chairs would go well with it and we saw that they had 12 of them on the floor, just not around this table. We asked "our salesman" how much more it would be to substitute the big chairs for 12 of these "smaller" chairs. He went and asked his supervisor and came back to tell us he would substitute the 12 chairs but for the same price. We were sold at that point.
We had to rent a Uhaul to get it home but we got this really heavy table home and I immediately started thinking of what family we were going to invite over for dinner.
It can fit 12 sort of crunched but it would work. I am so excited we got it and have had such great uses out of it already.

We were just going to leave it at this smaller size but the first family we invited over, we had to pull it all the way out.

Here it is pulled all the way out with the 12 chairs. It is almost a 10' x 4' table.
Can you see two little girls playing underneath? Allison had her favorite little friend over.
You know, because our house is not big enough to play anywhere, except under the dining table, but oh well:)

 

 

Some other uses that I have found for the table is that it is nice to fold the laundry on here because I don't like this table to have anything on it so it makes me get it done and put away faster and it doesn't just sit on the couch for a day or two

and playing family games

 

and playing pokemon with our neighbor

 

and doing homework and workbooks. I love that we have a place to do homework and workbooks and if it doesn't get done right away it doesn't have to get put away just so we can eat.
Another reason is this:

having friends over. This is our first family to eat dinner at our new table with us.
Ken Eliason just got called as the Cub Master and Chris is a Bears leaders so he has been getting to know Ken a little bit. Karen goes to most of the things that I have been going to so we have been able to get to know each other also. 
Their oldest, Nathaniel, and Matthew are in the same primary class and both first graders (though at different schools). Their second son, Colin, and Allison are in the same primary class and will both be going to Kindergarten in the fall. When we are at the park Allison plays with Colin a lot (we haven't found anybody Allison's age in her primary class yet), their little girl just turned three and don't usually play much together but when they came over it was boys together and Laura and Allison were in Allison's room. Allison can play rough and shooting/swords with the boys if she has to but prefers to play princesses if she can.


Another use is having lots of friends come over for Lunch Bunch. We used to have Lunch Bunch in TX and I loved the low-key get-together that you got to relax and get to know people. I started it up here and we had the first one at my house. Both of our tables were full and it made me feel so good. Some day I will have the connections that I had with the people in TX and this is helping get to that day.

These are the many reasons why I love to have a dining room and dining table. I already have other families lined up to come for dinner:)

Grammy Donna and Grandpa Kenn

We knew that we were going to go visit Dwain and Christina and they asked if there was anything we would like to do while we were there. Matthew has been asking to go see Grammy Donna ever since we moved here. Since they are Dwain's Aunt and Uncle, we thought it would be fun to go with them.
Christina contacted them and because Grammy Donna just had back surgery 6 weeks ago Christina planned to take dinner to them. We got to go visit them on Sunday night and make dinner for them.
Driving up and being in the house again was so nostalgic. We spent a whole month living in that house back in 2009 when Chris was doing research for his dissertation at the Holocaust Museum.
Walking in was weird and cool all at the same time. We were noticing things that were still the same and things that they had changed in 4 years. I couldn't remember where everything was in the kitchen though.
Grammy Donna had some videos of Allison first learning how to walk that she showed the kids as well as some pictures of them while we lived there. I need to get those videos from her the next time I am there.
It was really fun to see them and have the kids be there again also.
We had yummy tacos while we were there and now Chris thinks that I need to make our tacos the way they did. We will have to see how that works.


Matthew and Allison with Grammy Donna

Grammy Donna even had pictures in a photo album to show (prove to) Allison that she was at Grammy Donna's house when she was 11 months old.

Watching the video of Allison taking her first steps at Grammy Donna's house.

 

Workers in the kitchen making tacos while I just photographed them all.
Grandpa Kenn, Dwain, Christina, and Chris was making his own Guacamole.

Isaac and Matthew went right to the Chess table and started playing.

Grammy Donna and a terrible picture of a grumpy Matthew.
After two very late nights Matthew was not the kindest boy around.

Eating dinner outside on the patio.

Thomas family with Grammy Donna and Grandpa Kenn