Summer Vacation

An odd little caterpillar I found while out trimming bushes this evening

Sporting the When you Wish onsie her dad bought her.

I wanted a standing shot of her, but it was too hard to keep those hands busy so you could see the shirt :)

This is where she said bye-bye and began to run away from me.

She looks so still in this photo, but she flew up the stairs. I think the Indiana sun bleached out her hair a little. It is definitely lighter than when we first got to IN.

There is a very first time for everything. This happens to be my very first time at a blog. I was staring at this white empty box, wondering what to do for my very first blog. I am too tired to be very witty, let's face it I am not very witty to start with anyway. I have noticed I make way too many status updates on facebook, and this looked like a good alternative, at least for now. I just got back home after a one month vacation to Indiana. I took little Sophia out to Indiana to visit with her grandparents, great-grandparents, aunts, uncles, great aunts, great uncles, future friends, and the list goes on. My father flew out here to help me drive her back to Indiana. It was a pretty good trip barring the one poop-splosion. I can laugh at it now, it was less funny at the time. For the beginning of our trip we stayed with Wes and Gretchen. Scott joined us at their house. We enjoyed spending Saturday at the Rush reunion. Scott's parents joined us on Saturday as well for some visitation time with little Sophia. I missed the second day of the reunion to a GI bug. The rest of the time in Indiana was spent in somewhat of a routine of getting up, having breakfast, getting Sophia down for a morning nap, and then out for an afternoon stroller ride. We made almost daily trips to my grandparents new assisted living apartment. They had difficulty making the transition there, as it is difficult to leave the place you have called "home" for so many years, and difficult to make the transition to knowing that you need assistance from others. Sophia's many visits helped distract them a little bit from their homesickness. I was glad we were able to be there for that life transition. Almost every evening Sophia, Karin and I would walk with Lorna Miller. It was our evening wind down to transition Sophia for bedtime. Some nights it worked, others it did not. Overall she slept very well back in Indiana. On Friday the 13th I drove to Indianapolis to see Scott perform with the Star of Indiana Alumni Corps. He had been looking forward to this event for many years. It exceeded his expectations, and he was happy to have his family there. Sophie had her first overnight with her grandparents. I am happy to report she did fairly well. She fought going to sleep as per the usual and she got up for an hour in the middle of the night, also fairly usual for her. I am glad she did well and everyone was happy with the overnight stay. Oh and most importantly, another milestone was reached while in Indiana - teeth! Sophie got her two bottom teeth, both showed up on August 9th, they magically appeared over night. We have been back home for just under a week now. I have done laundry every single day, as well as dishes. My goal is to try and better stay on top of the household chores. I also took Sophie outside today in her exersaucer and put her on the front porch and worked on weeding the flower beds, which really should be called shrub beds. They were overrun by crab grass that was waist high. I was embarrassed to call this my house when I saw it. I am glad I have been able to make a little progress on it. I also cut out the bush with 1/2 inch thorns on it that was covering our clean out drain. Found out those thorns cause an allergic type reaction and swelling. I am glad I got it out before Sophie tried to touch it. Hopefully we can get to Lowe's this next week and get mulch and a replacement shrub. A shrub without thorns, or maybe a flower. I don't think it was wise that they planted a shrub over a clean out drain to start with. Scott mowed the lawn this evening. It was also embarrassingly long. In fact our neighbors mentioned something to me about it, which is why we got on it tonight. They were forgiving knowing we had been out of town. I am officially tired and I need to get up early tomorrow for church. I hope to go to the farmers market after church too. I hope I can keep up with this blog. Time will tell. Oh and since the tutu photos seemed to be a hit, I added a few more of our tutu cute little girl.