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Yesterday after work I brought in a few things from the truck that needed to come in the house, including a long-ago expired insurance card.  I handed the card to Mason when I came in the house and asked him if he could throw it away for me.  He was a little cautious about that since I had never asked him to go near the trash can before (in fact, we usually tell him to get back when he gets close).  I needed to make a quick trip to Home Depot so I had the extra roll of insulation set by the door, along with the gift card and the receipt from the purchase so I could return the insulation.  I went downstairs to the garage to grab a can of Mountain Dew and when I came back up, I couldn't find the gift card and receipt.  I checked all of my pockets, emptied my wallet to make sure I didn't put it in there (I was SURE I had set it on the insulation), went back and checked in the refrigerator, bathroom, and anyplace else I had been since I got home.

It wouldn't have been the first time I had misplaced something and wasted 15 minutes of my life looking for it, but it turns out that this time, it WAS where I had set it - until Mason decided to throw it away!  I guess the Home Depot card neatly wrapped in the receipt looked an awful lot like the old insurance card that I had just asked him to throw out.  He took it upon himself to throw it away while I was down grabbing my soda!

Lesson learned: if I specifically remember setting something somewhere and it's not there anymore, ask Mason, or check the trash.  He fessed up after I showed him what I had been looking for. :-)

If you would please check our Xanga page (there is a link to the right --->), I have posted some information about a ministry I would love for you all to check out!  It has been placed on my heart, and my eyes have been opened to a serious problem.  If you could just spend a few minutes and learn more about Women At Risk, International and pray for this ministry and the women being affected, it would make a huge difference in the lives of others!  Thanks for your time!

I am amazed that it is February… I honestly don’t know where the time is going.  It has been wild since the wedding!  Our Christmas program at church was the day after the wedding… they have them during the regular morning service.  The music this year was unbelievable!  They really do a nice job with the message and the worship!  We always look forward to it, Hannah loves to listen to the music.  We had a lovely Christmas here in Ohio.  It was nice to have Steven and Ashley in town for a few weeks!  We celebrated Christmas at our house with the kids!  They had a great time!  We started the morning by reading the Story of Christ’s birth from Luke.  Then the kids were excited to see if they got any gifts!  They were very patient while they each took turns opening gifts! They seemed very excited with the choices that were made!  We had a lovely dinner at Mammie and Grampy’s house and then started the chaos of opening gifts!  It was a great day!  We enjoyed having both sets of Grandparents sharing the evening with us! 

We stuck around this area long enough to see Steven and Ashley off and Britt and Manny get home from their Honeymoon!  We got to see most of their pictures and hear all the stories!  We are thankful that they made it back safely!

The next morning, we headed to New Hampshire for our Christmas there!  Annie was in from college, and Katherine and her family were able to come in too while we were there!  We had a nice few days together, and Annabelle and Hannah had a blast playing together!  They really get along so well and have a great time being imaginative and creative!  Mason didn’t mind the alone time too much either!  While in NH, Mason turned 2!  We celebrated with dinner at Aloha and then had cake and ice cream at Great Grammy’s house!  He was pretty excited with all the boy toys he received!  He has been playing with too many girly things lately!

New Year’s Eve we headed up to visit with Bob, Kelly and Matthew in Maine for a few days!  The guys were very busy with snow removal, and Hannah and Matthew had a great time together!  It was lovely to visit with them, even though it was a quick trip.  On our way back to NH, we did some geocaching down the coast!  We found several caches even though there was a lot of snow on the ground!  We ended the day at Olive Garden per Hannah’s request.  We were hoping to go to a local dive, but they were all closed because of the “snow storm” that night.  We stayed overnight with the Richmonds again, and headed home the next day.  We found a few more caches on the way home, just to get a few more states under our belt!  We had a good drive home, nothing too eventful.  The big surprise came when we got home.  I walked in the garage and the ceiling was stained and dripping.  Fortunately, it wasn’t burst pipes as we had initially thought.  We had a drip in our tub, and the pipes had frozen and the water leaked over the pipe and out onto the floor.  Our furnace decided to quit working for some reason and the toilet had frozen.  It cracked as we were thawing it, but we were home when it happened.  It could have been worse!  Everything was fixed and is now all up and running properly!  It took a couple of days, but we got it straightened out.  Now Matt has been working on getting all settled around here.  He laid a runner on the stairs of the playroom, it looks very nice and we don’t have to worry about the kids slipping on the wood steps anymore.  He has also replaced the old abused wood doors on the bedrooms and bathroom with new white doors, which lighten up the house a lot!  They look really nice! 

The family headed down to Columbus for Britt’s birthday party with the Cestaris!  We ate at a wonderful Chinese restaurant, Molly Woo’s!  It was fantastic!  We had a great time with everyone and it was lovely to meet their friends who were visiting from Venezuela! 

We came home and did a little geocaching, and then we had a bought of sickness that lasted a week.  The kids and Matt each had a 24-hour bug.  I am thankful that it didn’t last any longer and that I didn’t get it!  

This past week was pretty busy!  Wednesday night we dropped Hannah off at AWANA and headed up to Green for a C.B.G.B (Canalway Band of Geocaching Buckeyes!) event at Panera.  It was great to meet some locals who enjoy this crazy hobby just as we do!  We also received our first Geocoin that we are able to activate, assign a goal and set it out to travel!  We can’t wait for another event to meet more local cachers!

Thursday evening, Mom and I were able to go to Comfy Cozies at church.  We had missed a few months while we were working on wedding stuff.  It was nice to get out and knit and crochet with the other ladies again!  We have missed them! 

Friday night, Mammie and Grampy came over to watch the kids while Matt and I went to Winter Jam in Cleveland!  It was a great Christian music tour with several artists in attendance.  It was our first encounter with two Christian heavy metal bands!  I really didn’t know there was such a thing!  I think we actually enjoyed it, but it sure made me feel old!  We got to Cleveland about an hour before the doors opened.  We were able to pick up a HUGE burrito and chips and guacamole at Chipotle and run to Starbuck’s really quick for something warm to drink while we waited outside!  It was a fun time, Matt and I ate our burrito just in time to get in the doors, but we had to take our chips and dip back to the car.  This worked out great because it gave us a great snack to munch while we were waiting to get out of the parking garage!  We had great seats, and really enjoyed the music and the message!  It was fun to go to a concert again!  It has been a while since I’ve been to a Christian concert!  We had a great evening!  When we came home, Britt and Manny had come in for the weekend!  We visited with them for a few minutes before they left. 

Saturday afternoon we went over to Mom and Dad’s for an afternoon edition of Family Game Night!  Mom was working on IEPs, but Dad even joined us in the game while the kids watched Imagination Movers!  We all headed to El Campesino for dinner, then the guys and kids headed back home and Britt, Mom and I headed to church.  We had a wonderful jewelry party where we learned about a great ministry.  I will put another post  up about that ministry… this one is getting too long! 

Sunday brought ABF and church, then we enjoyed a huge family dinner at Taco Bell!  Grandma and Grandpa Reel joined us and all 10 of us squished into 3 tiny tables!  It was quite a sight! 

Matt has been putting in a few hours a day working with Rick at the warehouse, and I have been here with the kids!  They have been enjoying all their new Christmas toys and games!  Hannah is still learning her verses and doing her AWANA workbook, she really is learning so much.  It is a blessing to see her desire to learn the Word of God! 

Well, I need to close!  Hope you are all enjoying your winter!  Take care, until next time!

Brittannie and Manny began their Happily Ever After on Saturday, December 19th, 2009.   The Wedding was absolutely beautiful!  It was wonderful to see all our Friends and Family gather together to celebrate their special day!  There was a perfect coating of snow on the ground for the day... just as the Bride ordered!  It was absolutely beautiful, and we are so happy for Britt and Manny as they start their new life together as Husband and Wife!

Congratulations!  We Love You Both Tons and we can't wait to see you when you get back!

As the bookfair season here in Ohio wraps up (Tuesday is the last day), I look to the Lord to provide for us through our off-season.  It's been a long and hard last three months, and we've been grateful for the work and God's goodness to provide!

I am looking for work to get me through until March when book fairs will be gearing back up again.  I'd like to use the time to build some references and a local portfolio here in Canton, laying groundwork for my own business doing handyman work.

I'm still in the Cyprexx database and am in the application process with Safeguard, both property preservation contracting companies that work for banks and real estate agencies, usually with foreclosed properties.  This would be a good springboard for my own business, so I'm hoping and praying that I will get some business from those leads!

God has been and will continue to be good to us in all things!  We're faithfully waiting on His provision, and know He will bring us through whatever may come, all for HIS glory!

We have been very busy around these parts!  We are mostly settled now, it took some time since Matt was busy with work!  We all got the sickness that Matt brought home with him, worked through it in a few weeks and hopefully that will be it for the season!  We can hope!

October brought Trunk or Treat at our church, we had the Princess and the Bee this year!  They had a great time collecting all the candy from the folks in the decorated cars!  Hannah especially loved the inflated slide, and the bouce house!  It was held indoors this year because it was supposed to be raining.  Turned out to be really nice, the parents could visit and let the kids run around in the Family Life Center!  It was awesome!  A few weekends after that, I threw Brittannie a SURPRISE Bridal Shower!  She was really shocked!  She had no idea it was coming!  Manny and the other bridesmaids helped out so much, it was a great success!  Britt enjoyed spending the day with her dearest friends and family!  

November was a whirlwind... every weekend it seemed like we had something going on or I was helping Britt with wedding details!  We had Hannah's 4th birthday party the first weekend!  She asked for a pink teddy bear in a pink tutu on her cake.  That would have been a reasonable request, except I was planning to make her cake this year!  I did manage to get it to come out and it was recognizable!  She was excited!  We had my parents, Britt and Manny, and my 2 sets of Grandparents over for dinner and cake!  Hannah was excited to have "guests" for her birthday!  On her actual birthday, Daddy brought home an ice cream cake for her with TinkerBell on it!  She was super excited about that!  She opened her packages from the Richmonds and the Roots that night!  She was glad to have gifts to open on her birthday, as I forgot to hold something back...

The following weekend, Matt planned a getaway for our 7th Wedding Anniversary!  He surprised me with 2 days at Kalahari in Sandusky!  It is the largest indoor waterpark in the US!  We had an absolute blast!  We haven't had that much fun in a long time!  We really felt like teenagers again... even though we didn't know each other when we were that age!  Each slide we rode had a 4 story climb to it!  So we would climb as many as we could bear... then we would take a loop around the lazy river.  Then go up the steps to the slides until we couldn't stand it any longer... then we would do the lazy river again!  It was awesome, but my legs and arms hurt for several days afterward!  We had a great time!  Thanks Honey for working it all out for us to get away! 

Then the wedding stuff was underway!  We had the practice up-do, then we put together place setting stuff!  We enjoyed Thanksgiving by having my Parents and Grandparents over to our house!  Everyone brought things and it made light work for all of us, boy was it delicious!  Last weekend, I went to Columbus for Britt's Bachelorette Party!  It was a great time!  Brenna made reservations at The Melting Pot!  It was wonderful!  We went back to her condo and she opened her gifts, then Brenna and I spent the night!  We played Wii all night, and my arms killed the next day!  I think I spent a little too much energy boxing! haha!  Sunday, Britt and I did some last minute wedding shopping, and enjoyed the day together!  We ended it up meeting Manny for a nice lunch at Skyline!  Thanks Britt for sharing your day with me, it was a great time! 

This weekend the gals have Grandma's Sorority Luncheon, then we are going to pick up Britt's wedding dress!  End it up with the Chapel in Akron's Christmas concert with Jimmy and Marilyn!  Next weekend, we have an ABF Christmas party!  Then Aultman bookfair week will be upon us, and after that is THE WEDDING!!!  We can't wait to witness the marriage of Brittannie and Manny!  They are such a cute couple, great people, and they will have a beautiful wedding!  We love you both so much! 

We'll be ending the year with Christmas at home, hopefully a trip to New England, Mason's 2nd Birthday, and New Years!  I can't believe how fast things are going!  It is all so exciting, but it will be great when it is all past and we can just relax as a family again!   Until next time, Have a very Merry Christmas and a wonderful start to the New Year!  With Love, from our family to yours!

Moving in the middle of the busy season for books has been a challenge for sure!

Each move up until now has been into bigger and bigger houses.  We were fairly comfortable in our home in Milford at just under 1900 square feet (possible future expansion to around 2500 sq.ft.).  We moved from there to a gigantic old victorian that had about 3500 finished square feet (plus at least 1500 square feet of usable unfinished space).  Fortunately, in the six months that we lived there, we didn't come close to filling that space!  Our current home is somewhere around 1200 square feet, and we're getting creative about where stuff is getting put!  I'm not sure how long it will be until the car will fit into the garage...

There's been a small list of projects around the house that have NEEDED to get accomplished.  I think there is only one thing remaining on that list, after installing the kitchen cabinets from Maine into the basement for storage, mounting the microwave over the range, hanging some of our art on the walls, hanging the curtains (or at least the curtain rods, draped with fleece blankets for the moment), and as of last night, we now have a cooktop again!  All that remains to be done (somewhat urgently) is find the futon hardware or buy some new hardware so we can get the futon mattress off the floor and use it like a couch again.  It's awfully hard to get up off of the floor after sitting there for an hour or so!

I have taken pictures of the house and will upload them shortly.  We've also got some size comparison pictures of the kids to update as well, although there are a few that we missed taking.  We were very faithful about our pictures until spending July in Maine (we forgot to bring the teddy bears), and after that we got busy with work and moving.  Now that we're kind of settled, I hope we can be a little more diligent!

I have made use of all of those kitchen cabinets that we brought with us from our Maine house (a kitchen's worth of base and wall cabinets, plus the additional base and wall cabinets that we had in that oversized laundry room).  I built a wall to partition the basement and filled the laundry side of the basement with those cabinets.  I installed them in such a way that they are not permanently attached to the house, so they can come with us when it is time to move again! They're just about filled and keeping all of our overflow stuff (formal kitchenware, cake making stuff, vases, candles, stationary, games, puzzles...) neat and out of harm's way.

Somewhere between the move out of Milford and the move into Massillon last month, there are two small but important appliance parts that were misplaced.  The range that we used in Milford came from the factory equipped to run on Natural Gas and needed to be converted to work with LP for that house.  I knew I had kept the Natural Gas orifice spuds that were swapped out at that time, but I didn't know where they wound up after we packed up and moved to Maine.  The other thing that was missing was the two screws used to hold the microwave to the upper cabinet over the range.  So for a couple of weeks, Heather has been VERY patient with me as I tried to find those things, putting up with the microwave sitting on the cooktop (the microwave worked, but the range was disconnected).

I stopped at Home Appliance in Massillon the other week to look for the Natural Gas orifice spuds to convert our range back from LP to Natural Gas.  They did not have anything that would work for the gas, but they did give me several microwave mounting screws from his big box of miscellaneous parts, knowing that at least one set would fit.  Sure enough, I was able to mount the microwave when I got home.  I was also able to convert the oven to work on Natural Gas (only adjustments needed to be made, no parts needed to be replaced).  So for the last week, we've been able to bake, broil, microwave and crockpot... and as of last night, I found the gas oriface spuds (in the refrigerator owner's manual, of all places...), and we now have the stovetop as another cooking option again!  Yay for being able to boil water for pasta and brown hamburger!  I was glad to have found them, since it would have cost me over $25 a piece (need 4 of them) to replace, and it would have been over a week to get in!

There were a few small projects that were nice to finish, making the house feel a little more like "home".  Putting our cutain rods up and hanging our art is just what we needed to give it our personal touch.  It's amazing how well all of our stuff goes with the neutral taupe walls throughout the house!

Two weeks ago, my throat started feeling scratchy and over the course of that Monday, I was exhausted just doing a light day's work around the warehouse.  The last two weeks have been a struggle, and it's been frustrating to get so wiped out doing a normal day's labor (I have a feeling that what I was fighting off would have wiped me out if I was sitting around the house resting), and still having to find some energy to accomplish a project or two around the house.

I guess this is where I put the cliché "We've been busy so I haven't had a chance to post" post... We have been busy, but not so busy that I couldn't find a couple of minutes to update the website.  It's just that when I get two minutes of downtime, I've been taking the downtime to spend it with Heather and the kids, and not uploading photos or updating here or facebook (in fact, I don't think I've even logged on to facebook in the last two weeks, except to respond to some email notice that was sent to me).  Most of the time I spend on the computer now (when I'm not at work, and even sometimes when I am at work and it's slow) is at geocaching.com.  We're over 50 finds now, and I think it's safe to say we're hooked.  Well, I'm hooked anyway - I think the rest of the family enjoys the time out together too!

So, aside from GeoCaching, what's been going with the Richmonds?  Well, the biggest news is that we'll be moving in to a place of our own in October.  We are very VERY grateful to Heather's parents for allowing us to stay with them, but we're anxious to have a place of our own again.  We found a nice little 3 Bedroom place in a quiet neighborhood, and our favorite part of the house is the big fenced-in backyard!  When I do finally get around to uploading photos, there will be some of the house there.

Hannah and Mason are both growing up so quickly.  The hardest part about bookfair season is being away from them for most of their waking hours during the week.  By the time I see them at the end of a week, they seem so much more grown up than the last weekend!

Mason is now running everywhere, and he learned to go down stairs on his own last week.  It's cute to watch.  He'll lay on his tummy about 6 feet from the top of the stairs and slide back until his feet find the first step.  I guess it's good that he's so cautious!  No accidents yet!

Hannah is becoming such a big girl!  She started AWANA a couple of weeks ago and is just eating it up!  She's got four verses memorized already!

Bookfair sales have been off to a good start this season.  Heather is helping her dad run the Aultman event in Canton.  I've been unable to help with many of his bookfairs this season since Rick's got a full schedule from the start of September right through Christmas.  I've been putting in 55-60 hour weeks for the past few weeks, and they're only going to get busier as the season progresses. I'm thankful for the hours, as every dollar counts for us right now, especially with the added commitment of renting a home!

This weekend Heather and I took up a new hobby that we can do with the entire family.  It is called geocaching, and it is basically a high-tech scavenger hunt.  We use the GPS to bring us to specific coordinates where we search for hidden containers that have been placed by other geocachers.  There are almost a million of them hidden all over the world.  There are 727 of them hidden within a 20 mile radius of home (so there'll be plenty to keep us busy for quick trips), and we can look up caches that are hidden near almost any travel destination we may have.

We found five caches yesterday and five more today.  Some are more difficult than others, but I think they'll get easier as we get used to using the GPS and knowing what we are looking for (some are tiny, most are camouflaged).

Some of the caches are big enough to hold "treasures" that can be traded.  Hannah got excited about going geocaching (she calls it "treasure hunting") when we found our first one and she got to see all of the things that were hidden inside.  She leaves "Hannah says hi" stickers behind in the ones that allow trading.

You can learn more about geocaching at the official website, www.geocaching.com (I have also added the link to the menu of our favorite links that are listed on the right).  If you have a geocaching account, you can look us up.  Our user name is "NH Nomad".

We have been having a pretty action packed summer so far!  We have been involved with 2 Vacation Bible Schools (Canton and Dexter), we spent a week in a cabin on Dale Hollow Lake!  I was able to pick out a beautiful bridesmaids dress with the other girls that will be standing with Brittannie on the day that she marries Manny!  We had a quick overnight in NY to visit with the Root family!  We are planning to spend some more time with them on our way back to OH!  We visited Matt's parents in NH very quickly before completing our 4 day trip from TN to ME!  Matt has made arrangements to work with Bob for the entire month of July!  We were wide open and Bob had more work up here than he could handle, so Matt offered his services!  And we (the family) got to come along!  Matt has been very busy, but we are trying to fit in some touristy things also!  The kids and I have been enjoying the days with Kelly and Matthew!  The kids still get along so great, it is nice to let them do their thing!  I am amazed at how much Matthew has grown up in the past year!  He is a very sweet young boy!

We spent last weekend in NH visiting with Matt's family on Saturday!  Annie was able to come home for the weekend to see us!  It has been a while since she has seen the kids and we have really missed her.  We were glad she was able to come home!  Hannah and Mason had a blast playing with all of Grandma June's toys!  I think they cooked about 3 meals for us that morning!  We spent some time with Grammy also!  She was happy to see the kids and she enjoyed watching them play together!  It is really wonderful that they get along so well!  Sunday we were able to share with 3 families!  We had a great pancake breakfast at Parker's with the Blaines!  It was really nice to visit with them!  It was a perfect morning to visit outside a bit too!  That afternoon was shared with the Remellas!  They had a fantastic cookout for us!  We were entertained by Hannah and Jay, they really get along smashingly!  They are a riot together!  Mason loved playing with all the "boy" toys!  We were also excited to meet their new baby girl, Maya!  She was 2 months old on Sunday!  We were able to finish the day with the Demeusys.  They always know of the best dives around... and we were very thrilled with their choice!  We had never been to Kimball Farm before.  We had a dinner off their grill, and then we had ice cream for dessert!  It was really wonderful!  The kids really enjoyed the ice cream!  They couldn't get enough!  After the lovely day of visiting with friends and catching up, we had to make the long drive back to Dexter, ME!  Matt is very busy with Bob.  This week they are starting the insul-dome production.  That should take a few good weeks!  I don't know what our plans are from here on out, but we are willing to help out as long as we can!  I hope we are able to squeeze a few more fun day trips in too, since we are in Maine after all, we should see some of the sights!  Until next time, enjoy the summer sunshine!