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Some of the latest things that Hannah has said that have made us smile (or laugh out loud!):

We ate out at Max & Erma's the other night, and partway through the meal,  I was thinking of ordering one the restaurant's famous make-your-own sundaes. I mentioned to the kids that if they finished their meals nicely, they could have a yummy treat for dessert.  Hannah piped in, "Yeah, like fruit!"  (We settled on fresh baked cookies, and we were all happy).

Today after church, we went up to redeem the Groupon that we purchased last month, entitling us to a one-year family membership at the Akron Zoo.  When Hannah found out we were going to the zoo, she said that she hoped "to see elephants, giraffes, and pigs."  I thought that was an interesting mixture of exotic animals.  We didn't wind up seeing any of the above, but we had a fun time nonetheless!

Addendum, 3-22-11:
Last night, Heather told me about a conversation between Hannah and Amy (a friend of ours who was watching the kids for the morning).  Amy was making peanut butter sandwiches for the kids, and she asked Hannah if she or Mason had any nut allergies.  "Oh, yes, we have those."  Amy was confused because Hannah said that they eat peanut butter, but can't have peanuts.  She explained to Hannah that if she were allergic to peanuts, she would be allergic to peanut butter.  Hannah adminted, "Well, I guess we're not allergic to peanuts.  Mommy just doesn't let us have them so we don't choke on them."

There's just something about our house that does not like for us to go away for long!

Last year, the furnace shut off at some point early during our time in New England (we returned to a house with an interior temperature somewhere in the teens, frozen water supply lines, and water dripping from the ceiling of the garage and freezing all over our spare dining room chairs).

Monday night (Tuesday morning, really), upon our return from visiting family in Albany, I went into the basement to grab something from the office supply cabinet, and noticed a squishy wet feeling under my feet.... I haven't had time to pinpoint the leak, but I suspect that the rain in conjunction with the thaw while we were gone caused some water to seep through the foundation between the garage and the basement.  I pulled all of the sopping carpet up so the water could flow to the floor drain. The cement dried quickly (no further signs of water coming in).  The dehumidifier is running now, to help dry off the carpet.  We were fortunate in that there was no damage to anything that we had stored down there, but there were several things that were within inches of being in the water, including the box containing Heather's wedding dress, the bookshelf full of our lesser-used cookbooks, the computer, and some of the same dining room chairs that were slightly damaged last year.

Yesterday, Heather and I were teaching Hannah's Sunday School class.  For part of the class, three rooms come together for a music time (kids ages 3½ through 5½).  As a lead-in to Joy to the World, the couple leading the music asked the kids if any of them knew what was special about Christmas.  As should be expected, the first boy said "We get presents."  The second boy called on said "Santa comes."  No more hands after that, until Hannah realized that no one else was going to say what she knew.... "It's Jesus' birthday!"

Later in the day, after a few frustrating hours of the kids not listening and getting into all sorts of trouble, I mentioned that at this time of the year, most kids are on their best behavior, then asked Hannah if she knew why that would be?  Once again, without missing a beat, she replied "because it's Jesus' birthday!"  Well, it was hard for me to make a point out of "being on your best behavior to get presents" with that response... and it was hard not to smile at her understanding of Christmas at such a young age.

My five-year-old daughter knows why we celebrate Christmas.
How come the rest of the world doesn't get it?

It was one year ago this past Sunday that we signed up for our free account on geocaching.com (I upgraded to the "premium" account 7 months later, once I was sure we were going to enjoy the activity).  As you can see in our "Stats bar" to the right, we've done pretty good searching this past year!  We should break 400 finds the next time we go out.  Among the 392 currently found by us across 10 states, we were the first to find 9 of those.

We've yet to hide any caches, although we have several good ideas for sneaky containers and places in which to place them.  While our Garmin Nuvi has done well for us on the hunt, I think we'll wait until we have a more "reputable" GPS unit to get coordinates on. Die-hard geocachers would probably laugh about how we go hunting - but it's what we've got and it works very well for now!

If you're a geocacher, or if you join the geocaching community, be sure to add us as a friend!

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. :-)

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!

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!

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!