Back from Staycation

 Our vacation at home is over and we are back to "real life," which we never really left anyway. :) I am thankful that coming out of our staycation I am feeling much more relaxed and less overwhelmed. Overall, I think we had a great vacation. We didn't stop school entirely, but put in a lot of activities we could count as field trips.

The only hiccup to our plan was the major water disaster we had on the second floor of our house the first day of vacation! I'm afraid that turned the vacation into a bit of a work-cation for poor Michael who had to put in countless hours pulling up carpet, drying it out for a week, replacing two areas with new linoleum, hiring carpet stretchers and cleaners, and many trips to Lowes to buy needed items.

The good things coming out of this are: new flooring in two areas! clean carpets in several rooms (!!!!) and another opportunity to see God provide for our needs and help us through hiccups in life. I still hope that somehow Michael will get some more rest.......

A few pictures to wrap up our vacation:

I took myself off to Goodwill pay by the pound one day, feeling somewhat deprived after my self-enforced ban of Goodwill for several months to get the budget on track. :) However, I managed to spend only $7 and came away with an entire cartload of finds: sweaters to felt, clothes for most of us, two really nice jackets to keep or sell, a lovely book for Laura, some vintage-looking fabric, a silk scarf, a pretty embroidered tablecloth and another yellow tablecloth for fall, a vintage tea towel, fake apples for decoration, and a down vest.

One morning I took the kids over to the Art Museum to look at art relevant to ancient history. We all liked the Egyptian and African art the best.

We went out to dinner at Panera one evening. The kids sat at their own tables and had a grand time.

Of course the Feast of the Hunter's Moon was a highlight:

It was really nice to have Michael free on the weekends with plenty of time to read to the children on Sunday afternoons.

We made our first visit to the Indiana Historical Society and enjoyed all of the exhibits. We "walked back in time" to Prohibition.

Also to the time when the polio vaccines were first distributed.

And we also visited the kitchen of a Jewish immigrant from Poland around 1950.

Three of us took a little class on repairing damaged antique papers.

How about this picture from the Indiana State Fair in 1931?!!!! It was fun to learn so much more about our city through stories and pictures.

James had a great birthday with numerous celebrations.

He had pumpkin whoopie pies on his real birthday.

Then we had owl cupcakes the next day with the neighbors.

yay for good friends in the neighborhood!

We took a trip to the zoo with Grandpa and had fun looking at all the animals. The baby elephant was adorable!

The flamingos were pretty awesome!

The kids had their last soccer games of the season. We loved the league we joined this fall (Upward in Zionsville).

We also visit four different churches. It was especially nice to attend church with Emily and Craig.

Then James got his proper cake on Sunday:

Pumpkin cake with cream cheese frosting (GF too!), yum, yum, yum!

The living room took on a bit of a transformation in the midst of the complete chaos the rest of the house was in due to repairs. We were given a bookshelf and I made some pillows (not seen) and redecorated the mantle. The room is looking very cozy and warm right now.

We didn't make it to Eagle Creek for a hike but I was thankful to drive through the park several times and always smile to see the deer so close at hand.

Now we are back to full-time school and work. Laura has been diagnosed with croup and is pretty sick with a high fever and nasty cough. Hopefully meds will get this under control quickly. We have less than four weeks to the wedding now so life seems quite full.