THE BORUPS TAKE OHIO

Back in 1984, a movie came out called The Muppets Take Manhattan. 

Kind of a quirky little music-filled story of a charming and eccentric cast of characters who travel to New York to make it big in the world of theater and end up finding love, true friendship, real happiness, and a crazy story to tell.

This last weekend I had front row tickets to the show The Borups Take Ohio.

Kind of a quirky, fun-filled couple of days with a charming and eccentric cast of characters who travel to Ohio for a fun little sibling weekend get together and end up finding roller coasters, pizza, ear wax, and a crazy story to tell.

Oh my, what do you even say about these 3? 

We had so much fun with this crazy crowd!  Stephanie showed up Thursday, Steve and Greg joined Friday evening, and it was all laughs, smiles, and fun for the entire 5 days they were here.  Our house felt so quiet and empty when they left.  

Before the boys got there, we took Steph downtown to check out the Scioto Mile, try some Indian food at North Market, and satisfy that sweet tooth with some Jeni's ice cream (Naturally. Is there anywhere else?).  I opted out of the morning jog through the metro park.  I hate to intrude on some good brother/sister bonding time.  

Oh, and also, I hate to run.

But they had a good time with that.  Those parks are so pretty.

We also hit up Dewey's pizza one night for dinner.  

Steve and Greg got in late Friday night, but that didn't hold anyone back from some action-packed, fun-filled Saturday plans.  Those crazy Borups all got up nice and early in the morning, and the four of them hit the road, bound for Sandusky. 

Yup, you guessed it,

Cedar Point for the win!

And a win it was!  I wasn't there, so I can't say for sure.  But there sure wasn't a disappointed face to be found in the crowd when they all came dragging back in late Saturday night.  

Annddddd... I think the pictures speak for themselves.

And what were the girls and I doing all day Saturday while the Borup Party Train ran all over Cedar Point? 

Well you know we weren't sitting around bored.  My two best pals and I went out and about for the day to do a little of what we do best.  We added another line on our fun-filled "firsts" list.  

It was a beautifully warm, nice fall day.  In fact, it felt a lot like an apple-picking, corn-tossing, play at the park kind of day.  So that's exactly what we did!  The girls loved apple picking.  That's a first for us that may just need to become a fall tradition.  And the new metro park playground we found might also deserve another visit or two.  They were in heaven!

Cedar Point may be awesome, but by FAR, the highlight of the whole 5 days was when Steph pulled out the ear wax removal squirt bottle she had brought along with her, and we all watched Tim clean disgustingly large globs of ear wax out of her and Greg's ears.

Now here is a standard of entertainment to aspire to.

No better time has ever been had by anyone, ever!

I mean it when I say, the Borups know how to have a good time.

(*Note From the Author: Though I considered omitting evidence of this particular part of the visit ever taking place, for the sake of keeping this record historically accurate and complete, I decided to take the sarcastic approach and include it after all.  Let the record show however that this was NOT actually the highlight of the trip, ear wax is NOT a necessary part of real fun, the Borups DO in fact know how to have a really good (and very normal) time, and this is NOT indicative of the type of entertainment that typically comes about during family get-togethers!   

Lest you all think we're a bunch of crazy weirdos...) 

Jokes aside though, this family really does have the cream of the crop.  

Tim had to go back to work early Monday morning, so I had these three all to myself for a few hours before flights were ready to leave.  They're just fun!  You couldn't ask for a more awesome group of people to call family.

Tim is so lucky and SO very blessed to have them as siblings.

And I am so lucky, and so SO very blessed to have them now too!  :)

Come back soon!

PS: Yes, we did sneak in another trip to Dewey's for more pizza, because yes, it is that good!

THE GOOD, THE BAD, AND THE BEST

Well today was one of those days. 

You know, the ones where you get to feel all the feels and go to bed emotionally exhausted?

This morning McKenna and I got Brinlee off to school and then decided to head over to the library.  Our stash of books was getting a little old, and an outing to the library is always a favorite.  Plus it was a story-time day with McKenna's favorite story-time guy, Zac.  She thinks he is SO funny!

So we went to story time, then we played with the toys, and read some books, and picked out a nice stack to take home, and McKenna was a darling angel, and we basically had the perfect time!  

Then we got out to the car,

and it wouldn't start.

I don't think it's any big secret that I've been a bit irritated with poor Bertha the Blue Van for quite some time now.  She has been the best van!  Lots of good miles and memories in the books with her.

Buutttt,  it has been LOTS of miles, and she is getting old, and it's definitely starting to show.  Lately she seems to be just one problem after another, and it has became a little annoying, a little inconvenient, and more than a little expensive.  And it's always me that seems to suffer! Every time Tim drives the van it seems to work just fine.  But I've been stranded with a tired and burned-out Bertha more than once now, and today was kind of the last straw.

Luckily we had the stroller in the back of the car, so I loaded up McKenna and all our books, called Tim and left a VERY unhappy "I wash my hands of this, you better deal with it and I never want to drive that car again!" message, and we started the walk home.  

I can think of very few times that I have been that irritated.  I didn't have a mirror on me to check for sure, but I'm pretty positive I had literal smoke coming out my ears.  I was so mad I was on the verge of tears.  I wouldn't say I was walking per say, more like stomping and huffing along, cursing that poor van under my breath and thinking about the chocolate ice cream at home in the freezer that I was going to burry myself in as soon as we got home.  

I decided to take the route that walks us by the duck pond (another favorite outing), and not long into the neighborhood I realized that my mumbling and grumbling had been drowning out McKenna's little voice.  I asked her what she was talking about, and she said "Mom, look!  Doze are such bweefadul cover-fo weaves ev-we-where!"  

(Translation: Mom, look! Those are such beautiful colorful leaves everywhere!)

And she was right, they were popping up everywhere!  Not on every tree yet.  But several of them were definitely starting to dress out of their Fall side of closet.  And it was bweefadul!

 

So we slowed down to a bit more relaxed of a walk, and we collected, leaves, and pine-cones, and said hi to the ducks, and got home to that chocolate ice cream smiling and in a much better mood.

The van is currently being towed to the mechanic.  

And I am still irritated about it.

And I still plan to take over driving the gold car.

But boy am I thankful that it wasn't raining today, 

and for beautiful fall leaves starting to dot the trees, 

and for this amazing, fun, happy, sweet, perfect little partner I have to bring a smile to my face and make even my not-so-perfect days feel just about right.

She's the best!

SLSS VOL 6: MARSHMALLOWS, MOON MODELS, AND MCDONALDS

BACKYARD BONFIRE

Ok "bonfire" might be a bit of a generous term here.  We built a fire one night in our grill.  Brinlee had gotten her hands on a star finder she was dying to try out, and neither of the girls had ever had a s'more before.  AND we had daddy home.  It was meant to be.

ECLIPSE DAY

There was a solar eclipse, and we celebrated!!

The girls were SO excited for eclipse day they could hardly stand it! A week or two before the big day I took them to the library and got as many books as we could find about the moon and the sun and the planets and what an eclipse is, and these two practically memorized them.  Then a day or two before the big day we made models of the star players (sun, moon, and earth).

Then, when the big day came, we ventured to COSI to spend the day.  They had all kinds of activities there to do while we waited for the eclipse to start.  It was actually a lot of fun, and the girls loved it!  We made and launched mini model rockets, we drew and colored our solar system, we acted out the eclipse, we felt how different gravity would be on different planets, we built stuff, simulated space ship flying, splashed in fountains, and sat on a space potty.

This is moon shaped sandwich, because

Eclipse!!

When the eclipse got going the girls were mesmerized! Columbus was not in a zone of totality, and it didn't work out to make the trip to anywhere different (maybe next time!).  But we still got pretty good peak coverage, and we were still completely dazzled.  It was so neat!  

For quite a while the girls just kept saying "Look! It looks like the moon is taking a bigger and bigger bite from the sun, like a cookie!"  

Then they realized just how slow moving the process was...

and then the clouds came and we had a hard time seeing it.  Big thumbs down.  But it was still magical, and the day was SO fun!  When Tim got home that night, he got quite an earful from these two about how amazing "eclipse day" was.

And he got quite an earful from me about how awesome these girls looked in those glasses!  :)

I had no idea how much I would love watching my kids learn and experience new things, but I do totally love it!  It's definitely in my top 10 favorite things about being a mama. 

And did I already mention that I love being out and about with my two favorite pals?!

ALL READY TO GO

You get your first child's kindergarten school supply list in the mail.

What do you do next? 

     1. Have a mini "oh my goodness this is actually happening!" panic attack

     2. Have a not-so-mini "mama's not ready for this!" meltdown

     3. Get really excited because she is really excited

     4. Go shopping!!!

The answer actually is the hidden answer #5: All of the above, in that order.

After I got over the panic attack, 
and the meltdown,
I decided we could go ahead and just be excited.  So we picked a day, miss Brin spent the morning putting little empty checkmark boxes next to everything she needs, we took sissy to a friend's house to play for a while, and then we ventured out for a little mommy and me date!  We did our school supply shopping, some clothes shopping, and then grabbed some lunch. It was the perfect day with the perfect little soon-to-be-kindergartener.

And now she's all ready to go!