How you can tell she is back...

Admitedly I did my best while my wife was in Romania, but keeping up the house, was just plain beyond me. I tried, but even the ways that I mopped the floor (yeah I did that) left streaks of dirt, and as it turned out I used a very old dirty mop. The Trip leader had told my wife and the team, many of whom were leaving children, That if you return and everyone is alive and reasonably healthy, then your husband has done a good job…SUCCESS, no one died, and we all seem to be ok.
That said however there are several ways that you can tell that she is finally home, and I wanted to share them with you.
1) Dinner is no longer from a box and served around 8:00 but rather is delicious and nutritious home made food, hot and ready to eat at 6:30. Her sister made us a few meals, and knowing how we like to eat, also threw in a bunch of fresh veggies from her garden for us to enjoy. But even so, I could not have prepared it like this.



2) There are fresh flowers on the counter, and the kitchen smells like bread, and candles… ( you don’t want to know what it smelled like before.

3) A family excursion was planned to go blueberry picking (our activities while she was gone were seldom practical)

4) The fridge is full of healthy food.

5) I am HAPPY!!! I wasn’t unhappy while she was away, but I wasn’t my normal chipper optimistic self either.

Case in point, I love and appreciate my wife. I used to say that I understood that she did the cooking and cleaning, but generalizing it like that doesn’t really do it justice, I am a lousy housekeeper, but we did have a lot of fun.

10 Days of Romania Day 9: ICE CREAM

I scream, you scream... you know the rest.

Today's paperchain item was going out to ice cream. since we are staying at camp this week, I had to do some research as I did not know of any places locally.

It turns out that Midges right up the street is fantastic. They have a little shack style shop set up, with all kinds of colorful ice cream shaped lights, and plenty of flavors on the hand written board, that looked more like a scrapbook page in progress than an actual menu.

The boys picked their flavors and loved every minute of it. Dont let anyone tell you that you cant go out for ice cream in a thunderstorm, it just tastes that much better, plus there are no lines!

Mommy flies into Boston tomorrow...

10 DOR Day 9: Shave and a Haircut

My wife comes home tomorrow, and my softball team was eliminated from the playoffs lastnight... what do they have in common?? Time to shave the beard.

I dont usually have one, just hadnt touched it in 2 weeks. I decided to have some fun with it.

So the paper chain item today was to go to jungle lodge. It is a fun filled day that my parents do for the grandkids each summer. They live in Ecuador, so the are constantly around the Jungle. They take the kids on hikes through the woods, do crafts, boats, swimming, and just have a good old time. I dont have pictures as I was not there, but maybe I will be able to post some of it later.

10 Days of Romania Day 8: Smores

The morning started off simple with bagels and fruit salad. Afterward we put all out stuff into the tent and organized it.. you will never guess what they wanted to do next… yep swim. We spent several hours in the water, then several more.

The jumping off the float is something new this year. Last year they were still a little timid in the water, that has all changed.

We burned the old docks all day which made a great bed of coals for the smores at night which was the paperchain item for the day. Then it was leftover sparklers from the 4th of July.

I have changed the format a bit, so here is a photo collage of our day.

Mommy comes home in 2 days!!!!

10 Days of Romania Day 7: Campout

Today we got up Early at camp to the news that my sister had arrived. She lives near Philladelphia, and drove all night. She made cheesy eggs and blueberry pancakes for breakfast.

Breakfast conversation was dominated by the Requests, can we swim now? we said at 10 am, and the requests kept coming right to the minute. We did come down to the water and played for about 2 hours til noon. The boys took turns getting thrown up in the air as the request "higher, higher" rang out over the lake.

peanut butter and jelly for lunch I went to an afternoon softball game and got back in time for am impromptu football game before dinner. Burgers and corn on the grill for dinner... YUM.

The paper chain item was a camp out... so after dinner we started setting up the tent.
Once we were ready, we went inside for battleship and puzzles. early bed time for all especially me as I havent slept enough lately. Liam crashed almost immediatey, and Ashton and I had some good tent conversation. Ahhh the sweet outdoors!

10 Days of Romania Day 6: Rootbeer Floats

Day 6 was a TON of driving. The boys were able to go to Grammy's house and spend the day in the pool. which was good since it was over 100 degrees out.

After work, I picked them up and dropped them off at the lake. Their Cousins were visiting. The paper chain item was root beer floats, so they elected to share with everyone.


I went to a late softball game in NH then home, to get duncan then back out to the lake.. for those who dont know the geography, I drove about 163 miles, and got back to camp around 3:30 am.

All around fun day, now to enjoy the weekend.

Heatwave Part 2

10 Days of Romania Day 5: Heat Wave

If you haven’t heard, there is a heat wave running through the east. I believe it is the same one that just poured through the Midwest this week, YUCK!
I am ok with heat, the humidity is high but manageable, but that doesn’t mean that I am going to have the kiddos sleeping in a 85 degree bedroom.




There is a breeze, but it is a hot breeze, just look at their faces while stopping for a quick photo… it was windy, sunny, and they were not too happy about it. Ashton informed me that the sun was in his eyes making it difficult to smile, and Liam said "Oh man is it windy out here can you even believe it"



















I spent my lunch break today at the grocery store. What a great idea one of my coworkers gave me. You do all the shopping and it takes up no time out of your evening. Thankfully we have a Refrigerator here in the office that I could put the stuff that needed to stay cool in. The cart is full of healthy veggies, hummus, milk, oj, ect, because I didn’t want the boys to have to fill up on junk. Inspired by my healthy shopping, I decided to get myself a good old fashioned fast food lunch at Arbys… oops.


The paper chain activity was a new puzzle. This would be great if the table in their playroom where we do puzzles wasn’t a literal 95 degrees. We decided to go out and get drinks while we turned on the AC in the office, and moved the table to there.






The boys picked out powerades, despite the sugar content, I was happy they were staying hydrated. They drank them while I made a salad out of the veggies I had purchased. I also got a loaf of Garlic bread which was great. All that combined with the Casserole a friend dropped off and a cold shipyard, made for a great dinner.



























After dinner, The room had cooled enough for the puzzle assembling to start. Liam told me multiple times that “I can find the right pieces, because I have really good eyelashes!” We did complete the puzzle, although I seem to have lost the picture of the final product. The best part was that it GLOWS IN THE DARK.
After the boys went to bed, I had a surprise visit from Heathers sister. She crashed here because she works in town where we live, but lives far away. After getting out of work at 11 it is easier to just sleep at our house. I bored her for an hour just talking… it is amazing how quickly you start to miss grown up conversation.
The boys had crashed on the floor in the puzzle room because it was now nice and cool, so she slept up there with them as well. They were mighty excited to tell me this morning, “Daddy, Auntie Nicole came over to have a sleepover with us”
Morning came far too soon, but it is almost the weekend, and we will be headed tonight to our camp on the lake to cool off, and sleep!

10 Days of Romania Day 4: Sailboats and hotdogs

During the day today I went to the beach I usually do. It was really crowded in the parking lot which I thought was odd, until I realized that the Junior Olympics sailing competition was taking place. I had to take a few shots of that.






























In the evening it was a nice balanced meal of hot dogs and mixed vegggies in a home made cheese sauce. I was pretty proud of how good it was. We picked up an additional air conditioner as well. Although we have 1, it is not nearly large enough to help on the 3rd floor where the playroom is. This will help with the projects I want to get done up there, and also allow them to utilize their playroom again.

The paperchain was another Wii night, I thought they would find it boring since they had already done it. The complete opposite! they were soo happy, which was great because I was able to install the AC, do laundry, run the dishwasher, vacuum, and walk Duncan (props to any single parents out there, you are beasts!)

I was able to text my wife as well, the trip is going great, and she is doing well. A few more nights until we head out to camp for the rest of the time... you will like those posts!

10 Days of Romania Day 3: Sleepover

The boys are at grammys house, after she took them to see CARS 2 tonight they got to have a sleepover there. I am not going to lie, I am very grateful for Duncan tonight as I am not at all used to living alone, or having an empty house.

10 Days of Romania Day 2: minigolf

Yesterday morning went off without a hitch. The fact that the boys wake up so early is playing to my advantage since we have to leave a lot earlier so I can drop them off at Grammys house before going to work.

It was after work though when the fun began. We had decided to get a pizza for dinner, “it should have pineapples” I was told “and pepperoni” Luckily for me a can of pineapples is cheap and easily added to the pizza (which I almost forgot to do)

Before we could get the pizza though I asked the boys if they would like to do something special. “we are going to build with lincoln logs tonight, that’s what was on the paperchain this morning” Well obviously we were going to do that, I asked if they would like to do something additional, I only thought of this because we were about 200 feet from the entrance to the minigolf course that they have been begging me to go to for the last few months.
And so we went. And had a blast. 18 holes of non stop fun.

When we got home , They got out the lincoln logs, which they weren’t actually, but they were something like them, and they are really cool!. They played and built. Liam created a “standing Y”

I am thankful that 2 nights in a row there has been soccer on TV, they really enjoy it, it is clean, and they both crashed quickly.

Tonight they have a sleepover at Grammys house, and I have a night alone… sounds like fun, but I will likely just go to bed early. It is possible though that I will use the time to get a bunch done around the house.

PICTURES OF MINIGOLF BELOW!