Roonie's Rough Morning

Calvin had his first experience driving in very thick fog.  And, unfortunately, it wasn't a great one. But fortunately, he didn't get far and most importantly no one was hurt.  Well, except poor Roonie.  This is how Roonie looked when we got her pulled out:

 

So, what did he hit, you ask?  A mailbox.  Yes, a mailbox.  But not just any old mailbox could've done that kind of hurtin' to poor ol' Roonie.  Calvin was so lucky to have hit a steel mailbox with a literal plow affixed to it.  I wanted to give you an idea of the mailbox, but this is the best resolution I could get from Google Earth.  The mailbox doesn't look like this anymore after the little altercation.

There are only 3 mailboxes on our road, and only one with a steel plow on it, and yet he still managed to connect.  Like I said, it was definitely his lucky day.  Thankfully we have awesome neighbors.  The owner of the mailbox just laughed and even helped pull the car out of the ditch.  Another neighbor down the road does body work (He's the one who resurrected Russ' truck after it was totaled nearly 3 years ago!) and was able to get all the parts he needed and have Roonie back to us in just over a week.  Here's Calvin's new and improved drivable and modified car!  Wondering if she might need renamed?  Possibly 'Whoonie" (white & maroon)?

We told Calvin that Uncle Scottie was the coolest kid in town and he drove a calico car (the "Illegal Regal") when he was in high school.  And it had 3 different colors! (Although technically, Calvin's also has 3 colors if you notice the silver rear view mirror.  No one is likely to notice this, though, when the super-shiny white door is blinding them.)  At any rate, our boy is back on the road and will have a new respect for fog from here on out. . .And for mailboxes that can plow through your car.  Again, I'm mostly just thanking God that my boys were totally fine that morning!

Calvin's Belated-Birthday Bash

 In all fairness, Calvin's birthday party is ALWAYS belated, but this year it was even more belated than usual with my Guatemala trip and work schedule.  But better late than never, right?  Typically the party is the 1st or 2nd weekend in January, and this year we snuck it in the final week of the month.  We thought it would be fun to do his party during the Chiefs/Bengals AFC Championship game.  This is the 4th straight year the Chiefs have hosted this game, and we're pretty proud of our boys.  So in attendance we had a couple of Patrick Mahomes, a Tyreek Hill, and a Travis Kelce.  We were well-represented, I'd say.  We had some delicious smoked pulled pork and lots of game-day favorites to eat.

Calvin has had Chiefs-themed birthday cakes A LOT, and he assumed that's what he would get this year also.  I told him that this would be one of the most unique birthday cakes he's ever had, nothing generic like another Chiefs cake. . . This year he got a Roonie cake!  Every 16-year-old should have a car on their cake, right?  And what's better than having a picture of your actual car? Especially when you have one as cool as Roonie! (For those of you who don't remember what Calvin's car looks like, I've included a picture from my post last spring.)

I'm not going to say he loved the cake, but it made him chuckle a little anyway.

Singing to the birthday boy so we could all have some dessert.

And he opened his gifts at halftime.  He did just fine with a few gift cards and a new big-boy life jacket. 

A picture with his godparents before they had to go.

So the Chiefs showed that a 21-3 lead wasn't safe as the game went into overtime for the 2nd week in a row.  Unfortunately this one didn't have the same happy ending for Chiefs fans and the Bengals managed to put a dark cloud over Calvin's 16th birthday for the second time in a month.  Oh well, it was still a great afternoon celebrating our boy, and there's always next year!

Tax Day is Here -- Rejoice!

I don't really feel like I can complain about Tax Day being postponed to April 18 this year.  After all, last year it was delayed a month.  And in 2020, it was delayed a whopping THREE MONTHS. But this is my blog, so I will go ahead and complain.  Because this year April 15 fell on Good Friday and my husband should have been a free man on Easter weekend.  But no, one of the 3 times in our marriage that Tax Day should've been done before Easter, it was delayed until Easter Monday because Washington DC observes Emancipation Day. (And not that Emancipation Day isn't a cause worth celebrating, but why don't we actually celebrate it then??)  Ok, rant over.  He survived, even if it did mean working 18+ hours a day those last couple.  Yesterday was his actual first day of freedom so we made a "date day" out of it and went shopping and out to lunch (Chile's, romantic!).  We both gave up chips for Lent, so we would've been perfectly happy just eating chips and salsa for our lunch!

Then, after Oliver's track meet in Garnett, we had Calvin bring the other kids and meet us in Ottawa at PrimeTime Grille, a place we've been wanting to try for awhile. (We thought Calvin would bring Dusty, our old van, but he was brave and brought Roonie on I-35 -- thankfully, Roonie remembered how to drive over 30 mph and did just fine.)

Violet usually really dislikes going out to eat at restaurants, but this one was great for her.  We had a huge corner booth and it wasn't too loud or crowded.  She ordered her mac and cheese and Dr. Pepper completely by herself!  I'm so proud of how well she is speaking, even to strangers like our waiter.  And the food was delicious!  We'll definitely be going back.

It was a really great night out with the family, celebrating this hard-working man we are blessed to have as the head of our household.  Congratulations on completing another tax season, babe!

New Company Car

Twice in the past 10 years I've blogged about getting a new Honda Odyssey, when we bought Dusty in 2014 and Luna in 2021.  Well, this will be my 3rd blog about getting a new Honda Odyssey.  Let me give you a little background as to why we would trade in a car that's only 3 years old.  You see, when Dusty was not much older than that, her doors started breaking and we invested quite a bit to get them working again. So we decided when Luna's doors started getting a little sluggish/glitchy, the kindest thing to do would probably be to let her go live with a nice Johnson County family who wouldn't abuse her with gravel roads any more.  And when we got a great offer for her trade-in, it was a done deal.  We headed to McCarthy Honda and brought home our new van, the "newest" car we've ever owned with only 4 miles on the odometer!

Isn't she perty??  We're still working on a name, as our cars are typically named using their color, and we already have a "Pearl" in our driveway with Calvin's car (Syd's/Joy's old car; not sure I ever blogged about his big purchase when Roonie bit the dust?).  Anyway, if you have any name suggestions for this "Platinum White Pearl" beaut, let me know.

Violet was SO excited for the new car and told everyone she saw about it!

This car is basically exactly the same as our previous two, except that it is one trim package higher.  We couldn't find the same trim package ANYWHERE, and while I didn't really care about leather or a sunroof, I guess I have them now!  Other upgrades from Luna are more USBs throughout the cabin, a powerlift tailgate (this is something I'm actually excited about), memory on the driver seat (i.e. it adjusts as soon as the key fob enters the car), and remote start. 

So here's our current driveway situation.  We have Calvin's Pearl, Oliver's Bluey, the Truck, Dusty (living up her name, as usual), and New-Van-Name-TBD.  I plan to continue driving Dusty back and forth to work to save the new van the gravel (and miles). She has 230K miles and still drives great, although the doors don't work (again). But she's certainly fine when it's just me.

I'm really excited about my new Company Car and I'm thankful for all of the memories made with Luna over the past 3 years!  In that time, we put 77,000 miles on her and she made trips to Texas, Colorado (with Syd), Arizona (with Jack), lots of Lake and Branson trips, and the everyday stuff like driving to work and church. Hopefully she is already home with a nice family :)  Here's to more memories made in our third Honda Odyssey!

Seeing the Bright Side

 The entire high school football team at Wellsville was quarantined a couple of weeks ago because one of their players tested positive for Covid.  Nevermind that Calvin has had a broken foot and hasn't actually been anywhere near the player in question.  So the past 2 Friday evenings have been PERFECT football weather, but there were no Friday Night Lights to be seen at our school. We decided to make the most of the situation and had Calvin take us for a twilight cruise in Roonie.  We hadn't been out to Pork Chop Hill at sunset in awhile, and it didn't disappoint! 

Evelyn was staying the night with a friend, so missed out on our family cruise, but the rest of us had a great time!

I love the crosses set up on the hill.  Feels like Easter with that sun shining behind the cross.

Speaking of crosses and sunshine, this morning at Praise in the Parking Lot, the sun coming up over our church was so pretty.  I'm very thankful for our church family and that we've been able to continue worshiping together throughout this pandemic.  

I pray that Russ and I will always be able to help our children see the bright side and find something to be thankful for in every situation.  Football games cancelled?  Enjoy a gorgeous sunset that we'd have otherwise missed!  A pandemic keeps us from gathering in our sanctuary for church services on Sunday mornings?  Enjoy God's beauty in creation while we worship outside! There is always, always something to be thankful for. You just have to be watching for it.

Devote yourselves to prayer, being watchful and thankful. Colossians 4:2

Calvaroonie and His Maroonie

Grandpa Kermit has nicknames for all of his grandkids and Calvin has always been Calvaroonie. The "roonie" nickname has been used for Jackaroonie on occasion also, but probably the biggest use is Grandma's 2002 Oldsmobile Alero that Syd lovingly named Maroonie (very creative name for a maroon car).  When Syd left for college Maroonie sadly sat in Scott & Joy's driveway for a year or so before Scott asked us if we wanted it.  We decided that the price was right for it to be the perfect first car for Calvin!  Our newest driver worked hard getting Maroonie looking her best.  The inside was scrubbed and vacuumed, and then we took her through the car wash.

We had to have a little work done because none of the windows worked, but now she's good to go!  As much as he hates to admit it, I think he's kind of excited about his "new" car.

It's funny, because my first car was a hand-me-down Oldsmobile also (a 1978 baby blue Cutlass).  I always joked that I wanted a car that was younger than me.  Well, Calvin's Oldsmobile is actually 3 years older than him, but somehow it seems WAY nicer than my first car!  This is partly because his car has a functioning air conditioner, speedometer, odometer, gas gauge and radio -- all things my Cutlass was missing.  And Russ' first car, a 1978 Buick Regal (the "illegal Regal") had 3 different colors because of various fender-benders it had been involved in.  All this to say, Calvin should be feeling pretty good about his first ride!

Back to School: Tear-Jerker Edition

 The kids have officially started another school year.  Now typically the beginning of the new school year doesn't get me nearly as emotional as the ending each year.  I always kind of look forward to the getting everyone back in a schedule, more dinners at home, time for me to actually catch up on housework, and fall sports starting up.  But this year is hitting me like a ton of bricks.  Evelyn is starting her final year of elementary (I can't believe there won't be a Dwyer kiddo at WES next year!); Violet is starting her final year of Middle School, and *gulp* Calvin is starting his final year of High School! (I'm thankful that at least Oliver is keeping it boring for me.) I knew this day was coming, but I've still been kind of a wreck the past week. Before we get to actual first-day pictures, I had to share a couple of sweet ones of Evie and her friends from the back-to-school pool party last weekend.

Evelyn's FINAL back-to-school/meet-the-teacher night was one of the first times we were actually meeting the teacher for the first time.  She has a brand-new, fresh-out-of-school teacher who seems really great!

Mrs. Harvey even had this adorable background wall with photo-props for pictures.

Got her stuff put away and she's all ready!

I can't believe this is the last time I'll have a child standing by this sign for the first day of school :(

Without further ado, here are the first day of school pictures! (Which are kind of fake because Oliver and Violet didn't actually start until Friday. I made them all get up and take them together and thankfully my kids are awesome and humored me!)

And a couple of bonus pics just because my girls are so beautiful. . .

Miss Violet, our big 8th grader, at the Middle School (which is just finishing up construction):

Pics by the high school were a little different because, while close, the school isn't quite done yet.  I had to improvise a bit.  It's looking really good, though!

Calvin had to be gone by 7:00 a.m. as a mentor the first day.  When he drove off for his last-ever first day of school, I cried yet again. (And by the way, I forgot to post about his big purchase this summer -- Roonie was on her last leg and so Calvin bought Pearl from Syd!  He now has the second-nicest car in our driveway.)  I still see that adorable little kindergartner when I look at my boy.  Russ has to remind me that Calvin is so awesome at this age!  We are so lucky to be his parents.

Here's a collage of all 13 of his First Day of School pictures:

Ready or not, here we come!  Even more so than usual, I'm going to try to be very intentional this year about enjoying every second, soaking it all in, and being present for all of these "lasts." I know it will be a great year, and we have SO MUCH to be thankful for!

Calvin, Oliver, Violet, and Evelyn, I love you more than you'll ever know!  I pray that you always stay rooted and built up in the faith Jesus gave you in your baptism, and always have a heart of thanksgiving.

"As you received Christ Jesus the Lord, so walk in Him, rooted and built up in Him and established in the faith just as you were taught, abounding in thanksgiving." Colossians 2:6-7