Playing in the leaves

I can't believe that fall is actually here. It just kind of creaped up on us. The weather here was all beautiful and within one week it went really cold and fall hit. I didn't even get to enjoy the leaves changing color on my tree this year. SAD. Anyways...here are the girls having a fun time in the leaves.

Macie jumping in

Throwing them in the air

Addie getting brave enough to enter.

Throwing them in the air.

Bathroom Redo

About a year and a half ago our house had water leaking into it due to extremely heavy and large icicle buildup. The insurance company came and told us that the water was coming from no where and it would never leak again. They told us to just paint over it and not worry about it.
Flash forward 8 months and our tiles under our window start to pop out of the wall. We leave them for a few months hoping that they would just fix themselves. When they didn't change and just kept getting worse, Geoff took a tile off to see what was happening. Well, the wall basically caved in on itself and there was mold behind it all. So...I called the insurance company telling them all that had happened and they reopened the old claim, so, long story short...we have a new bathroom on insurance. Yea for us!!!
The project started last Thursday and was done by Saturday. They replaced the tub, took all the tiles off of the walls and put drywall up instead, ripped the peal and stick tile off the floor (along with the old tile that was underneath that) and put in new tile, took everything that was in the shower down and put tile in the shower. They added a fan, moved the electrical outlet and added a vanity with a new mirror for more storage.
During the whole redo, we had a few technical difficulties. When they were taking out the bathtub it caused a few issues in other rooms of the house. Our computer (which shares a wall with the tub) had about 15 holes in it from the nails popping when they pulled the tub out. Our downstairs bathroom ceiling (which is right below this bathroom) had a nice area that was popping out like it was going to be a big hole. (I thought that all of this was bad) Then came the next morning when I woke up, walked downstairs and saw towels on top of the fridge, my purse on the counter "airing out" and a bucket in the bathtub. My first thought was "oh no, you have got to be kidding me" mostly because my purse was COMPLETELY soaked!! It had had water dripping on it all night!!!! ARGGG!!! So, the bathtub had been leaking all night and no one knew. The water dripped clear down to the very basement (that's 2 floors!!!) Our contractor said that everything would be ok and that it all looked good. He had to patch the ceiling in the kitchen (that is where it was leaking into) and I had a lot of cleaning up to do!! Let's just say that we are glad that it is over and we now have an absolutely beautiful bathroom that I am totally in love with!!
This whole process was so fun being able to choose out all of the tile and vanity and everything else. It is so gratifying to see it all come together and actually look great!!! It gets me all excited for that day when I get to choose everything out for our future home!!!

Here is what the bathroom used to look like:


Here is what the bathroom looks like now (the pictures don't do it justice)

The shower

Baseball Game

Last Friday we got to go to an Indians Baseball Game. It was sooo fun. Our seats were with a bunch of other dental students. They are ok seats, but still kind of far out. About half way through the game my friend MaryPat called me and told me they were there too and they had gotten tickets through her husbands law firm. They were only 4 rows back from the dugout and had a ton of seats by them. So.... we ditched our seats and went down to sit with them!!! It was a party!! There is such a huge difference between sitting up high to down low!! I don't know if I can ever go up high again after knowing how much fun the lower field is!! Thanks Marypat and Greg for such a fun time!!

Macie does not look happy here because she isn't! She cried most of the game. It was to noisy for her. She didn't like the cheering, the talking, or the fireworks. Oh well. Hopefully she gets over this soon because life sure would be more fun for her if she wasn't so scared.

Barnum Family Reunion

This is the last part of our trip out West. Sorry it has taken me so long to blog these, but the pictures have been a bit of pain to download and file.

Anyways, Geoff's side of the family had our First ever reunion. It was soooo fun!! Our sister in law's family has a cabin in Park City so that is where we stayed. All I can say is relaxing, beautiful, perfect weather, fun! It was so fun to get together with everyone and see you all again. We can't wait until the next time. Here is a rundown of what we did. (warning: lot's of pictures)

The girls on the swingset

Family picture in the hammockEverybody playing Bocce BallMost of the family took a little drive to this beautiful lake. Here is Geoff, Macie and Lauren playing in the water. Heather and I stayed behind because of sleeping kids. We headed up to Park City to try and do the zip lines and slides. Here is Macie on the Merry Go Round.Here is the rest of us on the ski lift. As we were getting on the ski lift the worker said "just so you know, it might start raining on you." We were thinking..um..ok. So we get on the lift and about half way up, it starts pouring rain on us. So, we get to the top and wait for a suburban to come and pick us up to take us back down to the bottom because they had closed everything. Lame!Oh well I guess. At least we were able to get a refund for all of the tickets and Macie had a good time on the rides that she did. And in Brocks words "at least we got to ride the ski lift, that was pretty cool."

We played a family game of minute to win it. Here is Grandpa in the action. We all thought that this was either genius or cheating :), either way, he won.Here is just a really cute picture of Macie.We did family pictures while we were there. Here are grandma and grandpa with all of the grandkids before we left.

Here is Geoff and all of his siblings (Jay, Heather, Geoff, Troy)Here are all of the grandkids at the picture spot. This was sooo funny, because by this point Addie and Lauren were totally done. I am pretty sure that we did not get one picture with either of them smiling. At one point, Lauren was picking her nose and Addie was lifting up her shirt finding her belly button. Hilarious!!!! Here is the rest of us trying to get all of the kids to smile. HAHA. I don't know what was funnier watching us or the kids.We also went to this really great pool while there. It was so great because Macie and Addie could do anything they wanted. Here I am jumping off of the high diving board.Here's Geoff diving off the low dive. It looks like he is going to belly flop...but I promise you, he doesn't.Here is Addie swimming. They had a water slide and let anyone go down it who wanted to. You could hold your kids or they could down by themselves with a life jacket on or without and you could just catch them at the bottom. Awesome. Macie was in heaven. Here she is at the top of the water slide.Here she is coming down with GeoffHere she is at the bottom. She ended up going down all by herself and loved it. We couldn't get her away from the slide. Addie also went down with Geoff a few times and actually liked it. It was a ton of fun.

Thanks Barnums for such a fun time!! We really can't wait to do it again! It was the perfect ending to our trip!!

Blue Angels

Yesterday we went downtown with some friends to see the air show. Every year on Labor Day Cleveland has an air show with either the Navy or Airforce flying. This year it was the Navy Blue Angels. It was sooooo cool. It is soooo amazing how 4-6 planes can be so in sinc and together without missing a beat. They were flying right at each other at some points and at the last minute would turn so they didn't hit. It was INSANE!! And really noisy. We haven't gone to this in years past becuase Macie has an issue with loud noises, but this year we decided that we didn't really care and just wanted to go and see them. So we went and we sure are glad that we did. The girls actually did better than we thought. And although Macie was saying the whole time that she just wanted to go home, she really enjoyed it. On the way home all she could talk about was how cool it was. She sat and described to us with her hands what the planes did in the sky and what her favorite moves were.

Here is how much the girls were enjoying the show!! HAHA! At least Macie watched. Addie watched too, it just took her a little while to warm up.

Here is Macie's happy face. (She is saying "I want to go home!!!")

Here they are in flight. So cool!

Here are five of them. Just look how together they are!! CRAZY!

Back to School

Today was Macie's first day of school. She was soooo excited. Especially becuase her really good friend Halle is in her class this year. She has been counting down the days since Geoff went back in August, so I am glad that I don't have to hear "when do I start school mom?" anymore.
Anyways, this year was kind of bittersweet sending her back. We had a great summer. It was a lot of fun, really relaxed and chill. I don't know if I am ready to be on a schedule again, but alas, here we are back on a schedule. Oh well. I guess that it is good. I suppose that I should get used to this since next year she will be in kindergarten.
Have a fun school year Macie!

Standing with Addie in front of her school.

The Gateway

While we were in Utah, we went to the Gateway one day and let the kids play in the fountains. At first Macie didn't know what to think and then her older cousins started running in the water and she got more brave. Addie I don't think even got wet, she just sat with us the whole time and watched the kids play.

Say cheese. Addie, Macie, Garrett, Brock

Getting all wet in the water.

Swimming Lessons

In July Macie took swimming lessons. She LOVED them. She went from being afraid of getting her head wet to dunking her head under and holding her breath and swimming. It was totally worth it!! We now have a little girl who loves to swim and is confident in the water.

Learning to kick

Learning to use her arms to swim

Coming back to the edge from doing bobs (putting your head under the water)

Tetons 2010

Every year my entire extended family meets for a family reunion in the Teton mountains. It is a party and something that I have looked forward to each year of my life. This year was my girls first time going and I am soooo excited that I have been able to pass on this wonderful tradition with them. They are already asking when we can go back and are constantly asking about the cousins that they played with there! Thanks to everyone who came and for making this year soooo fun!
The girls gathering their pennies from the penny hunt. Macie made out with a whole $4.62 and Addie made out with $2.96. Let's just say that their penny jars are now full!!Macie launching the water balloons. She loved this. Geoff or my dad would catch it every time and she was able to reuse the same water balloon about 5 times.Addie and Grandma enjoying watching the water ballons.Macie playing in the river. *notice the shirt...each year the kids also get to make a shirt, Macie's is decorated on the back*Geoff in the river. It was a pretty hot day and Geoff decided that he would go for a swim. He led 2 other boys out there with him who were trying to get wet, but their moms didn't want them too. Once Geoff got in though, they had nothing else to say. By the way...the water was freezing!!