One evening this week Finn and I got a little creative on my phone. I honestly don’t even recall why we started doing this, but we ended up drawing a Christmas tree with ornaments!
We’ve had a pretty low-key week around here. Griffin had a fun adventure to Highbanks one afternoon with Debbie and Sam. He collected rocks to bring home in a bag and had a picnic lunch. Dinosaurs are the theme this week too and he made a really cool cutout dinosaur along and he also used a play dinosaur to make footprints!
Griffin also learned how to spell his name this week. I arrived home and he quickly wanted to tell me how he spells his name. He was SO excited. I took a few videos and will post one here so you can here the excitement in his voice. 
We visited Kevin’s parents over the weekend and Finn enjoyed walking around the yard with a huge stick. They had several large trees removed from their yard so we were out on an adventure walk to check out all the missing trees! Once we were inside he wanted to play with his awesome police cars and track. He was actually pretty tired, so he literally laid close enough that the cars brushed his hair as they raced by. He thought that was pretty cool. We also enjoyed a lovely dinner of bacon cheeseburgers and baked beans before departing!
In other news we were tasked with choosing a shingle color for our new roof that will be going on soon. It’s quite a big decision to make based off such a small sample! We put the samples outside against the brick a few different times and in different light to see if we picked the same one each time. Stay tuned to see our choice!
And here is a photo I took at Millcreek this week. It was a BEAUTIFUL fall day with perfect temperatures, blue skies, and puffy white clouds!
This week Kevin and I had fun with friends on a trip to see Chris Stapleton and Hank Williams Jr at Blossom Music Center. It had been planned for quite awhile to celebrate Chris Howards birthday and it was nice to hang out and have some fun after the recent passing of Chris’ dad. Six of us headed up for the night to hang and have some fun. We had lawn seats and as you’ll see – it poured rain for about 20 minutes just as we were parking in the grass lot. So, that meant quite a soggy experience and muddy feet (for me)! But the show was great and the company was lots of fun. Finn had a fun night with Grandma and Grandpa Beilstein! He and I headed there Friday morning and after I got picked up to head north, Finn and Papa did some hosta watering (or as it may have been – jumping in the mud puddles!). Grandma and Grandpa also built a cool tower almost as big as Finn! This is really only the second time we’ve left Finn for an overnight without us (ironically the last time was when he was 1 year old and that was at Mom and Dad’s too, when we went to see David Nail in concert in Medina – something about concerts and northern Ohio!). 
Earlier in the week, Finn and I took our Lils to the vet specialist to have two of her teeth checked out at the recommendation of our Vet who did a dental cleaning a month or so ago. Turns out she had an upper large molar extracted and a lower molar root canal! She was a champ and Finn really enjoyed being able to take her in and hold her leash while we talked to Dr. Tom (who by the way, is an awesome vet). Walking in to his office in Hilliard is almost like walking through a tropical garden, apparently he has quite a green thumb. 
The night we returned from Ocean Isle there was a huge rain storm that dumped a couple inches of rain. Our skylights in the loft have been leaking during large downpours for the last 6-12 months and this day it was even worse! I setup 4 cups to catch the rain water, and even worse it had begun leaking in the great room vaulted ceiling near our new light fixture! We’ve got roofers scheduled to come give estimates – a new roof can’t be avoided any longer as we also have a leak in the large guest bedroom near the wall to Finn’s room. Ugh – the joys of owning a home!
Here are a few other pics from our week: Finn wanted to help me clean, he had a nice bath (which is a treat for him as we usually have him shower!), and him scooping up the pepper seeds one night when I was making dinner. I’m attempting to be a better cook and make more dinners at home – this is not my gift, but dinner on this night was quite tasty!
On Saturday, after we returned from the concert, we spent the day and night in Mansfield to celebrate Rowan’s 5th birthday at the Infield in Lexington. It was a fun afternoon of video games and go cart riding – until the downpour arrived! Thankfully we were given vouchers to come back another time since we got rained out! So Sunday after church we headed back again for more go-carting and Finn’s first miniature golf experience. He did really well, but also got really frustrated at certain times as he just wanted to “do it by myself”. He did, however, get a hole in 1! You’ll see the photo where Kevin helped him tee off and he was SO excited his face is priceless. 
Finn also wanted to take some photos this week so here are a couple of his – one of me and one of Kevin’s shoes!
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Aaaaahhhhh, vacation week! Can we go back already?! We look forward to this week all year long. Seems hard to believe that this year is our fifth year heading to Ocean Isle Beach. Five years, what?! Wishing time would slow down.
Grandma found the most awesome toy this year for all of the kiddos – a set of over 700 straws and connectors. Throughout the week the kids (and Grandpa and Grandma and other adults too, lol) made several really cool pieces of art! 
Sometimes being corrected is rough. Finn is really sensitive and often gets teary when he gets corrected or feels he disappointed someone. Kevin and I are realizing we’re being far to “adultish” on him and need to be much better about letting him be a 3 year old and do what 3 year olds do – and not correcting him so much. That’s not what’s happening here, Grandpa was just having a talk with Finn, but I thought it was a good way to capture his expressions. He has really mastered the sassy-lip face, almost making his lips look like the beak of a duck!
Though it is hard to tell, this is Dad and me, heading out pretty far into the ocean. The water was quite warm and nice this year!
This year we found a little, tiny, sand crab! Finn thought it was so cute and wanted to hold it. 
Here “Spidey” is throwing his webs at Grandpa!
This year we took a road trip to Southport, NC, about a 40 minute drive away. It is a cute little town with many shops and restaurants. We took a picnic lunch, and then walked around for a bit and shopped and went to a maritime museum before, you guessed it, meeting everyone to eat again for dinner! Finn has his dinner a bit early at Fishy Fishy!
This is the first year we tried out the surf boards. At low tide it was awesome to teach the kiddos how to ride in the waves. Oh, and they thought it was pretty fun to zoom down the beach on an inch or two of water. They even pulled each other!
We enjoyed an nice date night again this year at the Sugar Shack followed with enjoying the nice evening on the upper deck at the Ocean Isle Fish Company!
This years take home lovie was a shark. Finn fell asleep on the way home from a quick trip to Callahan’s in Calabash. This year he slept in a big boy bed at night and the cot during the day for naps. Not sure why, but that is what he consistently chose each day. I checked on him one night before going to bed and below is what I found! When we were at the store, he wanted to give lovies to each of his cousins too – so the last morning we took the annual jammie photo with each of their lovies.
It was nice weather on our drive home, however, Powell was getting big storms. So we decided to stop in southern Ohio at my old stomping grounds, Ohio University, and have a nice dinner. We had drinks on the patio at Jackie O’s Brewery (which wasn’t there when I was!) and dinner downstairs. Their beers are served throughout Ohio and in Columbus but I’d not had one before being there. I had a raspberry wheat and it was yum! We walked around a bit too, took photos of some familiar places, and had ice cream at a coffee shop that I went to all the time when I was in school. 
Dad and Mom gave us copies of all the photos they took too – there were so many great ones! So I’m including a bunch of them here 🙂 He really captured everyone’s personalities quite well. Some were taken with his waterproof camera from out in the ocean!
