This week was Griffin’s Pre-School Orientation on Thursday. This year he is going to be a Tiger and will go to school two days a week, Tuesday and Thursday. I went with him and met his teachers, Miss Jen and Miss Irma, and we played for about a half an hour. It was just a short visit so he could see his classroom and get comfortable with his surroundings. Afterward I thought it would be fun to have a little date together since I was off for the day. We went to First Watch for a nice brunch and then headed for a fun activity at Color Me Mine. Griffin chose a huge Spider Man coin bank and I chose a simple pleated bowl. We both had a lot of fun painting our projects and we will get to pick up the finished projects next week!
It was also a rather noisy week as we got a new roof! It took about two solid days of work, with a crew of about 6 or more guys working all day. I was pretty nervous to pick the shingle color as we have a huge roof and the wrong would look bad, obviously! But I must say, we picked an excellent color! Kevin and I were both quite happy with it as it goes really well with our new paint color and has some flecks of our brick in it as well.
Here are some before photos of our orange-brown roof:
And here are some during and afters with our gray-brown roof and new skylights!
Google just so happened to remind me of the below photo from one year ago. A lot has changed since then – our house color, a new roof, new skylights, and our shrubs out front have grown like crazy! We also planted three new trees this year. I’m excited for next spring already!
Finn had a fun week of play too. He often gets out with Sammy and our neighbors Cole and Cooper early in the week. They have a lot of fun together! He and I ventured to Graeter’s one afternoon with Lily (she had her follow up appointment for her teeth, so she was with us) and she got a pup cup! And we’ve gone on several bike rides this week in our neighborhood. Finn has really been enjoying riding his bike and he is getting to be really great balancing and lifting his feet off the ground for long stretches of time. He’s gotten so much taller that we had to raise his seat up a notch. I remember when we gave him this balance bike he couldn’t stand all the way with his feet on the ground yet!
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. 
In other news we were tasked with choosing a shingle color for our new roof that will be going on soon. Â 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!
c