Tag Archives: lily

September 1-30, 2020

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September started off with a pretty big day – Griffin’s first day of 2nd grade! As per tradition, Kevin prepared custom, made-to-order pancakes which this year was a laptop (appropriate given the nature of distance learning) and a Tiger paw to represent the Tyler Run Tigers. We have enrolled Griffin in the Committed Distance Learning program for the first semester of school. He is in a digital class with his teacher, Miss Peacock, along with several other friends he’s either had class with or that he knows from Tyler Run. There are also other kids from another elementary school within the district. He has a pretty solid schedule and will have live meetings several times per day. He was a bit reserved and shy during his first couple of days (which I was able to be home to help and see how everything is going to go!). Hoping he’ll come out of his shell and warm up as he adjusts to the new normal.

We’ve been really impressed with his teacher and the way everything is organized this year. There is a regular structure to the day, live morning and afternoon meetings with the entire class, and live meetings for math and reading on alternate days, in small peer groups. We have certainly had challenges with Griffin and his attitude and his tendency to complain and fight doing school, especially the writing assignments and some of the independent work. We’re hoping to work through these challenges and improve his mindset.

 

Even though Griffin isn’t going to in-person school, we wanted to get our annual School Bus stop picture this year. These kids are getting so big! And new to the mix this year is Hadi, a new friend who moved in down the street. His family moved here a few weeks ago from Lebanon. We’re happy to have another friend in the neighborhood – he certainly fits right in with so many boys!

Lexi is turning our basement classroom into a fun space for Griffin. She’s fun and creative and has made several posters and various wall art that helps to remind Griffin of certain rules or encourage a positive mindset. Reid chimed in one day with his for his Gym class, Lexi sent me this silly pic of them doing class together. A really fun part of school from home is all the fun places you get to have class. One day Griffin’s teacher asked them to find a fun place to do their reading for the afternoon and to have their grown up send a picture to her. Griffin chose the driveway outside on a sunny day :).

 

We have enrolled Reid at NPCA in the Tiger class, but have chosen to keep him home for now. We still wanted to go through the fun traditions so I took him to preschool for a meet-the-teacher and friends playground gathering. There are only 8 or 9 other kids in his class this year. He enjoyed playing with all the toys and on the playground equipment. Some bit of normalcy for a short stint.

Lexi has been doing fun arts and crafts and teaching Reid all sorts of things. She’s doing a great job having them both at the same time. I’ve lost my cool on more than one day when I’ve been doing it all solo. It’s a lot to keep Griffin on task, keep Reid from interrupting or being distracting or from having a fit if he isn’t allowed to do something he wants to do in the moment. Whew, it’s taxing!

 

We continue to enjoy the nice outdoor weather and some fun family time. We continue to either eat at home, or eat on a patio. We took the boys to Liberty Tavern on evening where we were able to enjoy some sunshine and live music from Local Roots a few doors down. We followed that up with dessert from Rita’s. We’re fortunate to have a cute downtown area with a lot of options – all just 5 minutes from home.  We woke up on a Saturday morning and decided to have a great family adventure starting with a bike ride to Tim Horton’s for breakfast (sound familiar?). When ready to leave, we discovered that  Griffin’s back tire was flat! We had already planned to go to Wheelie Fun Bike Shop in Powell to get him a new helmut (as his had broken on the inside), well, we were definitely headed there now! First, a stop at Grismer where they kindly filled the tire with air. At Wheelie Fun we got new helmuts for each of the kids (Reid’s was too small for his noggin) and bike mirrors for Kevin and me so we can see each other more easily when we’re riding in a single line! And of course, a new tire for Griffin. We continued on our trip, which by the end of the day was 16 miles. We went far up Sawmill Parkway, stopped at DQ, a park, and Nocterra. All while using lots of hand sanitizer and masking up when around others. It was nice to be outside for the day. We ended the day pretty tired with pizza and movies in bed.

I’m really liking having red, green, and yellow peppers this year!

Reid is doing really well on his “fire bike” with his training wheels. He is so excited to go on walks with me and Brutus and be independent.  Thank goodness for nice weather and outdoor play. Our neighbor, Abbie, put together a neighborhood flag football game complete with a hand-drawn invitation, organized teams, and a real referee (her dad!). From what I hear the game was pretty intense and a bit of frustration ensued from some of the interactions between the kids. Argh! A learning lesson for all!

 

Griffin is really loving playing soccer. He has really become more intense and aggressive this year just running his hardest and going after the ball. He’s been scoring nearly every game and has had some really great passes too. It’s been fun to watch.  Lexi knows American Sign Language and has been teaching the boys some from time to time. One afternoon when I got home they wanted to show me what they had learned.

 

Mr. Reidy went a bit fast on his fire bike and ended up with a little scratch on his forehead. He insisted on having bandaids put on like this and wore them for a couple days. Can you see his personality shine through in all these pics?

 

Griffin had quite the fan base at one of his earlier games as Grandma and Grandpa came along with all of the Bethunes! He gets so excited on Friday nights, the night before game day, that he has been setting out his uniform and complete outfit, down to the shoes, shin guards, socks, cleats, and ball.  Reid likes to dress just like Finn, so he wears Finn’s jersey from last year along with his cleats to each of the games.

 

Upon returning home from one of my morning walks with Brutus I discovered our Rising Sun tree branches looking like they were hanging low. Upon looking up close I was devastated to find not one, but two huge splits in the tree trunk. The one had apparently been there awhile as it didn’t look at all fresh. The other, I believe was from recent high winds. We are so bummed. This is the tree we take the yearly first day of school pictures in front of and so many friends always comment on how beautiful it is. The new growth always emerges pink so it is constantly having pink tips and the rest of the tree is yellow. We’re going to have to replace it.

Here are the pics from Reid’s first day of school. While he didn’t actually go to school, he got all dressed up in his first day of school outfit (a repeat from Griffin’s first day, can you tell?) and posed for numerous silly pics.

 

Reid is signed up for a “potty trained” preschool class, yet we haven’t quite made it there. We are, however, making great progress. Sorry for the potty pic, but wanted to remind ourselves in years to come where we were!

 

Haya came to visit again with baby Summer and the boys were just over the moon. It’s always a bit chaotic at first with so much energy and excitement. Reid and Finn constantly ask to hold her and take turns. She is getting so much bigger and more aware. Growing up fast!

 

Griffin pre-planning yet again – this time for school pictures!

 

While Kevin was away at his annual golf trip outing in Michigan, we had a super busy weekend – perhaps the busiest since Corona began. Started out Friday morning waking up to Brutus’ 4th birthday! Pardon my morning tired eyes and face – took these pics at 6:30 in the morning! We love this big boy. He was SOOOOO excited to have birthday cupcakes and receive new toys. He literally would not put down the duck and carried it with him in his mouth during our entire mile-long walk! See the video :).



 

Friday evening we had dinner at Culver’s on the patio with the Bolan’s and then gathered at our house with friends in the driveway. Saturday was a super busy day, starting with flu shots for the boys, followed by Tim Horton’s on the way to the soccer game! Then we had a long-planned neighborhood camp-out, which was scheduled for a couple of weeks prior but it was terrible weather and this weekend was the backup date. Each family setup their own tent in the Craig’s yard. We had pizza, glow sticks, dancing, glow-in-the-dark-football-fly-playing, campfire, s’mores, and all around fun! We were sad daddy wasn’t there with us though. I must say, I was pretty proud of myself for pitching the tent all by myself and keeping track of these two kids into the dark and sleeping in the tent at night. It was COOL at night and I hardly slept at all between being cold and just thinking about Brutus being home in his crate for so long. I took Reid home at 6:30 to let Brutie out and feed him breakfast, then we ran a quick errand to pick up donuts for the crew. It was a great weekend!

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Progress pic of the cemetery, they’ve now re-seeded the area.

 

George (and Lynda, posthumously) were the 2020 recipient of the HILA Award (Horticulture Industry Leadership Award) so we held a surprise celebration for him at Millcreek one morning. Normally he would have received his award in person at the Cultivate Trade Show, which didn’t occur this year due to Corona. We all think George is a great leader, a wonderful person to work for, and Fred put together a nice summary of the many contributions George has made at Millcreek and within the horticulture industry. George was also featured in the September issue of Greenhouse Management magazine, which was a nice surprise.

Sadly, September wasn’t without heartbreak. On Sunday, the day after our super long bike ride, Lily was having a normal day. I was upstairs in our bedroom doing laundry and when Lily walked in the door from the white steps and she seemed to be struggling some. Not sure why, so I went and talked to her and ended up carrying her to her bed in our room. From that point on, she wasn’t ever able to walk again. Being a holiday weekend, we weren’t able to get in touch with our vet. She ate dinner on Sunday, but on Monday and after would no longer eat. Kevin or I carried her in and outside each time for Sunday and Monday and Tuesday, and on Tuesday afternoon we took her to the vet. Dr. Shearer did a complete exam on her and gave us some possibilities that could have happened, perhaps an injury to her spine or disk (like slipping down the stairs, which she had done a couple of times in recent months). She proposed a couple of treatments and left the decision to us. We decided her quality of life, even with proposed treatments, would not be ideal. She was unable to stand or walk and no longer wanted to eat. We knew it was time to put her down – but it was still an agonizing time and decision. She was down to only 59 pounds. Our hearts were broken. She was the last of my original trio of three. She was the sweetest girl, who loved small and quiet spaces and loved to be around her people at all times. Even with her bad joints and arthritis in recent years, she made it up and down the steps numerous times a day. She went into each of the boys rooms at night – every night – for bed time routine. She was sassy, had impeccable hearing and sight, and loved playing with Brutus. He’s not known life without her. We are going to miss our sweet girl.

 

 

 

 

Our Lily Girl ~ September 8, 2020

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Our sweet Lily girl brought so much fun and good memories into our family over the last nearly 12 years. When I was single I had a trio of three labs, Hailey (chocolate), Cameron (black) and Lily (white) and lived in a huge house. For more than a year and  a half it was just me and my girls. Kevin and I met when Lily had just turned three years old and was full of so much energy and spunk. When he would come over, all of the dogs were crazy and they jumped and ran all around. They all were really friendly with really terrible greeting manners, lol.  Kevin still mentions how she would jump up on him when he would first arrive and how nuts she was.

Back in the day I allowed all of the dogs on my bed and on the furniture. That has since changed, not only with their aging but also with new house rules. That never stopped Lily from being a great cuddler. As you’ll see in many of the pictures, she was constantly around her people, unless it was super noisy and then she resorted to getting in to small and quiet spaces. We most often found her in our upstairs bathroom closet where she would lay with her head sticking out. As our family grew and we welcomed Griffin and then Reid, she endured so much kids play. She was regularly dressed up into costume and made part of any activity. She was always there for it and allowed our boys to do whatever they wanted to her – always with a gentle spirit. She’d often give them some kisses while they were doing whatever it was they were doing to her at the time. And if she didn’t like it, you guessed it, she’d vanish off to a quiet closet in our bathroom.

On the Sunday of Labor Day weekend, the day after our super long bike ride, Lily was having what seemed to be a normal day. I was upstairs in our bedroom doing laundry and when Lily walked in the door from the white steps she seemed to be struggling some. Not sure why, so I went and talked to her and ended up carrying her to her bed in our room as she was pretty shaky. From that point on, she wasn’t ever able to walk again. Being a holiday weekend, we weren’t able to get in touch with our vet. She ate dinner on Sunday, but on Monday and after would no longer eat. Kevin or I carried her outside and back in each time for Sunday and Monday and Tuesday, and on Tuesday afternoon Kevin had made an appointment for her and we took her to the vet. Dr. Shearer did a complete exam on her, taking of 45 minutes to evaluate her. She gave us some possibilities of what could have happened, perhaps an injury to her spine or disk (like slipping down the stairs, which she had done a couple of times in recent months). She proposed a couple of treatments and left the decision to us. We decided her quality of life, even with proposed treatments, would not be ideal. She was unable to stand or walk and no longer wanted to eat. We knew it was time to put her down – but it was still an agonizing time and decision. She was down to only 59 pounds. Our hearts were broken. She was the last of my original trio of three and the ending of an era – so to speak.  Even with her bad joints and arthritis in recent years, she made it up and down the steps numerous times a day. She bunny hopped everywhere. She went into each of the boys rooms at night – every night – for bed time routine. She still loved to get outside and bask in the sunshine. She was sassy, had impeccable hearing and sight, and loved playing with Brutus. He’s not known life without her. The house is just strange, even still posting this almost two months after her passing. Her high-alert-barking when we arrive home or someone rings the doorbell is just weird silence. My how we miss our sweet girl.

We had Lily cremated, as with our other girls, and when we picked up her ashes at the vet they included the most kind, hand-made, customized card with notes from some staff members. They also included each of her pawprints, which when I saw them caused the tears to flow. We really love all of the staff at Powell Vet.

We’re thankful for the lovely cards, flowers, and cookies given to us by our family and friends.

 


May 1-31, 2020

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May started off with some beautiful weather and an Essential Workers parade that came right by our house! It was a Friday evening and we gathered with several neighbors who came down to our common driveways where the parade turned. There’s a video below, but the kids (and adults!) thought it was pretty cool! Griffin drew some chalk art and we decorated some to celebrate.

 

 



Sadly, Pat’s brother Richard (Dickie) passed away unexpected in April. There was a graveside service in May that Kevin and I were able to attend along with Pat, Jim, and Brett. It was a nice service and a sunshine-filled afternoon.  I hadn’t been to the cemetery before, where Pat’s parents and brother, Elwood, are also buried. Their gravesites are quite unique and it was neat to hear the story behind it.

While I left work for a short time to go to the service, Dad was there taking inventory of his hosta seedlings that we planted and to pickup the remainder of the bag of soil. That was a lot of counting!

We haven’t ventured out much  between my work being busy and with the Stay at home Order. But one morning we woke up and I wanted to get out and about and get some fresh air with everyone. So we packed the kids bikes into the car and headed down to pickup Buckeye Donuts! We had a small picnic on the Oval near the Library on campus and the kids loved riding their bikes around. It was really our first time going out with the kids. We had our masks and wore them when we went to the Horseshoe and rode our bikes around. We also ventured to “downtown big city” and walked around some in the public space across from the Arena. We took a family photo at the same place Kevin and I had pictures taken on our wedding day. Reid and Griffin each took pictures of us!

 

 

With the nicer weather and not really having options of going anywhere we’ve been spending a good bit of time outside. Brutus has been really great on walks, in fact I often take him without his leash on and he listens really well. He’s been enjoying some front yard freedom with us too.

 

Look at my little sleeping boy! He is probably faking it here, but he’s cute nonetheless 🙂  We’ve been wearing masks at Millcreek since early to mid-May when businesses were allowed to open up following the guidelines in place  by the Governor.  Even though we had operated the entire time as an essential business, we were not required to wear masks during that time. It definitely makes things interesting and they are not at all comfortable to wear in the heat and humidity. But anymore it’s just the norm. Each person is wearing theirs upon arrival to get their temperature checked each day.  Given that most of the work at Millcreek takes place outside, we encourage our employees to wear them, but they aren’t required if working alone in a greenhouse or when outdoors and social distancing can occur.  Walking quickly in and out of hot greenhouses  or working within them proves to make mask wearing uncomfortable and a “practical” challenge for keeping them on all the time for our employees. And I get it – it’s not comfortable!

An upside to being home so much is the boys are really learning to play well together and have been having a lot of fun. Kevin sends me pictures like this while I’m at work late :).

Reid seems to be our little early morning riser, often getting up just after 6 am. I’m usually up by then too so he comes to finds me and he has recently wanted to come on walks with me each morning. Can you believe here, in May, he is wearing his winter coat and a blanket!! There were a few mornings of freezing temperatures in mid-May and we definitely had some frosts.

We took a drive to Enon to see Pat and Jim and to deliver some spring flower planters to Pat for Mother’s Day. It was a chilly and breezy afternoon! The boys stayed in the car most of the time since it was chilly and we all kept our social distance while walking around the yard a bit. These are strange times! We headed to Young’s for lunch and experienced their new “drive-thru” which was actually quite smooth!

In the mornings Reid helps me make my coffee, he grabs a snack, and then lately we’ve been sitting in the dining room and watching nature. This usually by 6:20 or so. We sit there for a bit and look for birds, bunnies, squirrels, dogs, and such. Then we go up and I get dressed and we head out on our walk with Brutus (Reid in jammies sometimes but if I’m dressed he often wants to get dressed too!). I like our new morning routine.

On Mother’s Day I work up to a lovely morning with the kids. We were all wearing our matching family jammies. There were lovely flowers, coffee mugs, and my most favorite – my yearly painting of the boys handprints, which we later hung in our bedroom along with the others.

We haven’t allowed any customers to walk or shop through the nursery since the whole COVID-19 thing began. Along with that, we haven’t allowed school age children there either, which basically means kids of employees. I did, however, go out on a Sunday with Kevin and the boys to get succulents for teacher gifts for the end of the year. We parked outside the gate and walked to the greenhouse and the boys had a great time. Rock climbing the rock “wall” was their favorite part, lol. It’s been strange to not have Kevin and the boys visit me each week. Typically, they bring dinner out during the week usually one time each week so I get to see the kiddos since my work days are so long. This was the first time they’d been there in over two months!

Griffin made this lovely play-doh version of Kevin, complete with his briefcase! Isn’t it lovely? I particularly like the smile and spiked hair.  Finn also helped Daddy clean all of our car mats, which were horribly dirty. Especially mine from the gravel driveways at Millcreek. They all look sparkling new now :).

Brutus loves it when anyone will play ball with him in the back yard. He really loves his jolly ball.



Our latest thing now that school is out is family bike rides! We’ve decided to make it our summer mission to bike ride to each of the ice cream shops in Powell! So, to begin we went to Graeter’s. It was our first time going out on Jewett Road with Griffin on his own bike and he did a fabulous job. Kevin and Reid went first, then Griffin, then me. We were able to make it there in about 17 minutes and home in even less. We got “curbside” delivery where they brought our ice cream out to us along the path, which I had preordered through the app. It was great!

I’m doing a separate birthday post for Reid’s 3rd birthday, but here you can see him enjoying several of his new things! I think he’s pretty happy!

Memorial Day was a bit different this year with no parade. It kind of broke our tradition of up and at em early to get Tim Horton’s to take to the parade! Instead, we gathered in the early evening at the Vertucci’s new house for a driveway happy hour with the Manning’s and Vertucci’s. We brought our chairs and tent for some shade as it was a hot day! We had fun catching up with everyone and the kids watched some shows and blew bubbles.

Matchy matchy! The boys are really in to wearing the same clothes or pj’s lately. And recently I was able to get them both new shoes that were the same. Griffin’s poor tennies were in such bad shape the velcro didn’t even stay attached anymore and the toes were about rubbed off. Looking sharp boys, let’s keep them looking new for awhile, ok?  Griffin’s athleticism is quite admirable! He’s recently been doing some “trick riding” he calls it where he shows us all of his skills. Here in this video he shows us how he stands on one side of his bike (one pedal) while biking. He’s got some great balance and core strength and I love his current motto “speed, strength, confidence.”. He’s been talking about becoming my trainer, so he can train me to run. He’s quite a fast runner and this discussion came up since I can’t run at his pace, lol!

 

Griffin loves to get Lego sets and typically starts building them and then gets either bored or distracted or frustrated and moves on to making his own inventions. I’m amazed at his ability to make such creative things! His ships, planes, ninja structures, etc., are made with such detail and often symmetry. Full of weapons that actually fire!

Our second bike ride for ice cream was to the new DQ up on Seldom Seen in Powell. We were able to go Jewett Rd., to Liberty Rd., and then cut through Adventure park to the bike path that goes along the railroad tracks up to Seldom Seen . When we arrived, we saw signs that said their lobby was closed. Oops! Didn’t think to look that up first. We then tried to order through the app, which said they were closed. They clearly were NOT closed and after talking to an employee, she suggested we order through Grub Hub. Whew, while the menu wasn’t the same, thankfully we were able to order dinner and dessert as we had biked there for both and it was a good 3 mile ride!

The boys have really been wanting to help in the kitchen lately, which I’m encouraging as they seem to like to eat their efforts, lol. So they fill up on healthy fruits :). They are actually both quite good with their knives. Kevin has been giving the boys haircuts throughout the quarantine. He does a great job and the boys love it! They get hair cuts and then time in the shower or bath which they love.  They’ve been making lots of forts with Haya and also playing Monopoly seems to be a new favorite for Griffin during the day.

While the end of the year ended a bit unusual, it was nice to be able to say goodbye to Mrs. Hale when Kevin drove to the school to pickup his classroom items. It was a “curbside drive-through” pickup and you weren’t allowed to give hugs or anything, but he was able to wave from the car and give her his succulent planter. The buses also drove their routes in order to say goodbye for the summer to the kiddos. Mrs. B drove through without stopping, but thankfully since she goes down to the turnaround on our street they caught her on the way back and gave her  her succulent planter too. Yay!