Tag Archives: tyler run

August 2019

We spent the last couple weeks of summer packing in all sorts of activities and wrapping up our Bucket List. We did super-great this year, accomplishing most everything on our list with the exception of a couple things! It definitely was a busy summer and seemed to fly by faster than any other yet.

Summer baseball wrapped up on a perfect sunny morning. Griffin did really well this season both fielding and getting some great hits. He is pretty focused out there.

On Saturday afternoon we headed to the Irish Festival. We essentially spent several hours in the kids play area and then had some dinner under one of the tents. Reid is at an age where it makes it challenging to really do much other than kids stuff. And like most his age, waiting doesn’t come easy for this toddler. So while we’re happy to have gone, Kevin and I decided next year we’ll get a sitter and go for an adult afternoon/evening where we can take in more of the actual festival!

One of the items on our summer bucket list was riding our bikes to downtown Powell for dinner and ice cream, which we were able to (mostly) accomplish! Kevin rode his bike to Library Park by our house where he met me and the boys. We took my bike and Griffin’s bike in the van and parked there so we wouldn’t need to bike on Jewett Road as there aren’t any sidewalks. We rode all the way to City Barbecue and Graeter’s on another nice evening. Once dinner was over we hopped on our bikes and about 10 feet away from City BBQ the pedal of Kevin’s bike fell off.  It had been loose on our way there and we were hoping to make it home, but it wouldn’t stay on. We switched Reid’s chair to my bike and the boys and I headed thru town and back to Library park. We tossed our bikes in the car and drove home to drop them off and then headed to pick Kevin and his bike up at Village Green Park. A memorable trip!

This was my version of showers for the boys on this particular night, lol. The both thought it was great and I must say it was actually quite fun and full of laughter.

Another summer bucket list item was camping in the back yard and making s’mores! We had the perfect night weather-wise and Kevin and Griffin had setup our camp in the back yard complete with our neighbors fire pit. Lily and Brutus joined us outside for pizza and ginormous s’mores. Then we got ready for bed and the boys watched a show on the tablet before lights out in the tent – all 4 of us plus Lily and Brutes. After about 15 minutes in the dark of Reid still getting up and wondering around inside I decided to throw the towel in and take Reid inside. So that night Kevin and Griffin and the dogs slept in the tent. The following day was a busy one starting with a birthday party for our friend Sammy, then a baseball game for Finn, followed by a fun night at Crew Stadium, which we got tickets through Locker Soccer for a special night where the kids got on the field before the game to play, they sat on the benches during the team warm ups, and then a halftime got to go to the tunnel and smack hi-fives to the players as they returned to the field. It was a nice evening – another perfect fall temperature night – so Griffin and I took a turn in the tent when we got home.

The following day we headed to my friend Jaime’s house for a pool party with my college girl friend crew and (most of) their families. We enjoyed a nice cookout and all of the kids and adults were in and out of the pool and hot tub for several hours. Another great afternoon of sun and fun! It’s crazy how quickly these kids are growing up – Audrey turned 13 this month!

On Tuesday, 8/13, we headed to the Open House where Griffin met his first grade teacher, Mrs. Hale. He explored his room and put away his school supplies in his desk. It was a short but fun visit. Afterward we headed for haircuts which were in dire need before school started Thursday!

I’ve been working on being more prepared with meal ideas for the week and having easy and quick dinners to make on the weeknights. It’s been working out pretty well and the boys have been eating well too. I actually snapped a pic of Reid eating spaghetti, yay!

The first day of school was on Thursday, 8/15. Griffin was so excited he walked into the kitchen fully dressed with shoes and socks on at 6:50 am! He went out and talked to the middle schoolers at 7:30 am (our driveway is the bus stop for all – elementary/middle/high). Kevin prepared a fun pancake breakfast, including a tiger paws and 1st! Griffin has the most genuine, huge smile with his plate of cakes. We hung out in the driveway with Haya and our neighbors and all of the kiddos awaiting the bus. Haya brought Griffin a 1st day of school present  skeeball! Wowzer, this boy has it made! We love having our driveway be the hub of activity :). I’m really liking his teacher, Mrs. Hale. I enjoyed going to the Curriculum night and learning more about her and her teaching philosphy and the plan for the year. She uses an app called Bloomz and regularly posts class updates, including photos, throughout the week. Some of the pics below are from the app.

We headed to Nocterra for a spontaneous hang out with our neighbors on Friday afternoon at the end of the first school week. The kids had a lot of fun and were sweaty messes by the time we went home.

I found this selfie on my phone and while it’s dark I think it’s a cute one of Finn :). This boy is growing up too fast for my liking….he’s got a tooth starting to poke through on the bottom and hadn’t lost one yet, that is until on Sunday night, after the first couple days of school Griffin asked Daddy to pull it! Kevin made a lasso using floss and sure enough that baby was so ready to come out it flew across the bathroom and hit my leg! Griffin said it didn’t even hurt! He was excited to use his Tooth Fairy box for the first time. Earlier in the afternoon on Sunday we gathered with the Bethunes, Mom, and Dad at the Dublin South Pool to celebrate Rowan’s birthday. It was quite a warm day and many others had the same idea but we had a great time. Reid has really become a water bug and Graham walked all around the pool with him. Dad and Rowan tag teamed the water slide too :).  Later in the week on Wednesday, Griffin came home with a tooth missing! His tooth came out in class and he got to go to the nurse who gave him a tooth necklace in order to safely get his tooth home. I was amazed, it made it all the way home even on the bus! This kid has had a big week!

On Wednesday, Reid had his “meet the teacher” morning for a half hour, where he can play in his classroom, meet his teacher, and get comfortable with his surroundings. His Guppy class is in the same room he is in on Sunday’s during church so he’s already pretty comfortable there. He will be going to school on Monday and Wednesday’s from 9:30 am – 1 pm.

On Friday I took Reid with me to Millcreek for a couple hours to get some things done on my “day off”.  He enjoyed pretending to drive the golf carts and tractors. He did really well as we were there for just less than 3 hours. He watched some Peppa , his most requested show, on the tablet to keep occupied.

Later on Friday Griffin and I went to the St. Joan of Arc Festival just down the street. Reid stayed home and went to bed and Daddy got some quiet time.  We met up with our neighbors Abbie and her dad Bernie and the two kids went from ride to ride for a couple of hours. It was cool outside by the end of the night – I could have used a jacket!

We’ve signed Griffin up for i9 Soccer for the Fall season and the first game was Saturday. Griffin is all about sports. He is the most intent player out there, so focused and hard core! He did really well considering this is the first time he’s done soccer on a team that plays games! One of his teammates scored at the end of the game to tie it up for a 2-2 tie. Kevin is coaching along with Brian, our neighbor, and Cole and Griffin are on the team together. It will be a fun fall season.

After soccer we headed to Enon for the night. The boys stayed with Grandma and Grandpa while Kevin and I headed to Dayton to have dinner with Sarah and Kara before heading to the Lauren Daigle concert at the Nutter Center. After dinner we had 1.2 miles to drive to the concert – and would you believe it took us more than an hour to get there! Traffic was insane, unlike any traffic I’ve sat in for Buckeye games or concerts anywhere I’ve ever gone! But we made it after the warm-up artist (don’t even know who it was!) and before Lauren began playing. It was a lovely show, she has one of the most flawless voices I’ve heard especially in a live concert. It was great.

On Sunday we enjoyed a lazy start to the day and then were off to Young’s for a bit of fun in the batting cages, the barrel rides, playing in the corn bin, and ice cream – of course! We fed the goats too before heading back for dinner at Grandma and Grandpas. Another great weekend of fun!

Now that school has been in session a couple of weeks we’ve got a good routine down. Weeknights are busy as Griffin has swim on Mondays and Soccer on Tuesdays, then soccer again on Saturday mornings. We grab dinner after swim (as it starts at 5) and this week stopped at Culver’s. There was a face painter there so both boys got Spiderman on their cheeks. They were delighted. Afterward we had to make a quick pit stop at Target, in their skeleton pjs nonetheless. My little skeletons were crazy characters running around Target. Then it was home and to bed.

And here are a few more from the end of the month. Haya sent me this picture of Reid which I thought was perfect! Griffin is becoming more and more brave as he’s learning to climb trees. It makes this mama nervous though I’m encouraging him to do as much as he feels comfortable doing! On Thursday night the boys and I went on a 35 minute bike ride going through several neighborhoods near us. It was a lot of fun as we explored new to us places on bikes and then finished with a sweet treat in the driveway.

We kicked off the Labor Day weekend on Friday with pizza at Dewey’s, Ice cream across the street at Graeter’s, and then putt putt nearby in Westerville. We hadn’t been to the Westerville Golf Course before but are glad we went as the mini-golf course was fun and beautifully landscaped. We will go back when we can spend more time and take in the batting cages!

Saturday morning it was up and at ’em for breakfast followed by a short trip to COSI to see the Jim Henson exhibit before it leaves! We were able to see many of the Sesame Street characters and various artifacts from Jim Henson’s puppeteer career. We also explored the dinosaurs and got wet in the kids water area. Then we headed home to watch the Buckeyes win the first game of the season. Go Bucks. The boys enjoyed playing flag football during the game, lol.

I’m excited that we have two canteloupe and one watermelon growing this year in our garden, however, they’ve come down with powdery mildew and I’m not sure the fruit will mature before the plants die off. Ugh. It’s a good thing cucumbers are easy – that’s about the only thing we seem to grow reliably in our garden each year.

 

 

And here are a few shots at Millcreek. We took several members of our team up to Corso’s in early August. Many of our staff hasn’t seen the new shipping process in action, they’ve just heard us explain it. To get everyone a bit more comfortable and to see things with their own eyes we took a field trip. Then a couple weeks later our consultant was in town and we did a “mock up” in our new facility. We took the team out with batch pull tickets to pull the mass items from the greenhouses, then took the racks in and ran them through the process in the new facility and got them staged in the supermarket. Then we shopped the supermarket for individual orders.  So many moving parts!! It is really cool to see it all come together, but there are so many details to still iron out. This spring will be quite different.

The electric and dock/driveway areas are nearly complete. This week we were able to have our main driver pull down into the dock and “mock” position the truck in each of the 4 dock lanes. It’s going to be good  – and tight – with the western most dock lane, but he got in and out and says it will do – Woohoo!

September 23, 2018

We had a fun-filled family week around here. Uncle Todd was here through Wednesday so he was able to take in our morning getting ready for school on Tuesday and hang with the kids and watch Griffin get on the bus. Finn completed section 3 of his first book of sight words, and I was able to volunteer on Wednesday morning at Dads and Donuts on the playground before school began. It was super busy – we handed out 80 dozen donuts, the very last one gone right at 8:59 am! We also went through 4 percolators of coffee and 13.5 (out of 14) gallons of chocolate milk! Those kiddos were enjoying sweet treats and hanging with their dads (or other guest). Griffin was so excited when he saw me and came up to the table to get a donut and he had a lot of fun hanging with Kevin and putting tickets in the raffle baskets.  Hannah took the boys to Glacier Ridge Metro Park this week where they climbed all around, enjoyed the sunshine, and collected nature.   On Wednesday, we invited Jim and Pat up for dinner to celebrate her 70th birthday. We did good at keeping the surprise of Todd being in town. We kept him off to the side while they arrived and then he surprised her in the kitchen :). Todd, Kevin, and I had planned out a mexican dinner to enjoy at our house. It was great – Todd and Kevin went shopping, and Todd made the meal! I picked up a special German Chocolate cake at Sweettooth Cottage along with some cake balls and sugar cookies. We had quite the spread! After dinner and dessert we were hanging out on the patio and through the back yard appeared Sean! His flight arrived later in the evening so we had planned for him to arrive after dinner while we were hanging out.  Though it is technically Fall, it has been really warm out! Hannah and the boys did some fun painting this week of fall leaves and trees. We’re hoping the cooler weather and fall colors arrive soon!  I love this season for many reasons, but one of my favorite is the flexibility I have in my work schedule. I’ve been going in after Griffin gets on the bus on the days he has school. Or going in late to go to meetings at school. I was able to take Friday off to enjoy the festivities at Tyler Run for their Fall Festival. They have a school wide assembly, followed by a 1-mile fun walk through the neighborhood of the school (The Lakes of Powell, my old neighborhood). Parents, pups, and siblings are invited to join in so it’s quite a fun time. I was super excited to participate and then wouldn’t you know it in the morning as Griffin was getting on the bus I started to jog into the garage to get Reid and something popped in my left calf. Ugh, felt terrible and I couldn’t extend my leg all the way. But I was determined to still go – so I did, and I think the walking was better than sitting down. After the fun walk I had planned to help out at all of the lunch periods. The kids are able to buy raffle tickets and some of them buy so many or are slower at writing their names/room numbers on the tickets so they have adult volunteers there to help the kids. So I did that for a few hours before heading home. Later that night we headed to the school for the evening Fall Festival. Unfortunately, it had to be moved inside this year due to the pending storms, but it was still lots of fun. Inflatables, lots of games, food trucks, a cake walk (always my fave), face painting, and seeing friends.  On Saturday we packed up our crew and headed to Enon for a birthday gathering at Jim and Pat’s that included family and friends. Lily and Brutus enjoyed the excursion too.  https://youtu.be/yc4LKn7QVMk

And here are a few of our growing little boy Reid. I remember the night I took this photo, when he was still sleeping in the co-sleeper next to our bed. He still does this to this day – when he is tired, he will grab your hand and pull it to his face and have you cradle his face. He just loves it. Big boy is riding our blue pony, he is so proud and happy that he can get on and off all by himself. And just one of him gazing out the front windows with the sun shining on his face :). 

August 19, 2018 – Griffin starts Kindergarten!!

Wow, what a week it’s been! Time seems to move faster and faster and now all of a sudden – poof – our first born begins Kindergarten. Man, I’m not ready for this. I remember back to the day he first started pre-school at age 2 1/2. Now, here we are 3 years later, and I can hardly believe it. Griffin is more than ready for it – me, not so much!
And then Facebook and Google show me these photos from years past and it gives me all the tears! Look at our sweet baby – I remember the day this photo was taken. And the next photo when he was such a big boy as he began sitting in a high chair. Whew, now he’s riding a bus!We began the week on Monday with his Elementary Open House. Upon arriving at school we found his classroom and got to check out his new space. We found his name on the table he would be sitting at and met a couple of his new classmates (Mason and Jackson). We found his school supply kit (I did the convenient pre-order through the PTO) and unpacked all of his supplies into the various bins and organizers. We spent some time walking around his room and finding where he puts his folder each day, his book bag and coat, lunch bag, and so on. We were in his room for a long enough time that we barely had time to find where the bus arrives and how he gets to his classroom from the bus drop off! Five o-clock came quickly and we had to rush out of there to get home and changed in order to get to swim lessons! Sadly, we missed the popsicles on the playground – so instead we had a sweet treat at home later that night.  On Tuesday night, the eve of Kindergarten, I created Finn’s yearly first day of school sign. Nothing spectacular, but a sign to record all the details of the year :).  We surprised Finn with a scrumptious breakfast for his first day. Daddy made Tiger paw pancakes and Griffin had the biggest one! We headed out a bit early before the bus to get our annual first day of school photos. Jim and Pat spent the night as they’d been helping with the kids the past couple days so thankfully they were able to take some family photos. Griffin looks so excited and SO grown up. I still just can’t believe it.  Our driveway has always been the bus stop for elementary, middle, and high school bus runs. We love it! Cooper, Cole, and Abbie got to hang out for a short bit and we snapped some group photos of all the kiddos. Seems hard to believe these kids have been best pals for the last 3 years. They have assigned seats on the bus and Griffin and Cole sit right behind the bus driver, Mrs. B, whom by the way seems awesome! Getting on the bus we tried to get Griffin’s attention but he was so intent and focused he didn’t even turn around! I snapped a pic once he got on his seat – he had a rather unsure look on his face. But by the time the bus went down the street and came back through to leave the neighborhood we could see a slightly happier face through the window (at least for Cole, who was sticking his tongue out!).
Kevin ran an errand after the bus left and swung by the school so he capture the first day of school sign 🙂 We were both able to be home to get him off the bus – and he was SO EXCITED! He got off the bus and was so happy to see Reid and tell us that he loved school! We went inside and he scarfed down a snack of pretzels with nutella and his celebratory School Bus cookie. He brought home some coloring pages, artwork, and a booklet about his first day of school – where he chose the “excited” emotion to express how he felt about his first day. We figured since it was early and we were all home we’d go out to Griffin’s favorite place to celebrate his milestone day so off to Rooster’s we went.  Since we are in between caregivers again, we’ve been enlisting the help of both of our parents, which we are super thankful for! On Friday, Grandma and Grandpa Beilstein arrived in time to spend a short bit with us in the morning before Griffin got on the bus. He was excited that he got to see both sets of grandparents this week and that everyone got to see him get on the bus.  Here are a couple of pictures Mom texted to me from their day home with Reid. It is SO quiet during the day with just Reid around. He babbles some but isn’t yet talking, and when he’s taking a nap it’s super peaceful around here! And a bit strange.  And before long it was the end of day 2 of Kindergarten! Since Reid has just begun walking he enjoys having reign outside while we all wait for Griffin to arrive.  I snapped this shot off Facebook which details the enrollment for Olentangy for the 2018-2019 school year. It will be fun to see how this compares to when Griffin is in High School (which is currently the largest high school in the district, by enrollment – Liberty). I was so happy to receive an email from Griffin’s teach which was sent to all parents. It detailed things about the first day of school and included photos! How neat to see Griffin in his classroom with his classmates. There’s never a dull moment around here and the second day of school is no different. Once Griffin got home we did a fast change into our wedding reception duds and headed downtown with Griffin for Lisa and Brian’s wedding reception party. We left Reid at home with Cameron so he could enjoy sleep and we all could enjoy a more pleasant evening not chasing him everywhere! Griffin had so much fun dancing and hanging with the kids. It was a really fun reception with a live band, lots of dancing, drinks, and fun with several of our neighbors. Oh, and the succulents in the flowers came from Millcreek. Fred’s wife’s company, Madison House Designs, did their flower arrangements. The food was tasty and I love that Griffin devoured his salad.  On Saturday, Griffin and Kevin joined Lisa, Brian, Cole, Cooper, Bill, and Tammy (Brian’s parents) for some fun at Pins Mechanical in Dublin for a couple hours. Reid and I joined them later and then our family headed for pizza at Tommy’s in Dublin.  These kids. They play together all the time when the boys are at Brian and Lisa’s. This night I went outside and they are all suited up in play outfits running like crazy from each other on separate teams playing spy.  We purchased our first family puzzle and put it together pretty quickly! We’ve begun to enjoy sitting down together at the table and putting them together. Griffin is really quick at finding matches!