National Take Your Child to Work Day 2014



This was the first year Morgan was able to participate in Take Your Child to Work Day and she couldn't have been more excited to go to work with her Dad!  Rich is on his 10 hour days right now at the Road Commission, so she had a long day with him, but seemed to have enjoyed every minute.

 

They started the day enjoying some donuts and juice for breakfast, then moved on to a tour of the engineering department.

 

Here Morgan is watching Rich work at his computer.  (I apologize for the picture quality...I took pictures of pictures in a 'scrapbook' that the HR person made of the day.)

 

 Rich then showed the kids how some of the surveying equipment works. 

 

The kids got to try it out too!

 Morgan's favorite area...where they make the road signs!

 

Pretending to drive the forklift.

 

 Pizza for lunch!  Morgan's Uncle works there too and joined them for lunch. :-)

 

They had a project planned for the kids.  They each painted a pot.

 

Morgan's finished pot with some beautiful flowers.

 

 Morgan also had the chance to ride one of the big trucks!

 

And sit in a cool chair at a desk :-)

 They also made up nice laminated Road Commission name tags for each of the kids, which Morgan made sure to wear to school the next day. :-)

It was such a neat day for both Morgan and Rich!  They both enjoyed learning about the Road Commission (yes, Rich learned a little too) and spending the time together.  They are already looking forward to participating again next year and having Blake join them too! :-)  I'm kinda wishing there was a "Take Your Spouse to Work Day"....it just sounds like fun...and I'm feeling a little left out... ;-)

 

 

Summer 2010 Update #1

I can't believe that it's been nearly a month since I've posted! I've been keeping so busy that I haven't been on the computer as much as I thought I'd be. Hopefully I'll get by to visit each of your blogs soon! :-) I've been able to some of the things that I was hoping to do this summer. I cleaned out both cattle pens. Just finished them yesterday while it was cool out and I can hardly move today! Good workout though ;-) I figured while I was having a hard time moving I'd catch you up on what we've been up to:

I've been watching my garden grow....

...and of course watering, weeding and cultivating with this thing that I got from my grandparents' house. (Sure beats hoeing the whole thing!)

Rich took up playing waterball with the fire department. First time playing and they took 1st place!

The kids went on their first boat ride at a friend of my mom's and loved it!

Rich got our hay off. (Morgan is riding with him here.)

I just love this sequence of pictures. Blake just couldn't wait until he could ride the tractor!!

We rode in the aerial in the Annual Michigan Firefighter Associations Conference parade. (Our county hosted it this year.) I took these of the kids while we were waiting.

After the parade, Rich and some fellow firefighter raised the flag on the ladder.

Then they had some fun and played more waterball :-)

The kids are loving climbing and playing in the freshly baled hay.

And just enjoying the sunny weather.

• I've been mowing lawn every week. I think Rich is missing it, but he's just way too busy. I have more respect for Rich taking the time to do it for all these years. It takes over 3 hours just to mow and trimming is a whole lot more!


• The kids and I have been helping with chores at night too. Morgan and Blake love it!! They especially love feeding the cat (which we have to wait until the chickens are roosting otherwise they'll scare the cat away and eat her food) and checking for eggs. (We somehow lost 1 more chicken and are now down to 3!)


• The kids also went to our town's fair with their grandparents and got to ride some rides, which was a first for them. (I'd share pics but they're on their grandma's phone.) Rich and I were collecting hay bales from the field, since we didn't have a wagon to stack on and missed going, but they brought us an elephant ear! Yum! ;-)


• I made it to visit a friend that I hadn't seen in over a year. (Yes-I'm loving having the truck!)


• Rich and I also made it to the drive-in and saw Shrek 4 and Ironman 2. Always love going to the drive-in!


• The kids, my parents and I went to our towns' pizza cook-off. Four businesses competed to be the best pizza in town. I of course quickly picked out the place we always go to and voted for them ;-) They also had games for the kids and it was a great time. And we made the paper:

• We went to the first music in the park for the season in the neighboring town and enjoyed some live music down by the lake. Always a nice time, though probably would have been better if the kids weren't tired and grouchy (long summer days lately!)

That's what's been going on here. Busy and loving it! I hope you are all enjoying your summer as well!! :-)

Decorating Easter Eggs

I am terrible at making hard-boiled eggs, so I'm not sure why I decided we could decorate eggs this year. Maybe it's because it was a tradition I had growing up and I want to share it with my kids despite my egg cooking skills. We tried anyway and the eggs were undercooked and for some reason had moisture all over them. Anything we tried putting on them kept sliding off. I guess it was still fun though!

This is the kit I picked up at Target for $2. I thought it would be simple for a 2 and 3 year old to use. Plus they LOVE stickers!

Morgan getting started.

Blake going to town on his.

Quite proud of his finished egg!

Rich's egg.

My 1st attempt at an egg.

Morgan's 1st egg.

My 2nd egg.

Another egg...either Morgan's or Blake's.

The kids had a lot of fun! They weren't letting the stickers falling off get them down and they kept right on working. Rich and I decided that the old fashioned egg dying will probably work best in the future. And after talking to a friend, I found out that there are egg timers that will help me make a perfect hard-boiled egg....so we can actually eat them afterwards! :-)

I just wanted to say Happy Birthday to my Mom today! I definitely don't envy her for having an April Fools birthday! ;-)

Wordless Wednesday: Snuggling with Daddy

For more Wordless Wednesday, check out 5 Minutes for Mom, Go Graham Go! and Healthy Moms.

Wordless Wednesday: Like Father, Like Son

Like Father

Like Son

For more Wordless Wednesday, check out 5 Minutes for Mom, Go Graham Go! and Healthy Moms.

Blake's Kind of Lesson!

Rich and Blake like to sit in the chair and look at farming magazines together and it turns out Blake is catching on to some things:

Narrated by Morgan

A Neat Coincidence

April 11th, 2005 really sticks out in my mind. I had just moved back to live with my parents from my college town and it was my first day of my new job at a local veterinary clinic. After a full day of work, I stopped by Rich's place (now 'our' place) to tell him all about my day and, being that it was a nice day, help Rich work on the yard. I was working up some dirt next to the house when Rich's aunt came to visit. I don't remember exactly why she came by anymore, but I do remember that it was the day that she took the following picture-Rich's and my first picture together.

April 11th, 2005

This past Saturday we were at Rich's parents' for an Easter dinner/going away party for Rich's brother who left Easter day for the Marines. Rich's aunt stopped by and took a bunch of pictures, including this next picture. (I think her camera is attached to her-she always has it!)

This past Saturday

A couple nights ago Rich and I were discussing the pictures, when I mentioned that they were taken about the same time of the year 4 years apart. I starting thinking a little harder about it and it hit me that they were both taken on the exact same day-April 11th! Rich and I don't really have a lot of good pictures together. Besides our wedding pictures, I can only think of one other picture of us and I can't say it's the best. (Rich had just gotten out of the shower and his hair was crazy and I was looking like a pregnant blimp-LOL!) So for our two fairly nice pictures to be taken on the same day 4 years apart seemed like a pretty neat coincidence to me. :-)

Rich's Recent Accomplishment

A little while ago I announced that Rich had passed his state professional surveying exam like it wasn't a big deal, when really it was and is! I was mostly trying to avoid embarrassing Rich. He really tries to be humble about his accomplishments, but I decided that I don't have to be! I'm really proud of him and excited for him!

So on January 31st Rich passed his state professional surveying exam. He had already passed the national exam and only needed to pass the state exam to become a professional surveyor (PS). It is a huge accomplishment! He has been working at becoming a professional surveyor for 10 years between college and an internship under another professional surveyor. I knew how exciting it would be for Rich to become a PS, but every little thing that has happened since, because of it, has added to that excitement. Here is the time line:

• The Monday following the exam, he called to get his license and by that night the state had already posted his surveying number. He now had a number-very exciting!
• Then the license came in the mail the following Saturday. More excitement!
• Since he had his license, the next Monday he was able to order his rubber stamp and his embossing stamp(to stamp surveying papers). Yay!
• That Tuesday he left for the Michigan Professional Surveying Conference and spent his first year at the conference as a PS. (Apparently it was very exciting, but I was not able to go with him. I hope to be with him next year when he is recognized at the banquet and receives a plaque!) :-)
• The next Tuesday his stamps were done and he was able to pick them up. He also found out that he won 500 caps (things that go in the ground that show he was the one to do the survey) while at the conference. Winning something is always exciting and so were his stamps! (The embossing one is really cool!)
• Last Friday, his place of employment had an announcement put in the local paper. We had to track the paper down when we found out, but he has a copy now. Even more excitement!

He has also gotten cards and letters of congratulations, offers to be taken to dinner or out for a drink to celebrate and even gifts. I knew it was a big deal, but this has been a real whirlwind of (yeah, I know I said it a million times already) excitement! The buzz has dwindled down now, but I wanted to share a little of what has been going on here this last month. I, again, am really proud of Rich and I am happy to be his 'other half' enjoying everything right along with him!

Blake loves reading with Daddy

Blake has started to show more interest in books lately. Anytime I've tried to read to him, he just grabs the book and closes it, but when Rich reads to him, he really seems to enjoy it! It's so cute!

He has even started to sit and look through books on his own. I'm hoping he'll love books as much as Morgan always has. He is just getting a later start :-)

A Message from the Kiddos to their Daddy

(PS=Professional Surveyor)

Our family's official 'good luck' food!

I'm not usually superstitious, and neither is Rich, but he had spaghetti the night before he took his initial surveying exam after college. He passed that exam and has had to work under a professional surveyor for the last 4 years before taking the professional surveying exam today. So last night, Rich wanted spaghetti for good luck for today's exam. Since he had spaghetti the night before his first exam and passed, he thought it would be good luck to have it again. I wasn't going to write about it unless it worked... I'm writing so Rich passed and spaghetti is now the official 'good luck' food! :-)

Congratulations, Rich, on becoming a professional surveyor! :-)

Germany Trip: This one's for Rich!

Before meeting Rich, I would have never thought twice about anything fire related. Now I pay attention to everything fire related, even in Germany! Since I wouldn't have taken pictures of any of this otherwise, this one's for Rich! :-)

We came across this fire truck as we were leaving Trier, Germany's oldest city. It was really neat to be able to see a German fire truck up close (and the firefighters!)

Me next to the fire truck.

The back of the fire truck.

The fire house in my parents' town, Neiderjoshbach.

A closer look at the sign on the fire house.

A fire hydrant outside the fire house in Neiderjoshbach.

I think this is the tower the fire whistle is in in a town near my parents', Eppstein. It is connected to the fire station, but I wasn't close enough to get a picture of that.

Those are all the fire pictures I got while I was their, but I also got Rich a little Lego firefighter playset at the Lego store in Munich and a German firefighter stein in Trier as souvenirs. I'm glad I got the stein when I did, because I never saw another one! :-) Here are pictures of them:

I'm not sure if you can get this in the USA, but I thought it was pretty neat while I was in Germany. Plus Legos are really big there!

This was just too neat to pass up! The price was right and it also says "Made in Germany" on the bottom, which is great to see on a souvenir from another country. :-)