Friday, August 20, 2010

Alexandra's Hair donation

Alexandra has a big heart! She also has the ability to grow LOTS of hair! She loves her hair, which proves that if she is willing to cut it and donate it to someone who can't grow their hair, she has a very BIG heart! She wanted to donate her hair (again) only this time she didn't want it to be short when she got it cut. So, she grew it and grew it until she was approaching a nice Rapunzel length...and finally this week she donated again. We had been measuring 8 inches and she was contemplating how that would look. Would her hair still be long enough for her to be happy and comfortable heading back to 6th grade? Well, before we left for the haircut we pulled up the donation information. OOPS. Locks of Love minimum is 10 inches. Pantene Beautiful lengths was 8 inches. Alexandra said "I don't want to donate my hair to a woman! I want to donate to a kid!" Hmmmm...ok. Glad I'm not the lady waiting for a wig! But, I get the point. It was her plan all along to donate to a child. Now her dilema was whether she was ok giving up 10 inches instead of 8. She decided to go for it!
Before
After
I know I am a little biased, but I think she looks beautiful! She looks so grown up and I think she feels that way too! Look out 6th grade, here she comes!
When Alexandra was 4 she donated her hair for the first time. Even then she was concerned about children who couldn't grow their hair. (And she was miserable every time we tried to fix her hair.) But I really felt like she was proud to donate her hair even at such a young age.
Before


After

A year and a half ago I also gave up my locks for someone who needed them more than I did.



Before/After








Thursday, August 19, 2010

If at first you don't succeed, try, try again!

Okay, here I go again...

It feels like confession...It has been 5 months since my last blog post.

Whew, has a lot happened. Well, in my last post I was celebrating/mourning the sale of our house. It was a good house. Though two houses we DID NOT need! So fortunately someone did buy our house so we could move on to our next adventure.

We packed up, moved down the street and stacked everything we owned into either our garage, storage unit or laundry room. We were fortunate our house sold quickly but because of this we didn't have much time to get the new house ready. We had all new wood floors installed while we were away on spring break in Boston.

When we returned, they were ALMOST done. So, we stayed in a hotel for 2 nights so they could finish applying the finish to the floors. We LOVE them! It was worth the inconvenience of the extra hotel nights and having to then move everything into the house by ourselves. (a process we are still trying to complete 4 months later.) Since our new house is smaller, we are still trying to sort out what goes where and what gets "eliminated". We could do our own reality show on moving..."I'm sorry, we no longer have a need for you so you have been eliminated!" I must say we were getting close to getting the garage cleared out until we decided to empty out the storage unit we had rented. Out of sight was not out of mind. It was nagging. Paying $100/month to store things we most likely didn't need anyway was a little ridiculous. So, now it is here and just waiting for BJ and me to be able to tackle it together. My goal was to park in the garage by the time school starts. (Um...one week left!)

The house is coming along. It is becoming more and more ours every day. I have a stack of remodeling magazines about 2 feet high! We have been discussing the changes we want to make to the house and the timeline. There is a lot up in the air. In the meantime, we are making things work as best they can and trying to be patient. Looking out the windows at the lake makes it all worth it. It really is a beautiful sight!

We have had a great summer!

Christian started off the summer with 2 weeks of basketball camp which he LOVED! He has also done a couple of soccer camps. His fall soccer season started this past weekend. I love watching his games. He has so much fun.



We went on vacation with our dear friends the Hunts. This year was to Virginia. We called it our "Laycation" which is a combination of Lazy and Vacation. Ahhhhh...much needed R&R. We had one side trip to Williamsburg which was HOT but fun! We went there on the 4th of July which seemed fitting. It was a neat place to watch fireworks. Other than that, our biggest moves we made all week were going to the beach or the pool.


After we returned home from vacation, we had 4 days to finish 4-H projects before heading to my parents in Indiana for 2 weeks. My kids do 4-H there because we don't have any clubs near us. They love it. Every year (even when I was in 4-H) we swear to start/complete the projects earlier. Every year we are still down to the wire completing them on time. Maybe next year? We had a great time with my parents and getting to see Tim, Jenny and Abby.



At the end of the two weeks I was able to attend my 21st reunion. (Unconventional, I know. We just couldn't get it pulled together in time for the 20th. If it weren't for Facebook, I don't think it would have happened at all!) It was a great time! I had never been back for a reunion and am so glad we were able to go this time! Below is a picture of my High School BFF and her husband Craig. We are on the front porch of her parents home. (This is where BJ and I had our official first date! Shannon said "We are going to a Henry Lee Summer concert. Get a date!" She was skeptical when I said I thought I would ask this guy I met in my summer class at Purdue. Here we are 20 years later married to those boys we asked to the Henry Lee Summer concert!)

Since we have been back home we have caught up on piano lessons, gone to the pool and down to the lake and have tried to get more of the house unpacked and organized. I've been a little lax on getting things ready for school to start. I think I am in denial that summer is almost over. I LOVE SUMMER! I was meant to live somewhere we have summer 365 days a year. The kids have had their moments but overall we have had a nice summer together.

We are busy, but blessed! I will try to be better about journaling our life. I'm heading to my Outlook calendar right now to put reminders to myself to keep up this time!

Things to come that will surely be blog-worthy...1st day of school and our upcoming trip to Paris!! Yeah!!