Ms. Sweigart's class (day 4)

Friday, Ben and I went to the 4th grade classroom of Ms. Sweigart! It was such a nice school, brand new this year. Carissa teaches children that use english as their second language (ESL), which in addition to other home issues, makes for a more challenging classroom. We helped during their math station, which was fun. Then we went to recess with them...oohh boy! Yep, I went on the swirly thing that nobody should probably ride on more than once. And in the afternoon, her kids presented us with their read aloud short stories. They did such a good job, we both enjoyed ourselves. After visiting the classroom, interacting with the students, I can see why Carissa spends so much time at school. She does a pretty amazing job with those kids...and its clearly not an easy job.

We left before school was over, and went to a HUGE book fair outside of town. Wow, I'm not a big reader, but I could've spent hours looking at all the books there. We actually did spend almost 2 hours there! Friday evening, we took Carissa out to eat at a restaurant of her choice..it was Greek food. Then, we stopped in to see Darren's new home and spent the rest of the evening there. He has a nice place...he is in the process of painting the inside...when he moved in his bedroom was a surprising purple! I think by the time we visit again, that may be changed to a more masculine color.

Hiking "Old Rag" (day 3)

Thursday, Carissa had parent teacher conferences at school. She took us out to eat for breakfast and then headed to work. I guess since she's the teacher it would be kind of important if she would be there. Ben and I headed out on a "little" hiking adventure to a trail called Old Rag.Before starting, the name itself pretty much hits the feeling you get WAY before the end. Somehow, before starting the trail we were in the wrong spot. We asked the park ranger where Old Rag was, and he pointed up...so we went up. A mile later we saw a sign with the trail map, and proceeded on our way, it was a 7.2 mile hike, with the extra mile that we already did. I tell ya what, KS doesn't have terrain like that and whew its a work out getting to the top. It was beautiful weather and scenery getting there though. As we got to the top we realized that we had started this backwards, since we began in the wrong place. This made the next part maybe a bit more tricky...which was the rock scramble. Needless to say, we took a few "alternate" routes to get back to the main trail more than once. It was hard to know which way to go because the little blue marks were pointing us in the direction towards the top, not to get out of there. There was a sixth grade field trip on the trail...and we had to laugh when we passed them going in the opposite direction (everybody we passed was going in the opposite direction for that matter) as one boy was moaning, "are the at the bus yet?". Poor little guy, he was just a trucking a way..yet I felt the same way and I'm a few years older than him! Anyways, after we got down to the switch-backs we felt a little bit better just knowing that we were indeed still on the right path. And the final stretch, which normally would be an all downhill experience...you guessed it, was an all up hill slope for us (the backwards thing again). Our feet were burning, our legs sore, our hips aching....BUT, it was a beautiful hike!!! I had wanted to see a bear, but no bear...they kept having signs that it they were out there...only trace that we saw was a "greedy bear dropping". That was Ben's words for it, I won't go into detail about it...but it was a form of bear poop.

We got back to Harrisonburg, picked up Carissa from school...and since one of her roommates had borrowed her car, she didn't have keys to her house. Guess who got to climb in through the bathroom window...yep, me. We had supper and a nice shower, and then left to go watch a TV show with some friends of Carissa. But wait, were would the keys to the car be after we already left the house...yes that's right...guess who got to go in through that same bathroom window again...ding ding ding, me. Needless to say, I think both Ben and I slept really hard that night, our whole body sore!

Fall trip to Virginia (Day 1-2)

(Leaving Topeka...wide-eyed and ready for the trip!)

Ben's fall break from classes at WSU was this past week. We decided to take a trip to VA to see my sister, Carissa. Last year we did the same trip at the same time...I guess the difference now is we're married! We left Tuesday afternoon and stopped in Topeka to see Mom and Dad Hershberger. After eating a tasty supper at their house we hit the road for a long ride in the car. We arrived in Harrisonburg around 1:00...and fell asleep for a couple hours. Later that afternoon we played volleyball outside and then enjoyed some delicious homemade tacos, which Darren joined us for. (Carissa's home)

Happy Birthday Ben!

Ben's 24th birthday was Oct 1st. We had a good day celebrating...blueberry waffles for breakfast, met MJ for lunch at Cracker Barrell, he had class in the afternoon, and then to PF Cheng's for supper! Not that eating is the only way of celebrating, but it is one of Ben's favorite things to do so maybe it is appropriate. On the 4th, we had all the family over to celebrate...both sets of Ben's grandparents, both of our parents, Sam, Mitch, Brent & Alyssa and kids. We had a good time with everyone. Ben said this was the first time he has had everyone together for his birthday...he really enjoyed it. Thank you all for coming!

Weekend trip to Iowa

This last weekend, I drove to Iowa to visit my college roommate and very good friend Ranee Brokaw, and her growing family. Luke is 5 months old, and the last time I saw him was at our wedding when he was 4 weeks old! He is very cute and quite smiley.

Justin, Ranee and Luke Brokaw

I also got to meet Isaac Birky, Kyle (my cousin) and Julie's (Ranee's sister) baby who is about 2 months old. Darren (my cousin) was meeting his new nephew for the first time this weekend. It was a mini cousin gathering in Iowa.

Kyle, Julie, and Isaac Birky

We all went to the fall festival in Kalona and also had supper together at the Birky's on Saturday night. Ranee and I went shopping as well, it wouldn't be a visit without a little shopping :) It was a short weekend, but so glad I could visit and see the growing babies too.

All of us eating at the fall festival (except Justin, he was working in one of the vendors for their church)

I was ready to get back to see Ben. He had to work on Friday, so he couldn't make it since I left Fri and came back Sunday. He went up to Hesston on Saturday for the college activities, the Paul Friesen art center opening. Phil and Diana came down for that as well, so they all spent time together.

cute little campers

This weekend we went to Hesston to spend the night with Maddox and Ava (Kade was there too, he wasn't quite old enough to partcipate in the camping part). They were staying at Grandpa and Grandma's house while their parents were at the bluegrass festival (I'm jealous!).
So, I thought we should have ourselves an adventure and campout in our tent. Maddox helped Ben set it up, and later in the evening we "hiked" out to the tent with all our goodies for a restful night of sleep :) Well, surprisingly after the bedtime story Ben told Maddox and Ava slept through the night. As far as sleep goes for Ben and I...well, it was worth the experience!

loving this weather

It's hard to believe that we had all that rain last week. This week has been absolutely gorgeous! Before the cool air starts in, we decided to get the windows painted. Perhaps it will be an ongoing process until the weather makes it impossible to complete...but hopefully it'll be done by then. The front windows are done, so I guess as far as looks go, that's a good thing. We are painting the trim of the storm windows as well so it all is brown..I must say I like the look much better. It's one of those things that you wouldn't necessarily think about it if they weren't painted, but you can tell the difference now that they are. (not sure if that makes sense?) At any rate, it is quite a time consuming task..but I can't complain because being outside has been just beautiful. I would show pictures...but oh yes, the camera hasn't come yet..apparently still on back order. I'll give a brief rundown of how it goes, since normally I would have pictures to demonstrate... unscrew the wierd old way that the storm window is connected, remove storm window, wipe it off (very dirty), use steel wool around the trim (I don't like the sound or feeling that it makes when you rub the metal), prime trim with special primer, paint x 2 coats, use razor blade to remove excess paint off glass, clean very well without leaving streaks...meanwhile, clean window and paint, cleaning very well again...then putting them all back together! Wa-lah!