We have uncharacteristically been home most of the weekends of September, October, and November. We made two back-to-back road trips Up North and to Neenah. Usually, we are traveling here and there and everywhere.
We have enjoyed our time at home, but it has also been a bit boring. I really have very little to blog about when we just hang around home. Thankfully, we will soon enter the holiday season where we will travel to Neenah, Minnesota, and Indiana within 7 days. Let’s hit the road!
Jesse and I enjoy carving pumpkins. We carved pumpkins with our families growing up, we have carved pumpkins with our friends, and we have carved pumpkins with our small group.
Last year our small group began enjoying a fall evening together, and this year we continued the tradition. We began with a take-out potluck. Each couple brought their favorite take-out food to share. We had pad thai, stir fry, tacos, barbecue, and fried chicken. After dinner, we headed out to pick out our pumpkins from a local patch where the proceeds support a summer mission trip.
We then began carving. Recently, Jesse began using templates in his pumpkin carving. He prints out a design and carves from there. I used the Internet as a source for ideas, but then Jesse helped me freehand my pumpkin design. We were pleased with this year’s results!
There are two main reasons I have not been posting recently:
1. Facebook has not been pulling my blog posts onto my wall. It is supposed to automatically pull my RSS feed after a new post, but it isn’t. After searching around, I found that this feature is no longer available. Sigh. I now need to manually import each post.
2. Jesse and I have been working on how we manage photos. We have one camera and two laptops. Jesse thought he could import the photos on his computer and share them over to mine. So far, it has not been working that easily…but we are getting closer.
Here are some of the things I have not been sharing this fall.
Can you tell that I am a teacher? September and October have put me back into the Work Trenches. I am enjoying my job and my class, but my blogging has suffered. My goal was always to post every 3-4 days, and it has been weeks. Thanks for your faithfulness…inspiration is just around the corner.
…our own!
Today we signed the documents to pay off our previous mortgage and refinance our home. For the longest time, we were unable to refinance due to the drop in the value of our house. We bought in the early summer of 2007. The housing market began to decline soon after we purchased our home and continues to deteriorate.
With a record low in interest rates, we were able to refinance from 6% to 3.75%. In thirty years we will have saved thousands of dollars. In the short-term, God continues to provide for our family by lowering our monthly mortgage payment.
We actually enjoyed the process much more the second time. With much more knowledge and life experience, we were able to make wiser financial decisions. I still don’t understand everything about buying a house…but I am much better at signing my name on the dotted line.
…I will be a millionaire.
My husband is an entrepreneur. He has ideas…lots of ideas. Since we have been married he has created images for iStock, redesigned his personal website, finished numerous freelance projects (some paid, some unpaid), dabbled in photography, and created a resource for web designers related to Content Management Systems.
His newest venture involves board games. We both grew up in game-playing families. In college our group of friends would get together and play games. Since college, my brother and his wife (Alaina) have developed a passion for playing all kinds of unique and interesting games.
This year Jesse, my brother, and one of Jesse’s co-workers co-founded Boxed Up Fun. Boxed Up Fun is a website dedicated to introducing people to new games using videos. Check it out and write a game review at www.boxedupfun.com.
I don’t know if this is Jesse’s million dollar idea (though I know someday he will have one), but at least it keeps him out of trouble!
Labor Day Weekend we set out on our third adventure on the Superior Hiking Trail. Thankfully, this was our least eventful trip.
This year we invited my dad to join us backpacking. He has backpacked portions of the Appalachian Trail with my brother and my uncle, so he was excited about the opportunity to backpack again.
We planned to hike a total of 20 miles from Caribou Trail to Bally Creek Road.
The first day we hiked 4 miles in and camped at a lovely campground next to a moving creek.
Our second day was the longest and most difficult. We planned to hike 11 miles. We finished the first 5 miles in one hour and forty-five minutes. We couldn’t believe it. Sadly, the next six miles took about an hour each. We were hiking through the Cascade River Valley. It was beautiful, but we hiked from low ground to high ground.
On Sunday we hiked the remaining 5 miles.
The interesting thing was that we didn’t see any Lake Superior views. Each time we climbed a bluff we were looking out to the west. The one time we could have seen the lake (from Lookout Mountain), it was so hazy we couldn’t see anything.
Enjoy the views we did see!
At the beginning of August, we had the privilege of hosting my family in Minnesota including my aunt from Arizona.
We began with a tour of downtown Minneapolis at the Walker Art Center Sculpture Garden.
Then we headed downtown to visit the recently opened 35W Bridge Memorial. The memorial includes personal remarks from each of the victims’ families.
After we visited the memorial, we walked to the Guthrie Theater. We didn’t get to see a show, but we did get to walk out onto the Endless Bridge.
The weather was beautiful, so we spent the afternoon at the Farmer’s Market on the Nicollet Mall before seeing the Minneapolis skyline from the Foshay Tower.
We finished the evening celebrating my birthday with foods from the hot zones at Chino Latino.
The next day we went to another major Minnesota landmark: The Mall of America.
Our last destination was St. Paul. We began the morning at the Historic Tour at the Wabasha Street Caves. Then we saw the state capital and the cathedral.
Of course, the Lashbrooks didn’t just sightsee. We also ate plenty of sweet corn and delicious meals together. It was a wonderful week of being together with part of our extended family.
This is such a hard time of year for me. I love going back to work, but it is such an adjustment to go back to a schedule and routine.
You might say, “Andrea, school doesn’t start for two weeks!” Let me tell you, school starts the instant I started making name tags, desk tags, locker tags, class lists…and having school dreams!
You might say, “But you don’t have to be at school until next week…” The truth is I have already been at school most of the last two weeks.
And…tonight, for the first time this summer, I took a nap and then drove to the grocery store instead of riding my bike…because I was so tired. Sad!
In recent years, it has become more important to me to begin learning about some of my family’s traditions. I enjoy cooking, so I have been spending more time in the kitchen with my grandmas and moms. This past weekend I finally mastered the Lashbrook Family Cobbler.
My Mammaw Lashbrook has always had a black raspberry patch next to their home in Indiana. Every summer she picks and freezes quarts of black raspberries. These raspberries are not something you can find in the store or at the farmer’s market. Last year I discovered that I have a patch of wild black raspberries behind my house. This summer I actually planted more black raspberries on the side of my house.
Besides having the right berries, I also had to master the pie crust. After a few attempts, we can now help my grandma out and and make her famous Black Raspberry Cobbler. Yum!
