ok, who left the water on.....

Our poor townhouse has had a rough life. In tough shape when we bought it, we worked hard to make it nice. And we did.. And we liked it for the 5 years we lived there. And our tenants liked it for 2 years - really made it their home. And that made me happy...

And now....

Kitchen ceiling and flooring is ruined...

Dining room ceiling and hardwood floors - ruined.

The water people came today and ripped it all out.. Everything we replaced 7 years ago :( Even though we don't live there anymore, we still put a lot of heart and soul and work into it. It's hard to see it just all thrown out...

Ceiling ruined and carpet (2 years old) in the basement - black with mold....

I know the insurance will fix it, and it'll probably look better than it did before..And we're lucky no one was hurt...

still... I'm sad....

Amish Country Mini Vacation

We headed up to Lancaster, PA for a quick little visit. We hit Dutch Wonderland first, and then headed out to the Strasburg railroad for our train fix.

At the railroad museum, we actually got to go into the cab of a 100+ year old locomotive and pull all the ropes and levers. It was really pretty neat!

Then we actually took a ride on a restored steam train. Even the mom thought it was pretty neat - we rode in the open air car right behind the engine, which was backwards for half the trip..

Luckily, at least one child was willing to pose for a picture with the engine :) Surprisingly, it was NOT our train enthusiast...

We had a really good time though, and highly recommend Lancaster as a family destination!

Gotta Get a Gordon....

So for a while now, Daniel has been very aware that his Thomas the Train collection does NOT include either a "Gordon" (one of the engines) or an "Annie and a Claribel" (two passenger coach cars).. So he's been saying at random moments "We gotta getta gordon".

We'd talked about maybe getting them for his birthday (a while a way still) or maybe even further away at christmas..But he wasn't really seeming excited about waiting that long..

And then this weekend, since I was home from work on Friday, we decided to take another go at potty training..And Daniel knocked it out of the park. Over 3 days he only had 2 accidents when he was wearing his big boy underpants, and the few times we did put a diaper on him, he kept them dry each time.

I'm SO proud of my big boy. We're not at the end of the road, but we've made it over the first mountain.

So, as a big treat for a big success, I decided it was time to get a Gordon..And so we did :)

Happy Early 4th of July!

So I have a couple GREAT pictures from this weekend.

1) My kids, and their cousins, AND, their Great Grandparents - Gramma Lona and Grampa Bobby. Gramma Lona will be turning 88 in a few weeks, and Grampa Bobby will be turning the big 9-0 in November. They are quite the inspiration :)

2) Our Plona family. Our entire Plona family.. All 42 of them! I'm extremely lucky to be part of this group - who turns out year after year for our annual 4th of July picnic and camp out. Yup, I said camp out... It's a great party - one I look forward to every year. Special thanks to Cousin Traci for bringing her tripod so we could get a complete family picture this year!

3) Since Daniel has been "in a mood" when I've tried to take his picture for the past few months now, I don't have a lot of good shots of him recently. Somehow, we caught this good one of him yesterday...

Happy Father's Day!

Our daddy in his happy place :) Michael LOVES company on a trip to lowes and we got lucky in that a race car cart was available. I couldn't resist capturing the moment...

And then I couldn't resist posting a pic from Michael's first fathers day - 4 years ago...

Train Day!

We went to the Old Town Manassas Train day festival today. I don't think there could have been a more perfect event invented for Daniel. Luckily, it was packed - so I think there are lots of train enthusiasts besides our D and I think we can plan on it happening again next year. We're really lucky, the train station lets you get right up close to the real trains and we saw a couple pull through - always a treat...

D watching the lego railroad models.. He could have watched them all day..

Sydney played the cub scout games and chose cotton candy as her treat...

And now they are up in bed in their tent in Daniel's room.. Let's see how long this lasts...

Four really IS fantastic

Somehow Sydney just seems a lot more grown up since turning 4.

Today I said it would be a big help if she picked up her toys in the family room so I could vacuum. and then I turned away to vacuum the kitchen.

When I was done with the kitchen, I turned around. And was shocked to see that she had willingly picked up all her toys and the family room was totally ready to vacuum...

I was pretty proud if her. She really IS quite a helper...

Today's pic is the May Birthday Ladies at yesterday's Jones birthday party - Suellen, Sydney and Maggie :)