Annah did her favorite puzzle this week.

Caeden played a lot of Xbox and did weird dances and never stopped talking this week.

He also went back for his second and third tries at contacts.  Doc got the contacts in his eyes, and he got them out, but he could never get them in.  He is done trying for this year.

I had an order for a custom made hat.  I also decided to re-evaluate Crafted With Care. Even though I would like to put all my time into making crochet things, I don't have the ability to do craft shows and get my things seen in-person by people who may actually buy them.  I've decided to just make things I want and post photos of them on my social media.  That way, if people see something they like they can order it, but I won't have something sitting around that I won't use.  

The girls and I went to see a free community theatre production of Godspell Friday night.  It was a beautiful night for an outdoor show.  Sadly, it was literally the worst production of anything I've ever seen. We knew a few of the stage crew, so we stayed to chat with them after. And we knew that even though it was painfully awful, the cast had worked really hard and we stayed out of respect to their efforts.  

The girls made edible cookie dough when we got home.

Caeden practicing guitar in the car before his lesson.  This summer, he has finally hit the point where he really likes to play, and will pick up one of his guitars several times a day or stay up playing into the night.  

Caeden went on the Velocity youth group trip to Chicago yesterday.  They went to the zoo, the beach, Cheesecake Factory, and Chick-fil-a.  He had a blast.

We had a family picnic in the pavilion after church today.

The girls did some music for Velocity Worship Night!

They sang a duet of Give Me Jesus.

Sylvia played her cello during communion.

Annah sang Grace to Grace.

I needed better and more consistent photos of many of my crocheted items, and Sylvia agreed to help me by modeling them today.  It was overcast and not too hot, so it was the perfect day for it.

We were just finishing up taking the last photos of this top when Annah came home from the girls' shared babysitting job at Finding Eminence Farm with flowers! 

This huge pink flower is a Cafe Au Lais dahlia.

The reason they sent flowers home with Annah is actually because these are called Sylvia dahlias!

To Blue Lake and Back

We went to and from Michigan today to bring Sylvia home from camp!

We left home around 5:30 a.m. 

Beautiful sunrise on the way to Colfax

Made it to MI about 8am

We met Sylvia at her cabin. She cried really hard when she saw Annah was with us, because I had written her and told her I wasn't sure she would be coming up.  After all the hugs, the guys carried her things to the car.  We had a picnic lunch at Main Camp.

We checked out the instrument museum.  It was pretty cool, including the theremin a little boy played incessantly for the entire 20 minutes we walked around the place. 

Among the violin display was this article on a music stand about the McEwen Stradivari violin...very interesting!

We were all so glad to see our happy camper!  

We got some Dole whips and walked down by the lake to sit for a little bit.

The recital hall was packed for the Masterworks Orchestra performance! I had brought my tripod and good camera and planned to record the whole performance, but I couldn't find space to set it up, and ended up sitting where I couldn't really see Sylvia once they started playing.  Many people were standing along the outside walls for the concert.

Sylvia and her 18 other cello buddies

VIDEO: just a few clips of the amazing performance of Dvorak's 8th Symphony

It was incredible.  

Sylvia loved her cello gang during this time. They were an awesome group, and really came together as friends as well as musicians.

Wendy, Jim, Aidan, and Esme all made it over for the concert!  

5 McEowen cousins, none of whom are actually named McEowen

Jeremy and Jim cozying up for a photo

We tried to recreate the photo below, from when Annah and Aidan were babies and Wendy and Jim visited us in Columbus and we did a switcheroo photo, but...well...

Awkward!!!

Sylvia had been dreaming of Crackerbarrell for about 10 days she said!  We stopped at the first one, about an hour and a half down the road.

It was a verrrrry long day, getting there and back--with a couple super scary near-accidents Jeremy navigated us away from like a genius NASCAR driver!  But, we are grateful for the adventure, for God's protection, for the blessing of Sylvia being able to have so many wonderful experiences at BLFAC, and for the time together!