He shall turn the heart of the children to their fathers

About a month ago Jake took on a new account at work and was calling his team members (in different states) to get to know them. He called a Nate Dvorak in Omaha. When Nate asks Jake where he's from Nate makes the connection and tells him that they are related. Nate's mom had told him all about her cousin, Tom Herway, who lived in Brussels. Turns out Jake and Nate are second cousins. They share the same great grandfather, who happens to be Jake's name sake, Jacob Carl.

Jake had his last week of training out in Omaha this last week. He extended his stay a couple of days to visit his family up in Indianola, Iowa. A week prior to leaving Jake studied his family history and read a bunch of great stories to share with them.
Here is Jacob Carl and Helen Marie's house, where Loren (Jake's Pop/Grandfather) was raised.
Valentine is Jacob Carl's father, who came with his father, Adam, across the ocean from Germany
Nate and Jake. The Gallup employees. Great Grandson's of Jacob Carl. Second Cousins.
Kent, Jake's dad's brother, on the left. Edna and Loren, Jake's Gram and Pop, on the right.
Gram's parents
Simpson College, where Pop's mom went to work and where he went to school.
Libby, Jake's Great Aunt? (Gram's older sister)


Gary, Jake, Mary Helen, and Becca (descendants of Blanche, Loren, and Vivian- Jacob Carl's 3 kids)
House of Glen and Susie Bowles (Jake's great grandparents on Gram's side)

So, pretty amazing huh? It was a really neat experience for Jake and how it miraculously all played out.

Apple Day

Have I mentioned how much I love all the farms around here?! Well, Saturday we went to visit one just a 20 minute drive away. It was Apple Day, and they had all kinds of treats and activities.

We started off in the corn maze. Rachel was our super confident leader out of this thing.Tractor heaven! Tons of ride on tractor toys. All the kids loved it and we spent a good amount of time here.

Herman Parish, author of the newer Amelia Bedelia's books. He's the nephew to Peggy Parish, author of the original books (which I think are better, shh...don't tell Herman). Anyway, can you believe it? He lives in Princeton! I had to buy a book and have him sign it. Rachel thought it was pretty cool to meet an author!
Katelyn was loving this! She's so good at waving "hi"

Tommy got really into the apple picking! I got busy taking pictures and forgot to keep track of how many they picked. I ended up having to buy $30 worth of apples! Whoops! Let's just say I'll be making lots of applesauce this week.
Wagon ride around the farm.
The kids had a blast! We'll definitely be going back.

Back to School

So, here's my little girl headed off to first grade. I considered having her do Kindergarten again for a little bit, since the deadline here is September and she will be the youngest in her class. But after talking to her former teacher and Kindergarten only being half day here, it didn't seem right. I do however feel a little jipped on a year and a half of her life. I would have loved half day Kindergarten.
Sending her off on the bus her first day of school was SO hard!!!!!!!!!!! Not knowing exactly where the bus was going...I've only been to the school once and got really lost. And not knowing who was going to be taking care of my daughter...I still have never met or seen her teacher. I miss taking her and dropping her off in her classroom. I can't wait for Back to School night. Hopefully I'll feel a little more connected after that. But I'll still hate the bus.
The report when we picked her up was, "It was the best!" She was also proud to tell us, "I talked to people...I wasn't even shy." She met a few friends...Justin, Jasmine, and Tiana. She thinks it's pretty cool to have two princess names in her class. The rest of the week went well, although she was definitely wearing out by Friday. She's also excited to have "computers" as a subject.
Does anybody else feel like that was the SHORTEST SUMMER EVER!!! It seems like fall came overnight. I'm not ready for winter! I know it's not here yet, but the cooler temperatures have me nervous already.

Kate is ONE

So hard to believe! In some ways that year flew by, in other ways it did not. Katelyn has been the best baby EVER! And I'm sad the baby phase is ending but she is getting so fun too. We celebrated a day early since we had Grammie, Pop, and Uncle Steve with us. So I threw this all together in a day, but it was a breeze since I had helping hands to take the kids to the mall and the pool. Wish I could take more advantage of that.

My kids have all been particular about the sticky frosting. I really like Kate's way of handling it.
This picture make me think of my baby pictures.
All of Katelyn's presents were opened in 10 seconds flat due to some eager helping hands.
All her toys were a big hit. Rachel was proud that she also liked the toy she picked out.

And the big kids are enjoying the baby toys as much as if they got them for their birthdays.
And, one of my favorite presents of all...balloons! Pure joy. As far as stats go, I don't know. I'm still in the process of researching doctors and transferring medical records so that I can make an appointment. But I can tell you that she has started to crawl, but still prefers her speedy army crawl. She loves to wave bye and blow kisses. She loves her brother and sister. Any time they sing, she'll try to jump right in. She's my best sleeper yet! Now that she has her own room we are finding that she can sleep in till 9! She's starting to mimic now. Last night at the dinner table she folded her arms, bowed her head and mumbled a little prayer. It brought us all to tears laughing. She is so cute and I am just so in love with her!

Home Sweet Home

Our townhouse! I'll admit, it's not much from the front. But Jake did well on this one. Once again, he put a deposit down on this place without me seeing it. There's a lot I would update if I owned it, but it's nice, spacious, and the set up is PERFECT for us right now. We're minutes away from Jake's work and church, as well as everything major store you can name. Oh yes, I'm loving it. Our first night here I went to Target and was in heaven with the selection and prices. We've got a garage (first time ever), and the mowing, leaves, and snow removal is all taken care of by the community. We also took advantage of the nearby swimming pool for the few days it was still open.This place has 3 bedrooms and stairs! The first place Jake and I have lived in that has stairs. Kinda fun!Our backyard! Not private, but pretty close. The kids are loving it and have gotten some great use out of it already.
I'll show more on the inside later when I have things cleaned up better. I think we're completely out of boxes now, it's just putting things where they belong now. I had to show a picture of this mountain of paper. That's just from the kitchen boxes. These movers were fast but definitely not efficient. I'm not complaining though, I loved having movers pack for me!
Our first outing to Princeton. This is just some random church we parked at. Don't you love how excited these kids are.


We've gotten pretty settled, but the to-do list still seems a mile long. Gotta love moving.

Vacation Evacuation

So...we have some catching up to do! I've been without internet for a couple weeks and life has been a little hectic...maybe an understatement. We've bought a car, went on vacation, moved, housed visitors, celebrated Kate's first birthday, and gotten Rachel registered and off to school. It's been a lot of fun and I can't wait to share it all with you.

First off, the car. A really long story but I'll try and condense it.

Let it be know that it is NOT EASY trying to buy a car when you don't have a car. Jake trained out to Brooklyn, Conneticut, Staten Island, and New Jersey to find one. He buys one up that was a great car but really beat up on the inside. I wasn't thrilled about it. The seller ends up desperately wanting it back. We buy another one and then he pulls back on his offer. He's a millionaire, but in heavy debt and couldn't get the money to us in time. So I was stuck with 2 cars in NYC, with no husband, and having to deal with street parking and moving the cars for the street sweeper. Probably one of the craziest days of my life! I end up driving one car (with no registration, insurance, etc) down to Princeton and heading to Boston for the week with the other one. It all ended happily ever after as we were able to trade in a car and end up with the much nicer one...and a happy and relieved wife.Having a car gives you so much freedom. I'm loving it! We had great time in Boston spending time with our friends and enjoying the last days of summer. I loved talking to my friend Maria and our kids get along so well. It's amazing to watch Rachel and Andrew pick up where they left off and have such a great time together.

One day we went to a pond to go swimming. The kids were loving it until we found out about the elevated e. coli in the water. We're dealing with the consequences of that this week :)
Another day we went to a farm, had a delicious fresh lunch, picked blueberries, played on the old playground and fed some animals. I WAS LOVING IT! It's been too long since we've done anything like this.
Eating the fruits of our labor.
This girl loves animals.
We also spent a lot of time at home. These kids were busy with treasure hunts, swimming, water balloons, bubbles, chalk, finger painting, and just having fun.
It's so fun to have kids all the same ages...

We ended up staying a few extra nights because our neighborhood was under mandatory evacuation for the Hurricane. I was expecting to come home to flooding and broken windows. but the storm ended up not hitting as hard as they predicted. A little anti-climatic but good for us because our movers were scheduled to come the next morning.

Taking one last look at the statue and the view from the river.
We've known about this move for about 6 months now so we've been more than ready for it. But it was still hard to say goodbye to friends and to close the doors on our cozy apartment and the memories we've had. I got teary eyed looking out our window one last time as I reflected upon the struggles and the triumphs we've experienced here. It was a tough year and I reached breaking points I never thought possible, but I don't regret living here one bit. It has strengthened and humbled me and will forever be a part of me.

So, goodbye New York City we will miss you (maybe not the smells, dogs, crowds, and noise) but we'll definitely come back to visit (as we're only a 45 minute train ride away)