Mammoth Cave and Matthew's birthday

As promised I am posting a few pictures of our trip to Mammoth Cave in Kentucky. This was a fantastic trip. It was a geologist/hobby rock collector's dream. Note: I have a rock collection. 

We stayed at the Comfort Inn in Cave City. This hotel had a full breakfast and a nice pool that very few other people were in. So it worked well for us! 

cave tour

On the first day of our trip Erik, Dave, and my Dad went to the Corvette museum while the rest of us went to Onyx cave. It was a smaller tour and the tour guide gave us quite a bit of information about the caves and all caves in KY. I loved this tour. I liked the Mammoth Cave tours but they were crowded and this tour was much smaller. 

Then we went on two Mammoth Cave tours. We went on the Domes and Dripstones tour and the Historic tour. Both were fantastic! Sarah's favorite part was in the Historic tour where we went through an area called "fat man's misery". She giggled the entire time. There were many stores selling rocks and gemstones too. The kids couldn't resist. I almost couldn't resist. I love gemstones!!

Looks like a frozen waterfall

At lunch - why is Sarah sticking out her tongue?

Kentucky landscape + 3 kids

 We ate really well too! We went to a Mexican place that Erik loved, a steak house that everyone loved, and a buffet with ice cream for everyone. We also stopped at an  Amish bulk store that had amazing donuts. This trip was spectacular! Erik and I left early since he is low on vacation days and in the evening we went to see Tom Petty in concert. The good thing about Tom Petty is that you know all of his songs, especially if you're an American girl.

Tom Petty concert

 The peach truck came to Powell and we ended up getting 40 lbs of peaches. I made 44 jars of jam, 3 peach crisps and 1 peach cobbler. So I was a little busy and up to my ears in peaches. They were so delicious too!

peach truck peaches

 For Father's day we played through the desert and I made Erik some sourdough bread. I have failed many many many many many many times at making sourdough bread. I've tried numerous recipes and even bought fancy wild yeast online in my efforts to make sourdough. Well my friend Megan gave me some of her starter and it worked great! Now I can make delicious sourdough.

Through the Desert

sourdough! Erik's favorite!

 When Erik was in Boston and I was in Chicago my Mom came to watch the kids. Then we all went to the zoo and Culvers. It was a great day. The kids love going to the zoo with Nana.

Zoo with Nana

 Matthew is 7. I can't believe my youngest kid is 7! On Father's day we had pizza (Daddy and Matthew both like pizza) and on his birthday we had cheese quesadillas, corn on the cob, and orange cupcakes with orange frosting. Matthew also got some great gifts! He got a puppet, a GIANT light bulb, a track, some clothes, magnetic money, legos, sidewalk chalk, color wonder, a slip and slide and more! He was very happy with all his gifts. We also went swimming at the Dublin Rec Center to celebrate.

Matthew loves his gifts

Matthew's orange cupcake

In other news:

1. We went to Origins on Saturday June 17. We got to go to True Dungeon ran by Jon Cook, Mike Naglee, and Jen Naglee. It was great to see them and participate in TD. We also were put with a group of people who had done True Dungeon many times so we got a good score and some great loot! At Origins we played several family games too. We actually didn't buy any games this year!
2. The kids took the Summer Enrichment Experience through school. It was two weeks in the morning. Jenna and Sarah both took coding and Matthew took art. They seemed to really like it and Jenna and Sarah both worked on their scratch programs in the evening.
3. Our washing machine broke. Our dryer has broken a few times and we've always called the appliance repair people. Well both are bad. They are 11 years old so we had to buy new ones. Unfortunately our laundry room is small so we were very limited about what we could buy.
4. In addition to our washer and dryer that needs fixed, our blue Explorer is also very broken. Erik and Dave "fixed" the brakes but they didn't tighten everything enough and so it became very dangerous and Tuffy said the tire was about to fall off. Yipee! We are NOT doing the brakes ourselves anymore. No youtube videos! This is the second time we've had to bring it in because of these brakes!
5. Last weekend we camped in Michigan. More about that in a future post!
6. Devry has moved learning management systems. So next session I have 2 new courses with a new LMS. Yay! Also I have two more faculty I'm in charge of because they needed new managers and I'm good at responding. I'm not a fan of this. I feel like the better job you do the more work they give you!
7. I'm teaching Tuesday nights next session but only one night a week so it isn't that bad.
8. I have read almost the entire Fever series by Karen Marie Moning. I've been burning through Urban Fantasy lately. 

uber summer

School is finally out and we are definitely in summer mode! Look at this adorable face - Matthew (missing his two front teeth) is obviously excited for summer.

All third graders spend a day dressed as pioneers for Pioneer Day. This year I was on the planning committee and in charge of biscuit making, butter churning and lemonade. It was a LOT of work. I don't know that I want to be in charge of this when Matthew gets to this point. However the kids had a blast. It was a really fun day. They did tin punching, leather stamping, square dancing, candle making, made biscuits, butter, and lemonade, did chores, and so on. They lived as a pioneer and the kids loved it. Sarah really had a great time so I guess the stress was worth it.

Sarah in a blue pioneer dress

Sarah square dancing

 We have had two fantastic camping trips with our new explorer.  The car handles SO well and drives smoothly. I'm really happy we have it. The first trip we went to Alum Creek State Park and stayed in the G loop near the camper beach. The kids played in the sand for almost 8 hours while I read Red Rising by Pierce Brown. I have since read Golden Son and Morning Star. Those books were incredible. No wonder they won the science fiction goodreads award. I gave them 5 stars! Anyway, the kids had a great time.

Our second trip was to Lazy River with Matt and Sunshine and a new family we just met - the Bombas. The Bombas have 4 kids between 10 and 4 with only one girl (8).  I assumed Sarah (9) would play with the girl but she struck up a friendship with the 10 year old boy over mutual pokemon fascination. We had a great time and the kids played on the new playground there.  We are looking forward to more good camping trips this summer!

Alum Creek

Now these are some good oreos!

New Park at Lazy River

 We bought a new digital piano. It seems to work well. I'm not a piano player so I can't tell but the kids seem to enjoy trying to play. We will expect to be better than Beethoven now that we have this fancy piano I got on ebay.

digital piano

 On the first day of summer break I took the kids to McDonalds for breakfast. For some reason this is a huge treat for them. We never go to McDonalds for breakfast so they were so excited to have microwaved pancakes and rubbery sausage. Yum!

McDonalds for breakfast!

In other news:

1. Erik traveled for 2 weeks recently for his new job. I'm hoping he will like his new role and it will not be too stressful. Also I hope this new job will come with some job security!
2. My paper was accepted to IEEE Frontiers in Education in October. I'll be presenting and I'm excited about it! I've also been talking with a faculty in North Carolina about some collaborative research. I'm hoping it will move forward.
3. We went to Mammoth Cave (pics in next post) and had an amazing time. I'm hoping to do the wild cave tour with Erik sometime. 
4. I was flown out to Chicago to do an interview on cybersecurity and the internet of things. I hope it went well. I was nervous the entire time - of course there were bright lights and a ton of people in the film crew. They will be putting videos of me on social media now. Yikes! 
5. I took an uber from the airport to the Devry campus and back. It was fun to take my first uber ;).