Bookerpalooza

Back in August (oh!) we traveled to Indiana for the Booker Family Reunion as well as an early 90th birthday party for Brent's Granny. We traveled 10 hours in the car with Allison. Not fun. We left after work after working a half day. We drove through Virginia, past JMU down to Lexington and then through West Virginia and Kentucky. Around bedtime, Allison very innocently asked me if I could put her to bed. So sad. I just told her to close her eyes and when she woke up we would be there. Which was true, but Allison didn't close her eyes until about 10 o'clock that night.....long day.
We arrived in Scottsburg, Indiana around midnight. This is where Brent's Granny or Great Gigi as Allison calls her lives. We quickly shuffled in and went straight to bed. Allison woke up to ask where we were and if she could go to bed now. Poor dear.
The next morning we woke up and Allison had her first Scottsburg doughnut. Think Krispy Kreme with filling.....and lots of sugar and fat. They are good but more than one makes my stomach turn.
Brent is totally addicted to them which is rare for him because he is definitely not a sweets kind of guy. We ate breakfast, had a quick visit and then back to the car to drive to the Abe Martin Lodge. This is a state park and is VERY nice. Accomodations and decor aren't my style but they had a lot of activities for little ones to participate in. Think Great Wolfe Lodge, reasonable......
Once we got there we got checked in, got organized and then went out to a picnic lunch with all of Allison's cousins. Surprisingly enough, we spent most of our time with Brent's brothers families, which made Allison's question, "Why did we drive all the way to Indiana to see my cousins Mommy?" oh very appropriate.
The next day we were off the big Booker event. Little did I know what was in store for me......
Let's just say the roads leading to our picnic shelter weren't exactly GI friendly, next add in some Indiana August heat and humdity, finally top it off with lots of water and swinging way too high on the swingset and the stage is set for puke. Lots and lots of puke. Allison was able to keep it down until after Aunt Misit's blessing and family photos but needless to say right before dinner she hurled all over me . More than once and with remarkable force and distance. We headed back to the hotel. Brent had to hang his head out the window to keep from puking himself. Once we arrived, we changed clothes, took several baths and went to bed. I was hungry......but lived off of snacks until Allison feel asleep. She dry-heaved all night but was back to herself the next morning.
The next day we spent most of it in the water park and tried to recover from the illness. I didn't get to spend much time with the Bookers, I was either taking care of a sick child or staying in the room while said sick child slept. I did manage some fun pool time though! This was the best part of the whole lodge. The entire pool area was inside (score one for fair skinned Bookers!) and every hour they completely emptied the pool and clean the decks. Very nice for us germaphobes.

Blog Backup

So summer is gone, fall is beginning to wind down and I'm very far behind with my blog updates. I am going to try and catch up. Here we go.........

So Long, Aunt E

My great Aunt Edith or "E" as we all called her passed away on September 13, 2009. She lived 93 wonderful and happy years! The following is the eulogy that myself as well as my two cousins Samantha and Stephanie wrote. I was able to read it aloud during the funeral service.

Hello. Thank you all for coming. My family and I greatly appreciate your love and support. Seeing you all here is a true testament of Aunt E's character. We are Aunt E's great nieces and she was our surrogate grandparent. Aunt E was troubled by the fact that our grandparents weren't here to see graduations, birthdays, wedding, births and family celebrations. However, we couldn't have been more blessed to have Aunt E in our lives and participate in our special events.
We want to share with you all of the life lessons that we have learned from her.
The first is the importance of family. Aunt E showed strong devotion and love to her family members. She was responsible for baby-sitting duties, which meant playing house, making cheese sandwiches, caring for our boo-boos, supplying and eating endless amounts of Tootsie Rolls, being a bug exterminator and taking us all to the pool only to become a "tree lady". She told us to always put family first and to trust in the Lord.
She taught us the value of friendship and to love our girlfriends and others unconditionally. The bond that she shared with Adelaide and the Go-Go girls taught us that true friendship can last a lifetime.
Aunt E also instilled with us the importance of education. She encouraged us to continue in our educational pursuits and she was proud of her education at Albright College.
We also learned from her the value of money. Aunt E lived through the Great Depression and encouraged us to not be wasteful. This included always cleaning our plates, saving just about everything and going to the Sunset Diner instead of Reading Country Club and still ordering a grilled cheese and tomato sandwich.
Finally Aunt E shoed us what it looked like to be in love with your soul mate. Even though most of our lives were spent without Uncle Jesse, Aunt E's devotion to him never waivered and their love lasted a lifetime.
Aside from our life lessons that we learned, Aunt E had a tremendous amount of character. She had a keen sense of fashion--no one had a larger collection of clip-on earrings and necklaces to match as well as pins on every lapel. She had a tremendous support for the arts and would hum and tap to any music that she heard no matter what the genre. She had a vast amount of current events, politics and sports. Most of which was supported by Antique Roadshow, Larry King, 60 Minutes and Oprah. Aunt E never turned down a chance to dance with a fine lookin' man and drink and inch or two of wine. She was an avid storyteller and local historian. She always loved a great phone conversation and would spend hours on the phone. Aunt E was a proud, determined woman. Evidenced by the fact that she learned to drive in her 60's--in style no less. She cruised around town in a white mustang!
So with all of our life lessons and character modling, we feel truly blessed to have shared our lives with Aunt E. Because of her we will never let the sun set on our anger, we will swing and sway on the way to Cape May, always remember it had to be you, come grow old with me the best is yet to be. And we will always remember to don't worry, be happy.
Thank you Aunt E for all of your love. So long. We will miss you.

Katie, Samantha and Stephanie

Quotes

I collect quotes. I find some quotes to provide me with some sort of support and encouragement when things (life) are down as well as reminders about how things (life) can be good, positive and flourishing. Some of my favorite people's quotes are from Eleanor Roosevelt and Winston Churchill. They both embody strength, faith, courage and wit. Here's some of my favorites:

"Courage is going from failure to failure without losing enthusiasm" - Winston Churchill

"No one can make you feel inferior without your consent" - Eleanor Roosevelt

"You have enemies? Good. That means you've stood up for something, sometime in your life" - Winston Churchill

"Great minds discuss ideas, average minds discuss events, small minds discuss people" - Eleanor Roosevelt

"We make a living by what we get, we make a life by what we give" - Winston Churchill

"Beautiful young people are accidents of nature, but beautiful old people are works of art" - Eleanor Roosevelt

Running in the Sprinkler

Here is a short video of Allison running through the sprinkler that Pepaw bought her. She loved it so much that she asked to take it to school to share with her friends!
In the background is me, staring at our garden. Surprisingly enough, our garden is doing super! We had a rough start with all the rain, but things are plentiful now. Cucumbers, peppers, tomatoes, zucchini, summer squash and carrots! Phew! The cucumbers are by far the most plentiful. I am going to try my hand at making pickles and I am going to do some canning this week of tomatoes.

Sprinkler Fun from Katie Booker on Vimeo.

Here comes trouble!

The two of them will be trouble together, but I just love their belly laughs! This is from early summer, maybe around Mother's Day. Remember I said I'm way behind!

Allison and Jessica in the Jeep from Katie Booker on Vimeo.

Pepaw comes for a visit

Back in early July, say my birthday!, my father in law came for a visit. What a gift! He arrived at Steve and Misti's first, but everyone was shuffled out of there because our niece, Jessica, was recovering from having her tonsils out. I was lucky enough to have a patient bring in an ice cream cake and gifts for me for my birthday. I wouldn't share it with anyone at work because I knew we were having everyone over for dinner. It was a big hit!
That night, Jen and the boys spent the night with us. Allison was tickled to go to the basement and wake up Andrew and John. Who are definitely NOT morning folks!
We then headed to Natalie's softball game after Allison's gymnastics class that morning. We were quite impressed with Natalie's softball ability. We got to see her do some fielding, bat and even run the bases. Allison since has decided that she was to play baseball and wear a pink helmet just like Natalie.


Next we were off to Steve and Misti's for some yummy dessert. This is also when I tried to make mint brownies. Oh, they were good. It was a Real Simple recipe and very oh I can't resist simple :). The kids were a little hit or miss with them, but the adults ate their fair share.




PePaw then came to our house to spend the remainder of his visit. We took a trip to Target and he bought Allison a sprinkler and a scary doll. The doll is a scary crawling one that makes this high pitched whiny noise. Not fun, but she loved it. Later that Sunday afternoon, we hooked up Allison's sprinkler and let her play in it. She loved it! And was able to recruit Mommy, Daddy and Pepaw to join in on the fun. We also went to the Reston zoo for the first time, will blog about that fun later!


We love visits with our Pepaw!