Five on Friday

Happy 4th of July, everyone! I hope you are all having a great holiday! As I type it is not even 9:00 and I'm in bed for the night. It's been a long week and a busy day, and this mama is TIRED.

I've been off my rhythm with blogging a bit - a couple out of town trips, combined with some insanely busy weeks at work as of late means a couple regular posts that didn't get done. So instead of trying to back track and make them up, I'll just do a mix of updates for this Five on Friday post.

Here are some random pieces for the last couple weeks...

**ONE**
A couple weeks ago, right before my weekend out of town with the WOWZAs, I had a major geocaching mishap that landed my phone on the bottom of a swampy pond. I had stopped to look for a quick cache before going grocery shopping one night. It was getting late and I was losing light. I was in a little wooded area by a pond. I was looking around when something startled me, causing me to jump and drop my phone...right in the water. After a frantic moment or two of swearing and trying to determine how deep the water was, I jump in. I discovered the water was mid-thigh deep. I grabbed my phone - which still on - got out of the water and assessed the damage.

Long story short, it wasn't destroyed, but it was in rough shape. After a couple days of "intensive care" in rice, it's mostly back. The only thing that doesn't work is the microphone - so if I want to talk on it, it needs to be on speaker, or have a headset plugged in. Not ideal, but not worth it to replace...yet.

I discovered in the couple days I was without my phone I realized how much I'm addicted to it. Uff. It's odd how naked I felt without it. Although of course there were ways people get in touch with me if needed, it was weird to not feel as "in touch." I'm thankful for the connected-ness that my phone provides, but I do want to make it less of a downright addiction moving forward.

**TWO**
It has been very, very busy last few weeks at work. It's been really hard. I've worked really hard, put in longer hours, skipped out on some lunches, and been super stressed. Something needed to give - even just a little. So I switched by schedule a little, and am now taking 30 minute lunches (instead of the hour that we're allotted). This allows me to leave 30 minutes early, and as a result get home 30 minutes earlier.

I've had the schedule just a few days, but it's been really nice (as long as I get out on time!). If I leave on time, I get home at 4:45...which allows some time to just relax and enjoy time as a family before we have to get into our night routine. It's not much, but it's something.

**THREE**
A highlight of last weekend was our neighborhood garage sale. The sale, sponsored by our neighborhood association, is an annual event. I missed out last year because of work, so I was really excited to join in the fun this year!

Jeromy's mom, dad, sister, and her boyfriend came over to hit the sale with us - they are pretty intense garage salers! There were over 100 sales within just a few miles of us! We walked through the neighborhood, and found some good sales. Some of the best finds - Jeromy's fishing pole, a Star Wars shirt and practically brand new jeans (among other things) for Linnea, and a couple nice things to outfit my sister-in-law's new apartment. All in all, it was a very fun and successful day!

Linnea was VERY excited to pull around her haul!

But she shopped until she dropped!!

**FOUR**

This week we are without daycare, as our provider is on vacation. Typically when she's on vacation, we split the time between our parents - my parents generally take Linnea Monday, Wednesday, and their usual Friday, and Jeromy's parents usually take Tuesday and Thursday. But this time around, my parents were going to be in Denver (in fact, they still are), so the normal schedule was not going to work. Thankfully, my in laws are awesome, and jumped at the chance to help. Because they live in Somerset (about 45 minutes to an hour away), we decided it made the most sense for her to stay a couple nights over there.

My mother-in-law came over on Tuesday to spend the day at our place with Linnea, and then took her home with her that night. Linnea stayed there Tuesday and Wednesday night. It wasn't the longest time we've been away from her by a long shot, but it was the longest time we've been at home without her. It was weird. I had high hopes of getting a bunch of stuff done, but I didn't. It was really quiet, and quite lonely. Maybe that sounds pathetic, but Linnea is just such a cool kid - most of the time at least ;-) - and we have a really good time as our little family. She came back yesterday, and even with the 2-year-old - almost 3-year-old tantrums, I was happy to have of us under the same roof.

**FIVE**

One of the many joys of my life as a mama is to introduce Linnea to the joys and traditions of my childhood. 

One of the little things I remember doing as a kid was to go out in the rain and "puddle jump" during or after it rained. I went with my mom and my sister - often barefoot - and we loved to find the biggest puddles in the neighborhood. I can still remember where the best puddles could be found.

When it started to rain one evening last week, I decided that it was time to introduce Linnea to this tradition. While it was still drizzling, we put on her rainboots, and found a nice big puddle to jump in .

A couple minutes after we started, the clouds opened up and started to completely down pour! Like can't see a foot in front of you, getting in your eyes, instantly soaked down pour! Linnea didn't love that, so we went back inside briefly. But when the storm passed we went back out to jump again.

It was only a couple minutes, but it was such a wonderful time, passing on a little tradition of my childhood to my sweet baby.

After our puddle jump adventure...