Summer Summary and Camera Catch Up

The summer is officially flying by way too fast!! (Although, I'm pretty sure it does that every year;)  We did not fill our days to the brim and spent many here at home, or close to it, just enjoying some simple summer fun and relaxation.  It's been nice.  Besides some summer classes for the girls (dance and a writer's workshop for Gianna and preschool gymnastics for Ella), a full week of swimming lessons for all the kids, and a week of VBS (two weeks for Gianna!), our biggest adventure came with a trip up north with extended family, to a lake house near Tomahawk, WI. We enjoyed lots of swimming and visiting with family and look forward to another year!

At the beginning of July we were honored and blessed to become the godparents to our new little godson, Finnian!  We traveled to Wisconsin Rapids to celebrate this joyous day with our wonderful friends, the Eichsteadts.  We enjoyed meeting Finnian and holding him on his baptism day, and we look forward to watching him grow.  Love and prayers from your godparents, Finn:)

Andy has been busy with school and his new position at work!  The school part has made the summer, perhaps, a little less enjoyable for him, but he has none the less enjoyed the classes connected to his major and will soon have a full year in and only one left!  Along side school, he has greatly enjoyed stepping into his new role at work, amidst the adjustments and new challenges it has brought.  

Along with the adjustments he has directly at work, we have found that it will soon change our life and marriage as we have known it for the past 9 years (10 years if you include one of the years we were dating;)... he was officially offered a salary position yesterday and will be working Monday through Friday 8-4:30pm (give or take). He will work his last official 24 hour shift this coming Monday, August 15th!  He will still fill in on the truck from time to time, but overall this will mean no more 24 hour shifts on a regular basis, flexibility to come and go a little bit during the work day, weekends off, and no more holidays.... honestly, neither he nor I can fully comprehend this concept!!  Roughly calculated, he has spent  a total of 1,080 nights, almost 3 full years, away from home... so to think of him home almost every night boggles both our minds;)  Although there may be a little bit of the old adage "the grass is always greener on the other side, " we are very much looking forward to this change; the girls, especially Gianna, were very excited when Andy told them about this new schedule:)

In addition to all the above, we've also found a little time to do a few updates to the house over these past several months.  We took out the carpet in our room and more recently, in the living room to uncover some beautiful hardwood floors, gave the front doors and back door a fresh coat of white paint, put in a new mailbox, continued with some more yard landscaping, and I am currently in the middle of redecorating/ organizing my craft space.  I had high hopes for clearing out the overgrown wooded area in our backyard, but the weeds and ticks have made it more of a challenge than I had originally thought. (That will have to be a project for next year!)

I'll also touch upon one more bit of Teska family news. The kids officially have their first pets!  Our neighbor gifted us a fish tank and three goldfish late last month and the kids were thrilled when they woke up one morning to find them on our kitchen counter. Gianna named hers Goldie, Ella named hers Cookie, and Nathan named his Ice Cream.

 Sadly, however, about a week later, we had our first casualty:(  We found one of the fish floating lifelessly at the bottom of the tank. When Andy told me one of the fish had died, I was hoping it would be Ice Cream, as I knew both the girls would be pretty upset if it was one of their fish (Nathan would be relatively clueless;).  But of course it wasn't; it was Goldie, Gianna's fish.  She burst into tears when she heard the news and cried on and off all day.

 Unfortunately, Gianna had hurt her pinky toe the night before while playing outside, so she was already not having the best day.  After seeing her hobble around on her bruised and swollen toe and burst into tears a few times, Andy and I were moved to pity to get her a new pet as soon as possible. Later that evening we headed to the pet store in La Crosse.  After talking with the sales associate there, we learned our tank size could only hold two goldfish at best, and if we added another one, another casualty was likely to happen again.  So what to do?!  Well, one new tank later, we had a solution, a Betta fish.  A fish that can live in a small tank, only requires to be fed a couple of times a week, and can live well by herself. Problem solved (at least for now;).

And now that August is here, school is inching it's way ever closer.  The girls' first day of school is August 22nd!  Ella is excited for KINDERGARTEN this year and just found out yesterday, her teacher is Mrs. Cichosz (the same teacher Gianna had:)  Gianna is gearing up for 3rd grade and will have Mrs. Ratz as her teacher.  I hardly know what Nathan and I will do all by ourselves during the day, but I'm looking forward to spending the day with my little guy:)

I think that about catches me up on this little blog, so I will close with some pictures to highlight our summer days as well.

Removing the worn carpet in our room (this was actually done last March)

Father's Day, at the Steamboat Days Parade

A lemonade stand with Lily!

Finnian's Baptism!

Holding Finn

A little water balloon fun on a beautiful day:)

Removing the living room carpet- before and during

Clues to some older flooring and carpeting were discovered

Living Room After (we still need to do some refinishing and trim work)

4th of July

Trying to get just one picture of the almost 2 1/2 year old;)

Gianna's level 2 swimming lessons. She gave it her all everyday and improved from last year:)

Nathan's parent/child lessons. Most days he cried and refused to do what was asked of him, even though he was capable of doing almost all the skills:/  He just wanted to play with toys and shoot balls into the basketball hoop!

Ella's preschool swim lessons. She enjoyed every day and will move onto level 1 next year:)

Nathan's transition from a crib to a big boy bed!  He missed his crib for a few days, but is now use to his bed; it didn't take long for him to figure out he could now get up and come out of his room on his own when he wakes up. (Thankfully, he usually doesn't get up until it is close to morning time or after a good nap:)

Luebke-Thompson Family Vacation 2016!

Enjoying the water and the beach

The veteran cousins with their newest little love;)

Enjoying a fun game Matt and Beth found online; trying to pronounce words and sentences with a lip spreader in our mouths! (Ask Matt how much he paid to have them shipped from China;) Well worth the fun!

Casey wasn't the biggest fan of the game, however;)

Boat ride on the lake

Some fun drive time

Casey and Natalie

Cousins!!

Time to clean out the fridge;)

Fun at the Luebke beach

The next generation- second cousins (Great Grandma Luebke would be so proud!:)

Front Landscaping Before and During (Demolition was done last fall;)

Front Door Before

Front Landscaping, Painted Door and New Mailbox

VBS- Barnyard Round-Up

The new fish! They ate breakfast and lunch right by them;)

Andy buried Goldie in the backyard and Gianna made a point to visit his little grave a couple of times that day.

Gianna's new fish, Violet Lily, in her new tank:)

The wooded area in the backyard- a work in progress- a project for next year! (The top right picture was my high hopes moment and the picture on the top left is what it looks like now... believe it or not, there is a statue of Mary up there;)