May -- mysterious, money, mother's, memorials, and miscellaneous

Our May happenings...



Mysterious Maple tree

This is weird story.  It was near the beginning of the month.  I went out for a couple hours to run some errands and when I came back I found a tree planted in my front yard.  No joke!

Someone came on OUR property, as well as some other neighbor's property on the street, and planted maple trees.  Nobody was happy about this. N-O B-O-D-Y!

It turns out that our township (they don't "do" cities here in PA) needed to "complete" our streets development, even though all the plots have houses on them.  When the original contractor submitted plans to the township, probably 10+ years ago, he put on the development plan exact locations of 2 shade trees per property (elms, oaks, and two types of maples). Well, the contractor never finished because nobody on our street has these trees planted in their front yards.  And no one knew we were supposed to have TWO specific trees in our front yard.  Oh, and did I mention how tall elms, oaks, and maples grow?  They grow from 60-80 feet tall!

Well the original contractor is no longer building homes and sold off whatever plots he had left on the development to others years ago.  The street below us is having tons of construction and homes will be popping up in the next few years.  It turns out that the township will no longer allow construction to proceed on the street below us UNTIL our development is "complete," so that's why they planted all these maple trees in every body's yards.  Once the trees were planted, it could be considered done and development could continue below.

There are several stupid things about this tree fiasco:

1. The township didn't even bother to contact anybody.  Everyone just came home one day and saw trees in their front yard.  Big mistake right there.  Let's just say the township's main office phone was off the hook for several days with everyone calling in to complain.  (That made me smile a lot.)
   
2. They didn't even map out where the utility lines were!  I called and had the utility companies come and mark where the lines were on our property (cable, gas, electric, sewer, water, etc.) Sure enough, these geniuses planted our maple tree right next to a gas line.  DUMB!
   
3. Maple trees can grow up to 60 feet tall, which means it would dwarf several of the homes on our street, and it would take over the front yard.  Ours in particular.
   
4. Eventually we were told that we could give back the maples, but we "must" plant some other native trees in our front yard.  So we went and bought two Dogwood trees to be planted (they grow 20-30 feet high).  The contractor refused to plant my trees though because I didn't want them planted where the township had dictated.  One was supposed to be planted right next to the gas line (as mentioned above), and the other tree was going to be planted right on top of our electrical, cable, and water line.  Sorry guys, but I'm not going to jeopardize my house.
   
   So, we took back our dogwood trees and have decided to plant nothing. In fact, many of the neighbors have decided to not replace the maple trees as well.  I guess we will see what happens.

Just for the record -- I do like maple trees.



Sold the Van

You may remember that last month we bought another car.  The reason we purchased another car is because we decided it was time to sell the van -- and we did!

Initially, this was one of the hardest decisions I had to come to terms with.  We decided back in April to put the van up for sale in the month of May.  For the first two weeks of April I think I cried almost everyday.  I truly loved this car, and I was so sad to think about letting it go.

But then something happened, and a few weeks later my attitude changed.  Why the sudden change of attitude? I started listening to this guy:

There are many reasons why we decided to sell the van, but the main reason is so that we could pay off student loans. We are sick and tired of this debt, and we are determined to get this monkey off of our backs by doing anything we can.  Thank you Nathan for gently guiding me to Dave Ramsey.

The day we sold the van I didn't cry one bit (like I thought I would).  Instead, I felt freedom!  Nathan and I both felt free from a bondage.  It feels GREAT to not have A-N-Y car debt.  None!

Now, we get to go gazelle intense on these student loans.  In fact, Nathan and I have been reading Dave Ramsey's book this month, The Total Money Makeover, and it is COMPLETELY changing our lives!  We highly recommend everyone read this book.

Mother's Day

Our Mother's Day was crazy.  Honestly, I completely forgot about it.  That week was one of the craziest weeks.  Nathan and I both spoke in church so we had to both prepare talks.  Not to mention the entire tree fiasco started the week of Mother's Day, and it took several days to sort through all the politics/government.  Plus, we sold the van that week too.

Nathan looked at me the day before Mother's Day and said "I don't think we budgeted for any gifts, but do you want anything for Mother's Day?"  I looked back at him, and with a smile I said "We sold the van.  I couldn't ask for a better gift than financial freedom of a car payment."

But the best gifts were the priceless cards Hannah made me for Mother's Day.  Here are pictures of just two (I have about 5 more she made me from pre-school).  They just melted my heart.  Those little heartfelt moments are the times that parenthood is worth it!

Visit from Uncle Dale

Uncle Dale got to come up and visit Penn State for work, which means we got a few evenings with him.  Hannah was excited to see and play with one of her favorite people in her world.

Flight 93 Memorial

Remember September 11, 2001?  Do you remember that one of the planes (Flight 93) crashed in Pennsylvania on that day?  Well we went and visited the Flight 93 Memorial a few weeks ago. Nathan and I had to speak at one of the units in our stake, and the Flight 93 memorial is about 20 minutes away from the church so we decided to see the memorial.

This memorial is unforgettable.  There is a reverence there, and you can feel the heroism of those passengers who re-took that plane.  It made me proud to live in this country, and grateful for the 40 passengers and crew who died fighting for our country.  The memorial is only a few years old so it's still undergoing some construction, but I'm so glad we decided to visit that memorial, and hope that one day we can visit it again.

I liked what is written at the memorial: "A common field one day.  A field of honor forever."  Below are some of the pictures from the memorial.

If you look closely in the picture below, you'll see "unborn child" next to this passengers name.  Sad.

This is a wall with the names of the passengers and crew members who were on board Flight 93.

You stand at this fence, look out into the field (following the cleared mowed patch of grass), and you'll see a rock.  That rock marks the spot where the plane hit the ground.

 

Hannah didn't quite get the purpose of the memorial, but still enjoyed walking around.

Little things people have left behind.

On our drive home, Hannah played with the stickers she got at church, and then took a little snooze.

Dress up

Hannah has really been into playing dress up.  She has deviated from her "girly" dress up ever so slightly though.  Right now, she is really into putting on Mommy's and Daddy's clothes, but Daddy's clothes are her favorite to wear.  Daddy is Hannah's favorite person after all.

Miscellaneous

Hannah tried pineapple this month, and seems to enjoy it.  She gets confused by saying pineapple though, so she sometimes calls it "yellow apples," or "apple pie."

We have enjoyed playing with the neighbors too.  Nice weather = nice outdoor play dates.

I hosted my last co-op preschool this month.  We went outside and "explored" with our binoculars that I made out of toilet paper rolls.  The kids thought they were so cool!  Hannah has a hard time saying binoculars, so she calls them "noculars."

One thing we have started doing on Saturdays is we go to Sam's as a family.  We arrive just as the samples are coming out and we eat a mini lunch at Sam's.  Hannah loves the samples (well, most of them).

We did a lot of spring cleaning around our house this month, and Hannah enjoyed helping too.

One morning Nathan and I woke up and in the corner of our bedroom we found this:

Apparently, Hannah felt like her Daniel Tiger friends needed to sleep in our room.