New Home, New Adventures!

We are in love with our new home and the area where we live in Southern Ohio! It is such a nice, refreshing start.

Here is a picture of our home.
Pictures of the inside are pending and will be revealed once it's all put together!

Our front yard is a huge hill. We live on the corner of two dead-end streets that are infested with tons of kids. We've met so many of our neighbors and it's such a friendly place.

First night putting the bunk-beds back together. We put all the kids in the same room, because it is so big. Gavin has especially liked the extra company. He finds himself in Makenzie's bed practically every night. Makenzie thought it was cute the first few times, but now she says she wants her bed back all to herself now.

We had to come up with a rotating schedule with the bunk beds, because both kids want the top bunk. So they will rotate at the beginning of each month. We moved halfway through June, so the first turn wouldn't be a full month. Makenzie was the "smart" one and gave the top bunk to Jordan with no problems.

DO NOT PANIC-- WE HAVE A DOCTOR IN THE HOUSE!!

After only being here for 3 days, Tyler had to use his mad doctor skills and stitch up Jordan's head. He was rolling down the aforementioned hill out front and somehow hit Makenzie's bike just so. Without having insurance established, we did not want to do an ER visit. Luckily Tyler had some stitching material from his surgery rotations and he snuck in one stitch to call it good!


We broke out our little sandbox that has been hiding for the last year and a half. Gavin is in love and will play in there for hours. He just gets himself all comfortable and lays down!

This is a typical nightly scene with reading books. Gavin is now old enough to be interested in listening to them.

The move

Alas, another move to mark in the history books for the Sherman family. We are becoming pros when it comes to this. But, with that being said, it was still a lot of work!!! Three busy kids and hot weather don't help in the mix of cleaning, organizing, and packing. I was excited for the move and to leave behind a lot of memories and feelings in Michigan. I have to admit that I struggled a lot for some reason and I'm ready to move on.

Here is the typical "why do kids need toys when they are happy to just play in a box" picture.

Here is our last night in the house. The kids still found entertainment by blowing bubbles and dancing.

"The Before"

"The After"

We were so worried we wouldn't have enough room. We have added several large pieces of furniture since our last move. But we were successful once again!

Baseball Game

We have some great friends from our home town that we keep in contact with. One of the brothers, Mitch Talbot, is currently a pitcher for the Cleveland Indians. We have not yet seen him pitch and we've been wanting to. He ended up pitching for a Detroit Lions game on the day we were planning on moving. We decided to postpone our move by a day and take advantage of this opportunity. We ended up bringing the missionaries with us (an approved P-Day activity) and also a few other ward members. We brought a boy from the ward and his family watched Gavin for us, which was a great trade.Mitch is pitching in this photo.

Us with the city in the city in the background.

Trying cotton candy for the first time.

We were hoping to get away without any rain. But the last 30 minutes or so gave us enough sprinkle to get out the rain ponchos.

Jordan was so kind to share his poncho with his dad.

Last of Michigan

We've had plenty of fun times with Tyler off of work and the summer weather finally here. Makenzie had school until June 16th, so that kept us from going too far. We did sneak down to Sandusky, Ohio to stay overnight at the Kalahari Indoor Waterpark Resort. We went before in November, but wanted to go again with our friends the de la Houssayes. Sorry no pictures were taken. I didn't want to deal with a camera, water, and the kids. Jordan barely made the minimum height requirement for the slides which was lucky because he loved all the slide he could ride on. Most were dark tube slides and he had no fear. Makenzie loved her time there as well and her favorite thing was the wave pool. Gavin soaked up all that he could too. It was a fun time all around!

We have been really trying to instill the practice of "reverence" with our children, especially in sacrament meeting. We gave them the incentive of doing a fun family activity for FHE that they got to choose if they were acceptably reverent in church. Well, it has taken several weeks and many reminders, but they finally earned their activity. They decided to go miniature golfing.

We paid the $2 for Gavin just to hold the club and ball in his hand.
He would not let us help him in the least.

He got a hole-in-one every time!

The happy parents!



So what is wrong with this picture?

This is after he just got out of the tub and I got him ready for bed.
I guess he wanted to play with Makenzie in the tub too!

Makenzie had some fun activities the last few weeks of school. The school did a mile fun run around the neighborhood. We went and cheered her on.

Here she is sporting her school shirt.

Coming into the finish line with her friend Brynlee. I was quite impressed that she came in with the first third or so of the runners. She told me she had to walk a few times though.

Our May Days

We've had an enjoyable weekend. I decided to document it a little. Friday was suppose to be the Father's and Son's camp out with the church, but it was canceled due to flooding at the campsite. We decided to set up the tent in our living room for the night instead. Makenzie was ecstatic to be apart of the camping experience, since she previously wasn't invited.

Saturday I pulled off a basic yard sale to clear a few things out of the way for our move in two weeks. Makenzie informed me that she should get the money that was made from any toys that were sold. Ha Ha! We shuffled Makenzie around to two birthday parties all afternoon. Sunday was a beautiful day. I haven't been to our ward for over a month due to traveling and kids being sick. Tyler was released from his calling as ward mission leader. One of the missionaries is also going to be transferred on Tuesday. We've enjoyed working close to them this past year.

The kids decided to play outside after church. I went to check on them and discovered Makenzie was drawing more than life-sized pictures of each member of our family. It was too cute to not to document it!

Here's Jordan with his replica:
Here's Makenzie with herself. Notice the drastic difference in size?! She was outside for several hours working on these masterpieces.

A close-up:
Here's the best I got of Gavin:He didn't want anything to do with it and was running in 1.2 seconds.

Here is Mommy and Daddy holding hands. Can you feel the love?Our beautiful artist!!

Our Memorial Day gave us 90 degree weather... a huge jump from what we are use to. I enjoyed an early morning jog. I love running on the island. It is so beautiful with all the little critters and the water close by. I saw several duck families with baby ducklings. God's creations just amaze me. It's so refreshing to start my day in solitude outside. We enjoyed a ward picnic in the afternoon although the ground was water-logged and muddy.

If we were in Utah, I could say that our summer vacation is beginning. Makenzie still has 2 more weeks of school. Ugh! Who wants to be going to school in June? Not me!

Starved Rock

On the way home from Missouri, we decided to stop at Starved Rock State Park and hike around. We discovered this place in Illinois a couple years ago and loved this hidden gem right off the I-80. After it raining all weekend, we were lucky to have a beautiful day!

Our little navigator. Jordan is fascinated by maps and always wants to know where we are and where we are going.

Gavin discovered his pockets. He was walking around all day like this. It was just too cute!

Happy Family!

One of the hikes required us to go through the water. We were all wearing shoes, except Tyler had flip-flops. He saved the day and carried each of us over the water, even me!!

Here is the only picture of me with the kids. I'm always behind the camera these days.

And this is how we kept a little guy happy for the long hours in the car...

And my other two cuties at a rest area...

Spring at it's finest

We had a mama bird decide to build a nest in a tree right by our front door. (Not the smartest thing to do with the kids.) Before I knew it was there, this bird would always fly away when I walked by and it would scare me! I then found that she was guarding 4 eggs.

We checked everyday for the eggs to hatch. In a matter of a day, 3 of the eggs hatched. The fourth one was a dud. They were ugly looking things.

Any noise would cause the birds to open their mouths wide. They grew so fast.

We were gone for a week for graduation. When we came back, this is what we found!

It's crazy how fast they grew! It's been fun watching this whole process with the kids.