APA Accredited

We celebrated a HUGE professional milestone for Kevin and it felt like a HUGE milestone for our family and our community.  You may remember back to 2021 when we relocated for his job.  He was hired to found a Clinical Psychology PsyD Program at University of Evansville and to get it accredited ASAP.

It was a huge undertaking.  All signs pointed to it being too much to tackle in a short amount of time.  He has spent the past five years working so hard, stressing, planning, prepping and praying for his program.

He hired a great team of people.  Accepted 4 classes of incoming grad students.  Moved mountains to get his program up for accredidation last Spring and for him to receive the news that they are now accredited is so exciting.  It wasn't possible for this to happen any sooner and many people thought it would take way longer.  But with God on our side and big dreams, exciting things are happening for them.  This means better job opportunities for his students, really great students being interested in joining his program and really cool opportunites for his students and his team in the years ahead.

We celebrated with the faculty and then had a student celebration last week.  Everyone at the university is just as excited as we are.  It's a big deal for the university to have a graduate program be APA accredited.

A big milestone for our family!

A really excited crew of students and faculty!

Way to go, Kev!!  His big milestone made it on the university President's agenda for his back to school address.  I am excited to see what doors this opens for his students and the people of our community.  Their teaching clinic sees lots of kids and adults needing assessments and therapy.  Big things ahead!

We'll probably keep celebrating all year long!

Celebrating 22 Years

Kevin and I celebrated our 22nd wedding anniversary on Friday!  That's a big milestone!  We met when we were in kindergarten, our families were friends, grew up going to school and church together and we share many of the same memories of growing up together.  So 22 married years, but many years together before that is a little more accurage.

We have done fun things all Summer long an as a result we planned our actual anniversary day to be simple and sweet.

We reminisced about our favorite wedding day moments.  Our rose petal send off was one of my favorite moments.  It felt like we were the main characters in a movie.  So many smiles and the perfect way to wrap up our ceremony.  Kevin said he was so excited to see me walk down the aisle.

Olive babysat the boys so we headed out on a date night.  We went to our favorite date night spot for dinner and then walked around Kevin's campus at UE.  We stopped by to say hello to our wedding chapel.  And the weather was cloudy and cool just like our wedding day.  Also, very unusual for late July in the Midwest.

We hung out at home.  Naturally, the cats were thrilled.

We cashed in lots of Chick-Fil-A rewards points for a cheap lunch.  Have you tried the Dragonfruit Pineapple Lemonade this month?  It's tart and yummy.  Then ran a bunch of errands.

Pepperoncinis + pepperoni pizza from our favorite spot.

We agreed to just exchanging cards this year, but somehow I still ended up with roses.

Our anniversary seemed like the perfect occasion to try out the Trader Joe's Key Lime Pie.  I'm so happy to report that it was delicious.  Restaurant quality.  Tastes just like we were having dessert on the beach in Florida.  10/10 Recommend it.

Simple and sweet was the perfect way to celebrate.

Happy Birthday, Kev!

We're so excited to celebrate Kevin all week long!  He turns 45 today and we are so thankful for him.

He puts the fun in our family.

Surprises us with the best - room with a balcony, snorkeling, resorts, road trip stop next to our favorite restaurants or Chick-Fil-A when he'd rather have Subway.

Every vacation and adventure is thanks to his planning.

He can surprise me with a new swimsuit or new dress that somehow fits perfectly.

Kevin reads nonstop.  Not the fluffy stuff.  The huge books about important things.

He makes sure we get to and from everywhere we go safely.

He is a grill master.

Kevin works so hard on our yard.

Loves a good coffee and a road trip stop.

He is always adding new things to his plate at work.  He isn't afraid to do something new!

He's the one who will say yes to endless fishing, volleyball, drop slides at the water parks, late night adventures, Starbucks runs for the latest boba drink or more fireworks.

We love him!

Cheers to making year 45 extra great!

We celebrated with his family riht around the 4th of July.

All the ladies pitched in to bring their favorite foods to the cookout.

Kevin's parents are always sweet to host and buy all the fireworks.

Father's Day Road Trip

Hello, friends!  We're back from vacation and mostly caught up on life.  It's good to be back here :)  I have lots of fun posts coming your way in the next few weeks.  We had a fun week celebrating our dads.  We celebrated dinners with both of our dads and then did a fun day trip for Kevin's Father's Day.

We headed over to Louisville, KY just 90 minutes from home to stop at our favorite spots.  We did brunch at First Watch (SO good!), did all things fishing and browsing at Bass Pro Shop, Starbucks and then headed to restock all of our favorites at Trader Joes.

If you ever get a chance to go to First Watch, do it!  We've eaten at them in TN, MO & KY.  Surely they will come to Indiana one day.

The boys have been fishing a lot and couldn't wait to check out things at Bass Pro Shops. We don't have one so this trip has been in the works for weeks.  Fletcher has learned so much about fishing and came preprared.  He asked and answered all kinds of questions to the fishing section employees.  We were impressed.

He said we could drop him off there for the day.  haha.  Olive said she prefers the outlet mall.

It was a beautiful day!

We got home that evening and did a water taste testing challenge.  Kevin swears each bottled water tastes different so we put him to the test.  He says Fiji is the best.  But in a blind taste test, he loved VOSS the most.  He loved this surprise game and so did the kids.  And he'll spend the rest of the week enjoying a variety of different waters.

We searched high and low to find the best assortment of waters.  Then we secretly refrigerated them so it would surprise him on Father's Day.  So fun!

I hope you had a great weekend!  Check back later this week for a Trader Joe's haul.

Happy Anniversary!

Happy Anniversary, Kev!

Kevin and I celebrated our anniversary yesterday with work, dentist appointments, errands, running kids around, meetings and a delicious dinner and dessert at home.  That sounds about right for year 21.  Kevin was slightly devastated to hear of Hulk Hogan's passing yesterday.  He was his childhood hero so that was a sad moment for him.

We've had an awesome summer full of travel and time at home.  None of us are super eager to get back to school in August, but we know we have packed in the very best times into our days home together.

We are excited for a new year navigating junior high, new schedules and routines, kindergarten for me and for Leo, new work opportunities for Kevin and Fletcher is working hard to build strong friendships at school.  It'll be another big year for all of us and we can't wait!

I'm not a fancy cake baker, but I can make a family recipe that's been passed down three generations.  I added our wedding cake topper for fun.  I had to dust it first, but it made me smile to use it again.

Cheers to 21 years!

Fletcher helped me make our anniversary cake.

He loves to cook!

We dusted off our wedding cake topper to use.  It wasn't all that popular when we got married to do a traditional couple cake topper, but I have always loved it!  I made Kevin's favorirte cake - a family recipe for Buttermilk cake.  It's not a gorgeous cake.  It just a delicious one that his family has been making for years.

Kevin's grocery store bouquet :)

See you back here next week!

Happy Birthday, Kevin!

My favorite guy turns 44 today!

Kevin brings the fun to our family.  He plans all of our trips, makes sure that I'm the passenger princess and is always looking out for us.  He loves a good deal and is great at finding hidden gems.  He could survive on trail mix, protein bars and coffee.  He's doing big things at work and making sure we are all doing great things at home.  He takes care of all the important paperwork, is our tech support, builder of all the things and loves a delicious dinner at home.  He's the one who leads bedtime devotions and always has his nose in a book.  We're thankful for him!

Olive loves to play volleyball with Dad.

Fletcher loves to go backyard camping and shoot airsoft guns with Dad.

Leo is so sporty and so silly - just like his Dad.

We celebrated with Kevin's family earlier this week - burgers, homemade cake and his favorite people.

Leo was present, just did not want to quit playing with cousins long enough for a family photo.

Wishing him a wonderful year ahead!

Happy Father's Day!

It's good to be back on the blog this week!  I missed blogging, but really enjoyed our time at the ocean.

We had a sweet Father's Day yesterday!  We rested after a long travel day home from Destin on Saturday and then took it easy on Sunday.  The kids and I worked together to make Kevin a delicious brunch at home.  It was so nice to not have to go out and fight crowds to pay for an expensive breakfast.  We had all of our favorites at home and that was a bargain.

Happy Father's Day to our favorite guy!!  Kevin takes care of everyone and is a good listener.  He always has a book and a coffee in his hands, he loves learning new things like gardening, is always the fun one in our family and is the best trip planner.  Look at our 2023 garden (and kids!!!) grow!

Leo and I worked together to make Kevin's favorite dessert - brownies!  Leo

The big kids helped me make brunch - sticky buns, scrambled eggs and little smokies.  They were really proud of the meal they made.

Our garden is doing so well!  It's so exciting to keep tabs on all the produce each day.

We're going to have tacos this week with all the veggies from our garden.  And maybe some zucchini bread for dessert.  The kids were so excited about our garden haul!

We went to my parent's lake house for dinner to celebrate with my side of the family.  The kids had fun with their cousins, did some impressive magnet fishing in the lake and we had a yummy taco bar.  Leo was so excited to see the deer come up for her dinner.

Best Dad Ever.  It's hard to find someone that is always happy to help you.  This guy has been happily helping me for 40+ years.  I'm so lucky!  

We got to celebrate our favorite guy in his favorite spot - Christmas Lake!

I hope you had a great weekend!  It's good to be back in our routines.  I've got some fun blog posts coming up about our trip to Destin and some easy lunch ideas for kids this Summer.