They say people come in you life for a reason, a season, or a lifetime…

Unfortunately, for the Ellis and Jacobson families, the season has ended….

I will not delete this website as the events shared here were a huge part of my life.  They were times that shaped who I am today.  The memories captured both in words and pictures are ones that I do not want to erase permanetly as if they never happened.  And I want to look back at some of the wonderful times that we shared.

In the future there will be a new website for the kids and I so that you can keep track of what’s going on in our lives.  So many people have wondered where we are as this has gone updated for months.  When I get it set up, I will pass the information along.

I have posted pictures from the past 3 months in the gallery for lack of a better place to put them.

We’ll be back up and online soon.

Until next time…

Heather

I’ve been watching him tonight tackle and block the other boys. He’s been doing a great job and of course, Sam’s been showing me her cheers. I know all the words now. I could be a Titan’s cheer leader!

But just to show you how cute of a cheer leader she is….

That pic was taken last Wednesday before the last day of Cheer Camp (gag) but her team won the Spirit Stick and I did some research…there WAS a Spirit Stick before the Movie Bring It On.

That’s about all from here for now. We’ve uploaded quite a few picture in the last month…you can see them all in the gallery.
The most recent ones are on page 4 and 5 of the album.

Until next time..

Heather

PS. Oh…teacher assignments came today along with SOL results. Matthew has Ms. Lewis and Samara has Ms. Nixon and Matthew scored really well on his SOLs. 400 is passing, 500 is the benchmark and over 500 is, I can’t remember what they call it, but it’s above the normal and REALLY good…he got 586 in history and social science, 536 in Reading, 5 something in math and 498 in science….no one better call my kid dumb…he’s just unmotivated…

but he’s just so cute…and loving football!

Tonight we add shoulder pads at practice and next week we start with full gear and with the temp in the high 90’s…i feel soooooooooo bad for him, but he doesn’t seem to mind and he’s loving it!

Until next time…

Heather

This is the third year that we’ve visited this campground for the 4th of July…so that means that the first trip, Matthew was 7, Sam was 4 and Regan 3….

Wel…Matthew now just takes off on his bike…helping out where he can and just playing hard (and helping when he can…) this year, Matt and Tim went to the dirt track races…after they left the girls took off to go on (another) hay ride…and there I sat…just me and the dogs…and I began to think just all that had happened the 2 days that we were there…

the training wheels had come off both Regan and Sam’s bikes…they aren’t hanging around bugging us anymore…they are making their own friends and we never see them…they are going down the slide at the pool without me waiting at the bottom to catch them…Samara without floaties…she’s swimming underwater without holding her nose…and then Matthew…well, like I said…we didn’t see him all weekend…

so I could tell you all the stuff that went wrong, but right now…with the kids just leaving 2 hours ago with my parents, I won’t…I’ll just tell you that I feel like I blinked once and overnight, they grew up…

i wonder how many more summers we can get away with camping trips that EVERYONE wants to go on? My guess is not many…but that’s okay too…we have the memories of these (Which are currently being developed at WalGreen’s one hour photo lab…can I tell you how long it’s been since I’ve taken ACTAUL pictures on film and had to get them developed???????)

Until next time…

Heather

PS…everyone had some sort of BIG news this weekend…while the girls ditched their training wheels, and Matthew ditched the girls, I started a campfire all by myself and Tim won the 50/50 at the dirt track races….$924….

It’s summer break…started yesterday. Yesterday, Matthew woke her up, and because, like me, she’s not a morning person, she was a real pistol in the morning.

So last night, I told Matthew just to let her sleep. Here it is…9:30am and she’s still in bed!

Matthew and I have been up and moving since 7:30 (well, he was up earlier than me, but I don’t know for how long!)

I have a feeling that mornings are going to be nice around here. Makes me want to get up earlier!

Until next time…

Heather

Yeah, that would be me…

I started last night after Tim left…I primed it, I caulked it (look out Caulk Master) and then I started on the trim…

Today, I knew that I had to finish the trim but I was just sooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo tired. About 5, Sondra calls and tells me that Michael is coming over to help me. He gets there at 8, I had just finished the trim, and we finished up at 11. My goal was to have it done by Friday when Tim got home.

It’s done. I can now say that I helped to finish the office. It’s a nice feeling to have. I just hope I did everything right…

And now I’m pooped and I have to get to bed…

Until next time..

Heather

PS. I miss Tim

Forever.

Shocked to hear that come out of my mouth (er, keyboard)?

Yeah, me too!

In all honesty, I do love it here. And I REALLY don’t want to go home…

but Tim is loading up, so I guess I must…

wonder when we can come back?

Until next time…

Heather

I’ll tell you why…

“Newly remodeled” my butt…

Our accomodations….

The “business” center

The common area…and a crappy little 19″ TV…that had the NASCAR race on…

The coffee nook…obviously, you can see where all their money goes…it was probably the highlight of the trip!

Secondly, the brochure said romance. HA! How can there be romance when there is golf and not one, but TWO NASCAR races on??? That channel shouldn’t be allowed on the satellite line up…

Thirdly, I was promised deers, bears and turkeys…We saw one deer, 2 turkeys and no bears. What wasn’t on the brochure was a dead rabbit (that we later found out was a shot cat), a dog eating a turtle and lots of BUGS!

Fourth…I was told there was a pond with LOTS of fish in it, perfect for someone who’s not good at fishing. Yup, I caught no fish! What I did catch were trees and cat tails and lots of slime. I still had the same half of a worm an hour later!

All joking aside, it was a beautiful trip. I had planned on coming up here and being bored out of my skin but I wasn’t. I turned into a total sloth even though I had a lot of writing to do. I did manage to get three articles done but other than that I was out riding with Tim on the Rhino, fishing, eating, or sitting in here playing computer games. I did steal one of Scott’s books too. Luckily it was one that he had already read.

I’ve decided that if Tim wanted to kill me and get rid of my body, he could’ve done it here. No one would’ve ever found me, I’m convinced of that. We found a bone in the creek today and I just said “that’s from the last guy that brought his girlfriend out here.”

I’m still not exactly sure where we are. I know that we’re about 20 miles from Parkersburg, I know that it’s off 77, and I know that the town is called Elizabeth, but it’s not really in the town. If you remember the ex POW Jessica Lynch, she’s from Elizabether. It’s back this road that I’m not sure what happens when two cars have to pass one another. We haven’t run into that problem, and I don’t think it’s a highly travelled road, but it was interesting to drive on it to say the least. I speak as if I’ve driven on it, but I haven’t. I wouldn’t. I’m too scared.

That’s another realization that I’ve come to since arriving at the Outpost. I’m getting girly in my old age. While I realize that getting older is normal, I’m also a little dissappointed in the lack of the thrill seeking that I used to have. For example, I woke up Saturday morning at 8:30…Tim was already up, coffee was made and after my second cup, he asked me if I wanted to go to the pond. We take the Rhino. There are seat belts, I put mine on. Getting to the pond wasn’t so bad, but it was when we left the pond and went exploring through the 135 acres here that we are free to roam. I was scared to death! What’s wrong with me????

But here are some pictures that we took while riding around this morning

Here is where the trail ended. So guess what we did? Well, first we turned around and try to get to the meadow another way but couldn’t find one. So we went back and just went through the creek!

We headed to Parkersburg for the day on Saturday…

We took a ride on the Ohio River to Blennerhasset Island…this family had the worst luck! I was amazed!

And there was a wedding! Had I known, I would’ve dressed nicer. But the bride was on the ferry with us on the trip over and as we ate our lunch, we watched them tie the knot! I think the whole island did! It was quite the spectacle.

There’s the house from atop one of the many hills we were on…

and you really can see forever…it was gorgeous!

I think what I liked the most were the sunsets. We played with the camera alot to get the best pictures and I think we have more pictures of the sunset than we will ever need. It really was breathtaking…

Tim on the Rhino

I even told Tim that we should come here for vacation…I’d come back anytime. It really was a nice escape from reality. There’s no one for miles, and it’s amazing. It just is. Tim even asked me if I was bored and said that we could go home early. Even if I was bored, which I was not, I wouldn’t leave. He loves this nature stuff. But I managed to find my groove here too and I really do love it here.

Now I think I’ll be finding all kinds of weekends for Tim to come up and help Scott so that I can come too. I promise I won’t be underfoot. I’ll just hang out in the business center or on one of the many porches taking it all in.

Thanks Scott for giving us your place for the weekend…we had a wonderful time…

Until next time…

Heather

PS. If you’re REALLY bored…we took LOTS of pictures (there was nothing else to do but take pictures of every tree known to man…) you can see all of them in the gallery.

Matthew came in from outside and said that he wanted to grow honeysuckle. I was on the phone and I said to him, “Matthew, I don’t know how to grow honeysuckle.”

He replied, “I do.”

He looked down at these two honeysuckle flowers in his bug box.

Why I asked how, I don’t know, but I did.

He said, “you take a male flower and a female flower and you rub them together.”

While attempting to hold back the laughter I said “Tim knows more about flowers than I do, so I would wait until he gets home and ask him”

Out of the mouths of babes…

Until next time..

Heather

These are from a colleague…

and these are from Tim’s mom…

and of course…Tim is building me a new office…

I’ll have pics of that later!

Until next time…

Heather