Sadly, I do not have many posts from our time spent in Akron, Ohio. A time that we will not forget for a long time. It was very different for many different reasons...and only one of those being the weather. The busyness of Law School left us with little time with Trent (he had classes 2 times a week that went well past kids' bedtimes and mutual the other night of the week)...which perhaps was a great 'practice' of what we would experience now that Trent has a job as a Tax Associate. We rarely see him from about mid February-April 15th, and then again September-October 15th. Little did I know that Law School was just the beginning of not having a father/husband around much. Yes, it hurts their relationships, and even got them sick when I let them stay up several nights so Trent could play with them for a bit before shoving them off to bed. It was hard for me to say, "Well, I know you just got home, Trent, and want to see your children but you can't. Now kids, off to bed!"
Yes, as a mother with 3 small children, I am wishing we had more of a father figure and husband around, and that's been our life for the past several years, so it's making its way onto our family blog for memory sake:)
And I feel so terrible about my terrible record keeping of our time in Akron, so I'm going to post what pictures I do find and try to remember what was going on at the time. I guess that's better than nothing.
Brenden has always been my kid who knows how to chill. When he was a baby and little toddler, he had a "chill mode" that Trent and I would copy. Looks like the kid still has it....
This was our home for the longest period of time as a family. The longest we stayed anywere before 1797 Kingsley Ave. was in the West Jordan apartments at Willow Cove off 9000 S. and Redwood rd. for 2 years.
The pool table and white entertainment center belonged to the landlord and we thought it would be fun to play pool, but later took it apart and carried it to the basement because we figured the space for the kids to play would be a better use of the space.
Orange. Very, very orange. What even goes with that shade of orange? And for a master bedroom? When we were about to leave and the landlord was prepping the house to go on the market, his parents (Gary and Karen Mumma) came over and re-painted the room to a soft beige. It was soooooo much nicer. The bookshelf and my side table we received from our wedding. The side table was actually a wine table that I didn't know was meant for wine when I registered for it until it arrived and the bottom had an attachable wire rack for bottles and the top also had an attachment with handles to serve. I just took those off and used it as our only bedside table for the 5 years of our marriage until we could afford to buy a matching bedroom set. Still no headboard, and our only dresser was graciously given to us from a neighbor (Stewarts). I later found a free table that I painted to cover its bad condition and placed that next to Trent's bedside for him to put his phone and homework stuff. The bookshelf went along the wall next to the dresser where I was standing to take this picture.
The "Green room". Holds many fond memories for my little family here. The big window was nice to try to grab as many rays of sunlight as possible. Not a single room in the house came with lighting on the ceiling. All means of light had to come in the form of lamps. And with Akron already being very cloudy, it made for some dark and dreary days inside.
The dining room was small, so luckily we had a small table and it fit. Later, when we added Kent's highchair, we had to remove some chairs to the basement so that we weren't going through the labryinth every time we wanted to go outside.
The wood paneling was "in" during the 1950's when this house was built. However, there was no pantry. And only 3 cupboards. We put dishes and cups in one cupboard, spices and tupperware and baby bottles in the second cupboard and pots and pans in the 3rd. So that left us with no room to place food. Luckily Target was close by so we snagged 2 black 'cupboards' and used that to place all our food...cereal, cooking and baking and snacks...
The black bookshelf had to hold large appliances and the other bookshelf held cookbooks and canned goods.
The two-toned table shown here was one of my favorite pieces. We put large utensils, measuring cups and spoons and hot pads in the drawers and other large pots that didn't fit into the cupboard on the shelf. One of the other major reasons I bought that table was the severe lack of counter space to cook with. This almost doubled that available counter space.
Trent loved getting ready for 3 years in this flowery wallpaper bathroom. This is the only full bath in the house so when guests came over, they joined us in the 'master' bath/kids bathroom/guest bathroom. Just don't expect anything to dry overnight in this bathroom. Towels were always still wet come morning time. But the space in this bathroom was one of the biggest bathrooms I've ever had.
We were playing around with Trent's new laptop. Also, I dyed my hair dark so as to save money on hair care/upkeep.
We miss Daddy/Trent.....
My little sweet guy. He would be attending Preschool at Crouse which was downtown Akron. Had I known then what I know now, I may have done things differently. Luckily, this guy had a GREAT kindergarten teacher who helped get him back up to where he should be. We will forever be grateful to Mrs. Mary Jo Hoffman.
He is a fun kid.
She is a little more serious, but can be equally silly.
Just for fun, here is a picture of Kyleigh about 2 years later. So much can change in that amount of time...especially when they are so young.
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