Fireworks!

Yesterday was a jam packed day. I took the kids to horseback riding camp, dropped off the paperwork at our local school district that must be turned in once a year for homeschooling, mowed most of the lawn, had a doctor appointment, finished mowing the lawn, made our reservations for Williamsburg in September, picked the kids up from horseback riding camp, bought dinner for the kids at Wendy's (total was less than $7), took them to tennis lessons, and then took them to church for the Freedom Fest. Let me say I am so grateful for Interval International because booking a three bedroom unit (plus 3 bathrooms, kitchen, etc.) for seven nights cost us $289 total, which is FAR less than what we paid through Airbnb for our lodging in San Diego. And having just spent one night at an Econo Lodge (Nadia was on the floor and the other four of us shared the two queen size beds in the room), I am also very grateful we're not staying at a hotel or motel. I greatly prefer resorts because we have a kitchen, many amenities on site, multiple bedrooms, etc. at a very affordable price.

Paul got home from work after 9pm on Monday night, but he purposefully got home earlier yesterday so he could join us at our church's Freedom Fest event. We arrived at the church at 6:30, and he got there at 7:00. We enjoyed some ice cream, Nadia and Paul had some pulled pork, and the kids enjoyed three inflatables. Around 7:45 the kids and Paul decided to play corn hole. I was bushed and decided to go home in Paul's car. This was a bit ironic because #1 Paul is not a fan of fireworks and I love them and #2 Paul left for work around 4:30AM today whereas I didn't get up until a little after 6:00AM. Knowing that the kids and I will be with my Aunt in New York next week was what motivated him to make this event a priority. I went to bed a little after 8:00. I woke up when they came back home a little after 10PM, but I just went back to sleep. I haven't been needing to wake the kids up, but this morning I did. They were tired due to staying up later than usual last night.

The kids are enjoying horseback riding camp. Nadia has been riding a horse named Noel. Oliver rides Clyde the 30+ year old pony. Ian has ridden two different horses this week - one of which was also Noel. There are many different animals at this farm - cats, free range chickens, miniature horses, horses, ponies, alpacas, turkeys, etc. In addition to riding horses the do crafts, swim in the pool, play in the pond, etc. The weather the past two days was perfect. Today it's been raining on and off. That might mean no trail rides today, but she does have an indoor and an outdoor riding arena so they can ride indoors if necessary. Once a week they decorate a few horses, and today was the day for that activity. They can use bows, nail polish, makeup, etc. One downside to the camp versus lessons is I can't take any pictures. I remember in the past she gave each child one 4x6 print of a picture of them riding a horse. So I should receive one picture by Friday. Today we will just be heading home at the end of camp and staying there, for which I am grateful!

I could sign the kids up for four more weeks of free tennis lessons, but I'm not going to do so in light of the driving involved. They have three lessons left, and I think that will be plenty for us this summer. One of the next times they have a tennis lesson, I want to stop at the university and pick up some things from my office. When I was first offered a job for next year, I was told I'd be teaching two math classes from 8:00-10:45 T/Th and also have ten student teachers. I knew that one professor had officially retired, but I hadn't heard if another one had yet. I emailed my department chair this morning, and it turns out he also has officially retired because she asked if I wanted to teach any of his classes. I called Paul to discuss the options, and we chose 5 student teachers plus an Assessment class I have taught before (and really enjoyed teaching) from 3:30-4:45 on T/Th. I could have taken two sections of that class, but the other section was M/W in the middle of the day. Paul is hoping that many of my student teaching visits can be sometime between 10:45-3:00. I usually

visit my student teachers every other week so if I see 2-3 each week that should work out. I will most likely be in my office more than 5 hours a week (5 hours is the minimum), but I'm hoping that means I will have less grading and such to do when I'm at home. So this means that most of the time Paul will work at the plant on MWF and Saturdays and stay at home on Tuesdays and Thursdays. He'll homeschool the kids those two days, and I'll homeschool them on MWF. One reason I was trying to keep a T/Th schedule was so we could take some long weekends such as a trip to Williamsburg. One thing on my to do list today is the math syllabus. That will take less time than the preparation for the Assessment class, as I just taught the math one this past semester, and the last time I taught the assessment class was the summer of 2012. I am trying to decide if I want to take one personal day in the fall semester. Most of the years I taught I never took any personal days, but if I took one personal day in September then I could extend how many days I could stay in Williamsburg from four nights to six nights. I am trying to decide now so I can plan an alternative activity for my students on the day I would be using a personal day. Paul, the kids, and his parents could stay all seven nights, if they wanted to.

Horseback riding camp!

One of the things I really missed when we moved from Texas to Maryland when I was nine years old was horseback riding. We were often able to go horseback riding on Sunday afternoons as many of the people in the church where my Dad pastored owned horses. The church wasn't close to our home so we usually spent Sunday afternoon (in between the morning and evening church services) at someone's home. The summer camp I attended while we lived there also included a lot of time on a horse. All three of my kids enjoy riding horses (a pony when it comes to Oliver). Two years ago Nadia and Ian did a week of horseback riding camp. Last year to save money I signed each of them up for four lessons. Since we had a double income this year, we could afford to send all three to

horseback riding camp. When we showed up this morning, I noticed that a girl from Oliver's Sunday School class is also in the camp this week. This morning I also paid for our driveway to be resealed. The price had gone up unfortunately. Owning a house can be expensive at times! The camp lasts from 9-3 today through Friday. I've decided to hang out down near the camp today and go home tomorrow. Then I'll decide which I want to do Wednesday through Friday. It's more relaxing to be at home, but it involves more driving, and I am not a fan of driving plus gasoline isn't cheap (although it's $1 cheaper per gallon here in PA than it was in CA a few weeks ago). I'm hoping the kids will have a blast this week!

I brought my laptop and the science textbook I'm going to use with the

kids the second half of the school year. Between editing photos, homeschool plans, and preparing for the fall semester at the university, I have many hours worth of projects I could complete on my laptop. Up until this weekend I had only placed one order with Shutterfly thus far this year. In February I made a photobook and ordered 3 copies of it (one for us, one for Paul's parents, and one for my dad). For many years I had been ordering 20 page photo books. Now Shutterfly periodically gives a coupon for 91 free extra pages so lately I've been making 111 page photobooks. Although I have forced myself to spend less time per page than I used to, it still takes a good chunk of time to upload 400+ photos and design a 111 page photobook. I ordered two copies of it this weekend, and today I worked on birthday gifts for my Aunt on Shutterfly.

Today we'll be at home from 4pm onward, which will be great. Tomorrow will be more hectic as the kids have tennis lessons from 5-6pm and then our church has it's annual Freedom Fest event tomorrow

night which doesn't wrap up until about 10pm when the fireworks are done. That event was originally scheduled for Sunday evening, but they postponed it due to the rain. Nadia was thrilled because we thought we'd be missing it due to our weekend getaway to Rochester. It rained in Rochester this weekend as well. Saturday we were mostly in museums, but yesterday we definitely needed our umbrellas. The place is large and had more than we could see in the 6 hours it was open, but we saw most of it. We weren't able to do many of the special programs like there was a hunt for salamanders at 1:30 and a Jane Austen fashion show at 1:00, etc. We watched some 1812 military drills while eating our lunches. I'm thankful my children enjoy visiting places like this. We plan to go to Williamsburg, Yorktown, and Jamestown with Paul's parents in September. This year in social studies we are studying from the age of exploration through 1860. We'll start with the Civil War the following school year. Paul is very excited that we plan to go to Revolutionary War battlefields this year!

Double Digits!

Nadia is ten years old today! I have technically been a mom for 13 years as my first pregnancy was in 2005, but I didn't really feel like I was a mom until I was pregnant with Nadia. I am eternally grateful for the privilege of being Nadia's mom. She has been such a delight the past ten years!!! I looked back at the post I wrote six months ago about her, and most of the descriptions about her are still accurate. I will highlight below a few ways our precious girl has changed over the past six months.

1. She got her ears pierced! She lost one of her starters on the first night of our vacation and has been wearing a pair her Grandma loaned her since that point. In the near future I'm going to let her start wearing some other post earrings. She got some from Grandma and from me her birthday.

2. She did have a lead role in the musical at church in May. The Alliance church where she has participated in the summer musical the past six years isn't doing one this summer, but she will be in a two week (3 hrs a day) theater camp in August. She would have LOVED to try out for Mary Poppins (being presented in our area in September), but I knew she was involved in too many other things to be able to make the rehearsals.

3. She did play on a basketball team through March, but then for the first time in six years she took a break from a team sport this spring. She was in a 90 minute homeschool gym class on Fridays and also took gymnastics for 16 weeks. She made a lot of progress with her

headstand and is working on refining her cartwheel.

4. Lately she has been playing Legos with Ian a lot more than she had for awhile. He is thrilled!

5. Her favorite TV show the past several months has been Odd Squad (a PBS show they watch via Amazon Prime). Hence I selected Odd Squad as the theme for her (early) surprise 10th birthday party! Considering she says math is her least favorite subject in school, I think it's a hoot that her favorite tv show is a math show!

6. She likes a variety of Christian artists that she listens to on the radio, but her most favorite lately has been Plumb.

7. She reads a variety of books, but her favorite these days are Wonder and Auggie and Me.  Lately she has been reading books from a list that of books that are of a similar theme of Wonder such as Out of my Mind.  Even though she spends most of her time reading chapter books, she hasn't outgrown picture books yet. Berenstain

Bear books are still some of her favorites, for example.

This birthday celebration has been really spread out this year as she had her surprise birthday party last month and received gifts from two friends then. She received gifts from Grandpa, Gubba, and Aunt Yvonne ten days ago when we were in Maryland. We went to see a show at Sight and Sound eleven days ago, and that had been a birthday tradition for her from 2012-2016. Pop Pop and Grandma gave her birthday gifts after the show as we ate dinner in Lancaster.

I still wanted her actual birthday weekend to be special. Yesterday morning on our way to pick Ian up from camp, we stopped and got 6 donuts (two for her and one for the rest of us). Earlier in the week I had bought string cheese and blueberries (two of her favorite foods that I don't buy very often). Normally I pack our lunches when we are going on a road trip, but I told her since it was her birthday weekend we wouldn't pack our lunch. After getting Ian we drove to

Rochester, NY. On the way there we listened to part of the 6th Incorrigible children of Ashton place book, got lunch at Subway, and the kids also watched a Minion movie on the dvd player. We spent 3 hours at the Rochester science museum. We got in free. They had two simulator rides. We all did the free one. I paid $2 total for Nadia and Ian to both ride the one about sea turtles. We skipped the planetarium shows since they cost extra. Nadia and Ian went in a faraday cage that was part of an electricity show with Tesla coils.

We got a large pizza for dinner (and the man gave us fried dough for free while we waited for the pizza), and then we went to the Strong National Museum of Play. We had about 2 1/2 hours to spend there, which was definitely not enough time. Usually I only take the kids to a children's museum if they are a member of ASTC, which means we get in free (such as the ones in Boston and Pittsburgh) OR if it's a special night where it only costs $2 each to get in (such as Port Discovery in Baltimore or Please Touch in Philadelphia). This was the first time ever that I

paid full price for our tickets at a children's museum. If either of the children's museums we are members of were part of ACM, then we would have gotten a 50% discount, but they aren't. This children's museum was AMAZING. It's very large (282,000 sq ft) although the one in Indianapolis (which is the biggest) is almost twice as big. Nadia said this one is now her most favorite, and she already was asking when we plan to return. Today we are headed to a historical site that has been dubbed the "Williamsburg" of New York. We spent the night at an Econo Lodge and had a free breakfast there. We plan to drive home this evening. Nadia was able to open her birthday presents from us this morning. I got her six pairs of earrings, sixteen Brinkman adventure cd's (stories), and three Matthew West cd's (music). I hope our beloved ten year old is having an awesome birthday weekend!

Ian's first overnight camp!

I meant to have Ian pack his suitcase yesterday, but in the midst of everything else we did yesterday, I forgot. It hit me at 7:30 this morning that I was taking him to camp TODAY, and he had VBS from 9-12. We quickly packed his suitcase before I left the house at 8:15 to take Nadia to water day at Adventure Camp. She was really looking forward to swimming, canoeing, and rafting today! Yesterday she hiked 5 miles. Tomorrow is the day she is MOST excited about - high ropes and zip lining! Paul picked her up from camp today, which meant he got home a LOT earlier than usual. He's been getting home from work between 7-8pm. He needed to pick her up at 4pm because Ian is supposed to arrive at Camp Susque at 2pm, and those two locations are in the opposite direction so I knew I could not get there on time. Our neighbor took the boys to VBS this morning. After I picked them up, we had lunch at Kid's Café. The chicken quesadillas they served yesterday were so delicious! Today the boys got chocolate milk shakes with their sandwiches.

After eating lunch we drove to Camp Susque. They have older counselors for the young children so Ian's counselor is married and the father of an infant. Ian is staying in the Comanche Cabin. All of the top bunks had been claimed by the time we got there, so he is on a bottom bunk. He already knows one of the boys in the cabin! He knows Micah from our homeschooling group. The boy standing in line behind us just turned six last month, and so Oliver was asking why he wasn't going to camp this year. Well, technically he's old enough, but I didn't send Nadia to the short week of camp until 2015. She went the week before she turned seven. I offered to send Ian last year when he was 7 1/2 and he declined. I told Oliver he can go next year, and then in 2020 both boys could go to boys camp together (meaning a full week). I'm hoping that Ian has a blast this week and wants to go a full week next year! I have very fond memories of my time at Sky Ranch camp in Texas when I was his age. Although I reactivated my Facebook account six weeks ago, I have barely spent any time on it. I will spend more than usual the next 3 weeks because the camp usually posts pics on their FB page.

Adventure Camp!

Last week the kids had their first VBS experience for 2018. They only were able to attend 2 of the 5 nights (and actually arrived late one of those nights due to tennis lessons), but one of the VBS programs they are going to attend next month is using the same curriculum. This week our church is having their VBS from 9-12. All the other VBS programs they will be or have attended are in the evening. In fact even our church had it at night last year. Our church only holds VBS for four days, and today is the first day. Both Ian and Oliver will attend today and tomorrow, and only Oliver will attend on Friday. Neither can make it on Thursday.

This week is the first week this summer that any of the kids are participating in a camp. Nadia is attending Adventure Camp at Bloomsburg University from 9-4 for five days. The camp is for 8-13 year olds. They have two groups one for 8-10 year olds and the other for 11-13 year olds and all up to ten children per age group to attend each week. Last week was the first week they offered the camp this summer. This week there are ten

children in the older group and only five in the younger group. In Nadia's group there are two boys and three girls. Although she said she had fun yesterday, they were doing teambuilding games yesterday, which wasn't what attracted her to sign up for the program. Today she will be hiking at Ricketts Glen State Park. Hiking definitely isn't her favorite activity, but the rest of the week they are to be doing things like climbing rock walls, kayaking, and high ropes/ zip-line. Those are the activities she was most looking forward to doing. Ian surprised me months ago and said he WOULD be interested in doing this camp, but knowing how fearful he is of things like rock walls, I didn't sign him up. Nadia said he would have enjoyed yesterday's activities. I ended up signing him up for Young Explorer camp at Camp Susque, which is basically a three night summer camp experience. Those who are going into third grade have their choice of either participating in the short week with the younger children OR the full week with the older boys. This will be his first experience going to an overnight camp. I am taking him

up there tomorrow afternoon, and we'll pick him up on Saturday morning. I hope he has a blast!

Our neighbor is going to take our boys to VBS tomorrow morning and Friday morning as she will also be taking her two kids there Wednesday through Friday. The neighbor couldn't go today so Paul agreed to take Nadia to Adventure Camp today as both camps start at 9AM in towns that are 30 minutes apart from each other. I am very grateful as yesterday the boys and I did a lot of driving. We left the house at 8:10, dropped Nadia off at camp, and then I took the boys to a playground in Bloomsburg for about an hour. We left around 10am, shopped at Walmart, and then drove to the park in our town so the boys could have their free lunch. Yesterday they served hotdogs, bananas, oranges, peanuts, and apple pie. After the boys ate and played a little, we went home and were there for about three hours before we drove back to BU to get Nadia. To make two round trips to BU and back means driving for about 2 hour 40 minutes total. I'm very

thankful that yesterday was the only day I'll make two complete round trips between home and BU on the same day. I'm only picking her up today. Tomorrow I'm only taking her as Paul will pick her up as I'll be driving home from Camp Susque with the boys. On Friday I'm only taking her because Paul is going to pick her up just to help me out (very grateful!). On Thursday I'll be dropping her off and picking her up but I won't be coming home in between. Instead I'll be taking Oliver, the babysitter, and her two sons to Montage Mountain water park for a few hours. All three kids have tennis lessons this evening in Bloomsburg from 5-6 so I am going to take them to Wendy's for dinner (Kid's meals are on sale for 1.99 each there) in between picking Nadia up and taking them to tennis. On Thursday only Nadia and Oliver will have tennis lessons as Ian will be at Camp Susque. Next week all three kids are going to the same horseback riding camp so it won't be as tricky as this week when they are doing different things!

This does mean I will have about 6 hours of time without kiddos this week. Today I am going to use my time to buy a few things for Nadia at Walmart, go to the library, and get some work done on my laptop for homeschooling next year. When I have had free time over the past month I have struggled with whether to try to get things accomplished (work around the house, preparing for the fall semester, homeschooling preparation, cooking, etc.) OR take some time to relax (such as leisure reading). Yesterday I read while the boys played at the playground. I definitely need some down time like that this summer as that was sorely lacking from my life from August through early May. I am trying to streamline my to do list to what is really necessary for me to accomplish. I think this will be the first year in the last 24 that I won't be buying any mulch. It's just not important enough to me this year to expend the energy for that annual project. I have a feeling picking strawberries is going to be the first thing on our summer bucket list that I decide to skip this year. I've been buying some strawberries at the grocery store. Hopefully that will suffice for this year! We do have some blueberries growing on our blueberry bush, but the birds or some other animal might get them before we do. At this point I'm still planning to pick blueberries sometime next month. They are Nadia's most favorite fruit and so expensive to buy at the grocery store so I am more motivated to pick those ourselves!