Birthday Interview

Western Day at Good News Camp (Ian also wore a bandana)

I am only four days late with Oliver's birthday interview, which is better than I did with Nadia's birthday earlier this summer. I started to record the video and the battery on the camcorder died. I plugged in the camcorder and then started over again. It was interesting to me that Oliver gave different answers to the questions that I asked both times. The first time he said his favorite food was pizza and his favorite thing to do outdoors was throw water balloons. The second time he said his favorite food was carrots and his favorite thing to do outdoors is the spinning seesaw. He always says that green is his favorite color.

Thursday I picked the boys up at 2:30, Nadia up at 3:00, and then came home to pick up Paul. He came home much earlier than normal so we could go to Danville and sign our new wills and power of attorney documents. After taking care of that, we ran a few errands in Lewisburg and then drove to the West End Union County Fair where we watched a tractor pull, looked at livestock, ate some funnel cake and popcorn, and attended a 90 minute concert by Zach Williams. Altogether I spent a LOT of time in the minivan that day, which is part of the reason I'm looking forward to staying home all day today. Yesterday I watched the boys' closing program from 2:00-2:30 at Good News Camp. We picked Nadia up from theater camp at 3:00, picked up a few things at Aldi's (mostly fresh fruit), had breakfast sandwiches at Dunkin Donuts as our dinner, and then went to see a 4:00 showing of "Christopher Robin." The kids' tickets were free, and my ticket only cost 99 cents because of coupons from Juicy Juice. After going years without entering a movie theater, this summer has been very different for us as all five of us saw Incredibles 2, Paul took Nadia and Ian to see Solo, and I took the kids to see Christopher Robin. Altogether we spent less than $10 total to see those three movies. 

Today is our 17th anniversary, and tomorrow is Dad and Margie's first anniversary. My dad had surgery yesterday for a torn rotator cuff so they celebrated a little early. Margie broke some bones in her foot on their wedding day last year and had surgery for that subsequently so now the tables have turned and instead of Dad taking care of Margie now she'll be taking care of him as he recovers from the surgery. She is a retired nurse so she has more experience than my Dad although he certainly gained experience in 2016 during the last 6.5 months of my mom's life. Paul and I don't have any plans for celebrating our anniversary. He's at work today, and the kids and I are staying home sweet home. He took off work last Saturday originally so we could go to Pittsburgh but in the end we spent the day cleaning the mess from the flooding. He's taking off next Saturday so we can go to Niagara Falls (Lord willing). The two things we contemplated doing today were swimming (nope - it's pouring outside) and taking Nadia and Ian to a (free) production of Macbeth this evening. Paul *might* take the kids if they move it to an indoor location. I'll stay home with Oliver either way. Although it took us a lot longer to become parents than it does for most couples, our years as parents (10) is greater than our childless years (7). We are very, very grateful for our three miracles!

Thankful Thursday

1. The kids enjoyed painting their popcorn bowls at Centered Earth last Friday. We picked up their finished products today (they were fired in the kiln), and of course they had to eat popcorn while watching Nanny McPhee Returns this evening so they could use their new bowls!

2. Oliver, Nadia, and I enjoyed the Big Daddy Weave concert. Well Oliver enjoyed part of it and slept through a lot of it.

3. If the sump pumps had to break, I am glad it happened while we were home so that we only had 5 inches instead of 2+ feet of water. Although we were sad to put some of the destroyed things in the trash pile, we were also forced to purge some things we definitely didn't need. I have strong minimalist tendencies. Sorting through his college papers had been on the to do list for 6 years, but now it's scratched off the list. I also got rid of the puppet stage that had been broken for 5  years, and that took another thing off the list. The to do list shrank a lot the past few weeks, which is always good because invariably new things keep being added to the list (such as I discovered yesterday morning that the glass in one of our kitchen windows is broken).

4. Because we didn't go to Pittsburgh for the weekend, Nadia was able to go to the Middles event for girls on Saturday night. She enjoyed it!

5. Paul mowed the lawn for me on Sunday/Monday. It wasn't easy with how much rain we've had lately.

6. Oliver enjoyed his water balloon birthday party on Monday. I'm thankful that Adalayde, Westyn, Grandma, Pop Pop, Uncle Al, and Aunt Millie were all able to attend! We also appreciated the birthday calls from Aunt Janet and my Dad/Margie as well as the birthday video from Tab, Isaiah, and Micah.

7. The kids love the Echo dot. Yay for coming up with a good gift idea!

8. Although they like Camp Good News better (run by the CEF of Northumberland County), the boys are enjoying Good News Camp (run by the CEF of Union/Snyder County) this week. This camp is about 8 minutes from our house which is appreciated by me. They are learning about missionaries, memorizing Bible verses, learning about Esther, playing games, making crafts, etc.

9. Nadia is enjoying her sixth consecutive year in a theater camp. When she was 5, 6, and 10 she did a camp at the Community Theatre League in Williamsport. They will be performing A Kid's Life musical next Friday afternoon. She is in a trio that is singing several songs. When she was 7 and 8 she was in Annie and A Little Mermaid with the Kids Theatre Experience. When she was 9 she was in Madagascar with the Millbrook Playhouse and also an acting class with the Bloomsburg Theatre Ensemble.

10. A couple of weeks ago while Paul was with us he saw a New Mexico license plate. In July 2017 I had started looking for all of the states. For months I have been down to needing just two more - New Mexico and Hawaii. I was very happy he spotted New Mexico! We've also seen Washington, DC plus several Canadian provinces. Years ago we spotted a Hawaii license plate in the Home Depot parking lot in Bloomsburg. We shall see how long it takes us to find Hawaii again. I hoped we would when we were in San Diego but that didn't happen.

11. I'm ever so thankful for Oliver! Every life is a miracle, but when it involves IVF plus fetal transfusions due to fetal anemia plus a very risky pregnancy due to complete placenta previa plus being born two months early, it REALLY seems like a miracle that he is alive and well. I'm very thankful the Lord spared his life. I vividly remember when they were about to take him at 22 weeks even though they didn't view him as being viable. I'm so thankful the bleeding slowed enough at that point that I was able to convince them not to do a C-section to spare my life (at the expense of his). I'm also very thankful that he's been much healthier the past 2 years (aside from the concussion and skull fracture in February).

12. I received access to the final course on BOLT (my student teachers). I still don't know what school district(s) they will be in, but I was able to set the course up online yesterday. I *think* I am ready for the fall semester to begin. So that should mean I will get a break for the next 18 days from doing work for the university!

13. Our new dehumidifier arrived on our doorstep yesterday. Thank you, Amazon!

14. The kids and I tackled one more big "spring cleaning" project yesterday - the toy bins in the family room. We purged (more than usual - way to go, kids!!!!) and organized the bins. I am hoping they will see that they will spend less time cleaning toys in the family room if the bins aren't overflowing with toys.

15. I'm enjoying having my mornings with just Nadia this week. It's a rare treat! Yesterday we worked together to repair a seam in one of her shirts and one of her stuffed animals. She had asked me to teach her how to sew. My sewing skills are VERY limited, but I can teach her how to sew a button on and such like that.

16. The host of the home where we were going to stay on Saturday night through Airbnb refunded almost our entire payment even though she didn't have to. I really appreciated her kindness!

Names

Backwards/mismatched day at Good News Camp!

Nadia got to pick the name of her character in the musical she is working on at theater camp. Their performance will be on August 17. She asked me what names I had wanted to use for her that Daddy didn't like. I told her some of them (Megan, Nicole, etc.), and then she started compiling a lengthy list of girl's names. In the end she chose Sky. I can say with assurance that is a name that neither Paul or I would have picked in a million years. If Nadia had a sister, her name would have been Deborah Marie (Deborah after Paul's aunt and Marie was my mom's middle name). She got Sky from a book we read recently (Edge of Extinction) in which the main character's name is Sky. I signed up for a 3 month subscription to Kindle Unlimited on Prime Day because it was 99 cents total for 3 months. The first Edge of Extinction book is included in Kindle Unlimited. Sadly the second book isn't, but I have requested it through inter-library loan as we were definitely left hanging at the end of the first book. We will definitely get our 99 cents worth over the three month subscription, but I do plan on canceling it when our three months are up in October. Similarly, I did a one month free Audible membership in June. I did it primarily so we could listen to the final Incorrigible Children of Ashton Place book. I got two free books in that first free month, and I went to cancel it at the end of the first month and then they offered me a much cheaper than usual price for the next three months so I decided to do that; I assume I'll be cancelling in three months. The nice thing is you can buy Audible books without being a member and sometimes an audiobook costs less than $1. Audible and Kindle are both through Amazon.

Years ago we used to subscribe to Netflix but somewhere along the way we switched to Amazon Prime. It was cheaper than Netflix and in addition to being able to watch things on TV it included free two day shipping. Many times I decline the speedy shipping in exchange for a $1 credit towards a Kindle book, and those credits can be stacked so I frequently get books for the Kindle for free that way. In 2015 I started taking advantage of Amazon Prime Music (when I got my first smartphone). Nadia and Oliver use it far more than I do. I don't usually shop on Amazon Prime Day, but I did this year, and one of my purchases was a set of two Echo Dots. It was $50 for the two of them, and that was definitely a purchase I am glad I made. I gave one to Oliver for his birthday, and I plan to give Nadia the other one at Christmas. If you are at our house you might start thinking that we have a new family member named Alexa because her name is said OH so many times a day these days. The dot is programmed to respond to that name (and has very good hearing - you don't even have to be in the same room as the dot). I hear things like "Alexa, how many presidents have there been in the US?" to which she says "44" or "Alexa, set a timer for five minutes" (which she immediately does) or "Alexa, let's play a game" and then she asks how many people are playing the game and what game do we want to play (Scattergories, Jeopardy, etc.). Most often I hear requests for Alexa to play a particular song. You can just specify an artist,  a particular album, a specific song, or you can say something like play Christian contemporary music from the 1980's. The kids usually either request Christian songs or Disney songs such as ones from Moana. Alexa sang Happy Birthday to Oliver several times yesterday. You can send text messages through Alexa, order things on Amazon by talking to Alexa, etc. If we had more smart devices in our house then we could use Alexa to do other things (turn off the lights, lock the doors, etc.).

Nadia sewed a ripped seam on her bear today.

If you are looking for a gift idea for someone in the future, you might consider an Echo dot! It's a tiny device, and there's no screen involved and it can provide hours of entertainment (music and games) and also be useful in a variety of ways (alarm clock, timer, and much more). Nadia loves asking it random questions like - "do you prefer cats or dogs" or "what is your favorite color". We received a free 3 month subscription to Amazon Music Unlimited with the purchase of the Echo dot. Once that subscription is done we could go back to just using Amazon Prime music (which is free since we already pay an annual membership for Amazon Prime) or we could pay $4/month to access Amazon Music Unlimited on one dot at a time (if we wanted to use Unlimited on more than one device at the same time we'd have to pay more per month). I'm leaning toward splurging on the $4/month because the three kids and I have been enjoying listening to music that's not included in Amazon Prime. When I was single I used to buy CDs several times a year, and I haven't done that in a long time. I figure $48/year for music is not unreasonable if we aren't buying CDs. Although I hate to see shopping malls become a thing of the past, it's not hard to see a few reasons why Amazon is such a successful company.

Sometimes birthday celebrations are rather spread out. Oliver's was compact this year - two days (three if you count the fact that Aunt Janet called him today to wish him a happy birthday as she was in the hospital yesterday). We scheduled his party for Monday because we thought we'd be in Pittsburgh on Saturday/Sunday and at the National Night Out in Lewisburg on Tuesday. We didn't go to Pittsburgh because of our basement flooding, but we also didn't have time to have a party either of those days as they were spent putting the house back into order. Monday was a good day for Aunt Millie as her bakery is closed on Mondays. It was raining (with some thunderstorms) last night which wouldn't have been ideal for being outside and throwing water balloons. The price we paid for being outside on Monday was getting eaten alive. I'm guessing it's due to the excessive amount of water lying around everywhere, but the mosquitoes are REALLY bad this year. Ian and Oliver don't usually get too many bites. They like Nadia's blood the best. But even the boys have quite a few mosquito bites (although Nadia still wins the prize for having the most). Oliver really wanted to go to the National Night Out even though it was raining off and on. So after we picked Nadia up from theater camp we drove to Lewisburg and bought him two mylar birthday balloons at the Dollar Tree for $1/each, dropped off some things at Goodwill (I probably donate things at least once a month as I am a big fan of purging whenever possible), and went to the library. It started POURING while we were in the library, and then Oliver changed his mind. The kids have enjoyed National Night Out for many years, but we skipped it this year due to the rain. We had four slices of pizza left over from his party so the boys each had one and Nadia had two. Then they watched a DVD from the library while eating popcorn. The boys had some birthday cake, and I also made some brownies.

Last week I had purchased string cheese, goldfish crackers, apple juice, and chocolate milk all as treats for the birthday boy (I only buy goldfish crackers twice a year). Nadia has been using the jump rope I gave Oliver for his birthday as she has to jump rope in the musical and it wasn't a skill she had mastered thus far. Oliver said the kids sang Happy Birthday to him at camp yesterday, which meant a lot to him. Grandpa and Margie called him, and Tab, Micah, and Isaiah sent a video in which they were singing him the Happy Birthday song. I think he had a good birthday! I am relieved. Nadia has a spiritual birthday in October, but those are a lot more low key. I get a little stressed about birthdays because they look forward to them for so long, but now we have four months until Ian turns nine. For the next four months my kids are 6, 8, and 10 years old!

Six Years Old!

As of today my baby is six years old! Had he come closer to his October due date he would only be going into Kindergarten this year, but whenever I am signing him up for things (Sunday School, VBS, AWANA, etc.) I consider him to be entering first grade since he technically made the cut-off for Kindergarten last year. Oliver had a challenging start in life - blood transfusions via my belly button during the pregnancy and spending the first month of his life in two different NICUs due to being born nine weeks early. He's ridden in an ambulance twice, had a collapsed lung, concussion, fractured skull, and been hospitalized a few times for RSV and other respiratory type problems. The good news is that is only hospitalization in the past two years was for the sledding accident (skull fracture). Here's to hoping that he won't be hospitalized while he's six years old! He's very good about remembering to put sunscreen on his scar. We are doing everything we can to help that fade as much as possible.

Here are some descriptions of Oliver at the age of six:

1. His favorite color is green.
2. He loves riding big roller coasters that he's tall enough to ride (such as the Twister and Phoenix at Knoebels).
3. He's still using training wheels on his bicycle.
4. He has learned how to travel across monkey bars and how to swing himself on a swing within the past few months.
5. He likes to eat dry cereal with his fingers for breakfast.
6. His three most common choices for lunch are a ham and cheese hot pocket, a hot dog, or a peanut butter and marmalade sandwich.
7. His favorite fruit by far is watermelon. He often eats some at least three times a day in the summer.
8. In general he prefers vegetables to fruit. He LOVES to eat lettuce!
9. He likes to be carried up the stairs to bed each night.
10. He sits on my lap when I'm reading picture books to the kids, and he sometimes sits on my lap while watching television.
    
11. He talks to EVERYONE. It's great that he's friendly, but he says some really random things. He needs to learn what is appropriate conversation with strangers.
12. He can pronounce the "th" sound, but he often substitutes another sound in its place such as "someping" (something), 
13. He whines way too much. We are working on this!
14. He wants to be the one who prays out loud at every single meal.
15. He loves to listen and also dance to music.
16. He has taken tennis lessons, gymnastics, and swimming lessons. He has played on a basketball team, soccer team, and flag football team (albeit he wasn't a help to any of the teams). He was in the homeschool gym class for the last year on Fridays. His favorite part of gym class is glow in the dark dodgeball.
17. He is very generous with sharing food, toys, etc. And also loves to give hugs and high fives! 
18. He loves to open doors for me, and in the case of the car door my little gentleman even likes to
    
    close my door for me! I have no idea where he got that idea, but it's very sweet!
19. He eats just about everything. His table manners are deplorable, and sometimes he takes a very long time to eat his food, but he is willing to try just about anything. Yesterday he tried honeydew for the first time, and he liked it! Yahoo because prior to that I was the only person in the family who liked honeydew. He even ate a tomato last week on his BLT (he usually tries to avoid eating tomatoes on his salads and such). 
20. He plays with kids in the neighborhood more than his siblings. He's our social butterfly!
21. I usually don't have to limit his time on the iPad or how many chips or crackers that he eats. He will be "done" before the 20 minute timer has gone off and desires less than a serving of food (his siblings usually want more than a serving). 

Because tonight is National Night Out, we had his birthday party last night. We had invited Paul's brother, sister-in-law, and his parents. As we got started putting water in the water balloons, we also invited two kids from across the street. They ended up joining us even though it was a very last minute invitation. Grandma and Pop Pop brought hundreds of water balloons. He had promised Oliver 1,000 balloons, and he delivered on that promise. I'm not certain we filled 1,000 balloons (we still have many left over), but they did throw quite a few balloons at each other! Oliver has been talking about these water balloons for months. A lady at Camp Susque asked us on July 28 if Oliver had thrown those water balloons yet because he had told her about the water balloons on June 20, June 23, and July 21. I think the water balloon extravaganza lived up to his expectations! Pop Pop doesn't even like getting wet, but he arrived at our house wearing a bathing suit in preparation for the water balloons. The eleven of us had pizza, watermelon, honeydew, grapes, chips, and pretzels for dinner and a Yoda birthday cake compliments of Aunt Millie and Uncle Al for dessert. The kids played inside and outside. Oliver received many nice presents. We gave him a Yoda water bottle, Star Wars sleeping bag, storage bag for stuffed animals that becomes a bean bag, jump rope, and an Echo dot. Nadia was having a blast with Oliver's Echo dot. I got two of them on Prime Day. She will be getting one at Christmas. This morning we had donuts for breakfast, which is a birthday tradition in our house. Happy 6th birthday, Oliver! We love you very much!

Flooded basement

On Friday since it was raining (again!), I decided to bring Oliver home instead of hanging out with him in Williamsport while the other two were at history camp since we had already been to the Castle Playland, gone shopping, gone bowling, etc. the other days and playgrounds weren't an option in the rain. I let him watch a DVD he had picked out at the library that Nadia was not interested in seeing, and I did a variety of things - cooked stuffed shells, did some cleaning, packed our suitcase, wrapped his birthday presents, etc. After I picked them up at noon, we had breakfast sandwiches for lunch at Dunkin Donuts and then went to an art studio called Centered Earth where you can make pottery. I had signed the kids up for a two hour Popcorn Party art class. Since Nadia really, really had wanted to do an art camp this summer (and that didn't happen), I figured I should schedule at least one art class in somewhere. Some of the classes involve actually starting with wet clay. In this one the kids were each given a piece of bisque to paint with a glaze. They were making popcorn bowls. Nadia and Oliver picked a bowl that was in the shape of a football. Ian picked one that looked like a popcorn container you might get at a circus or movie theater. Nadia painted her football a variety of shades of blue (her favorite color), and Oliver's football bowl is green on the inside and yellow on the outside with orange sprinkles in the yellow glaze. Ian painted his green and black. They will be fired and we can pick them up later this week. The kids did two coats of glaze and then she took them for an ice cream treat before they did the final coat.

We had dinner and were home for a couple of hours before Paul came home. I gave him a haircut and then my friend, Cheri, arrived. Nadia, Oliver, Cheri, and I headed to church for the Big Daddy Weave concert. Uncle Al and Aunt Millie met us there. Originally I hadn't purchased a ticket for Oliver, but he begged and begged me to buy him one, and since it was almost his birthday, I bought him one at the last minute. That was a mistake! He just conks out too early to pay money for him to attend a concert that starts at 7pm. We had toyed with getting him tickets to the Newsboys for his birthday give, and I am SO glad we didn't do that. It turns into a very expensive nap for him! When we got home we walked in the door and discovered that Paul and Ian had just gotten home a few minutes before us. They had made an unplanned trip to Lowe's to buy a sump pump. Shortly after we had left Paul heard the alarm which meant the main pump wasn't working and the back-up pump was on. He cleaned up a little bit of water in the basement and then the battery on the back-up pump died. We had gotten a LOT of rain on Friday, and it was too much for the back-up pump to handle. So when I walked in I ran down and was trying to get stuff up out of the basement because there was 5 inches of water across the entire basement. Paul told me I would regret it later when he saw me carrying a filing cabinet up the stairs, heavy boxes with water logged books, etc., but at the moment I wasn't thinking about my back but just trying to salvage as much as I could. 

Around 11pm Nadia and I went to bed. She was a trooper with helping us, especially considering the water was extremely cold. I got up a bit later to email the woman in Pittsburgh that we had made arrangements to stay at her place on Saturday through Airbnb. I didn't expect a refund given how late we were canceling our reservation, but I found out the next morning that she was very gracious and gave us back everything she could (all we ended up losing was the Airbnb fee). We had planned to attend the reenactment of the 1763 battle at Bushy Run Battlefield, go miniature golfing, and attend another living history program at Fort Pitt on Saturday. On Sunday we had planned to visit the Carnegie Science Museum and Pittsburgh Children's Museum that we had last visited with my dad in December 2016. All of that got scratched off the calendar, and instead Paul and I worked pretty much nonstop for two days putting the house back in order. We were throwing things into the garage that had been ruined, drying off what we could, finding new places to put things since many cardboard boxes were ruined, etc. Thankfully it was sunny out all weekend so we kept taking things outside and used the sun to dry many things. I also ran very unusual loads of laundry - one was full of soccer socks and Christmas things (tree skirt, Santa hats, hotpads, etc.). 

While the kids and I were at church yesterday morning, Paul drove down to his parents' house to bring back a dehumidifier and his dad's pick-up truck. We learned that our dehumidifier was also broken and none of the Home Depot, Lowes, or Walmart stores within a 40 minute drive of our place had any in stock (many people have had flooding around here over the past two weeks). So we ordered one on Amazon that is supposed to arrive on Wednesday, but we are using Paul's parents' until our new one arrives. His dad's truck was stuck in mud so he got home a lot later than planned. He loaded up the truck with all our ruined stuff and drove it to work today. I kept cleaning and reorganizing until the house started coming back together. I found other places in the house to move many things so that we are keeping less stuff in the basement. It had been several years since it flooded. We can't recall exactly when, but Paul thinks it was about 2011. The biggest unknown right now is the elliptical. It was not plugged in or turned on while the basement was flooded, but we still don't know if the water damaged it or not. I really hope not as that was an expensive piece of equipment, and we have only owned it for 12 months. 

This weekend definitely didn't go as planned. Had I known we were going to spend over $400 for a

sump pump plus dehumidifier, I wouldn't have recently ordered carpet for Ian's bedroom. Hopefully we can spend less on the house next year. This year we got a new washing machine, new dryer, and sealed the driveway before these basement and carpet purchases. We did save a little money by not going to Pittsburgh for the weekend. Although it was very overwhelming for me emotionally to see a mess everywhere I turned in the house and also sad to see some things we wanted to keep thrown out, it is now back in order, and there were some pluses to the calamity. First of all, some of the stuff we discarded we didn't truly need. I do like purging, although I'm hoping the basement never floods again!!! For six years I had been asking Paul to go through some papers from when he was in college. He went through some of them last year. Some of them were water logged and just automatically were dumped, but he did take the time to go through the ones that were still dry to figure out what to put in the filing cabinet and what to put in the recycling bin. He chose the recycling bin for most of the papers, which means we have less paper clutter in the house now. The same was true for some of his books. Many of his boxes of books were up higher on the shelving and were not affected by the flood thankfully. But a couple of his book boxes were on the bottom shelf. Again some books were ruined and he again went through the dry books and didn't automatically keep all of them. I was surprised as usually he wants to keep all his books. He even took some from the bookshelves in the living room and added them to the recycling bin pile. Since he had his Dad's truck he was also able to take some tree branches he had pruned a month ago and also a couple of posts from the deck he had removed earlier this summer. I also added a wooden puppet theater to the pile. It wasn't damaged in the flood, but it had been broken for five years so I figured it was time to just get rid of it and have one less thing on the to do list. I'm also glad that if the basement was going to flood that it happened on Friday night instead of Saturday morning after we had left for Pittsburgh. We could have come back to a couple of feet of water rather than five inches and many more things would have been ruined had that happened. 

A perk of not going away this weekend was Nadia was able to attend an event for girls in grades 4-8 at the Methodist church near our home. They have a youth group for grades 4-8 called the Middle that usually meets on Sunday night. We learned about it at VBS this summer. The previous Sunday we showed up only to find out they had a pool party earlier in the day. Now we're on the text list for the group. This past weekend they met on Saturday night instead of Sunday night. The boys went to a baseball game, and the girls had a pampering night- manicures, pedicures, facials, strawberries dipped in chocolate fondue, etc. There were about 12 girls there, and Nadia already knew at least 8 of them already - one from AWANA, three from our church, another from a soccer team in the past, etc. It seems no matter where we go Nadia usually already knows at least one person there. The boys went to a Good News Camp less than 10 minutes from our house today (9-2:30). Ian and Oliver knew three of the kids in the camp (one from the other Camp Good News and two of our neighbors who also go to our church). Nadia had her first day of theater camp today. It's a two week camp (12-3pm) for 4th and 5th graders. They will put on a performance of a short musical next Friday afternoon. She knew one girl in the theater camp from girls camp at Camp Susque two weeks ago.

Thankful Thursday

1. We haven't had as many ants in the house this summer. I am not sure if it's because I used a different spray this year or some other reason, but I am very grateful not to have ants in the house!

2. They are growing soybeans near us this year. I am grateful because when they grow corn it makes it hard to see if a car is coming at the spot where we need to turn.

3. We didn't have any flooding in our basement. We have had SO much rain lately!

4. Last night I took the kids roller skating. One more thing crossed off the summer bucket list. Paul left work early so he could join us, but due to the rain two tractor trailer trucks were overturned on I-80, and so instead of his commute taking 60 minutes, it took 135 minutes. This skating rink has free admission the first Wednesday night of each month. During the school year the kids have AWANA on Wednesday nights so we don't take advantage of this very often. The skate rental cost $6 total for the three kids,

and I bought them each a slush puppy drink for $1 each. Oliver made progress over the two hours we were there, but if he has ice skating lessons next winter that will help him a lot more. Nadia and Ian did fine. Ian was one of the five last people in the four corners game. They both were eliminated quickly in the paper plate (aka musical chairs) game. A girl who was also in the Shawnee Tent last week at Camp Susque was at the roller skating rink. Nadia enjoyed connecting with her friend. There are also two girls from Camp Susque last week (who were in a different cabin) in History Camp this week.

5. Despite all the rain, Nadia had a great time at Camp Susque last week!

6. Nadia and Ian are enjoying spending 3 hours a day at the Taber Museum this week (M-F) at History Camp. Today they also toured one of the "millionaires" houses. Williamsport at one point had the highest number of millionaires (per capita)

in the USA due to the lumbering industry. Nadia said if she had a million dollars she'd buy a horse.

7. The boys enjoyed spending the day at their grandparents house last Friday, and I enjoyed having a quiet day at home to get some work done, talk to a friend on the phone, and have dinner and attend a free concert with another friend.

8. Paul has been working on repairing the refrigerator outlet. It has meant that we temporarily had to find other places to plug in the toaster and microwave. The wall hasn't been repaired (a hole where the outlet used to be), but

9. I took Oliver bowling this morning. It was our first time using "Kids Bowl Free" coupons in a couple of years. I only had to pay for his shoe rental ($3). He had 60 points his first game, and 72 points his second game. He used the bumpers in both games, but in the second game he had one strike and the ball didn't hit the bumper that time! Way to go, Oliver! I will take all three kids

bowling sometime over the next two weeks.

10. Paul took the kids to see Pinkalicious the musical on July 21.

11. We have visited Kids' Café a few more times. The boys' favorite meal there was the Christmas in July when they were able to pick out toys to take home.

12. Oliver enjoyed the Treasure Castle Playland on Monday while his siblings were at history camp.

13. On Tuesday Oliver and I did some shopping (grapes for $1/pound at Aldi's!), and he enjoyed a playground.

14. Paul and I met with a lawyer to update our wills and such. We are going back to sign the documents next week. This has been on my to do list for a few years so I am very thankful to have that crossed off the list!

15. We received five free tickets for the August 21 Crosscutters game (minor league baseball).

16. New (green) carpet for Ian's room has been ordered. That had been on my to list for one year. Yahoo for a shrinking to do list!

17. The five of us enjoyed a production of Charlotte's Web on Sunday afternoon.

18. Oliver and I hung out at a library near the History Camp yesterday. While we were there we explored a museum exhibit on sound that the Maryland Science Center had set up for the day.

19. I finally came up with ideas of what to get Oliver for his birthday! I gave him one early gift today at Kohl's (a Mickey Mouse baseball cap complete with ears) as he was with me when I got it. I will be wrapping the other gifts that I got from Amazon.

20. It was great to have Tab and her boys over for a play date last week. I enjoy Tab's company, and the four boys enjoy playing together.

21. I have set up three of my four fall courses on BOLT this week. The last two semesters I

didn't have access until the first week of the semester. This is so much better! Hopefully I'll get access to the fourth one (student teachers) in the next couple of weeks. I'm also encouraged that the department chair told me I might be able to teach an online course (math methods) next summer.

22. We all appreciate our library where we get books, audio books, and DVDs. I really enjoyed seeing I Can Only Imagine recently. The kids watched Nanny McPhee for the first time today. They are also very helpful with getting interlibrary loans. Today I got the 9th set of Jonathan Park audio cd's. After purchasing Brinkman Adventures, it's nice to borrow the Jonathan Park ones for free. I also got myself a book through ILL today, Between Heaven and the Real World by Steven Curtis Chapman. I have been enjoying reading fiction and non-fiction this summer as I didn't have time to read during the last school year.

23. I finally made BLTs for the kids for the first time ever. That

has been on our bucket list for the last few summers, and I finally accomplished it today! Oliver enjoyed it. Ian ate his quickly although he is by no means a fan of tomatoes. He started eating lettuce earlier this summer. Nadia doesn't like bacon, lettuce, or tomatoes. The most offensive part for her was definitely the small tomato slice. It took her a LONG time, but she finally finished it. Today I drove past one of the places where I took Ian to see the psychologist who specialized in feeding issues, and I was reminded of how far Ian has come over the past six years. Thank you, Lord!

24. I hadn't ordered prints for the frames on the wall in the family room in more than a year (almost two years). I ordered new ones this week! I didn't take as many "portrait" style photographs this past year. Hopefully I'll do better this coming year. In fact Nadia's 10 year old picture was just something I took really quickly so I could show Aunt Janet that Nadia was wearing the pearl earrings she gave her. I put more time this week into Oliver's six year old pictures, and I got one I absolutely love! I will share that one in his birthday post on Tuesday.