Thankful Thursday

1. My parents and brother drove (round trip) to our house on Friday to see Nadia play the part of Pepper in Annie. We greatly appreciated their willingness to do this!

2. Nadia did a GREAT job in Annie! All nine of us enjoyed the performance as well as Jenn and Holly (Jenn is Paul's colleague's wife). Jenn and Holly gave Nadia flowers, which was very sweet.

3. Nadia came down sick on Saturday. I am so glad she was feeling fine for her performance on Friday, and I'm thankful none of the rest of us caught her bug.

4. Nadia and Ian enjoyed building Black Widow's skycycle at Lowe's with Paul on Saturday morning.

5. I enjoyed walking for 2 1/2 hours on Saturday morning while visiting various yard sales. I also enjoyed getting some good bargains! Nadia spent more of her birthday money by buying a tennis racket for $5 and a Tinkerbell puzzle (150 piece). Ian loved the Star Wars shirt I got him. The Smartphone came in handy to check the price of some Lego sets. Some of the prices listed were NOT good, but some were very good bargains.

6. Nadia, Ian, and I enjoyed the Rural Heritage Day on Saturday afternoon.

7. All five of us enjoyed the VBS kick-off at First Baptist on Saturday evening, and the kids have been enjoying the VBS program that started there on Sunday night.

8. Paul and I were able to go out to dinner last night while the three kids were at VBS! I had recently redeemed some credit card points for a $50 gift card to TGIF, and when it came in the mail they included a bonus $10 gift card in addition to the $50 I had ordered.

9. Paul and the kids enjoyed seeing Penguins of Madagascar at the movie theater yesterday. It was $4 total for the four of them to see the movie. It was Oliver's first time in a movie theater. He did pretty well, but Paul said he thinks he should leave Oliver at home with me the next time he takes them. I think next summer he'll be able to handle sitting through a 90 minute movie. While they watched the movie I mowed the lawn and cut some branches off our 2 apple trees, which means it will be easier to mow.

10. The seven of us had a fabulous time at Dutch Wonderland on Tuesday!

11. Nadia was registered to be in a three day basketball camp that was supposed to begin yesterday morning, but when we showed up at the YMCA at 9am, we were told they had cancelled the camp due to low enrollment (and hadn't called me to tell me that). The upside of her not doing the camp is that she was able to go see the movie with her brothers yesterday, and today she was able to spend the day with her brothers at her grandparents' house! If I had a friend nearby who also had the day off, it would be great fun to have a "girl's day out" today - go shopping or out for lunch or go for a walk or get our nails done, but instead I am having a very productive day. Although we certainly haven't eaten all I cooked on the last freezer cooking day, there is room in the freezer for more meals so thus far I have made two ham and swiss pies (like a quiche), two batches of meatballs (over 3 lbs

of them), a double batch of BBQ chicken is in the crockpot, and I have browned two batches of ground beef that could be taken from the freezer to make lasagna or tacos or whatever. I also met with our district's elementary principal for an hour this morning. She was one of my graduate students at Bloomsburg University, and she wanted my input on a new Developmental Kindergarten class that they are starting this fall. I had planned to stop at the consignment shop after that meeting and sell some things (I

had Paul's car packed up with clothing and other baby gear), but I called them from the school's parking lot and found that they don't have much room so they aren't buying much this week. I am glad I called! Paul is taking the kids to VBS on his way home so I won't see them until 8:00, but Paul will be home around 6:00, and we're planning on taking a walk together. This means I have 3 1/2 more hours to get some more work done. Mopping the kitchen floor and dusting all over the house are definitely on the agenda. Other possibilities include more cooking and/or doing some organizing in the basement. I love my children dearly, but I certainly can get a LOT more work done when they're not here! I am very grateful that Paul's parents could watch them today. I am sure the kids are having a blast.

12. Last Friday ten of us enjoyed dinner at Texas Roadhouse before Nadia's show. I found a way to have a very economical meal there - drink water (I always do anyhow) and order a baked sweet potato (yum!). They give everyone free peanuts and free homemade bread. My meal cost about the same as Paul's soda. Usually when the five of us go out to eat (whether it's fast food or a sit down restaurant), Paul's meal/drink is usually half of the bill and the meals for the three kids and myself is usually the other half of the bill, but at Texas Roadhouse since I only had a sweet potato his meal was 2/3 of our bill. We both like that restaurant. I wish there was a way to get free gift cards for it like we can for Applebee's or TGIF. I usually don't put butter on my bread, but their butter is SO yummy (has honey it in) that I have to put some on! Mmmm

Dutch Wonderland

Paul's parents had taken their two sons to Dutch Wonderland decades ago (the parked opened in the 60's). The kids and I had our first visit there yesterday. It's an amusement park located in Lancaster, which is two hours from our home. It's geared for young children. If you are 42 inches tall, you can ride every ride in the park, although kids that height have to ride with an adult for a few rides such as the bumper cars. If you are under 36 inches you are more limited in what you can ride. Since Oliver is 36 inches tall, he was able to ride almost everything; the five he couldn't were the Kingdom Coaster, bumper cars, swings, pirate ship, and twister rides. The park has 37 attractions, and the kids did 33 of those. They opted to skip the carousel, sand area, and the wiggle racers (which was just a bunch of plasma cars, and we own a plasma car). The tugboat was closed. We had no wait for most of the rides, and the kids were sometimes able to stay on a ride more than once because there wasn't a line. They rode the flume five times, for example.

The first ride they rode was the "kite flight," which was different than any other ride I've seen before. The kids were lying on their bellies and were flying around at various heights in a circle in a sort of superman position. That was also the last ride we rode last night on our way out of the park. We arrived at 10:00 and left at 7:30. The park was open until 8:30, but considering we had a two hour drive, we opted to leave at 7:30. They also have seven shows, and we saw four of the shows, which included two high dive shows.

The weather was perfect, which was an answer to prayer because the forecast included thunderstorms. The park was not crowded at all, and parking was free. The kids wore their bathing suits because they had an area with a large splash pad and several water slides that all three kids could do (quite the contrast to Six Flags). Unfortunately for two of the slides they needed to ride with an adult, and none of the adults had  brought a bathing suit. OOPS! I went down with Nadia twice in my shorts and shirt. My hair stayed dry, my shirt was partially wet, and my shorts were soaked, but it was warm enough that I dried off fairly quickly.

We are glad we went while the kids are young. I was afraid Nadia wouldn't enjoy it because they didn't have any big roller coasters. Oliver was still free, which was a perk to going this year. I think Sesame Place is a little nicer, but it's also farther away. Sesame Place doesn't have free parking, but the tickets (if you get a group together) are cheaper than the coupon we used yesterday. I've been keeping a list of all the amusement parks the kids have gone to (sort of a "life list"), and it was nice to try a new one. The seven of us had a great day!

VBS take three

On Saturday afternoon we went to a kick-off event for this week's VBS. It included a large inflatable castle, a sprinkler, hot dogs, watermelon, and a slip and slide. Nadia and Oliver had a lot of fun with the inflatable and slip and slide. Ian went through the inflatable once, and the rest of the time he spent talking to people (primarily about Legos) and eating a hot dog. It still amazes me he likes to go on the Phoenix (a BIG roller coaster) but is scared of things like staircases and slip and slides. Go figure. I thought all three kids would be going to that VBS on Sunday night, but Nadia started complaining of a headache around 6:00pm on Saturday. I took her temperature, and she had a mild fever. I gave her some Tylenol and thought she'd probably be fine on Sunday, but actually she woke us up during the middle of the night. She complained about her stomach but didn't actually throw up. I gave her some Ibuprofen and then she proceeded to sleep until 10:00 am. That is definitely the latest she ever slept in her life. I had gone in to feel her cheeks at 8:00 when I was deciding whether to wake her up or not, and I could tell she still had a fever. Paul stayed home with her, and I took the boys to church. She stayed in her pajamas all day yesterday. She played a game of Life with Paul after her very late breakfast (she won!). Aside from her fever her only other symptom seemed to be that her appetite was very small. She still had a fever in the evening, so I only took the boys to VBS last night. She was asleep in bed before they got home.

This morning she woke up without a fever around 7:00. She has eaten more than she did yesterday, but her appetite is still not back to normal. Otherwise she has seemed to be doing much better today. She wanted to go to VBS tonight instead of Spanish class. I gave her the choice of either missing Spanish tonight or the musical rehearsal on Wednesday night. She picked skipping the musical. We are going to Dutch Wonderland amusement park tomorrow (first time for the kids and I), which means the boys will be attending four out of five nights of this VBS (Mt. Everest curriculum) since we'll be in Lancaster tomorrow. Since Nadia was sick last night and had Spanish class tonight, she'll just be going to VBS on Wednesday and Thursday. They aren't rehearsing the act she's in this Wednesday so I think it will be okay if she misses this rehearsal. Paul and I are going to go out on a date on either Wednesday or Thursday and take advantage of not needing to pay a babysitter for that luxury. I am very grateful that these churches have allowed Oliver to participate even though the minimum age was three years old (since he'll be turning 3 in less than a month). He actually has told me more about what has happened at VBS than Ian has. Oliver's personality is definitely more similar to Nadia (not Ian).

One of the things I've been doing during my extra time is work on planning the next school year. I don't have things planned out as thoroughly as my sister does, but I have things far more planned out than I ever have before with homeschooling. Here's what I've been working on. We've already been reading many of the picture books for the introduction, US, and Canada, and I've also been getting a head start on the chapter books. We're reading Anne of Avonlea right now, and we're listening to The Incredible Journey on cd in the van.

I was going to start Cameron Townsend next, but Paul put in a request for the next book in the Chronicles of Narnia so I will read Prince Caspian before we start reading the biography on Townsend. For quite a while I keep saying I need to start doing more crafts with the kids, and I think this year it's actually going to happen. I also am going to be trying more new recipes than I have been trying lately with making at least one food for each country. I haven't finished picking out all the recipes and crafts yet, but I am making great progress! I will definitely not plan out the other subjects in advance because I find the pace is so variable with spelling, reading, math, etc. Ian has been asking to work on reading so we are currently on lesson five of the second grade reading curriculum. Keep it up, Ian!

First person again

For the last seven years Paul and I have been in the habit of referring to ourselves in the third person when we're talking to our children. By that I mean we often use the word "Mommy" or "Daddy" instead of the word "I" or "me." From time to time when I hear Paul talking in the third person it makes me laugh. I recently suggested to him that we both work on eliminating this habit. Our kids certainly know our names, and Oliver could use some better modeling of pronouns as he uses the word "my" instead of "I" or "I am" (ex. "my thirsty" or "my hungry"). I suggested to Paul that he and I should help each other break this habit and point out when we are using the word Mommy/Daddy when we should be using a first person pronoun. We shall see how long it takes us to break the habit, but I will be very grateful when we do. I love being a Mommy, but I'd like to stop using the word so much.

Musketloader

We had a busy day today that included yard sales, a workshop at Lowe's, slip and slide, and an inflatable. I also took Nadia and Ian to a rural heritage day event. I had taken Oliver and Ian to it last year when Nadia was driving  back from Florida with Paul's parents. Today we went during Oliver's nap. Some of the exhibits were similar to ones we saw in Williamsburg (such as the cooper and blacksmith), but there were some that were different. The kids did the "rope walk" to make a rope. Nadia used some mortar on a wall, the kids held some three day old turkeys (I mistook them for chickens), Ian fed a sheep, Nadia made a corn husk doll, the kids had a ride in a pony cart (Ian laughed his head off when they went really fast at one point), and they both used a rifle for the first time in their lives. At first Ian said he wouldn't do it (because it was too loud), but after Nadia did it he then agreed to do it as well. We've had a lot of rain lately, but thankfully it was a very sunny day today for all our outside activities.

Annie!

This morning I drove the kids down for Nadia's final Annie rehearsal. I took the boys to one playground, the library, and then we fed ducks at another playground before picking Nadia up and taking her home. We were home for a little over an hour when my parents and Maurice arrived at our house. We hung out for about three hours before driving to Texas Roadhouse where ten of us had dinner before her show. Nadia had to be there at 5:45 to have her hair and make-up done and get her microphone on.  The rest of us arrived at 6:30 for the 7:00 show. I discovered as we walked in that I knew a woman there to see her grandchild (playing the part of Molly). She had kids in the school where I was principal years ago. I also ran into a former student from Bloomsburg University who was there to see two of her students performing (she's a public school teacher), and I ran into another mom from one of the homeschooling groups we are part of. It's a small world after all! Jenn and Holly were there for Nadia, and they gave her flowers at the end. How sweet! Jenn's husband was Paul's advisor when he got his master's degree at Bucknell (and one of his colleagues now). There were 11 people in the audience (including the nine of us who are related to her) who came to see Miss Nadia!

She did a FABULOUS job. I know I am biased, but I really believe even if she wasn't my daughter, I would say that the girl playing Pepper did a very good job. She didn't have a big solo like Annie or Miss Hannigan did, but she had a few very short solos and she sang them beautifully. I thought she did a good job with her speaking parts and choreography as well. Nadia has shown improvement with her skills at basketball, soccer, and gymnastics, but she's still usually near the bottom of the pile in those arenas. I think swimming is the physical sport in which she seems to have shown the most innate ability thus far. I think that music and drama might be more her "thing" than athletics. I was very proud of her. I wonder what musical they'll do next summer? She really wants to do it again. I am grateful that this church provided this opportunity for young children like Nadia. It was a great learning experience for them! I took lots of pictures, and Paul took several videos. Here is a taste (4 pics and 3 videos). I will share more in the coming days. Time for me to get some sleep. My dear parents and my brother drove for 7 hours (round trip) today to be here for Nadia. That's true love!

Thankful Thursday

1. Paul's parents watched Ian and Oliver last Friday so I could do a freezer cooking day after Nadia's tennis lesson.

2. Nadia and Ian enjoyed building a scooter at Home Depot on Saturday morning with Paul. Home Depot almost always includes paint in the projects (which Lowe's never does), and the kids enjoy being able to paint their project.

3. Nadia, Ian, and I enjoyed the fireworks on Saturday night in our town. We are SO blessed to live in a country where we still have the freedom to worship among other things.

4. I am enjoying the C25K app on my smartphone. I have done four workouts so far (the program includes 24 workouts altogether). Last Friday I also discovered that through the Amazon Music app I can listen to many different albums offline (so I don't need to use data when I'm doing my workout) via Amazon Prime. I now have a whole new reason for loving Amazon Prime!!! I have downloaded three different cds so I don't have to listen to the same one every time. I have finally entered the world of digital music. I used a cheap MP3 player at our previous house (2004-08) when I mowed our 2.5 acre lawn, but I only used it to listen to the radio. This is my first time truly downloading music.

5. I helped out in Oliver's classroom (The Circus) on Sunday morning. It's nice to have more of an idea what goes on in there. I have volunteered to help out in Nadia and Ian's classes each once this month as well.

6. Nadia enjoyed a play date at Bella's house (the seven year old playing the part of Annie) from noon to 4:30 on Monday after their three hour Annie rehearsal. Bella's dad said some really nice things about Nadia to me on Wednesday, which was nice to hear.

7. Paul has helped with a few projects including working on bikes and also helping me with a small project in a flower bed. I always appreciate his help!!

8. Paul and I went for a walk on Tuesday and Wednesday nights (about 2.5 miles each time) while the kids were at VBS.

9. The kids have been enjoying their second week of VBS. It started on Sunday night and ends tonight. Nadia was able to go three of the five nights. The boys were able to go all five nights.

10. I was able to get a haircut while the boys were at VBS on Monday night. Paul and Nadia were at her Spanish class. Nadia does not like the fact I got it cut shorter, but Ian had the opposite reaction the first time he saw me. This reminds me of a funny story. When we were in Maryland recently, Oliver said to my mom "Grandma you have blonde hair like I do" (or something to that effect). Paul started laughing, but my mom declared that Oliver is now her favorite grandchild, ha ha! She said she had never before in her life been told she has blonde hair. :)

11. The choir has a two month break at church. Although I like singing in the choir, one perk of the break is I can pick whatever I want to wear to church. Normally we are assigned a color each week (we don't wear choir robes but we are all supposed to wear the assigned color). I really like being able to choose what I wear since I generally only wear my skirts on Sundays, and some of my favorite colors were never (and/or rarely) in the rotation.

12. Although I am glad the drives to her Annie rehearsals are ending this week (35 minutes one way), I will really miss being able to go to Aldi's each week. Their produce prices just can't be beat as one small example. This week I paid 89 cents a pound for strawberries, 89 cents for a pint of blueberries, 99 cents a pound for red grapes, etc. I wish we had an Aldi's a little closer to home!

13. We are currently reading Anne of Avonlea. Oh how I love that series! The last books I read to the kids prior to that were Stone Fox and Paddle-to-the-Sea. We also watched the movie for the Paddle book. It was an excellent book for learning about geography.

14. I'm glad Nadia loves to try new things. We can't wait to see her in Annie tomorrow night! This week she asked me if she could also be in a Chinese class. One language at a time, my girl! We'll just stick with Spanish for now (the church where she's taking Spanish also has Chinese classes for children).

15. I downloaded the Shopkick app, and after using it just a couple of minutes at the mall on Monday night, I already earned enough for a free $5 gift card to Walmart (or I could pick another store). I need to find and use more apps like this to cover the cost of the phone. I think our bill is going to go up more per month than I thought it would because it turns out with the new plan we're not eligible for the 18% employee discount we'd been using the past seven years.

16. I'm hoping to see more weight loss when I weigh myself tomorrow morning, but as of Saturday I had lost five pounds in fifteen days. Yay! I'm trying to lose 20 altogether.

17. Paul took Nadia and Ian to see Sideways Stories (from Wayside School) at the Bloomsburg Theatre Ensemble today. While they were there, Oliver took a nap and I mowed the lawn.

Bike Shop

Over the past seven days, Paul has worked on four different bicycles. Last Wednesday he installed a new child seat onto my new bicycle. Thankfully, I purchased an already assembled bicycle, but installing the child seat was a time consuming project for him. Today he installed the hand brake on Nadia's Tinkerbell bike that my parents gave her for her birthday last year. We had discovered last summer that it was a little too big for her to use to learn how to ride without training wheels so I bought another bike last summer that was smaller. I purposefully got a blue one (not a girl color) because I figured it would actually become Ian's bike in the near future. Now that she's mastered riding that blue bike, she was promoted to her purple Tinkerbell bike today. This meant that Paul could lower the seat on the blue bike and install training wheels on it so Ian could use it. Once he becomes comfortable riding that bike with training wheels, Paul is going to start teaching Ian how to ride without training wheels. Finally, Paul lowered the seat on the bike Ian had been using so that Oliver could learn how to ride a two wheel bike.

Oliver can pedal our two tricycles (something our other two couldn't do when they were two years old), but he still doesn't prefer to do it. He had a harder time using the two wheel bicycle today. I am guessing he won't really start using it until next spring, but that's not a problem as he can ride one of the tricycles or ride on the seat on my bicycle. Hopefully Paul will get a break now from doing any work on the bicycles. What I want to know is why don't these bikes come with kickstands? Mine did, but Ian and Nadia's bikes don't have them.

Today was a hot day. In general it's been a very mild summer thus far. Today was the first time I was wishing we could go swimming. Even though we didn't get a membership this summer, I am planning on taking the kids swimming several times this summer. Today wasn't the best day for that since there wasn't much time after Oliver woke up from his nap before it was time for dinner and taking the kids to VBS.

Around the World

In many ways homeschooling is something that happens every month of the year. Recently I actually started reading the kids chapter books from my list for this coming school year (Kingdom Tales, Hero Tales, Paddle-to-the-Sea, and Stone Fox). When I was a middle school teacher and also when I was a professor, I planned things out in detail months in advance. Thus far I have a more laid back approach to homeschooling, in part because I want to go at the pace of each child, which might at times mean going faster than anticipated and at other times going slower than expected. I don't have to file any official goals and objectives yet (will need to do so next year for Nadia if we still live in PA), but here are some tentative goals of mine for the upcoming school year.

Continents and Countries to be studied:
North America - United States, Guatemala, Mexico, Canada, Puerto Rico, Panama, and Cuba
South America - Venezuela, Argentina, Brazil, Peru, Chile
Europe - Netherlands, Norway, Italy, France, Germany, Ireland, Spain, United Kingdom, Greece
Asia - Israel, Saudi Arabia, India, China, Japan, Russia, Iraq, Afghanistan

Africa - Egypt, Kenya, South Africa, Ghana, Nigeria, Morocco, Mali
Australia
Antartica

All three kids (at least Nadia and Ian):
1. Help cook at least one recipe for each country
2. Listen to folktales and other picture books about each country
3.  Listen to many chapter books (see list below)
4. Do one craft a week related to each country
5. Go on a wide variety of field trips
6. Listen to music from some of the countries
7. Read and discuss all three bedtime math books (just Nadia and Ian)
8. Watch dvd's related to some of the countries

Oliver - 3 year old Preschool
1. Start memorizing one Bible verse a week for Cubbies starting in September
2. Be able to count to 20 by May
3. Be able to identify all the uppercase letters of the alphabet by May
4.  Be able to write his first name by next August
5. Begin to use scissors
6. Be able to identify the basic shapes

Ian - Kindergarten:
1. Improve cutting skills
2. Complete the 1st grade and at least part of the 2nd grade spelling curriculum
3. Complete the A Beka Kindergarten science textbook
4. Memorize an average of three Bible verses a week for Sparks starting in September
5. Participate in a gym class (90 minutes a week), play on a soccer
team, take ice skating lessons, play on a basketball team, learn to ride a bike without training wheels, and take gymnastics
6. Sing in a children's choir at church once a week
7. Practice writing uppercase and lowercase letters through writing in a journal and completing the first grade handwriting textbook
8. Complete the 2nd and 3rd grade reading curriculum
9. Be able to count to 100 by ones and tens and complete simple addition and subtraction problems

Nadia - 2nd Grade
1. Complete portions of the Exploring World Geography textbook and play games to help her learn the locations of many of the countries in the world
2. Practice keyboarding skills at least three days a week
3. Use Rosetta Stone to learn more Spanish at least three days a week
4. Memorize at least three Bible verses a week for Sparks starting in September
5. Participate in a weekly gym class, play on a soccer team, take ice skating lessons, play on a basketball team, and take gymnastics
6. Sing in a children's choir at church once a week and practice the piano at least four times a week
7. Practice writing uppercase and lowercase letters through writing in a journal
8. Read chapter books independently
9. Help cook at least one recipe each week related to the country we are studying
10. Finish the 2nd grade math textbook (introduce regrouping) and do currency exchanges for each country
11. Complete the ACSI 2nd grade science textbook
12. Complete the 3rd and 4th grade spelling books
13. Write at least one letter or type one email each week
14. Share an oral current event via Skype with cousins once a week regarding the country being studied that week
15. Learn to play Chinese checkers, mancala, marbles, jacks, hopscotch, and chess.

Chapter Books: (not in order)
1. Kingdom Tales 2. Hero Tales 3. Stone Fox 4. Betsy and Tacy Go Over The Big Hill 5. Incredible Journey 6. Anne of Avonlea 7. In the Year of the Boar and Jackie Robinson 8. Gladys Aylward 9. Cameron Townsend 10. Amy Carmichael 11. Nate Saint 12. George Muller 13. David Livingstone 14. Rainbow Garden 15. The Secret at Pheasant Cottage 16. Hans Brinker 17. A Gift for Mama 18. Snow Treasure 19. King of the Wind 20. Three Go Searching 21. The Secret of the Fourth Candle 22. Rikki-Tikki-Tavi 23. Twenty-one Balloons,

24. BFG 25. Lotus Seed 26.  Chucaro: Wild Pony of the Pampa 27. The Wheel on the School 28. Nory Ryan's Song 29. I, Juan de Pareja 30. Shadow of a Bull 31. Treasures of the Snow 32. Listening for Lions 33. Akimbo and the Lions 34. Call it Courage 35. Gay Neck: The Story of a Pigeon 36. Sadako and the Thousand Paper Cranes 37. The Family Under the Bridge 38. Tales of the Resistance 38. Tales of the Restoration 39. The House of Sixty Fathers 40. Hero Tales vol. 2 41. Hero Tales vol. 3 42. Star of Light 43. The Endless Steppe 44. Letters from Rifka (and probably others will be added to the list considering we read 32 chapter books in the first six months of 2015)

I am really looking forward to the new school year!!!

Happy Birthday, USA!

When I realized that Home Depot was having their monthly workshop on July 4th, I asked Nadia and Ian whether they wanted to do the 9:00 scooter workshop or the 10:00 parade. They picked the workshop and said they hoped Oliver would share the candy he collected with them. Well it was raining cats and dogs for many hours today so Oliver and I skipped the parade. After Oliver's nap we all went to the park in the hopes of still participating in some of the festivities, but the petting zoo and ponies (free rides usually) weren't there, and the puppet shows were cancelled. It definitely was a low-key Independence Day for us due to the rain. Thankfully the rain stopped in the early evening, and they didn't postpone the fireworks. Oliver went to bed at his usual time, but I took Nadia and Ian to the fireworks. All three of us really enjoyed it! They were up until 10pm, which is a VERY rare occurrence for our kiddos. I took LOTS of pictures. It was only my second time taking pictures of fireworks in manual (the last time was in 2013). I brought my 85mm lens which I quickly learned was a mistake. Hopefully next time I'll remember not to go bigger than 50mm. Nonetheless, I took oodles of pictures of the fireworks. I'll include two tonight and probably more over the coming days. Although I'm not keen on the direction our country has been heading (away from the Constitution in my opinion), I am still very grateful to live in the United States of America!