Trip to Maryland

On Saturday morning the kids and I drove down to Maryland. Originally, I had planned for us to stop at Lake Tobias, which is a zoo (with a safari ride) that is about half-way between our house and my Dad's house. We haven't been there in a couple of years, and I had coupons, but since we went to an animal park on Long Island earlier this month, I decided to skip Lake Tobias. I found something cheaper to do that was about 15 minutes from my dad's house (also pretty much en route). It was advertised as a hands-on history playground at the Montpelier Mansion in Laurel, Maryland. We didn't tour the mansion, as that cost extra. It only cost $2.50 for each child and adults were free for the playground. It wasn't worth any more than that in my opinion, plus it was really hot out (in the 90's) so we didn't want to spend hours outside. We stayed there for about 90 minutes before arriving at my dad's house. It was the fourth time we have come to the house since my Mom passed. The first time was for the funeral, and there were LOTS of people in the house. The second time was in August

when Yvonne and I were sorting through my mom's clothes and such. The Towfighis and Maurice were here then. That visit I made it through the Sunday School class, but I had a meltdown and skipped out of the worship service. The third visit was at the end of October with just the kids and I and Grandpa. I definitely felt Mom's absence more keenly that time. This fourth visit has been with the kids and I plus Grandpa and Uncle Maurice. We hadn't seen Maurice since Christmas. This was the first time since August that I had been in their church. I attended a class where Maurice was teaching on Philippians. That was very special as it was the first time I ever saw him teach. During the worship service I kept reflecting back on the last time I was in that sanctuary was Mom's funeral, but I didn't cry. After church on Sunday we had lunch at home eating food I had made that morning before we left for church. Then we visited the Goddard Space Center, where we spent about 90 minutes. It's free to visit that NASA visitor center. The kids were each given a special pair of glasses to use

for the solar eclipse next month and also some UV beads. Both days we played board games with Grandpa. I won at Apples to Apples Junior, Nadia won the game of Life, and Grandpa won Bubble Talk.

This morning I got up bright and early because the Pirate Adventure in Annapolis was having their annual $5 day. Tickets are usually $18.95 each, but once a year they are $5 each. Naturally it's a popular event. They start selling tickets at 8:00. I wasn't sure how early I needed to get in line. I was aiming for 6:30. I actually got there at 6:45. There was already a line, but it didn't seem crazy long so I thought I was sure to get a ticket. The first person in line though bought 45 tickets (a whole sailing). Yikes. They have six sailings a day, and by the time they go to me they were selling tickets for the 5th sailing (3:30). The person right in front of me had arrived at the same time I did. The person in front of her had arrived at 6:10 so no one came in between 6:10-6:45. I have no idea how early the ones in the front of the line arrived. The two people after me also

arrived around 6:45ish, and they were buying a lot of tickets (the one woman wanted to buy 40). I don't know if she actually was able to buy 40, but I am sure that all the other people in line behind her didn't get any tickets. In other words if I had shown up 5 minutes later than I did, I don't believe we'd be doing this Pirate Adventure today. I am very grateful we got our tickets, and I'm glad at least it wasn't the 5:00 sailing as that would have put us home really late. We are to show up at 3:00 for face painting and such, and our ship should return at 4:45. Grandpa is joining us, but he's going to drive separately so we can leave right from Annapolis. Hopefully the rush hour traffic around Baltimore won't be too awful. That's why I would have preferred an earlier sailing, but I would have had to show up before 6:10 to accomplish that, and it's a 30 minute drive to Annapolis from my Dad's house. We are planning to return in November, and that will be our first trip down after he's remarried. Maurice will be back in Texas at that point. My Aunt Tina asked for a picture of my dad and I. Maurice took the one on the bottom with his iPad at Friendly's on Saturday night. I was taking a picture of my dad and the kids outside Goddard on Sunday afternoon when another visitor offered to take a picture of all five of us. I am thankful for that. I remember how sad I was when I discovered it had been decades since a photo had been taken of my mom and I (aside from big group pictures). Ever since I made that discovery last summer, I had it on my mind to get a picture with my dad and I, and it finally happened.

Hot and Humid

Our temps have been in the 90's this week, and it's also been humid. When I mowed this week, I made sure to do it at 9:00 in the morning, and even then I was a sweaty mess by the time I finished. Although I'm not a fan of cold weather, I have to say 90's and humid isn't exactly my favorite either but thanks to air conditioning and the swimming pool, it's fine. The upside to this heat wave is that the water temperature in the swimming pool is a very comfortable 82 degrees! I took Oliver and Westyn swimming on Monday and Thursday afternoons. Oliver and I swam on Tuesday afternoon, and Paul and Oliver swam on Sunday afternoon. Nadia and Ian each swam once at camp, but they hadn't been to our swimming pool this week until today. We didn't carpool this afternoon because there was a program for parents from 2-3pm so we both drove. Since VBS ended last night, we didn't need to hurry home. The kids and I stopped at the library, had dinner at Taco Bell, and then swam until 6:30pm. Nadia asked me several times if she can return next summer. This year's Bible lessons focused on Esther, and the missions lessons were taught by a woman from Voice of the Martyrs. They raised over $1,200 this week to give to VOM. The kids picked to have half of the money go towards smuggling Bibles into countries like North Korea and China and the other half toward helping women and children whose Dad/husband has been imprisoned or killed for his faith. The VBS they attended this week was raising funds for a school in Jordan that helps Syrian refugees. The kids were telling me about ISIS and such. The missionary today showed us two really neat Bibles. One is totally waterproof, and they dump them in the water in a place where they will wash up onto the shore in North Korea. The other was a blanket that had a fabric New Testament inside, which are used in China. Both of my kids memorized the five verses, and Nadia also memorized three extra ones (Romans 12:1-3), which is why she had two fathers in her headdress. Next year I'll help Ian learn the extra verses also so he can earn his second feather. My favorite part of the program was listening to the kids sing.  Of course my eyes welled up with tears. I'm hoping that next year all three kids will be able to attend! There were 68 kids in the camp this week. We knew some of them from our church and some from our homeschooling group.

Applications

Towards the end of 2012 I started submitting applications for Paul. I submitted well over one hundred applications for him over a period of about 18 months. I had a break from that process until I began submitting applications for myself towards the end of 2015. That came to an end towards the end of spring 2016. Only a few times I have I even gone on any of the websites to check for job openings (for myself). Most of the time I haven't been giving that any thought over the past about 14 months. One of the requirements for the Curriculum and Instruction certification I am pursuing is to have five years of experience. Since none of my experience was in a public school district in PA, I have to submit a form to my five previous employers that will document my twenty years of experience in the field of education. The new chair at Bloomsburg (the previous one recently passed away) encouraged me to submit my materials into their temporary pool. I did that this week. They haven't been using many (if any) adjuncts the past few years, but hopefully at some point their enrollment will start going back up and they'll need an adjunct or two as they did in the past. I would love to be an adjunct professor for them! There are two state universities that are less than an hour from our house - Kutztown and Lock Haven. I would be delighted to teach for either of them.

This email dialogue led me to check on one of the job websites. At first I was looking for any positions posted for teaching on-line courses, and then I thought I'd see what was available in the state of PA in general. I was surprised to see that Kutztown (where I taught from January 2003- May 2004) was hiring part-time adjuncts. The reason I was surprised is that my friend, Rosalie, had been an adjunct there for ten years, but then they also had put a hiatus on adjuncts due to a lower enrollment. She hasn't taught there for about three years I believe. When I taught at Kutztown before, I had a 45 minute commute. From our current home it would be a two hour commute (one way!). Yikes. I certainly wouldn't want to spend four hours on the road 3-5 days a week, but I am thinking I might be open to doing it 1-2 days a week. We shall see. They posted the job last month so for all I know they might be well into the search process. I might be too late. I have no idea if anything will come of it, but I figured it was worth submitting my materials and seeing what happened. When I taught at Bloomsburg there were three (tenured) colleagues in my department who had commutes of around two hours (or more). So I know it's something that some people do, but it's not something I've ever contemplated previously. My longest commute to work (ever) was 45 minutes to Kutztown. Paul currently has a 50 mile (one hour) commute to work each day which translates to 600 miles/ 12 hours a week driving to and from work for him. When I was working on my doctorate I had a 4.5 hour commute (one way) to class every weekend, but in general I am not a big fan of long commutes.

I contacted Rosalie, and she said she wasn't planning to return to Kutztown. She is teaching an online class through Gratz College at the moment. I actually know the woman who is the chair of that program. She was one of the two women who threw me a bridal shower at church in 2001. Rosalie suggested I contact Jessica. I did so today. I think the pay would be considerably less per class, but I would be able to do it from home, which is certainly the most convenient. So at the moment there are three irons in the fire. I have my name in the temporary pool (again) at Bloomsburg. Something may or may not come about as a result of that over the next year. I have applied for a part-time position at Kutztown, and I have given my vitae to someone at Gratz College in pursuit of possibly teaching an online course for them at some point in the future. It would be most helpful if I could earn some money. If I could make enough to compensate for the drop in pay Paul took when he went back to the family business, that would be terrific. Right now we don't have it in our budget to go on vacations (aside from ones that are practically free like the one we just took to Long Island), and I'd really like to go to San Diego in October 2018. I think I can use credit card points to get us free airfare, but we still need some money to be able to do that. Also, Paul, Ian, and I need to see an eye doctor and some of us might need new eyeglasses. That really isn't in our budget at the moment either. If I got a job, then we could afford things like a vacation and eyeglasses. Plus I love teaching. I have missed it the past almost five years! It was about this time in 2012 that I finished teaching an online class, which proved to be the last one I taught for Bloomsburg. I was on maternity leave in the fall 2012 semester, and then I resigned in January 2013.

Slip and Slide

Oliver has been talking for WEEKS about the slip and slide at VBS. He remembers it from last year, which amazed me (since he was 3 years old at the time). Every day that he knew he was going to a VBS he'd ask if they were doing the slip and slide that night. I am ever so happy to report it finally took place last night. Hopefully it lived up to his very high expectations. I stayed from 6:00-6:45 so that I could help Oliver get dressed in dry clothes after the preschoolers had their turn on the slip and slide. I didn't stay to see the other two go down it because I had Bible study last night from 7-9pm at our church.

Yesterday I submitted my application for the certificate (in curriculum and instruction) that I am working to obtain. I was stunned at the end to see the fee was $200. I figured there would be a fee, but I assumed under $100. I have now spent $400 between the $120 test, $60 to IUP (where I earned my doctorate in curriculum and instruction), $200 to PDE, and $20 to ETS for the practice test that I used to study for the exam. This wasn't exactly in our budget, but I keep telling myself that it will save us a lot of money in the long run (provided this ends with me actually being granted a certificate). Now that so much money is involved, I will breathe a BIG sigh of relief when I see that I have been approved. My next step is to get a form signed by the 5 employers I had from 1992-2013 verifying I have at least 5 years of experience (I actually have 20 years of experience). I know in the grand scheme of things this is really unimportant, but still if you don't mind praying that it will all work out, I would greatly appreciate it because there are certainly plenty of other ways we'd rather spend $400 than on a test and application fees!

Thankful Tuesday

1. Carpooling with our neighbor for Good News Camp is such a wonderful thing! Oliver stayed at her house and played with Westyn while I took the three campers yesterday morning. She did the afternoon run while I was swimming with the boys. Today she's doing both of the runs. Nadia and Ian had a great first day at the camp. Nadia already told me she wants to go again next year!

2. The kids are enjoying their last week of VBS for 2017.

3. Paul's parents were able to see Nadia's acting class's presentation on Friday afternoon and also join us for dinner at Friendly's for dinner.

4. I did a little more shopping on Friday at JcPenney without kids (twice in one week!). I got myself a few more things thanks to everything being at least 75% off. I wore one of my new dresses and Sunday, and Nadia really liked it, and she's not one to usually give me compliments on what I wear (Ian is the one who does that the most).

5. On Friday while Nadia was in her class and the boys were bouncing away on the inflatables, Paul's mom watched them for a little while Paul's dad and I made a quick visit to Verizon. My cell phone bill is now down to $20 a month! This is a big improvement, as we had been paying $94 a month for two phones.

6. The kids enjoyed Star Wars Day at the Children's Museum as well as the Lycoming County Fair and swimming at the Muncy pool on Saturday.

7. Nadia, Ian, and I enjoyed The Pirates of Penzance on Sunday afternoon albeit it's not going to go down as their most favorite musical. I remember when pirates were Ian's favorite thing before he moved on to Star Wars and Legos. Oliver enjoyed swimming with Daddy while we were at the musical.

8. I passed the Praxis 5411 test on Friday morning! What a relief!

9. Paul's mom's protein level came down low enough that she can start another type of chemo. These treatments will be longer. She will start those this Friday.

10. I've booked a house for two nights in Niagara, Ontario for September! It costs $110 a night for a four bedroom house, and we're splitting the cost with Paul's parents who plan to join us for this two night/ three day excursion.

11. Paul and I watched an interesting movie this week (checked out from the library) called "A United Kingdom."

Camp Good News

Last year Ian attended Camp Good News for the first time. Nadia didn't attend it because it conflicted with tech week for A Little Mermaid. When she heard about all that Ian was doing last year, she said she wanted to go next year. Since they held Camp Good News one week later than they did last year, it wouldn't have conflicted with being in Music Man, but for other reasons we opted out of the Kids Theatre Experience this summer. Last year I remember Ian was crying when I dropped him off the second day of camp because my mom had died early that morning, and he was still crying when I picked him up. This camp definitely triggers memories of my mom's passing for me, but thankfully Ian doesn't seem to have that connotation. The kids go swimming once at this camp. This week the girls swim on Tuesday, and the boys swim on Wednesday. Last year Ian didn't attend the entire week because we drove down to Maryland before the camp was over, but I am planning to send the kids all five days this week. The are given a wide range of activities to choose from, and they are to select their top three choices. Ian picked rock painting, fishing, and archery. Nadia picked fishing, archery, and sewing. They both got their first choice, which means Ian is painting rocks and Nadia will go fishing every day.

This morning Oliver stayed at Westyn's house for an hour while I drove Addy, Nadia, and Ian to camp. Then at 12:45 I took Oliver and Westyn to our pool to swim for two hours. Our neighbor picked up the three kids from camp. I am so, so grateful to have someone to carpool with! The camp is only 25 minutes away, but if you make two roundtrips a day that comes to 1hr 40 minutes of driving, which is more than I like to do in a day particularly five days in a row. I did some "schoolwork" with Oliver this morning and read some picture books to him, and he rode his bike. It seemed so strange to only have one child at home!

Star Wars, Pirates, Fair, and swimming

Yesterday morning I took the kids to "May the Force be with you" day at the Children's Museum. We attended this annual event two years ago for the first time. We planned to go again last year, but my mom's funeral ended up being the same day so we didn't go. So this was our second time at the event. They had added more things over the past two years such as a dunk tank (dunk the storm trooper), a balloon artist, a jabba the hut bean bag game, a game with nerf dart guns, etc. The kids had a blast! Although Ian and Nadia hit the target with the ball, they didn't hit it hard enough to dunk the trooper. Oliver didn't throw it hard enough for it to even make it to the target. Oliver was scared of the characters at first, but then he completely warmed up to them and repeatedly asked me to take his picture with different ones.  He also didn't want to repeat the obstacle course because he was scared of the hot lava, ha ha! Nadia had signed up to have her face painted. The art teacher who did their painting and drawing class a few weeks ago was doing the face painting. She was doing an amazing job, but she took quite a long time with each child so we finally gave up on waiting for Nadia's

turn. We would have gone directly to the fair, but Paul had gone to work and so we met him at home. We spent about 90 minutes at the Children's Museum and then we spent 3 hours at the fair, and then we spent 2 hours at the community pool near the fair, as they were having a community day (which means it's free to go that day). At the fair the kids rode rides for most of the time we were there, and we also looked in the animal buildings to see rabbits, goats, sheep, pigs, horses, etc. As I thought we'd be eating dinner at home later than usual, I said we could spend about $10 total on snacks/drinks to help tide them over. We bought one hot dog (for Ian), a funnel cake for all of us to share, and some bottles of water (plus a soda for Paul). Ian wouldn't have picked the hot dog had he known a church was grilling hot dogs at the pool and giving them away along with bags of chips. Because of this we stayed at the pool for two hours since we weren't hungry. Nadia and Oliver wanted to stay at the pool longer, but Paul, Ian, and I were ready to go home.

This morning we went to

church, and then after lunch I took Nadia and Ian to see a production of the Pirates of Penzance. They recognized one song from a VeggieTales dvd ("I am a modern major general"). Paul took Oliver to the swimming pool. Then I took the kids to night number one of their last week of VBS. This week it's at the Alliance church where they go on Wednesday nights all year. They are doing the Maker Fun Factory curriculum this week so although it's their third week of VBS  this summer (second week for Oliver), each church has used a different curriculum. Oliver was happy because Westyn (our neighbor) is in his group, and Nadia was happy because Claire is in her group. They love VBS!

I'll close with two brief anecdotes. First, yesterday Oliver sneezed at breakfast and a lot of junk came out of his nose. He used a tissue but then a little later as he was eating breakfast noticed that some was on the shirt of his pajamas. He said, "Mommy there's a little bless you on my shirt!". I had a hard time not bursting into laughter over that one. I've never heard boogies referred to as "bless you" before. I'm sure it's because we say "bless you" when someone sneezes. Second, when I was teaching Sunday School this morning the lesson was on Abraham and how he had to wait 25 years (until age 100) to have Isaac. One boy raised his hand and said, "No one needs to wait 25 years to have a child, you can just get one from foster care." That was a tricky one to respond to! You just never know what kids are going to say.