Three pools!

A foundation celebrated 100 years in business by paying the bills so that anyone could go to any of 13 local swimming pools for free today. Of the thirteen pools on the list, we had been to three of them in the past. The kids asked to go to the Lewisburg pool first (where they take swim lessons each year). Nadia loves the two water slides at that pool. Unfortunately the slides were closed today as they are waiting for a state inspection on them. The baby pool at this pool is very nice, and the main pool has a zero entry, which is also nice for little kids. I was afraid that pool would be crowded due to it being free, but there were very few people there. Nadia then asked if we could go to another pool so we tried the Milton pool for the first time which is in between our home and the Lewisburg pool. They had an older slide (see pic at left), and it was OPEN. Nadia went down it many times. The water temperature at both pools was too cold for me to enjoy even though the air temperature was in the high 80's. Between the two pools we were swimming for 3 1/2 hours, and then I had the kids play on the playground by the second swimming pool as they had never been there before. Paul was home from work when we got home. We ate dinner, and then all five of us went swimming at the Muncy pool, which we had never been to before. It had some small slides that the boys were able to do, which was nice. Nadia went off the diving board at the first and third pools. Paul rarely goes swimming with us in PA because the water is too cold (compared to places like Florida) so this was a very rare treat to have him join us this evening.

I haven't gotten the official word that our swimming pool has opened yet. Hopefully it will open soon if it hasn't already! Two of Nadia's friends from church are going to go swimming with us on her birthday (in 13 days!). Visiting other pools can help with the decision of which pool to join next summer. Two of the pools we visited were at the most 15 minutes from our house. The pool we joined this year is 10 minutes from our house.

While we were on the playground in Milton, Ian did the monkey bars for the first time. He did an amazing job! I was on the phone while he did it the first few times so I couldn't take a video then, and when I asked him to do it again so I could get a video he couldn't go as far because his arms were tired, but the video below shows he can now do monkey bars. Way to go, Ian!

Bucket List #2

Last summer I made our first summer "bucket list," and the kids helped me make our second list for this summer. We have completed 35 of the 100 things on our list so far. Some of the ones checked off have included: picking strawberries, eating watermelon, eating corn on the cob, feeding the ducks (did that today), tennis lessons (finished those today), going to Penn's Cave, etc. Most of the items on our list are things we have done before (many not since last summer), but a few things on our list will be "first time" events for us such as picking raspberries, Liberty Bell, Franklin Court, Independence Hall, Penn's Cave, Rockwell Museum, seeing Peter Pan, Independence Seaport Museum, Good News Day Camp, horseback riding camp, eating BLT sandwiches, etc. I also am half-way through my summer project list. Today I painted the hallways and doors. Nadia complained because it's a "boring" color (white), but I love that it now looks so much cleaner with a fresh coat of paint! Tomorrow will be our first time swimming this summer. That will mean checking one more item off our list!

Thankful Thursday

1. Nadia and Ian have been enjoying their tennis lessons this week. Tomorrow will be their fourth lesson, and they'll have their fifth lesson (to make up for the one they missed yesterday) near the end of the month. I have enjoyed being able to chat with Dee (our neighbor) during the lessons while we watch Oliver and Westyn play together on the playground during the lesson. We didn't know until Sunday that we had both signed our kids up for the same week of tennis lessons.

2. My haircut appointment and dentist appointments went well this week considering I brought the kids with me for the first time. I went to a salon I had never been to before. It was about 10 minutes from our home, and I liked the haircut she gave me. She is the sister of one of our neighbors. It was a much better setting for bringing the kids along with me than the salon I have gone to the last few years at the mall (and closer to home although the cost was a little more).

3. I like the new paint colors and some of the other little improvements around the house. Today I bought myself a few new dish towels at Target. It's the little things that can put a smile on my face.

4. We had a great time at Sesame Place last Thursday with Paul's parents.

5. The kids and I enjoyed doing a project at Home Depot on Saturday and participating in a campfire songs program at the children's museum that same day.

6. The kids and I enjoyed our campfire cones (s'mores recipe) on Sunday evening.

7. We enjoyed picking a little over 8 pounds of strawberries today (paid $10.45 for them and that doesn't count the ones we ate while picking). The weather was very nice for picking strawberries (around 70 degrees). The kids and I love strawberries! We're having pancakes with fresh strawberries and cool whip on top for dinner tomorrow (along with some bacon and eggs). Yum!

8. While the van's tires were being rotated and the oil changed, we did a little shopping at JcPenney and Toys R Us thanks to coupons we have. Nadia enjoyed the royal treatment at the toy store - wearing a crown, having her birthday announced over the loudspeaker, the birthday balloon, etc. I usually buy things for the kids with my JCP coupons, but this time I bought things for myself. In one transaction I got myself a shirt and a pair of earrings for $3.47 total.

9. My mom was taken to the hospital on Tuesday night by ambulance. I am grateful she is getting the care she needs as she recovers from her 6th (and final) chemo treatment. Hoping she'll feel a lot better when she's discharged. The kids and I are hoping to go down and see her in three weeks.

10. I'm thankful Paul hasn't been in a car accident. He has been working very long hours on very little sleep, which could be a good recipe for falling asleep while driving. He typically is out the door between 3:00-3:30am and home between 6:30-7:30pm, but this morning he was out the door at 1:30am (and he didn't get home until 7:30 Wednesday night so he was only home for 6 hours before he drove back to work). I woke up at 2:30am  and realized he wasn't in bed. I went down and saw his car wasn't in the garage. I called him on the phone, and he told me he was already at work and that he had gotten up at 1:20. I usually wake up when he gets up, but I totally slept through that one although I had a hard time falling back asleep after calling him on the phone. He had gone to bed a little after 10pm, which means he had gotten only 3 hours of sleep. I think he shouldn't have come home Wednesday night because he only got less than one minute with the kids as it was 8:15 by the time he got out of the shower that night. I think he should have spent the night at his parents house because saving the two hour round trip commute would have meant he could have gotten 5 hours of sleep instead of only 3 hours. It is such a stark contrast compared to the last 2 summers where he was home with us and eating three meals a day with us. The last month we have averaged eating three meals a week with him.

Spring Ahead

When Paul and I would look at paint chips, he would always have me move to a lighter shade of whatever I had chosen. I find myself doing so with the kids as well, but they pick shades MUCH darker than I would ever choose so even the lighter version of their choice is still much darker than anything I would ever have chosen. I have to say though I like the bright colors. I am not sure if Paul likes them or not. I am speaking of Nadia's purple walls, the blue half bathroom, and the kids' green bathroom. If I could go back in time, I would have picked a fun color for the master bathroom. To save money I used a gallon that Paul purchased three years ago that had never been opened. I didn't mind painting a neutral color in the kitchen and family room because it's a warm color (not just a shade of white) and because we matched it to the existing color the painting project was MUCH easier. However in the master bathroom I had the extra effort involved when changing colors, but it was just a boring color I was using. I decided not to do the same with the kids' bathroom even though I still have one more gallon of that paint from 3 years ago. I will find some other place to use that paint sometime. Maybe to do a few ceilings? I haven't been painting ceilings. For the hallways I am going with the same philosophy as the kitchen/family room. I gave them a little square so they could match the paint. I want that job to be easy and won't mind that it's just a boring white, especially since there aren't many white walls left in the house now.


When we purchased the house eight years ago, every wall was a neutral color except for Nadia's pink  bedroom. Everything else was mostly some shade of white. I found that attractive when we moved in because I had a three month old baby and was teaching at the university. I didn't want to do any painting then, and some houses we looked at had wall colors that were repulsive to me. Neutral was fine with me in 2008. Well in 2016 I am tired of neutral. I don't want to think about keeping the house neutral in the hopes that will make it easier to sell. I want the wall colors to be ones we choose for our own enjoyment. In the first few years we were here Paul painted our bedroom light blue and Ian's bedroom light green. In 2012 some people from our church painted Oliver's room a light yellow. I love the green bathroom; it's been dubbed the monkey bathroom the past eight years. We shall see if the name changes to green bathroom, or if it will still be called the monkey bathroom. The color they picked is called "Spring Ahead," and the color is very cheerful in my opinion. After I do the hallways (already got the paint for that project), I am going to take a painting break, but after a little break I want to paint the living room and dining room. I haven't decided on colors yet, but I have a feeling I won't be picking white (the color they are now). I am really liking having more color on the walls! I enjoy painting only because of the end result. I would never want to paint for a living, and I know I do not do a good enough job that anyone would want to pay me to paint anyhow. I have learned though what brand of paint to NEVER buy again because I had to paint at least two coats on every square inch.

The kids' tennis lessons were rained out today although the teacher didn't call to cancel so we drove there in vain. We can come one day in the next three weeks to miss up the lesson they missed.

In addition to finishing painting the bathroom, I also dug up a bush today and dug a hole for it to go into. When Paul got home at 7:30pm he lifted the bush for me to move it to the new location as it was too heavy for me to lift. There were three bushes really close together and then none in the middle and a small one at the other end that I just purchased last month. I dug up the middle one because it was the smallest (by far) and thus easier to relocate plus taking that one out put a little space in between the other two which I think looks better than having them so close together.  Yesterday I moved the trampoline. I would prefer it out of the fenced area, but Paul wants it to stay in the fenced in area. Since we cut down one of the apple trees it looked really ugly when you were driving up to the house. Now that I moved it you don't see it when you drive by our house (which is good in my opinion) but the downside is that now I see it up close and personal every time I look out one of our two family room windows. Hopefully I will adjust to that view OR Paul will agree to moving it elsewhere. As I said before, it really is a case of "if you give a pig a pancake" because one thing leads to another. Painting a bathroom leads me to really thoroughly dusting everything in the room (mostly while up on a ladder), cleaning the doors, scrubbing the floor, etc. Painting the bathroom walls "spring ahead" lead to a thorough "spring cleaning" of the room! I hope we enjoy these wall colors for many years to come. I have a little bit of paint left of each of the gallons I've used which means I have some for future little touch-ups. We do have a little left of Ian's paint, but we don't have any left of Oliver's yellow or our master bedroom blue. I think I'll buy a pint or quart of each color to do a little touching up.

My other accomplishment of the day was filling out the affidavit form saying I will be homeschooling Nadia next school year. I had a woman who is a notary at the Alliance church (where the kids had musical tonight) notarize it tonight. Before I submit it to the school district, I need to get a copy of Nadia's immunization record and also type up a list of educational objectives for each subject for next school year for her. Starting July 1 I will begin documenting things for our portfolio, and she will need to take a standardized test next spring. Let the homeschooling paperwork begin....

Tennis for two

Nadia took tennis lessons for the first time last year, and today Nadia and Ian both started a week of one hour long tennis lessons. Last year both of the teachers Nadia had were teenage boys, and this year they have a female teacher. There are four kids in the class  - two girls and two boys. A girl who lives in the house across from ours (she just turned 6 last week) is also in the class. This thrilled Oliver because she has a three-year-old brother, and the two boys enjoyed playing together on the playground during the tennis lesson. They are in the same Sunday School class at church. They will both turn four in August.








I took kids with me to the dentist today for the first time in my life, and it worked out fine. I left Nadia and Ian in the waiting room. They brought books. Nadia read her book, but Ian opted to watch the television in the waiting room instead of reading. I brought Oliver back with me, and he sat on the floor in the exam room and occupied himself with the iPad. Hopefully it will go just as smoothly tomorrow when I take the kids with me to the hair salon for the first time. Well I took Nadia once when she was a newborn, but I haven't taken a child with me to a haircut appointment since the summer of 2008. The photo at right is of one of the two dining room chairs I reupholstered. I like the new fabric. Maybe some day I will reupholster the other four chairs. I did the second one today, and that is all I can do now as I only bought one yard of the fabric. We bought this dining room furniture twelve years ago. The photo above is of the half bathroom that I painted blue last week.

To co-op or not

In the fall of 2013 we tried out two different homeschooling coop groups. One was a Christian group (CHEF) that met on Fridays for seven weeks in the fall, and the other one met on Thursdays for six weeks in the fall and another six weeks in the spring. We did both in the fall, and then I decided to take a break from co-ops. In the spring of 2015 we joined the Thursday co-op for another six week session. The Thursday group was better for us because they provided a nursery and preschool classes. The one that met on Fridays only had classes for Kindergarten through 12th grade. I had contemplated two different co-op groups that offer year long (during the school year) classes. I almost signed up for another CHEF group (closer to our house than the one we tried in 2013) in the fall of 2014 but didn't because Ian wasn't in Kindergarten yet. After each attempt I have come to the conclusion I prefer NOT being i a co-op because we already have enough commitments in our schedule throughout the year (ice skating lessons, AWANA, basketball, soccer, etc.). The homeschool gym class on Fridays is the only thing we regularly do with other homeschoolers, but that has been enough for me. It helps the kids realize they are not the only homeschoolers around here, it's only 15 minutes from our home, it's at our church, and Oliver can play in the playland during the 90 minute class. He'll be old enough to join it in 2017.

 I really wasn't giving any thought to joining a co-op during the 2016-17 school year, and then one of the groups sent me registration information. This one is another year long group that meets on Wednesdays at the church where Nadia did Annie last summer (about 35-40 minutes from home depending on traffic). I know a lot of the people in this co-op. They have hired some good teachers - for example a former pastor's wife of mine (from the church where I went from 2004-08) is teaching the Spanish classes. She has taught Spanish at a Christian school for many years, and I have heard that she is a great teacher. They hired a gymnastics coach to teach the gym class, an artist to teach the art classes, etc. They are offering a preschool class so Oliver would have something to do as well, and they are looking for people to offer private music lessons so I could make some money ($20/hr) teaching piano or flute lessons, but the other co-op classes they are offering don't interest me. I would rather just teach geography, science, etc. myself at home with just my kids.

I can see when they are older than a co-op would be really helpful for classes like public speaking or maybe a science lab, but the only ones that possibly interest me now are Spanish (right now Nadia does that via Rosetta Stone on the computer), art, and gym. We already have a good gym class. So I think I am again going to pass on the co-ops. I don't like filling our calendar with too many weekly commitments. There will still be time in the future to take classes like that at a co-op. If I asked Nadia's opinion on the matter I am sure she'd want me to sign her up because she likes being involved in EVERYthing, but in reality she also likes days where we just stay home. We like having some relaxed days and don't want to be out and about every single day. I keep that in mind also when planning field trips. We all love them, but there is such a thing as too many (for me at least). Yesterday I was selecting which ones we would participate in at Camp Susque over the next year. I picked two for this summer, two for the fall, and one for next spring.

Because we might not be going on a vacation this year, I am trying to schedule a few day trips over the next few months. For example, yesterday I started planning a day trip to Corning, NY (only 90 minutes north of us) to tour the glass museum and Rockwell's art museum.

My choir rehearsals were supposed to go through the end of June, but because so many choir members were going on vacations this month today was our last Sunday singing in church until September. This means I am going to start running on Wednesday nights. I'll take the kids to their musical rehearsal at the Alliance church and then go for a run. I also am going to run at night on the weeks they are doing VBS. I won't be running nearly as much as I did last summer, but something is better than nothing.

Paul finished cutting down the apple tree today aside from the stump. He loaded up his dad's truck. He'll have to borrow the truck one more time as he couldn't quite fit all the branches on it.

 I liked the way the tree looked in the yard. If it wasn't an apple tree I would have kept it, but I am very thankful it is gone so I will have fewer apples to deal with this fall. We still have one apple tree. Oliver decided to climb to the TOP of that tree on Wednesday, which was very scary. It was quite an effort for me to get him down. I guess he thinks he's a cat! Nadia loves climbing trees, but at the age of almost 8 she has never climbed anywhere near that high before. Ian doesn't climb trees.

Today I reupholstered one dining room chair. That was a first for me! I am sure I didn't do it perfectly, but I will say the chair looks FAR better as the fabric I removed was shredded. We have six chairs at that table and two of them were torn so I am going to make those the chairs for the ends of the table as the fabric is different than what is on the other four. I think the new fabric is very pretty! I plan to do the other chair tomorrow after we get back from Nadia and Ian's tennis lesson. I also plan to buy paint to work on the hallway (keeping the same color there) and the kids' bathroom (switching to green walls in that room). Yesterday I cleaned and organized the garage. I am very happy with the progress around the house! Paul took down the screen door but hasn't fixed it yet. I think I'll just put it in the basement for now. Not having any screen door there is an improvement in my mind compared to having a screen door that has a big hole in the screen.

 I also decided last week to join a pool. I joined the one we had most recently been a member of. Last year I didn't join a pool. It has been so hot lately, and most pools around here opened Memorial Day weekend. Our pool hasn't opened yet. Hopefully when it opens it will still be warm so we can make good use of it. I am going to keep track of how many times we go so I will know if it was worth it financially or not. I figured it will be easier to go this year now that Oliver is no longer taking a nap. Nadia will be taking swimming lessons next week at another pool. The boys will be taking them in July during the week she'll be at camp. Since the public schools finished their school year a couple of days ago, it will be easier for the kids to play with other kids in the neighborhood starting this week. I think we're going to have a great summer!

Third orange apron

Oliver has done a couple of projects at Lowe's, but today was his first at Home Depot. Paul has been the one to take the kids in the past, but some things have changed for us with his job change. He left for work at 3:00 this morning (and got a ticket on the way there unfortunately). I haven't been able to run, and I will have to take the kids with me to my dentist appointments, doctor appointments, and hair appointments from now on, which I have never done in the past. I don't go to the doctor very often thankfully. I go to the dentist twice a year (next appointment is on Monday so we shall see how that goes). I get my hair cut 3-4 times a year, and I am overdue for that so I'll probably take care of that next week as well. Hopefully Oliver will behave. Paul took the kids to Lowe's twice a month and Home Depot once a month last summer, but I am skipping Lowe's this summer because they're doing Avengers projects again. I think once a month at Home Depot will be enough for me. Paul prefers Lowe's projects because they don't include paint. I have to say all three kids did really well today. They made Father's day trophies (supposed to hold a cell phone). Nadia did hers completely on her own. One is for Daddy, one is for Grandpa, and one is for Pop Pop. I won't say here which is for which to save some sense of surprise.

After Home Depot we ate a snack in the car and then headed to the Children's Museum (about 5 minutes away). The kids explored the museum some and then we participated in an hour long campfire songs program with a guest speaker. He was impressed at how many songs I knew (including "Goober Peas"). He intertwined some history instruction of the westward expansion, civil war, etc. while singing different songs and playing three different instruments. It gave us a craving for s'mores though. I am going to try to make some tomorrow to satisfy that desire. Considering we stayed home all day yesterday except for a quick trip to the grocery store, it was nice to have an outing this morning. The Home Depot workshops are free, and since we have a family membership at the children's museum that was free as well. While I'm posting cell phone pics, I'll include one below from our trip to Hershey's Chocolate World last week. Ian's soccer team had their final game today, but I purposefully skipped it to take the kids on these two outings and also to avoid two extra weeks of practice just for one more game (especially since Nadia's season was already over). I don't regret my decision. Soccer will be starting back up again in August before we know it!

Sesame Place take 3

We first visited  Sesame Place in 2013 and returned the following year. All three times we have had a great time at the park, which is located a little less than 3 hours from our house. Paul's parents live about two hours from the park. If we lived closer, we would definitely get a season pass as the park is wonderful for young children - dry rides, water slides, and Sesame Street characters for 75% less than a day at Disney. On a normal day Ian is the first child up (usually around 6:30), but Nadia was the first child up yesterday at 5:55. Oliver was the only one I had to wake up. He usually gets up a little after 7:00, and we were trying to leave by 7:15. We packed our lunches so we didn't buy any food in the park. The other two times we had purchased meal vouchers. This time we stopped at Wendy's on the way home. Eating at Wendy's was 60% cheaper. Paul's meal cost the same as a voucher, but the other four meals (the kids and I ordered off the dollar menu) put together cost the same as a meal voucher. I think this is the way to go in the future. Now if Sesame and Hershey would follow suit with Knoebels and DelGrosso's by offering free parking that would be awesome, but I am sure that will ever happen.

We arrived at Sesame Place a little after the park opened at 10:00. After a photo with Super Grover, the kids rode the kiddie roller coaster. It was the first time Nadia could ride everything in the park by herself. You have to be at least 7 to ride the roller coaster by yourself. Paul and I sat with the boys. Ian was tall enough to ride everything in the park, although he needed an adult with him on a few things. Oliver was tall enough to ride everything except for 3 water slides. Once you hit 42 inches you can ride everything in the park, and when you are at least 48 inches (and at least 7 years old in the case of the roller coaster) you can ride everything on your own. At Hershey Nadia was tall enough to be Oliver's "responsible companion," but at Sesame you have to be at least 14 years old to do that. The kids rode all the dry rides before noon, and then for most of the rest of the day we stayed on the water rides. Oliver did not go into the splash pad area because he was downright terrified of the big bucket. The kids three favorite rides were the water slides that were the highest up (you used a single or double inner tube), the rubber ducky water ride which we could all ride together, and the rambling river.

We watched one of the three shows yesterday. It was about an art show, and the kids enjoyed it, plus it was nice to sit down for 30 minutes. We also watched the parade. Oliver didn't use the stroller much yesterday (our days with a stroller are definitely numbered), but he did get in it near the end of the parade and promptly fell asleep (around 4:20). The weather was gorgeous (not as hot as last week but warm enough to enjoy getting wet), and the water was warmer than it had been on our other trips (thanks to a couple of weeks straight of 90 degree weather). We have been told that the lines are typically very long at the park during the summer, but thankfully by going in early June each year we have escaped long lines, and yesterday we had the best experience yet in terms of the lines. Most of the time we just walked right on to the ride or water slide, and the longest we waited for anything was 10 minutes. This meant we got quite a workout on the kids favorite water slide because we had to climb several flights of stairs to go down that slide and since there wasn't any line we were walking up, sliding down, and immediately walking right back up again carrying a large double inner tube. I have only been able to run one time in the past month due to Paul's work schedule, but I got some aerobic exercise yesterday climbing those stairs!

We also got pictures with all the characters we wanted to except for Cookie Monster. Three times we went up to Cookie Monster and were told that he was taking a break. Maybe he needed to go eat some cookies, ha ha! Earlier this week we were invited to join some homeschoolers today at Knoebels (using a group rate for school groups that is much cheaper), but I knew I wasn't up for two days in a row of amusement parks, and I am very glad we are just staying home today. Tomorrow morning I am planning to take the kids to Home Depot and the Children's Museum. Our next trip to an amusement park will be to Six Flags. Hopefully that will go as well as our recent trips to Hershey and Sesame (and won't be crowded like we experienced at Knoebels in April). We had planned to go to Idlewild last year but ended up going to Dutch Wonderland for the first time instead. We planned to go to Idlewild again this year, but those plans were scrapped since this is the busy season for the family business. Hopefully we'll make it out there next year because that park is also geared toward younger kids like Sesame Place and Dutch Wonderland are. If we go to Massachusetts this fall, then we will go to one new amusement park this year because if we make it up there we will visit the new Thomas the Train amusement park. We love amusement parks!

Since I am feeling a bit tired today (6 hours in the van plus 8 hours in an amusement park will do that to me), I am not planning to start any big projects around the house. I painted the half bathroom a lovely shade of blue on Wednesday, but I see I need to do some touch up on that room. Hopefully I have enough paint to get it looking nice. I also want to work some more on organizing the basement. Next week I would like to paint the hallway (the same color it is now - the kitchen and family room were much easier to paint since I didn't change the color) and the kids' bathroom. Nadia picked a pretty green for that bathroom. Then I think I will take a break from painting. Eventually I want to paint the dining room and living room, but I think I will take a painting break. I keep thinking of the books "if you give a mouse a cookie" when it has come to these projects. If I paint a room, then I will do a variety of other things like buy a new hand towel buy a new outlet cover, buy a new bath rug, clean the baseboards, dust areas that haven't been dusted in a very long time (ex. around the jacuzzi tub that we never use), etc.

Little details can really make a difference in my opinion, although in most cases probably I am the only one who notices or appreciates the improvements. I think the house is looking a lot cleaner and fresher with the painting, spring cleaning, and other little changes I have been making! It seems kind of crazy that we might live for decades in Watsontown given the sole reason we picked this town eight years ago was to make a reasonable commute for me to Bloomsburg University and for Paul to have a reasonable commute to Penn State for his Ph.D. Getting his doctorate was a complete waste, this house is not ideal for his commute to the family business, and I am unemployed. But even though we would be much better off financially if we had never left our home in Catawissa, I am grateful for this home and am so happy to begin thinking we can stay put and not continue the trend of moving every few years. From 1994-2008 I moved five times, but as of September we will have lived here eight years, and I don't anticipate us moving any time soon provided I can find a way to make some money to compensate for the drop in Paul's income. I hope you enjoy the pictures of our adventure yesterday! I will post more pictures tomorrow.