AHG Summer Camp

Last week I had an unexpected "vacation" as a last-minute substitute at an American Heritage Girls summer camp. It was a vacation from my ordinary household duties and the never ending home renovations, but I traded that pretty comfortable routine for an intense week of heat, humidity, bugs, long days, and lots of girls!

I have a variety of feelings about summer camp since I didn't go as a child and this is only my second time as an adult. It's sort of a love/hate thing.

LOVE: being in the great outdoors most of the day
HATE: unrelenting humidity

LOVE: lots of other women to talk to all day long
HATE: listening to 8 of them snore at night! You thought your husband was bad---try 8 roommates!

LOVE: cabins with electricity
HATE: the permanent structures that are also permanent homes for spiders of all types and ticks galore (and some super-creepy crawly thing that we have never seen before and have not been able to identify! )

LOVE: pavilions that provide sturdy shelter from afternoon thunderstorms
HATE: tin roofs that make it much hotter underneath

LOVE: young girls
HATE: the frustrations of dealing with little girls who hate camp, bugs, bathrooms, cooperating, and really shouldn't be there

LOVE: badge sessions like Shooting Sports and learning to shoot along with the girls
HATE: badge sessions after lunch and in the late afternoon which are soporific no matter what the subject!

LOVE: cell phones and the opportunity to talk to my husband sometimes, when I'm not too busy with those unhappy little girls
HATE: dropping my phone in the toilet on the last day!!!! (stupid shallow pocket in my shorts)

LOVE: my new iphone6
HATE: losing all my photos from the past 2 months :-(

LOVE: going home!
HATE: saying goodbye to new friends

(These girls got stuck in traffic on the way home and had a chance to honor the fallen Marines from Chattanooga)

I am STILL tired from the week! It seems like there is frequently work to be done after the girls FiNALLY go to bed, and if there isn't, the Leaders stay up too late talking. What's the best part? Sharing the week with my daughter and sharing stories with other women all week. What are your memories of camp?

Summer Fun Questions!

Kendra's link-up sounded like a little bit of summer fun, so I'm joining in. If you're visiting from over there, thanks for stopping by! Leave a comment and introduce yourself.

1. Any big plans for the summer?

LOL. I have to laugh, because this summer is like no other with new floors on the main level, 2 bathroom updates (including wallpaper stripping! ew.), a sewage spill in the basement and, yay, new flooring down there, too. A much, much-needed family beach trip is coming up. Thank God.

2. What is the strangest thing you believed as a child?

I stubbornly continued to believe in Santa Claus for years after most children give him up. I simply couldn't believe that someone who brought gifts to everyone wasn't real, and, even if he wasn't real, we should still live Christmas every day of the year (much like the Ebeneezer Scrooge after his 3 ghostly visitors). What joy to become Catholic and find out that he really is real, after all! (go to 3:20)


3. What is your favorite amusement park ride? (can be a specific one at a specific park or just a type of ride)

Oh, I'm a roller coaster girl. I don't think I've ever been on one that I didn't like! I'm not a huge fan of heights, so crawling at a snail's pace up that first big hill is pretty nerve-wracking, but, after that, it's all good downhill. :-) Admittedly, because of that, it took a few years for the kids to get me on Goliath at Six Flags over Georgia. I have neck and back issues, and my chiropractor seriously frowns on my coaster-riding, but Pip convinced me that Goliath is smooth, not bumpy or jerky, so it wouldn't hurt my neck. He was right, and it's lots of fun, but my favorite has to be Batman where your feet hang and it has lots of fun corkscrews. When lines are short, I've been known to go on a roller coaster repeatedly....

4. What's on your summer reading list?

Currently, I'm reading The Life-changing Magic of Tidying Up. That should come in very handy as I put the house back together this summer! Next up is Sarah Vabulas's The Catholic Drinkie's Guide to Homebrewed Evangelization, because Sarah is awesome, and even though I'm not a beer-drinker or home-brewer, I have lots of beer-lovers in the family and home-brewing fascinates me. After that, I need some great fiction for the beach! Suggestions welcome. I'll have to go read the other links to see what everyone else has planned.

5. Have you ever fallen asleep in public?

Seriously, who hasn't?

6. What is your favorite smell?

Almond. You know, the way good soap or shampoo smells? I never understand why almonds don't taste that way, but every now and then you get one that does. What's up with that?

If you want to carry the smelling thing to the next level, the cherry-almond scent of the original Jergen's hand lotion is the one that brings back the fondest memories of childhood and Grandmother's house. Do you remember that one?

Unstructured Days

{pretty} {happy} {funny} {real} I'm going to let YOU decide what goes where!  Frankly, I think I have a whole lot of REAL going on---without photos.

There is no structure to my days, and so there is no structure to this post!  Are your summer days like that?  More importantly, how do you feel about it?

~~~~

For a few days in June I was recovering from the stress of May, and beginning to get a little bored.  But that has all ended now, and I'm busy with all kinds of miscellany.

~~~~

First, let me show you my cakes for the Sacred Heart and the Immaculate Heart (from last Friday and Saturday!):

The Sacred Heart cake was just chocolate with my famous frosting which I made thin enough to drizzle on.  Do you like how I drizzled on the crown of thorns as it cooled and got thicker?  I thought it was fun.  It was also s.i.m.p.l.e!

The next day Our Blessed Mother got a white cake, with the addition of blueberries. I split the cake in half and filled with lemon curd.  Then we frosted it with another simple lemon glaze.  It was delish!

No, it was not greeny-yellow.  It was white, but that's what you get with an iphone camera, at night, under a fluorescent light.  And it tasted even better the next day when the lemon curd had soaked in a bit!  OMG.  Yum.

This adorable, little guy lives in a new burrow/den/warren/whateveryoucallit in the garden outside our library window.  I don't know how many there are, but when we were admiring this little cutie, his sibling poked it's head out.  Tom is holding him because he escaped into the garage, which is a very dangerous place for small creatures of any kind, and we had to hunt him down to get him out.  They can crawl into some tiny crevices, you know?  Using the cloth was the only way we could pick him up because he was very jumpy if anyone touched him!

We're going to have to be very diligent about keeping the garage closed now!  I don't want any bunny mishaps in there.  Plus, I already have enough critters in my attic. 

~~~~

It is HOT outside.  Yesterday was one of those days where you just feel like you're roasting if you're outside in the sunshine for more than a minute.  We are expecting major thunderstorms this afternoon.  Yay.  Swim meet day.  Double Yay!  We had a storm last Friday that lasted all of about 10 minutes.  It was intense!  One neighbor said he couldn't see the house across the street.  And that brief storm brought down nearly a dozen large trees in the neighborhood!  It was crazy.

~~~~

One (ha!) of the things keeping me busy is buying and selling schoolbooks.  This room, the first room you see when you walk in our house, is full of boxes, piles of books, and piles of papers.  I hope I can get them all out of here by Saturday!  It's making me crazy.  And if I'm drowning in books, I'm also drowning in emails related to all this business.  Yikes.

Oh, and there is all the paperwork and medical forms for summer camps; necessities for TMax who is going to the Boy Scout Jamboree; beach trip planning.

~~~~

And now, instead of clearing it all away, I have to go do swim team stuff and run some necessary errands before I can work on it.  I'm really hoping the meet is rained out before it ever starts tonight!

~~~~

Tell me your summertime is a little crazy, too!  The bright spot in my day is when I'm too tired to face the computer or the mess any longer and I get to crochet while I watch Lark Rise to Candleford.  And I'm beyond thrilled that Meg will watch it with me!

Grounded!

Yep, the kids are grounded.  Some of them.  All of them.  Even the 18 year old.  Of course, for him it means something completely different.

He's perfectly happy to spend his life in his room sleeping, tweeting, whatever, and only coming out for food, the very occasional swim practice, or car keys.  Instead of being sent to his room, he'll be forced to come out and help around the house, doing some of those projects that I don't see myself getting done!

The younger ones are practically never home from dawn to dusk!  I know, it's every other mother's dream to have their kids stay out all day, but here's the thing:  I like my kids.  Unlike most of the moms I meet, I like having them around the house especially if they bring their friends.

Aside from just wanting to see them once in a while, they need to fulfill their basic household responsibilities AND spend some time using their brains during the day!  We have lots of math to catch up on and books to read.  All I'm asking is an hour, maybe an hour and a half of mental exercise, and another 30 minutes of chores!

Meg wants to know how long they're grounded for.  In all cases, it's until we get a routine going and they're making an effort to get their stuff done before playing.  In her case, it's extended until her disaster of a bedroom is clean and organized and she makes an effort to keep it that way every day.  Clothes draped over every surface and shoved into every corner so the center of the room is clear just. does. not. cut. it. for. me!

The only one who is not grounded is TMax.  The Perfect Child. (kidding, Katie!) Maybe that's just because he doesn't sleep as much as the Other Teen and he doesn't have friends in the neighborhood to hang out with, so he's home.  He works.  He organized his room voluntarily and cleaned out all his school stuff.  He watches Khan Academy videos for fun!  He's pretty much Johnny-on-the-Spot if I need anything.  He could spend a little more time doing his summer homework every day, but he is working on it.

So, after a little attention to Duty and swim practice, they can run around with their friends all they want.  They can go hunting for the pack of coyotes in the woods with just a tennis racket and a golf club for weapons.  They can make Disney dance videos in the yard.  I'll even take them to the pool!  But for now, they're grounded.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~

(Sort of kidding about the coyotes...if you follow me on Twitter, you probably know that we hear them howling and yowling frequently.  Sometimes we go a while without hearing them, but sometimes it's a couple of times a day.  Their den seems to be about 100 yds from our front door, down an embankment, into the woods.  The neighbors and their "weapons" stood at the top of the bank looking and saw at least one pup down there.  I don't think they actually went into the woods, but I wouldn't put it past them!  I saw a coyote out of the woods the other day while walking past with the dog, but he slipped down and drainage hole immediately.  I was about 20 feet from him!  When they start coming out for more than a few seconds, it will be time to do something about them.  No more being outside on the chain for Gus!)

Sigh...Everyone's Blogging but Me!

My Google Reader is jam packed these days because everyone else seems to have time to blog.

Not me.  I've been (happily) spending lots of time in my basement painting and re-arranging.

The Exercise Room went from this on Tuesday a.m.

to this on Tuesday night:

New Expedit shelves from Ikea that Pete and Tom put together.

The beanbag is the only seating in there, so we have room for  exercise.

I moved in this big coffee table for the electronics.  Ignore all the tools on top and the  PS2  guitars underneath!

And the bonus is that my boys got ALL the electronic stuff to work since the cords had gotten confused somehow.

I finished the hallway today (except all the trim) and painted half the playroom.  So it's coming along!  

All that painting requires breaks to drive kids places, go to County Swim Meets and Doctor's appointments, fill out paperwork and go to the post office, shop, cook, etc.

In other words, I've been crazy busy, though it feels really good to get stuff done around the house.

What have YOU been up to?  Crazy busy?  Enjoying the summer with your kids?  Both?

Summer Mondays

As old as I am, with 6 children ages 21 on down, you'd think by now that I'd stop expecting summer to be about me and doing whatever I want.  Yet every morning I awaken to the possibilites of another Summer Day, and am quickly crushed by the realization that I have Things to Do.  Oh, sure, there's a bit more time to play around on the internet and read decorator blogs.  There are the occasional trips to the pool where I get to read and listen to my ipod.  There are also lots and lots of drives to take young people places.  Those are what break up my day the most and keep me from getting too deeply into any activity.

Today's focus, however, will be Laundry since it was sadly neglected all weekend.  I've let Pete take the car to his Day Camp Counselor job today and I'll be free to do lots of laundry and AHG computer work!  The bonus there is that while I'm folding, I can watch Monarch of the Glen, my new favorite show from BBC/Scotland on Netflix.  It's basically a Scottish Soap Opera set in a  penniless Scottish estate instead of a hospital and the handsome young laird is trying to save the ancestral home from the bank.  It's a lot of fun:  great accents (you have to turn it up Really Loud to understand them!), men in kilts, quirky ancient ceremonies and people, and romance.  (And yes, I did mean Quirky Ancient People.)

Between episodes of folding, I also have to remember that there are schoolbooks to be sold; schoolbooks to be purchased; papers to grade (yikes!); grades to enter (double-yikes!!); and lessons to plan for the coming year.

What are you doing with your summer days?

Have you seen Monarch?  I'm betting no one here has.....

7 Quick Takes

~1~

I don't know if I have 7 Quick Takes in me today.  I'm totally exhausted from last night's swim meet.  You'd think I'd be in better shape from walking up to the pool every day, but my job last night was exhausting mentally and physically.  I was Assistant Deck Manager, which I've never done before, so I had to learn how to wrangle all those snakes  swimmers and get them lined up in the proper order for their events.

I only had the first half.  How does the Deck Manager who worked the entire meet feel this morning?

~2~

Meg, the Little Princess, came down this morning around 7, and promptly fell asleep in the chair behind me.

~3~

I didn't eat dinner last night at the meet.  No pizza or Mac & Cheese for me, thanks.  I waited until I got home and it must have been 10:30 before I ate!  But it was good.  So was a shower and my bed.

~4~

Haven't gotten any fun projects done this week.  It has been a week of swim practice, picking up Pete early from school, running errands, and American Heritage Girls on the brain.  

I do have some things to show you, though.  Maybe next week!

~5~

Last day of school finally!  For the home schoolers and my high schooler.  Then we can start our summer work on Tuesday!  It won't be very different from the very casual school we've had all week.  Just a little math and reading and fun workbooks.

I'll let you know how that goes----historically we've been very bad about doing ANYTHING constructive during the summer.

~6~

Dh and I are going to a wedding on Monday.  We're soooo excited.  This is the first wedding of one of the children we've watched grow up.  We've known this young lady since we first moved here and she was 12!  Her parents, Pipster's godparents, are just about the first people we met when we moved to GA. I can't wait to see her walk down the aisle.

I might cry.

~7~

If you have a summer job for my 16 year-old, just let me know.  He desperately needs work and I'll send him to you.  He's a good sleeper, a good eater, and, when he's awake, a good worker.  An all around fine young man who would be a credit to your company.  

All reasonable offers will be considered.

~~~~~~~~~

Find more Quick Takes at Jen's Conversion Diary.

Last Week of Summer?

I'm not sure whether it is or not.  The public school neighbors go back on Monday, the 10th.  KT and Hitch leave later in the week for college.

That could be my last week of summer where I sit back and relax, and enjoy days without the doorbell ringing constantly!  

I really wouldn't be sitting back and relaxing, though.  They would be days filled with last minute errands for college.  Last minute decluttering of my home.  Last minute scheduling of lessons for my homeschoolers.  Last minute book-buying for my high schooler.

I might as well start ringing my bell in the mornings, like Carol, and getting the young'uns used to getting up again.  I might as well pull out their books and let them get reacquainted with them.  Pipster and LP can finish up their math books as a review.  They can start learning how to use our new, sketchy Skedtracker.  We can start reading some books together to see if they remember how to read.  

We can gradually get used to the quiet around here as, little by little, our friends and family go back to school, and it's just me and my 3.  I look forward to being with my little peeps (although  TMax isn't really one of the little ones anymore!).  We enjoy our days together,  but I think we'll be a bit sad and wistful, missing our big kids and the fun they bring to the family.

Oh, darn it.  Now I'm a wreck.  What a way to start the day!

Saturday Seven

Yep, it's a Saturday Seven Six Several since Friday saw me too down in the dumps and tired from the weekly swim meet to blog.

Still tired, but much less dumpy. ;-)

~1~

The swim season will almost-but-not-quite be concluded with today's Championship held at the GA Tech natatorium where the 1996 Summer Olympics took place. It's a beautiful location and they get a big thrill out of swimming in an olympic pool. This will be Little Princess's first time swimming there. She foolishly bravely volunteered to swim an IM. Her first. I'm not sure she knows what she's getting into there. Unfortunately, I won't be there to see it since I'm blogging holding down the fort here.

~2~

We're trying to furnish KT's new apartment on the cheap this year. We're refinishing the top of our coffee table from the family room, and she might take that with her if it's not too big. It will double as their dining room table!


She's also decided to take an old dresser that I got as a child and we just inherited from my mom a couple of years ago. It's a nice sturdy dresser and I'll be happy to see it put to good use. And looking good again---that big sucker needs to be completely stripped and stained. Mom had painted it white---something she loved doing to furniture---and then it had been in storage for over a decade---so it needs work!


She still needs a bed and shelving---probably to go on top of the dresser to save space. Their new apartment is tee-niny.

~3~


We got our beef yesterday! So now our freezer is full of meat. 1/3 of a cow fits very nicely; I'm sure we could get a half cow in there, if we got rid of some of the other stuff. I was in such a hurry when I unloaded, I didn't see more than a few packages of liver. No heart or kidneys that I noticed. I'll have to take another look today. Not that anyone wants to eat them, but I need to find something to use them for!

~4~

KT quit her "internship" yesterday. Praise the Lord. We thought it would be a good way to keep her busy and teach her something at the same time. Maybe she would have learned something along the way, but it was really boring and costing us time and gas money for 60 miles a day since we really can't spare my car for her to take for the whole day. That should simplify our lives a little and now she'll have time to refinish her dresser and maybe paint my basement!

~5~

I need to wrap this up and head out to the garden for a quick check and watering. It has changed a lot since I last posted pictures!. Some of the gardens are amazing.


These pictures were taken after a few days without rain, so they actually look a little droopier than usual. My garden? Not so amazing.

Too many squashes which are afflicted with powdery mildew. It's better, but production is really slow. Nevertheless, it's kind of fun and I'm learning some lessons. Hopefully my skills will be better next year. I found out we get to keep our beds for next year if we want them!

One thing we are really enjoying are jalapenos! They're really hot and crispy. We ate several of the last night with dinner!

Have a great weekend!

Swimming Lessons

Last week, my Little Princess got some private swim lessons from one of our young coaches. For a 17 year-old, he's a great teacher, and she got some very good instruction.

Here are some pics as they work on her dive.


Yesterday, she must have figured it out after she bumped her head on the bottom of the pool OMG, yes. Scary. I heard him remark that she had gone "a little deep" and ask if she was okay. They kept working and I kept reading. At the end of the lesson when he and I were talking, she executed a perfect racing dive in the shallow end of the pool.

Thanks be to God that she learned that lesson the easy way and not the hard way!

Night Games

Last night we counted 19 children in our front yard/cul-de-sac. They were from all over the neighborhood. Some of them we hadn't ever seen before.

Somehow, our cul-de-sac has become the mecca for summer "Night Games".

Do any of YOU have Night Games where you live?

I think KT was the one who coined the phrase a few years back, or at least it was her "generation," back when they used to play kickball in the adjacent cul-de-sac. Now she's too old at 19 and finds herself staring wistfully out the window, counting the neighbor kids, and wishing she had friends to play Night Games with.

All these kids played in our yard w/ hula hoops and stilts until TMax, Pip, and Princess were finished with dinner, and then they played Capture the Flag for an hour and a half more. Mean Mom that I am, I sent them all home at 9:30 p.m. I mean, it's pitch dark, and surely their parents want them home, too?

Besides, Little Princess and the other 7/8's have swim team at 8:30 and it's really hard to drag her out of bed when she gets to sleep after 10 p.m.!

I like the Night Game tradition, especially when it's in my yard and I know where my children are. The games will continue almost every night of summer until school starts. Then they'll have a few more during the first days of school before homework gets serious and activities are in full swing. Then they'll just be on Fridays and Saturdays, and gradually fade away as the weather gets too cold.

But they'll be back next summer, too. Some different children, and maybe a different cul-de-sac, but I think it's a tradition this neighborhood will keep going, somehow.

The Vacation from H.E.Double Hockeysticks

Maybe it wasn't that bad, but it was a real challenge to relax. First of all, when was the last time you went camping with 6 kids? The amount of stuff you have to take is staggering! We did manage to get it all into and on top of the car thanks to my amazing organizational skills. And I'm really good with spatial relationships.

We had a great drive to Skidaway Island State Park, just south of Tybee Island and Savannah, set up our tents and headed out to the beach.

Oh, and did you know that most people camp in RV's these days? We were seriously outnumbered at this place!

We had to drive farther than expected to get to the beach on Tybee (about 30 mins.), but that's okay. We were having a great time in the waves until it was time to go and we discovered that the tide had come in and soaked all of our clothes and towels. Imagine driving back to the campground with the 6 aforementioned kids---soaking wet, sandy, and hungry. Did I mention it was 30 minutes?

Master of the World had asked me if laundry facilities were a requirement for camping before we went. I said, "No, just electricity to blow up my Aerobed!" Thank goodness MOW supplied a washer and dryer anyway!

Wednesday, we had a beautiful hike through the salt flats and marshes around the campground with a naturalist guide. Then we headed out to the beach after lunch at the site. MOW and I swam a little and watched the dark clouds coming up the coastline, wondering if the storm would stay offshore or not. When the lightning started, we decided to pack up the car to keep our stuff dry and avoid a repeat of the night before. So we headed for the boardwalk. Ice cream and shopping while waiting for the showers to end. The showers that never came.

Finally, with the wind picking up, we went back out to the beach. The kids were psyched to get back in the water. Oh, honey, the flags say the water is hazardous and the beach is closed. The kids promise they'll just stay in the shallowest surf while Mom and Dad watch. Did I mention the wind? It's blowing the sand into us like needles! It's raining north of us, but the wind is blowing the rain to where we are. Kids still want to tough it out. No! We're not going to get soaked! But before we can get to the car, we and every other blessed thing within a mile are completely drenched. It was raining hard!!

You remember the 30 minute drive with 6 soaked, sandy kids? Yeah. Again. To a soaking wet campsite.

Laundry. Yeah. Again.

Thursday---the heck with the beach. It was already raining in the early hours of the morning. Let's try Savannah! We started out at the Visitor's center and then started walking. Our first stop was the Cathedral of St. John the Baptist. Beautiful. It was lovely, so lovely in fact that we decided to wait around a while and attend Mass at noon. And pray for the rain to end. After Mass and a look around, we started to leave. Wait for it....

It was raining torrents!

After that we spent the afternoon using our 2 umbrellas off and on and ducking into shops when the rain was too much for the unprotected ones. Lots of walking and rain, but on the whole a lovely day. Except for the stores that have signs posted everywhere "No Public Restrooms". Darn them. Don't they know how hard it is to coordinate the bathroom breaks of 8 people? Fortunately, KT remembered that the Starbucks (with facilities, thank you very much!) was closer than the Hospitality Center. She was happy to buy a coffee for the cause and we were all happy to join her. Especially a certain desperate child.

I think that night we went out to dinner (where we waited for a table much longer than it took for 8 hungry people to get their food and eat!) after washing only the towels that had been hanging on the line and getting soaked in the rain.

It rained again in the night, so we left the depressing, wet site and went back to walk along the Savannah river and enjoy the views and the shops.



We also went shopping at a mall, of all things. Madden desperately wanted to go to Bass Pro which was 10 miles from the historic district, so we obliged him. Then we took the older 3 to see The Dark Knight which Hitch had been dying to see. While they were at the movie, the rest of us had 2 glorious hours to enjoy the beach where....

it did NOT rain!

I still did 3 loads of laundry that night (now, I'm keeping it in trash bags, in the car where it will stay dry!), and 2 more the next morning, despite MOW asking why I didn't just wait until we got home. He figured it out when we got home and everyone unloaded and sorted all their dirty, wet and clean, wet clothing. I had 10 more loads to do at home!

Did I say that 8 people take an astounding amount of stuff camping? Even when "packing light"?

After organizing and repacking every blessed, wet thing, including tents, we made a fun trip to Fort Pulaski where we saw (and heard) 2 cannons fired. Despite a specific request that we see NO cannons on this vacation, they all, surprisingly, enjoyed the fort.


But wait, there's more! I know, you're so over this campout already!

The bugs! OMG! The bugs! Poor Madden had 105 mosquito bites after one day. We're all covered in bites, but he's the worst. In spite of my homemade olive oil/citronella oil bug repellent. I thought it worked fine, but bought the real stuff for him.

Oh, and my fabulous, full-sized normal height Aerobed that we lugged along and needed electricity for? It has a leak. A slow leak. By the time morning came we were floundering around trying to get up. If one got up, the other rolled into a hole. When one tried to lie down again, the other flew up into the air as if on a trampoline. I hate the fact that my expensive bed was only used once, a year and a half ago, now has a leak. OTOH, my back didn't bother me at all on this trip, cuz MOW sweetly blew it up again every night. I'm thinking we should actually get a waterbed. Or just put the Aero in our room, which is leakfree, has air-conditioning, and electricity. For now.

Lastly, the humidity. I don't ever want to live in a place where Spanish Moss grows on trees. Which, by the way, didn't come from Spain and isn't moss.

We all had a great time in spite of the rain and the kids were awesome. They didn't start behaving like normal children until we were halfway home. Need I tell you how happy we all were to get home to our waterproof home and beds?

Back to the Pool

Here are some pictures from July 4, Pipster's first day back in the pool after getting his waterproof cast. Oh, happy day! It was a beautiful day and we had a nice time at the pool for a while.
The Little Princess is actually jumping into water 4 feet deep, although it looks as if she's standing in ankle deep water!

MOW was working all weekend long, poor guy, so we had to have water balloon fights and frozen t-shirt races without him. It wasn't much, just a little added interest to an otherwise normal day. He did make it home earlier than expected to grill burgers and see fireworks. We did our own fireworks after the city's. I used to be a fireworks scrooge, getting very annoyed by all the neighbors doing the illegal ones all night long. I haven't exactly made an about-face, but I'm tired of wasting my money on the boooorrrring legal fireworks! The others are so much more exciting and, as long as my life isn't in danger, I don't mind enjoying theirs.

The Good Part of Summer

Honestly, they have a lot of fun with swim team. Something I never had while growing up. Activities that did not take place at school were not part of my life.

Last night was the annual end-of-the season banquet. Lots of awards were given out and the slide show of all the little (and big) swimmers were adorable. Here are my swimmers with their awards:

The Little Princess with her two buddies. They got the "Inseparable" award.

Next is the Pipster, who broke his arm at the 2nd meet. He got the injured swimmer dogtags as a consolation prize. They should have given him a clue. lol. He still doesn't think his game was dangerous. And he still climbs trees with a broken arm.


Next is Madden who won the Most Valuable Swimmer in his age group (13-14). Whenever people see him on the blocks or with his age group we hear mutterings around us that he can't possibly be so young. He's 6' 2". But it won't be quite so unbelievable when he turns 15 in a week and a half.


Last, but not least, is T Max who won the coveted Jamie Award, the biggest award that the team gives out, to the swimmer who exhibits the best qualities of sportsmanship, service to the team, and a positive attitude. He was there for most of the practices of the other age groups. He didn't just hang out and make a pest of himself, but helped the coaches and the other swimmers the whole time. He's a joy.


I'm so proud of all of them, even the 2 oldest ones who skipped out on the banquet to come home and watch past episodes of Lost. They make life worth living, if a bit messier.