Chad's Date with a Pretty Girl

Last night, Chad took Claire out for a date-- she was so excited that she was jumping up and down. Boy, I wish I could bottle that! She looked forward to this for a couple days, since Chad asked her where she might want to go. She picked Jaydee's, a place they had gone before that has indoor slides (see below). She had lots of fun with that, but there are lots of other things that they had fun with this time as well. Go-kart (above) and waterslides, that she did repeatedly.

Some great Claire-faces. She is so expressive!

This was a well-timed date. Claire was feeling left out because Katie got to go to camp, and it looked really fun to sleep on the top of a bunkbed. And Jenna recently got to do swimming lessons. And "how come they get to do all the fun stuff?"

When he's on dates with the girls, Chad most often takes them to a restaurant-- this is part of the fun. But, for Claire, she's not all that excited about most restaurant experiences. She'd be really happy with a pizza place or with macaroni and cheese somewhere, but, otherwise, she'd rather have a homemade bologna or pbj sandwich. So I sent them with a picnic lunch, and they went to a park.

Claire Bear

My parents and sibs, for sure, will find this one funny. SO reminds me of a pic of Eric when he was 3ish, heading out to the barn in his boots and pj's.

Sometimes in the mornings this summer, if Chad has already left for work, but the kids are still not awake, I'll leave a note to tell the kids I'm outside, and I'll go out to water the flowers. Claire found the note and came out to help me. :)

Junior Scientist

My bro Mike mentioned in his blog that Jason has been asking questions about the United Nations, and that reminded me to write something about our Curious Jenna. Funny that she and Jason are about the same age, and both the 2nd children in the family, and both very inquisitive! Jenna's constantly asking questions. Usually I love it, but once in a while, I have to tell her to hold up a bit. Yesterday, she was supposed to be practicing piano, and she got to asking me questions. I answered a bunch, we even looked things up online, and then I said, "OK-- no more questions til your piano practicing is finished." She practiced for about 1 min and started to ask me another one! She caught herself and waited with it. :)

The last couple weeks, I've answered a bunch of questions about the moon. She's very interested in how we see the different phases, etc.

Last night's biggest question was about lightning bugs. We get LOTS of them here in early summer. She didn't realize that time frame, tho. Monday, she wanted to go out to catch lightning bugs again (since she just got brave enough to do it a few weeks ago), and Chad said, "I don't think they are out anymore."

So last night she wanted to know where lightning bugs go when we don't see them anymore. I told her I thought they lay eggs that live in the ground til next year, but that wasn't enough info. We looked it up and found out they usually live 2 years-- spending more than a year in the pupa stage. She didn't know about the egg-larva-pupa thing yet, so that brought up a bunch of questions. When she found out how short the adult actually lives, she was shocked-- "That's horrible!" :) Then I said I think that's the way many insects are-- short life span-- so we had to look other things up. Butterflies often live only around a week. Jenna was just floored.

Usually the questions are science-related, but sometimes we have gotten onto other topics-- a month ago or so I had to explain the Supreme Court-- this one was pretty involved because she didn't know much about court/judge/appeals/etc.

Oh, and yesterday, we spent a while on hurricanes. She didn't necessarily want to know what a hurricane is, she wanted to know about how they are named.

Hairy

This is after Katie's new haircut. Actually, this pic isn't the best, but it gives you an idea. She had her bangs cut long and on an angle. There are a few long layers in the back. Right before this pic, I curled it a little, too. She really has gorgeous hair-- the kind I always wished for. :)

Ladew Gardens

On Thurs, we went to Ladew Gardens in Monkton, MD. Another very pretty place-- full of garden "rooms" with different themes. Prob this would have been a little nicer in say, May. Not as much is blooming right now, and it was HOT by noon when we finished; but it still was very nice. I loved seeing all the different varieties of plants and flowers, and what they did with them-- the symmetry was fun. In the pic above, you can see 3 arches and the pool and fountain all lined up.

Lots of topiary-- above is a foxhunt. Fox in front, hounds behind, man on horse jumping over the white fence.

Chad was maybe most fascinated with the abundant butterflies and the frogs he found in the ponds.

Harvey Ladew purchased this 250-acre estate in 1929. The round pond above was actually his swimming pool. Terrace gardens are behind.

Swan swimming on waves of hemlock.

I don't have pics of it, but on Wed, we went to Sight and Sound in Lancaster. You all should do that sometime-- wow. We've been there a few times before, but this was the first time we saw the Joseph show. We sat in the 2nd row. Very well done! Huge production.

We stayed in a hotel right next to Dutch Wonderland-- could hear people screaming on the roller coasters. :) Swam and tried to play shuffleboard. Wendy, we're no match for you! We gave up after a while because we were doing so poorly!

And this is my new toy. :) We stopped at the Harley plant on the way home Thur. Sometime we'll go back so we can tour the plant. This time they were doing modified tours and we want to go when we can see the whole thing.

Rickett's Glen

Rickett's Glen State Park is very close to Sweet Valley. Gorgeous scenery. We took a pretty strenuous 3 1/2 mile hike on Tues morning. Saw about 18 waterfalls! We took pics of almost all of them, too. :)

In this pic, you can see some of the steps we climbed-- way on the left. This is a pretty rugged trail-- steps made out of the abundant rock there, so some were 3 inches high and some about 2 feet high, very uneven and unlevel-- plus we had to go down and then climb up quite an elevation change. We very much enjoyed it... and then wolfed down omelettes at the Trail's End restaurant.

Look closely at this last pic-- can you see Chad in it?

A Perfect Vacation

From Sun to Wed, we had a wonderful, relaxing time at a cottage on a little lake in Sweet Valley, PA. Below you can see our cottage-- above notice the mailboxes on a rotating wheel.

The inside of our cottage-- very comfortable. No AC, but we didn't miss it. Had a few fans and that was plenty. No bugs (woo-hoo!). And very little noise.

Frig was definitely old-fashioned, and a little tiny, but it worked just fine for the 2 of us. No oven here, just 2 gas burners. I had never used a gas stove, so this was a bit of an adventure for me. :)

This was the walk thru the woods around the lake. Hammock, picnic table, swing, benches all at different places on the path.

Lovely gazebo with rocking chairs-- very comfortable even in the afternoon.

Swans named Fred and Mildred (after the couple that built the cottages). Lake was not something you'd want to swim in-- had snapping turtles-- but it sure was fun to watch. Fish, some very loud bullfrogs.

Rowboat, tiny dock, tiny patch of sand. Monday we spent the whole day here-- maybe the most relaxing day of my life. During those few days, I read 3 books, did 2 puzzles, watched 2 movies (Bonhoeffer and Ben Hur), and listened to 2 books on CD.

Kids Post

This past week, Chad and I went away to celebrate our 15th anniversary (more in another post), and the kids all stayed with Chad's parents. They had a wonderful time, of course. Let's see if I can sum up--

Meals at Joe Joe's Pizza and Friendly's. Mini golfing-- Micah just watched, Claire just swung her club around, Katie and Jenna really competed. Katie even tied Gpa for lowest score! Sleeping in. Movies like The Secret Garden. Played lots with Gma's dollhouse. A few walks and bike rides. Gma cooked lots of yummy foods. Swimming 4 times at the neighbor's pool-- Katie liked to go down to the bottom and pretend the drain is a phone to call us; Jenna found out she can do handstands; Claire discovered she can do cannonballs, in the shallow water. Katie also got her hair done at Gma's hairdresser (more on that in another post).

Thanks a bunch to Gpa and Gma!!

Car show

Our church had its annual carshow last Sat. About 400 old cars or trucks or motorcycles. Totally free for everyone. Free food, etc. also. This was the first year we went (it's usually when we're in MI, and last year we were in PNG). Lots of fun!

Katie sat up in a big rig for the first time-- she even has a proper tattoo. :)

They had a remote control car race-- can you see Chad with Micah, and farther down is Jenna?

Micah tries out the Dalorian (sp?) his Daddy would like to own.

Polite Micah

Micah's ability to express himself is constantly improving, and it's so handy! Love it that he can come to me and tell me something, and I know what he needs.

He's developed some very polite habits (putting the girls to shame sometimes!). I forgot his drink at lunch time and he said, "Drink please Mommy." When he was finished eating, he said, "Be excused, Mommy?" And he looked so proud of himself for saying it, too!

Now, if we could only get him to quit hitting and pushing his sisters... :)

A Claire funny

When the kids were with Don and Anita this past week, he asked Claire what her address was. Her reply,

"I have too many things in my head-- I don't have room for my address."

Sweet Summertime

This afternoon I took Katie, Jenna, and Claire to a friend's pool. Dave and Helen live 10 min from here, still in Falling Waters-- kinda near the post office. We had a GREAT time at their pool! With weather high in the 90's, it was a perfect day for it. And the water was 91 degrees-- Helen had taken the solar cover off this morning so the water wouldn't get too hot. :)

The whole pool was about 4 feet-- ideal for our kids. Katie can easily swim the length of the oval pool underwater, in one breath. She swam circles around me, literally. Claire learned to be more comfortable swimming with just her life vest-- she had great fun with a ball. And Jenna swam like crazy! The swimming lessons were just what she had needed. Today she swam quite long distances underwater, and did some freestyle, and spent a while touching the bottom of the pool.

Chad and Micah had fun, too. They went shopping for some school supplies for the school store at Grace. Chad said Micah was very good shopping. And then they went to Grace for a while. Micah ran around the lobby for a while as Chad worked on something with the Pepsi machines out there. Then Chad set up the pack and play in the sick room, and asked Micah if he was tired. Micah hopped right into the pack and play and fell asleep. Hah! That kid can sleep anywhere.

Like a Fish, well almost

Jenna just finished swimming lessons! She LOVED it. Said she wished it could continue every day all summer. The pic above was just taken yesterday-- she's just coming out of the water, looking a little waterlogged, because she swam freestyle mostly by herself. Her 2 instructors both commented that she improved tons over the 8 45-min lessons.

They put lifejackets on all the kids so they could practice floating on their backs for a few minutes.

Here they are playing at the end-- they always ended with a 5-min free time. Jenna had a lot of fun playing tag yesterday-- she's right in the middle of the pic, a little hard to see.

And today I'm taking all 3 girls swimming at a friend's pool, so we'll see how much Jenna wants to do on her own there.

Fourth of July

This is how we spent our Fourth of July-- at least after the giant patriotic concert we did twice at church that morning. :) Above, Katie and Claire are catching some rays out by our sprinkler. Note the fairly green grass. That's because that's where we have the sprinkler and our little kiddie pool, etc.

Jenna and Claire ate "rocket pops". Funny-- Katie had one, too, but her mouth didn't turn all blue. Wonder what the difference was.

And Claire did a sparkler. Love this smile!

Plum

Yesterday Claire had a round toy on her thumb, being goofy. She said it was like the boy who pulled out a plum, so I recited the nursery rhyme (I think this is it): Little Jack Horner sat in a corner, eating his Christmas pie. He put in his thumb, and pulled out a plum, and said, "What a good boy am I!"

Claire immediately wanted to know, "Why would he say, 'What a good boy am I!'?"

So we had a little discussion about it. Her final decision-- she thought it was because his family was REALLY looking for plums.

It Rained!

Boy, were we happy when it rained last night! Jenna was watching the weather very closely, since I had explained a few weeks ago about how in the summer thunderstorms often follow a period of hot, humid weather and then following the storm, it's cooler out. The girls were outside with Chad and she kept reporting to me-- that it's getting windy, some branches in the woods were breaking, it's thundering, Katie saw lightning. "I really think it's going to rain!" I tried to warn her that sometimes a t-storm could come near but miss us. I think this would have been really disappointing to her. :)

Just yesterday, on our way home from church, we took the backroads, and I slowed down to make sure the girls looked at how bad the corn was looking. Some fields were worse than others, but a few we saw had the center leaves rolled tightly into spikes, but the outer leaves were all dried up and brown. Some bushes and young trees are brown and dead. Lawns looked terrible-- if it's real grass, it's mostly brown/white. In our yard, the upper side has some green weeds-- since there's not much real grass, we just have patches of brown grass. On the lower side, it looked a little better (maybe also cuz that's our septic drainfield? does that have anything to do with it?). Funny, tho-- you can see the exact outline of our septic tank rectangle and how it sits on an angle from the house. Totally brown over that.

Anyway, the girls were really understanding the need for rain, and we were all thrilled when it started. Had the windows wide open all night. Rained most of the night. Neighbor says we got about 2 inches.

I just returned from Cathy's shower at church, and I took the back roads again. That same corn looks much happier :), altho, of course, the brown leaves are beyond help. Lawns still look pretty bad, altho there's definitely an improvement.

Today the temp and humidity are much more like normal summer days-- much more reasonable. Lots of people are outside again, and people have been holed up in houses just like they were in Feb when we got all that snow. Wow, what a difference from then!!

Rough Day

This heat is really oppressive. I've said a few times that I sure am glad that we don't live in a place that has this kind of heat a lot. It's miserable to do anything except swim outside.

Jenna and Claire have had Day Camp at church this week. Katie's too old to be in it this year, and I was glad so she could stay home with Micah in the afternoons. Then we didn't have to disrupt naptime every day to pick the kids up at 2pm. She's been doing a terrific job. Of course, Micah sleeps the whole time, so she hasn't had much to do. Today, she did, tho, and did a great job...

I left at 12:50 to stop at Walmart before picking up J and C. I had just walked in the store when Katie called my cell-- the church had called and said Claire was not feeling well. So, I went right to church.

Turns out Claire had gotten overheated. I guess several of the kids have been having problems with this, but Claire was the worst. Denice (lady who was caring for Claire) told me she was scared when Claire came in cuz her skin was all white and she wasn't really talking or answering questions and her breathing was fast. They gave her water to drink and cool rags on her neck and head, and she gradually cooled down. By the time I got there, she was starting to perk up, and she acted totally normal in the car on the way home and ever since.

I've told Claire she doesn't have to go tomorrow. She was enjoying Day Camp once there, but dreaded going every day (she's a real home-body)-- and after today's problem, I'm sure she won't want to go tomorrow.

FYI-- I was already a little nervous about her going. Not that we ever feel like we have to protect her any more than our other kids, but I do like controlled situations-- and we always make sure people in charge know that she has no pulse in her left arm or right leg. Even that's kinda awkward in a Day Camp situation-- lots of kids running all over the place and mostly teens in charge of each team of kids. I had made her wear her medical bracelet every day, and I specifically made sure at least 4 of the adults and 2 of her team leaders knew of her issue.

In a regular church setting, I'm not as concerned cuz I have that info on her emergency card and Chad or I are always in the building with her. And at school, any medical issue goes thru the office and they have all her info.

I just praise God that she's just fine now!