summer happenings

Whew.  Talk about a whirlwind summer of craziness.  I kind of like my summer to include things like spontaneous trips to the beach, sitting by the river and just some plain ole' relaxation.  Not this summer!
Some of our fun this summer has included:
•a yw campout
•getting ready for trek with a large dose of sewing
•trek
•getting ready for our exchange student
•lots of driving to efy and soccer camp
•visits from cousins (3 different visits!  What a fun summer!)
•getting ready for our exchange student some more (yep, it takes a lot of work when it includes gutting your craft room.)
•camping (see below)

And what does the rest of our summer include?
•our exchange student (from Korea) is finally coming
•another camping trip
•a benefit concert for starfish
•soccer, soccer and more soccer
•back to school shopping (which is a little different for us homeschooling moms.  I have curriculum to buy instead of clothes, which kind of makes it more mandatory.)
•hopefully at least 2 more trips to the beach.  We're only up to 2 and it is August.  This is very, very wrong.

Trekking it

Trek, trek, trek....where do I even begin?

For the past 8 months, our young women (12-18 year old girls at church) have been preparing to dress up in pioneer clothes and pull a handcart through the desert for 5 days. Oh.  The young men were also invited. ;)  We have been sewing, hiking, sewing some more, learning some mean square dancing skills and exercising a lot of faith that trek would be worth it.  It was.  It was beyond worth it.

I was lucky enough to have my dad as my trekking buddy while we "instigated music along the trail".  (really, that was our job.)  It was great getting to spend a week with my dad at a point in my life where I appreciate him much more than I did in those teenage years.  Through all of our prep, we have been prepared for some pretty roasty weather and an overall lack of shade.  We were NOT prepared for record highs, which left us with 106 degree weather.  Although I spent 7 years in Las Vegas, we are all a little soft after living in the very moderate western Oregon.  It was dang hot.  We consumed crazy amounts of water and gatorade while rarely needing to use the bathroom. (which was good with the port a potties feeling like horrible, stinky saunas)  Ok, so that was all of the bad part.

The good part?  Our youth are amazing.  All of these kids rose to the occasion.  They worked their tushies off, despite the record highs, the heavy handcarts and the sandy ground.  They showed an outpouring of compassion for their siblings (they were put into "families" for the week) and, quite frankly, any person that walked by.

Today was the big cast removal day!  With the many sad moments that left Elise sitting on the sidelines while everyone else swam, jumped or played on the swing set, she weathered it all pretty well.  It took hot tubbing to finally break her so I did what any sucker of a mom would do...I promised her a trip to the swimming pool as soon as the cast was off.   Yes, it was a little scary when there was talk of another cast, but we made it out of there cast free after all.

So, onto the big news.  Elise learned how to swim today!!  I've been a slacker of a mom when it comes to swimming lessons and all around swimming time, but we took care of that.  We worked on getting her face under the water, blowing bubbles and having tea parties underwater.  Once she would actually put her face underwater while swimming, she instantly was able to swim.  It was so fun to see her able to swim like crazy at the end of our swimming trip after starting out in a life jacket just 45 minutes earlier.  Go, Elise!!!!

shots and the necessary drama

A few months ago we had a fun little visit to the doctor to get everyone up to date on their shots.  It was not without drama as Elise and Lilly fed off of each other's tears, crying about their misfortune for the rest of the evening and into the next day.

Because of this, I didn't tell Lilly the complete truth when we were heading to her follow up.  I mentioned something about drinks at sonic but left out that we would be stopping for shots first.  When we pulled into the parking lot, she refused to get out of the car.  It didn't get much better as she suddenly had to go to the bathroom when the nurse came into our room.  I had my doubts, but she is still having accidents enough that I took her to the bathroom.  After waiting for a few minutes, I asked if she REALLY still needed to go to the bathroom.  Her response?  Yep, just after everyone at the doctor's went home.  Her next approach?  After the first shot, she tried to convince the nurse that she only needed one.  Pretty rational for a four year old.  :)  

So why am I bringing this up a month later?  Yesterday, Lilly said that she wanted to write a letter to the lady that gave her shots.  I refrained from commenting as I wanted to see what was going to happen next.  After some time at the table, I hear her read out her note to Elise.  "Dear Shot Lady, I love you.  I really appreciate you giving me my shots.  Love, Lilly."  Ah, four year olds are so great at forgiveness.  :)

See!  I am back! (and in less than 6 months, which I'm taking as a victory.)    This week has been a busy week, complete with a Memorial Day bbq and s'more roast, a broken arm and a successful (at least I thought so!) mutual activity.  I am hoping that tomorrow is a little breather as Friday starts with the busy again.  I hate the word busy.

Our broken arm was compliments of Elise, again.  It was a reminder that we should not jump on the trampoline on Sundays.  I always remember my mom talking about all of the mistakes she would make in her sewing if she sewed on Sunday and apparently, the same goes for jumping.  Elise made major mistakes in jumping.  :) We don't normally let our kids jump on Sunday and if we ARE on the trampoline, it is as a family just kind of sitting around.  This Sunday some friends stopped by and the kids got restless.  We sent them out for a breather...and we probably shouldn't have.  The up side?  Rachel got to hang along for the doctor visit and enjoy understanding the medical speak from the doctor while I deferred to her for a translation. (after the doctor left, of course!)  And did I mention the cute slings we cranked out?  Elise has two choices, depending on the outfit and her slings come with pockets since she concerned about being short an arm to carry things.  Last night, she loaded up her pocket with little toys that needed to make the trip upstairs.

Do I hate my trampoline for breaking Elise's arm?  Nope.  Maybe I would if a bone had been sticking out of her arm.  Or if it required some horrible surgery?  But as it is, I view this whole broken bone part of childhood to be pretty normal.  We didn't get mad at our couch when she broke her other arm while monkeying around on it.  AND I feel like our trampoline provides the kids countless hours of fun and exercise.  Six years without an injury isn't bad!  Next week we get to go in for a more permanent cast, which I am sure will lead to countless hours of whining from Elise.  We'll just have to remind her that she DOES get to wear a pretty snazzy sling.  I'm sure it will make the itching all better.  

I'm grateful for a broken bone over appendicitis. (which my friend's boy had surgery for)  And I'm grateful for a cute little Lilly that has had a laundry list of injuries in the last 3 days in an effort to compete for attention.  It is borderline cute/obnoxious.

As you can tell from my serious lack of blogging, I just haven't been feeling the drive to blog.  I have been listening to just a little bit of nagging (ok, a whole heck of a lot of nagging) from my oldest daughter with her threatening to take over my blog.  So here is my feeble attempt to get blogging again.  We'll see how it goes, right?

Today was an absolutely gorgeous day in Oregon.  We were in the high seventies and the sun was a shining.  With our morning already being sucked up by piano (I love piano, but we do spend at least 4 hours there each Monday), we declared today to be a sun day and cancelled school.  We got the Woodwards to join us for a trip to the beach where it was just as beautiful, with just a little bit of wind.
Lilly is apparently a little bit scared of waves still so she spent most of her time in the sand.  If a wave was within 20 feet of her, she was running to the rocks.  It was a little ironic because I think she was more likely to get hurt on the rocks than by 1/2 inch of water.  We have our favorite beaches in the area but the big deciding factor between the two is whether or not we want to visit Tillamook Cheese Factory for cheese and ice cream.  Normally, the call for ice cream wins and we are headed south.   The beach that we went to today has a little cave we always have to walk through at some point.  As much as Lilly was petrified of the tiny waves, she had no problem walking through this rocky and DARK cave.  Silly girl.
And the pictures? I left my camera at home.  I have 2 rather mediocre pictures off of my cell phone.  Sorry. :(

And there you have it.  My biannual post to my blog.  Did I tell that my last post wasn't from me?  It was Rachel hijacking my blog.  I am glad I have a 14 year old that can be so on top of things.  She really does keep me in check. (tomorrow I'll tell you all about her dinners that she has been cooking for us!)