Back to the Country

Thankful thought for the day: I'm thankful for the summer because I love being with my kids. I love how we can make our own schedule and do what we want when we want. I love the evenings that are not rushed like they are during the school year.

Here are some pictures that were taken in October. I didn't take any during this last trip but I wanted to share a few anyway.


Last week/weekend we traveled back to visit the farm. I can't remember when we visited last. There is something about returning. It's almost as though the clock ticks a bit slower, the days seem longer, and life is a bit quieter. Traveling back we pass by corn fields, this time the corn is all dark and black. The consequence of too much rain. We are not sure how many crops will actually yield anything of worth. This specific part of the state is immersed with generations of Germans and Czechoslovakians. Most people who live here have lived here for generations. Ken's family arrived here around 1905. The genealogist in me scans the scenery for the old cemeteries near the old Catholic and Brethren churches, homesteads that surely go back to the early 1900's maybe earlier. Life seems peaceful. I like the wisdom and information that the families have about sustaining life. Something that gets totally lost in the city or more developed areas.


We were lucky to spend some time with Ken's parents. No field work this time since they are waiting for the fields to dry out. Daria and I worked on a puzzle with Grandma, the kids learned how to play dominoes and we of course brought our Settlers of Catan game. Ken's mom played 4 rounds with us. Home cooked meals. I cook meals at home but there is nothing like a home cooked meal by Ken's mom. She's probably cooked 3 times a day for 60 years. She likes to cook. They don't eat cereal for breakfast, they cook for breakfast, lunch and dinner. It tastes good. I believe it is because most the staple items she cooks with are from her farm. Meat from their cows, eggs from their chickens, fruits and veggies from their gardens. I can finally taste the difference between frozen and fresh store veggies, and the fresh food on the farm. The eggs actually have flavor! Dustin loves eating grandma's cooking.


One of my favorite things to do is to sit outside. The sounds are different from where we live. No hum of the air conditioner (not even their air conditioner as it broke right when we arrived. So needless to say we spent a sweltering hot weekend, but it was worth it), no car noises. You can hear the insects making their chirping noises in the tree (I have no idea how to spell the Czech name for that insect) and the breeze through the leaves. The pecan trees are loaded this year. They are still green, not ready for thrashing but come November we may have to head back up and work for a day thrashing and picking. As farmers do, Ken and his dad had to rescue a piece of farm equipment that was stuck in a field because it broke. I think farmers spend just as much time farming as they do fixing. Once home Ken's dad, brother in-law spent their time welding and fixing the piece. The highlight is always a ride on the 4-wheeler. This time Ken (while riding with each kid) let them steer, very slowly. Time was spent with the cousins and visiting Ken's siblings. One trip to the meat market. We also watched a calf nurse from a surrogate mother cow.


In the end I thought to myself, "It is always good to visit and always good to return home.", but there is still a part of me that misses living in the country. We are however very fortunate that our kids can enjoy both worlds!

Vacation Update Part 2

My fingers went into shock from my last post since it was so long so I had to let them recover before posting the rest of our trip. Ok, not really. Actually the fact is that I've been on a month long vacation playing and now that the festivities are over I have to face the cold hard reality...... Uhh, that I must now cook dinner, do bills, organize schedules, get the kids to sleep on time, exercise, and check the 100+ e-mails that sat quietly in my e-box just waiting to be opened (among other things).

Our trip to Disney did not end there. Being the brave friends we are we decided to test how deep our friendship was and pile all 8 of us (4 adults, 4 kids) into our super cool van and drive the 17 or so hours back home. Fortunately there was plenty of room for all of us. Ken added this nifty hitch to the van and we stuck one of those metal baskets on the back which held a lot of the luggage/baby stuff quite nicely. The biggest challenge for me was being sleepy, unfortunately the 3 kids in the back seat were not. In fact they were so excited and full of energy that I turned into one of those parents "It's time to be quiet... If you don't be quiet... Do I have to stop this van?" As all parents know, once kids get the giggles even threats seem to be funny to them. It was a losing battle so I resorted to talking (since there is ALWAYS something to talk about.) The trip went well, even amid the three disgusting bathroom stops which made you feel like putting hand sanitizer over our whole bodies, clothes, and shoes just to get rid of the yuck. One stop at a less than par restaurant, a long long stop on a bridge somewhere between here and there (traffic was backed up because of construction), One stop to eat PBJ sandwiches to stretch our legs but in order to not be attacked by the gnats we ended up eating the sandwiches in the van. Good choice. A few funny moments watching Greg in front of me try to get comfortable and just when he did his head would fall to the left or right of the head rest. I had to decide how long i would watch this happen before I stole the blanket from Dustin to give to Greg to use for a pillow. On our last leg of the trip about 3am in the morning my nice, newly fixed $1800.00 bumper was dented and ripped right where it was fixed... due to a very fast driver in front of us who ran over some old tire shreds. These promptly and ever so precisely came flying towards us hitting my bumper. As frustrating as it was I was glad it didn't go through the windshield.

What else can you do to see how good a friendship is? Not only drive 17 hours in a vehicle together, but spend 30 days together, and not just 30 days, but 30 days of sleep deprived fun. Yep, that's right. The night before Celeste left I realized that we had all been hanging out for 30 days exactly. It didn't really seem that long and even with all of the talking there still seemed to be so much more to talk about and so little time.

Greg stayed a week with us after the Disney trip, but like all good husbands :o) had to return to work to earn money so we could spend it on our vacation. Celeste and the kids stayed the remainder of the time.

I would say we truly enjoyed ourselves. So what do a bunch of friends do for 30 days? Well, something like this: (note: you'll notice that everything we did, besides one activity, was inside. That would be due to the excess of rain here, like rain every day excess, all except for 1 day)

Play settlers, cook on the green egg, cook on the green egg again, and again, talk, eat white pretzels, go bowling, play settlers until 2am, talk, scrapbook, play settlers until 1am, eat white pretzels, talk, go swimming, play settlers until 1am, talk, family home evening (with some more settlers), make pot stickers for dinner, play settlers, fight over settlers, cry over settlers, and forgive over settlers, get caught in a huge rain storm at Sams Club and scare the heck out of each other while trying to get back in the van (where is candid camera when you need them), play more settlers, add a few more pretzels, talk more, shop some, shop some more, play settlers....... you get my drift.

Gabe showing his teeth

Bowling sharks

Celeste still in Disney mode, makes mouse pancakes.

The kids and the family home evening they worked on all day by themselves.

You may be asking yourself the question "What in the world is Settlers?" Well if you haven't ever played Settlers of Catan, then you should either not start now (because you won't want to stop) or start now and admit that you love it. We heard so much about this game from several of our friends. Greg and Celeste brought it with them. We played every day, even after Greg left we played. Even after Celeste left we've been playing as a family. Now we have our other friends across the street playing it. It would be pretty accurate to say we've played it every day for over 30 days. We even bought our own set, and our other friends bought theirs. Even the kids are playing. It's like a plague but a very enjoyable plague.

To all my family and friends who say I talk so much, well, you are right. Before Greg left he said "What in the world are you two going to talk about for 3 weeks?" (because we'd been talking so much already) We looked at him with a "duh, as if women every run out of things to say" look. We of course were right, we never ran out of things to talk about.

It has been a great summer and I'm glad for it. We've enjoyed swimming, the kids have enjoyed playing with their friends and we've enjoyed visiting friends in Tallahassee and Disney, and having friends here to visit with (we even got to spend a short amount of time with our dear friends form Oklahoma). As I look back on it I'm feeling pretty blessed to be surrounded by such awesome friends!!!!

Vacation Upate

My endless month of vacation, fun, and friends all ended on Wednesday. I realized that it's been over a month since I've "really" blogged and the realization that either I must either fast forward and start fresh with the happenings of today, or post an incredibly long chapter like blog entry about my vacation that could take everyone a week to read. I suppose I'll have to opt for the long one and share our fun happenings over the past month. The long post itself will not be as long as the 1700 pictures I took on vacation. Yes, there are a lot of great reasons to have a digital camera and one very bad reason for having a 2 gig card......who needs 1700 pictures from a trip?? Well, obviously we do. Not that all of the pictures are great and not that they will all be kept, but when you have a nice camera and a big card, why not. Ok, no worries I will not post all of the pictures.

What I can say is that the past month has been a blast. We are lucky. Our kids are great road travelers. In fact driving 17 hours doesn’t bug them, driving 2 hours to grandpa’s house does. Go figure! This time we checked out audio books from the library (way more than we would even have the time to listen to but it was great to have a selection). We listened to “Because of Winn Dixie” a very cute book. The person reading it had an obnoxious nasally southern voice which didn’t match my idea of a 10 year old, but none the less it was great to listen to a book and actually finish it. The drive went great.

Our first stop was in Tallahassee Florida. I’ve only been to Florida once, down by the space center and Disneyworld, not real attractive landscape. So I was pleasantly surprised at how beautiful Tallahassee was. Rolling wooded hills. It reminded me of Asheville North Carolina. I loved it. We met up with two of our closest and dearest friends, Becca and Keith and their two super cute little boys who are different ages but are the same height and look like twins. I love hanging out with Becca. She could make visiting a shack fun. She had already scouted out the area and had a list of fun things we could do. Here’s a list of our activities.

1.Quick trip to the local Farmers Craft Market near the capitol.
2.Watched a woman weave baskets out of pine needles

3.Sent the guys on a mission to purchase fresh fruit. Diligently Keith obtains 2 seedless watermelons and Ken obtains fresh Georgia peaches at an astronomical price, and they weren’t eve ripe. Eventually the peaces ripened in the hot van as we found out when Daria stepped on one. Note to self. Don’t leave peaches in a bag on the floor near kid’s feet.
4.A 6 hour trip along the coast to get to the St. Joseph Peninsula State Park Beach. Ok, it wasn’t a 6 hour trip, but we joked that it was. We took the scenic route which was very enjoyable but lacked places to stop and buy groceries. Where in the world do Floridians purchase food??
5.After starving because we couldn’t’ find a grocery store we stopped at a small town that had maybe 2 café’s and shared one plate of very expensive quesadillas between the 8 of us. There were only 4 pieces. The waitress said “Only one order?” We told her we were just having a snack. We did find a gas station that had some vanilla moon pies.
6.We made it to the very white soft sandy beach with about everything one would want on the beach. Another thing I love about Becca, she thinks ahead. Notice the black bag that Ken is carrying, that is Becca’s beach bag!

The beach was great, the kids loved the water, the sand and digging holes. In fact they spent most of their time digging a hole on the beach.

7.We buried Becca and Keith for some fun photos.
8.We all stayed in a suite together, very roomy and nice. About 1 in the morning we were awakened by a fire alarm. Well, every one woke up except Becca’s 2 boys, they would sleep through anything. We evacuated. The kids were excited to see the fire trucks. No fire. Just steam in the laundry room.
9.On Sunday our wonderful suite started to smell like cigarette smoke. I called and complained. We headed off to church. Apparently the whole Stake here does sacrament last, no problem accept the guy on the phone gave me the wrong times. So we made it to only sacrament. The kids seemed disappointed that there would be no Primary. By the time we got back from church the room smelled like smoke but not cigarette, more like the illegal type of smoke. So we were moved to an equally nice suite across the hall. Eventful I must say.
10.Took the kids to a park and ate our seedless watermelon.

The visit with Becca and Keith was way to short, but worth every minute.

On Monday we headed off to Orlando to meet up with another set of very dear close friends of ours. Greg and Celeste and their two kids, Hannah and Gabe. Our destination: Disneyworld! It turned out to be one of the funnest family vacations we’ve had. The kids did great! We had so much fun we even stayed an extra day. Here are some highlights of our trip.

1.Before the trip: Karie comes up with a wild last minute idea (like 3-4 days before the trip) to have Celeste tie dye shirts and Karie draw an iron on of the family with our fun nickname “Millnik”. Celeste pulls it off. We iron on the pictures in the hotel. The shirts turned out to be a success and we felt like rock stars the day we wore them. People were constantly making comments.

2. 9 people, Ken, Karie, Daria, Dustin, Greg, Celeste, Celeste’s dad Matt, Hannah, and Gabe. On Tuesday Grandpa Matt left and Hannah’s Grandma Lulu arrived.
3. We all wore the same color of shirt each day. We were lookin’ pretty cool I must say and it helped keeping track of everyone.

"Cool Red Shirt" day

"Red Shirt" day

"Green Shirt" day

"Aqua Shirt" day

"Yellow Shirt" day

4. I was impressed at how well Disney markets itself. The mouse was everywhere. Even the pretzels and waffles were shaped like Mickey. It’s kind of like the old tootsie roll commercials where everywhere you look you see tootsie rolls only here you see Mickey. Disney was also trying to be green. The hotel rooms had trash cans and recycle cans. They left notes stating that if you can use your towel more than once it would save on the electricity and water used to wash all those thousands of towels each day.

5. Up and out by 8-9am each day and gone until 11pm 12am, sometimes 1am (a few breaks in between). Amazingly the kids held out with great attitudes.
6. 14 month Gabe is the most well mannered baby I’ve ever met. He was just along for the ride and didn’t complain a bit.
7. Standing in line for rides while Greg made the mad dash to get fast passes to other rides
8. Being called the “Red Family” by the tour guide. Or “Hey, there’s that green family”
9. Racing to track down characters for autographs.
10. Standing in line for almost an hour for autographs (duh!)
11. Celeste standing in the middle of a dancing parade to get better shots of the kids and the parade. I about laughed my eyeballs out when I saw her out there.
12. First day the stroller is loaded like a pack horse. By the end of the week we had learned a thing or two about what we needed to bring and the stroller was almost empty.
13. The hour wait mostly in the sun for the 1 minute Dumbo ride that Daria and Dustin just had to ride.
14. Hannah (6 yrs. old) riding the tower of terror (this girl has guts!)
15. Dustin and Daria super excited to ride the Star Wars ride.Their excitement turned to terror at the entrance as they both melt into bawling tantrums that they are scared so we had to opt out of that ride. Lame I must say, as that ride was like sitting at home and looking at your computer.
16. Waiting in a hot sweaty, human packed crowd for the Disney Fantasia. We got great seats.
17. Daria hiding behind me during the loud fireworks.
18. Dustin throwing up in the bus line twice (I think it was heat related from waiting in that hot Fantasia line)
Celeste totally blowing everyone score away on the Buzz light-year ride
19. Sneaking McDonald’s French Fries into Ariel’s show. As if people couldn’t smell them!
Portions of our clothes turning pink when we got rained on (while wearing our fabulous red tie die shirts)
20. Celeste successfully getting me on several roller coasters: Thunder Mountain (loved that one, the kids loved it to), Space Mountain, Splash Mountain and eventually Mount Everest! Even Daria went on that ride.

21. Getting totally soaked on the Splash Mountain, well Celeste got totally soaked. Her famous words “Are ya kidding me!!!!”
22. Celeste getting soaked again on the river rapids. “Are ya kidding me?”
23. Dustin’s major melt down at the Lego store in Disney Downtown. Ok, imagine taking a boy who loves Legos and placing him in a mega store loaded with every Lego kit, box, idea you can imagine and huge characters built out of Lego’s. It was like pouring 10,000 grams of caffeine into one little body, and Dustin’s body couldn’t handle it. He was so overwhelmed and over stimulated at the prospects of millions of Lego’s that he could barely keep his feet on the floor and think straight. He turned into a ball of blubbering tears and tantrums when he realized we could not spend the rest of our lives in the Lego store. We had to peel him out of the store literally. Notice in the Lego picture Dustin’s face. This is a “I don’t want to leave this store face” If I had a camcorder with me I would have recorded it! It was sort of hilarious and mostly irritating.

24. Dustin getting to go to the Jedi Training academy.
25. Eating lunch with Cinderella, Belle, Sleeping Beauty, Alice, and SnowWhite.
26. Meeting the Power Rangers (this was pretty cool)
27. Ken giving Minnie Mouse his number
28. Ken getting telling Mr. Incredible “No I only want my picture with Elasta girl” Hello! Bob is so much bigger than you!
29. Dustin not wanting to take his picture with Ariel because she was a girl (even though he just had his picture taken with Minnie Mouse), after seeing what Ariel looked like he relented.
30. Strategically placing ourselves simultaneously in line for Captain Hook, Peter Pan and Aladdin (thank goodness for cell phones).
31. Dustin meeting captain Jack Sparrow and pledging to be a apprentice pirate.

"Jack Sparrow" "Dustin pledging to Jack"

So the trip was awesome and we’re ready to go back! That only consisted of 11 days of our vacation. I’ll post tomorrow of the rest.

I hope you take the time to check out my Disney Galleries. No, I did not post all 1700 pictures, but I did post a lot of pictures. There are no passwords so they should be easy to navigate.

Shirts: http://thehubstop.smugmug.com/gallery/3227905#178303719

Fun Moments http://thehubstop.smugmug.com/gallery/3227683#178289156

Kids with Characters: http://thehubstop.smugmug.com/gallery/3227782#178295195

Misc. Pictures: http://thehubstop.smugmug.com/gallery/3228245#178323239

Lego Land: http://thehubstop.smugmug.com/gallery/3228299#178327028

Characters By Themselves: http://thehubstop.smugmug.com/gallery/3228723#178359212

We have arrived...

Or should I say that I've finally taken a moment to at least breath my blog back to life with a quick post to let everyone know that I still really exist. The lack of blogging is due to a long vacation with some great friends, both in Tallahassee and at DisneyWorld, and our good friends Greg, Celeste and their two children came back with us. Greg stayed a week and Celeste will be here until the 25th. I am enjoying myself and we are all staying busy, thus the lack of the electronic porthole of communication. When I get a chance however, I do have a lot to blog as well as a myriad of photos from our trip. Until then!!!

Finally...

Well, it seems that scheduling has thrown me off the blogger path once again. It is late but I really wanted to post to the blog since it will be the last blog for a few weeks. We are heading off to the Wonderful World of Disney on Friday. Yes folks, we are following the American way and taking our family to the famous Mouse's playground. We are very excited. First we will meet some very good friends near the beach in Florida and play on Saturday. Then we'll visit the nearest ward building on Sunday, catch up on our rest and then head to Disney on Monday to meet up with some other very good friends who we will spend the week with. I was proud of myself yesterday for saving some money. I heard of the much coveted autograph books that are sold at Disney, for about $18.00 a pop. So the kids and I headed off to Hobby Lobby and picked up 4 small autograph journals for $1.50 a piece, added a few Disney stickers and walla! we now have our very own autograph books for all those over sized characters to sign. We walked away feeling pretty good that we saved $30.00. I'm sure we'll make it up at the park though, so my success will be short lived

We finally found the missing Webkinz stuffed cat. Daria's that is. She loves this cat so much and bawled her eyes out causing a stuffy nose and headache when she found out she lost it. Of course all the while I'm wondering why if she loves this cat so much has she not seen it for over a week?? Go figure. She and Katri put on their detective minds and interviewed family members and neighbors on when and where they last saw the gray stuffed animal. Oddly enough after many prayers, the cat was found stuffed in one of my winter boots. Now that one I will never figure out. No one will fess up to it, but obviously it looks like an attempt to get rid of the gray stuffed animal once and for all. I'm guessing a two legged male creature had something to do with it.

The detective work was cut short however with a very scary event of a mechanical pencil pointy side ending up in the back of Dustin's head and the eraser side ending up in the back of Daria's mouth. I have no clue how that happened and of course my constant warnings of "don't walk around with things in your mouth" didn't pay off. Daria was lucky, very lucky. But the impact must have been extremely hard since the eraser end actually punctured a hole in her jaw, right between where the top and bottom teeth are. We really thought we would have to take her in for stitches, it was a pretty big hole. But after having a medical friend look at it we started a regimen of salt water swishing to keep it free from bacteria or infection. I am so thankful that it didn't go through the back of her throat where her spinal cord is! What a freak accident.

Last week I held a small party at my house for my previous Primary class. A group of energetic 10 year olds. We had a successful marshmallow war and water fight. I think I probably had about 5 bags of small marshmallows in my garage and on the driveway. Thanks to the kids most of it was cleaned up.

After feeling in a slump with my current exercise program I decided to borrow some Turbo Jam workout DVD's from a friend. Let me tell you! my glutes have hurt for 2 days straight. In fact almost every muscle in my body hurts, but it's not a bad hurt, just a good hurt. Since I'm up late I'm going to pass on working out in the morning and give my body a break. Maybe I should get up and do an hour of stretches to get these muscles back where they belong.

Sunday, Father's day went well. Church as usual. This is the first time in 10 years that I've not had a Sunday calling. My new calling is sort of a behind the scenes type. So it was a bit awkward walking into church with nothing to do but sit and listen. Now that was actually pretty cool!

Ok, so these little items below have revolutionized my kitchen. One would think that with only 4 human beings in this home that only 4 cups would be used. One would think! We go through so many cups each day it drove me nuts. So I ran across these little bands. They are called "Bear Bands" so you can keep track of your liquids at a party. No parties going on here, just a mother who is tired of wasting water or electricity in washing cups. They come in 12 colors so you just choose the color you want. They stretch out pretty large so any size of cup can be used.

Until the next post, have a Happy 4th of July!

Ironic

So tonight for family night everything started out great as usual. It was short. Ken is out of town on business in my old stomping grounds. Daria played an opening song. Dustin and I sang along. We read some things and had a small lesson. Then we decided to play games. Shouts of joy rang through the home as both kids ran upstairs yelling "We want to play Sorry! I'm yellow, I'm red.." Fine with me. The kids and I play this game often. So we are maybe 5 minutes into the game. Daria's the only one with a player on the board and I get a Sorry card so I bump her off. A minimal fuss starts but she calms herself down. A few minutes later Dustin gets a sorry card. He bumps Daria off because her player was closest to his home base. This begins an all out tantrum that you usually see a 3 year old do, not an 8 year old. I had to remind Daria that the game is titled S-O-R-R-Y, uhm, you know, there's going to be a lot of disappointing moves?? She wouldn't stop so she lost her opportunity to play. Dustin and I finished the game. Both kids have been a little cranky. I suspect it's due to lack of regular sleep and lack of a regular schedule.


Dustin has just changed his mind about being an FBI agent and wants to be an Air Force pilot. I will add this to the list of things he wants to be when he grows up. His reasoning: He wants to fly a fast plane. Well, they do have fast planes (jets). Daria is sticking with the veterinarian option. I have a feeling this just might come true.



Dustin asked me the other day if gasoline was really Dinosaur pee. No explanation needed. Daria asked me if we eat food in Heaven. Dustin said that he was going to eat fluffy clouds. Ahh, life is never boring here.



I'm on the battled field of the "wearing to many clothes" in our house. Especially after Daria's 12 pair of shorts/Capri's that she wore in a minimum of 7 days. The question I should be asking is why she has that many shorts and Capri's. Fortunately most of those are hand-me-downs. I shard the story of Grandma Carol who often wore one dress per week when she was a little girl and when it was dirty that she wore a pinafore over it. Dustin on the other hand has no problem wearing dirty clothes. In fact if I didn't work with him on putting on clean clothes he would wear the same thing all week long. Not a pretty site. We're working on it.



For anyone with kids, young or older, here are some great CD's that we've been listening to. I just can't get enough of them. The Primary Colors has the Snowman song on it and the Sharing Time has the Snowman II song. Don't let the titles of the songs fool you into thinking that they are just kids stuff. These singers take the traditional songs and give them a great enjoyable twist. I think I like each song just as much as the kids do. If you go to DeseretBook.com you can look it up and check out some of the sound clips. These guys have great harmonizing voices.



This past Sunday I was released as a Primary teacher. Only six months in this calling. At first it was hard because I had a hard class. Ten year old kid's going on 11, mostly boys. But I'll tell ya, by last Sunday I was pretty sad to be released. As a class we've finally come to a place where we are all working together and I think the kids really like coming to class. I will miss them but I reminded them I would still see them in the hallways at church. I had a jar that we filled with beads as the kids worked on being reverent (being 10 is the hardest age for sitting still and being quiet!) and bringing their scriptures. Stuff like that. They loved the challenge and we actually finished filling the jar the Sunday before last. So this Wednesday we will have a fun pizza party and marshmallow war at my house. They are great kids! 5 boys and 2 girls. My new calling is Enrichment Leader. It's been ages since I've been in a Relief Society calling but I'm looking forward to it. My favorite place has always been with the youth, Primary and Young Women's because there is so much energy and excitement for life at those ages. It's so bright and kids love to learn. But I love the Relief Society and I think it's the coolest women's organization in the world, so it will be so nice to be with the ladies on Sunday and gain from their wisdom and challenges.

Ken earns his way to the top, summer fun, Could I be a kid again!

One would think that with school being out and my schedule minus a bunch of activities that I’d have ample time to update my blog. Quite the contrary.

The biggest news of the week or year is that Ken finished his EMT classes last Thursday!!!! Yeah! Not only did he finish and pass the test he finished top in his class. Another round of applause!! The kids prayed for him every night that he would do well on his test. Now all he has left to do is take the National Registry test, then he is officially a licensed EMT. Way to go!!

Swim lessons for Daria and Dustin started this week. Every morning 9am sharp. Their excitement helps smooth over the fact that the water is still pretty cool in the morning. Another year older for each means that they are both doing better than last year. As I sit and watch their lessons I realized something about myself. The fact of the matter is, I just don’t prefer water. If I had a choice between the beach and the mountains I would choose the mountains. It could be because I grew up around the mountains, but I know other people who love the beach and never lived near one. When I was pregnant with Daria and learning meditation techniques in our natural childbirth classes we were told to focus on a place that brings you peace and energy. Some recommendations were the sound of the waves. But quite frankly, the sound of waves doesn’t calm me at all. It brings thoughts of hot scorching sun, sticky sweaty humidity, sand stuck on everything and my hair turning into a Tina Turner hairdo. Not a pretty site. It’s not that I don’t like the beach, I just don’t prefer it. My idea of calming water is trickling rain in the forest. Thus, feelings about the beach equal feelings about swimming pools. I just don’t like being hot. My idea of a relaxing time is sitting in a grove of Aspen trees with the dry breeze rustling through the leaves and fresh unadulterated air, sounds of birds and the crackle of walking on pine needles. Now that to me is peaceful, not a city in site! Yeah! Ok, back to reality. The fact of the matter is I live in one of the hottest places on earth. Not only is it hot here but with two children, that means that during the summer months all activities need to include some sort of water immersion…. The pool. So I relinquish my real desires and accept the fact that my summer just might be spent in the hot sticky air near a pool so the kids can have fun. Life could be worse.

The summer is going great. I love the summer because we have a free schedule within reason that is. Basically I look forward to a schedule that is not dictated by some educational facility. But being the “A” type personality I am, without a schedule I fumble and become quite useless. So in order to make sure we have a fun enjoyable summer I did institute a flexible schedule. Each day there is reading time and time to practice math skills, piano practice. That doesn’t take long. Wednesday is library day, Thursday is cleaning day and Friday is reserved for day trips or fun stuff. The rest of the time is sprinkled with playing with friends and bike rides. Tomorrow is cleaning day. I figured that 4 people are making messes in this house so at least 3 people can clean it up. I don’t want to spend my summer cleaning so that’s why I chose just one day. It’s worked out great. The kids know that nothing fun is going to happen until we are all done. Last week Daria vacuumed the house, Dustin folded the laundry while I did the detail stuff (showers, bathrooms etc.). Tomorrow Daria will fold laundry because I noticed that every pair of short and Capri she owns is in there. I’m not sure why since we just did laundry last Thursday. That’s only 7 days and there are a lot more than 7 pair of shorts in there. Apparently laundry will be accompanied by a talk about resources, money, electricity, and water.

Last week we added a new fish to our fish tank, a fabulous red male Beta. That makes 10 fish now (not including the sucker and the shrimp). The Beta is red with white fins, which is highly unusual and hard to find. I think they are called "butterfly". We named him Firewing. Daria, who was just not content with the family fish tank finally got one of her own. A small ½ gallon, along with a very beautiful blue Beta. The beautiful ble Beta is now the ugly step-child because his long back tail fin is now missing due to an accident with Daria's hand. I’m glad we put the blue one in her tank and not the red one! We also have 3 little shrimp in the family tank. By far they are my favorite to have. They are so fun to watch and almost impossible to see as their bodies are transparent.

I wish I could be a kid again. Yesterday after swim lessons we ran by a toy store. Our goal was to get a Webkinz dog that Dustin and I could share. For those of you with kids you probably know what those are. For those of you who don’t, they are stuffed animals that come with a code. You use that code on the internet to play with your virtual pet, earn Kinzcash by answering questions (science, math, language, etc.) to buy food and toys for your pet. I got tired of bothering Daria to play with hers so Dustin and I worked towards getting our own. Now we are the proud owners of a brown dog named “Buddy”. But that’s not why I want to be a kid again. While in the store I was drawn to the Breyer Horse section. As a girl I collected those and still have them packed nicely in a box upstairs. It made me think that I never really thought of myself as a creative person, but looking at the horses brought back some fun memories. My Breyer horse statues (all 62 of them) all had names, I created a stock sheet that showed their made up by me pedigree lines. I made halters out of silver chains, horse blankets out of materials, and the most creative of all was I would stage them in ways that made them look real (minus the fense and giant flowers in the background. Just imagine if I had Adobe Photoshop back then!) and take picturesPretty creative for a kid in elementary school. I remember owning one of those old cameras that took 110 film. My mom must have developed the film for me. At any rate, looking at the new Breyer models gave me the feeling that I wanted ALL of them and I just wanted to go home and play with them. Uh…. Ok, another slap back to reality……