Busy Summer!

What a lovely week! Or couple of weeks, as the case may be!  On Saturday, I had Seminary inservice, where they introduced the new "Book of Mormon" Curriculum which is awesome! I am super excited for Seminary to start!

I spoke in Sacrament Meeting on service (as a prelude to kicking off the “Summer of Service”). Have I told you about the SOS?  We are doing it instead of the Book of Mormon Summer Reading Program this year.  Usually we would kick off at the beginning of June, but the Bishop asked me to move it back a month, which worked out fine.  I have really come to LOVE speaking, so that part was awesome—I was a little worried about going over my time, tho, especially after last time!  However, I prayed about it, and they ended up putting me last, after a sister who was SUPER nervous, who gave an excellent but very short talk, and I finished exactly on time!  YAY!  Then, during Primary time, we had the Visiting Teaching Conference, so we had yummy food, a nice lesson and the Brethren took over our classes!

BigGirl, SmallDaughter, The WonderDog & I left for Maryland right after church.  We had a nice drive, with a lovely sight when we came over the top of a mountain pass in the evening and looked down on a cloud and a rainbow!  We got in to our dear friends Mr. T & Miss D’s house about 10:30.  Miss D drove a big (non-air conditioned) 15 passenger van full of teens (including BigGirl) down to EFY (Especially For Youth) on Monday morning. SmallDaughter and I just killed time until Miss D got home.  On Tuesday, Miss D wanted to do something fun for SmallDaughter, so we took her to a neat park and then to McDonalds.  In the playland, there was a life sized “Ronald” sitting on a bench, and Miss D was not sure if it would freak SmallDaughter out—but she walked up and kissed “him” on the nose, and draped herself over his lap!  We had a good time talking, and she had a blast!

On Wed morning, Mr. T & Miss D left for Boston, and I got a text from My Favorite Gentleman that they weren’t working at all, so I drove over to Richmond VA to get him.  We were in a huge traffic jam, because somebody jackknifed their boat trailer and the boat was tipped over on its side across all three lanes!  Keeping it interesting!  On our way home we drove through some historical byways—apparently much of the Revolutionary AND Civil Wars happened right there!  It was amazingly moving to be in the birthplace of the nation on Independence Day.  That is NOT easy country—especially with horses, wagons, etc.!  As we drove along a very beautiful, scenic road, I thought “uh, oh—two naughty little dogs on the side of the road!”—but it turned out that it was two twin fauns, very tiny (smaller than The WonderDog!), still with spots, grazing less than 2 feet from the road!

SmallDaughter got sick—I think it was food poisoning--on Wed night, and spent the night alternating vomiting and diarrhea, which was not fun for either of us.  We spent a very quiet Thursday!  (glad we had the house to ourselves—and the washer & drier!).   We drove around and checked out the beaches near Miss D’s, then went to some thrift stores.  We got some 100% cotton work clothes for My Favorite Gentleman (he can’t wear synthetics because of fire danger—natural fibers burn and blow away as ash, synthetics melt into your skin~!), a cool T-shirt for LargeBoy and a great pair of tennis shoes for SmallDaughter, who’s feet are finally growing!

Fortunately, her tummy felt better quickly, so on Friday morning, we got to go to the beach!  She LOVED it!  And, since it is on the Chesapeake Bay, it was perfect—only to SmallDaughter’s knees for hundreds of yards out, barely any waves (like 1 inch high!)!  

My Favorite Gentleman was super cute with her—even though he HATES being in the ocean (he doesn’t like the textures—hot sand, sharp shells, squishy mud, gross seaweed…but the thing that really gets him is the thought of what is in the water   “we are wading in whale excrement!”---he doesn’t even like baths because you sit in your own dirty water!).  They also had a great time making sand castles—MFG would make a PERFECT castle, all smooth and nice, and SmallDaughter would stomp it and laugh!  

After we came home and had baths/showers, SD & I took a nap (still recovering!), and then we were going to go see theWashington D.C. Temple (where we were married!) and go to IKEA, but first SmallDaughter dumped an entire economy size bottle of Comet Cleanser on her head, so we did a major cleanup!  And she got ANOTHER bath—much less sweet!

The Temple was (of course!) amazingly beautiful!  We had some fun walking around on the nature trails and looking at the flowers (even though it was crazy hot and humid!), then we went to the visitors center.  SmallDaughter’s favorite part was the elevator!

My Favorite Gentleman had never been to IKEA, so it was quite an experience for him!  He still isn’t sure how he feels!  SmallDaughter loved the meatballs (which are one of her VERY FAVORITE foods!)  She ate all of hers, and half of mine!  Then we went home, and she crashed, and My Favorite Gentleman & I watched TV together and listened to fireworks, and enjoyed each other’s company!

On Saturday, I got everything cleaned up and packed, and as soon as BigGirl got back, we left.  She had an amazingly good time at EFY.  

Her testimony is stronger, she is feeling buoyed up and more self assured, and she made some new friends and learned a lot.  I am SO glad!  I would have enjoyed staying longer, but they didn’t get back until after 1:00, and we had a long drive!  We got home safely, and enjoyed being back in our own beds!  We picked up LargeBoy from BestFriend’s house.  He mostly spent the week helping Dad on our house, and doing various service projects.  He is pretty excited that his hair has gotten big again.  (Faster, this time—it’s been less than a year, and it is HUGE!).

SmallDaughter didn’t have riding on Monday, which was fine by me, since we had oodles of boys here, so there was a LOT of loud.  In the morning we all had our Dentist appts, and SmallDaughter was SO GOOD!  She sat in the chair all by herself!  I didn’t have to hold her or anything!  And she brushed the teeth on the little stuffed dragon (he has “people teeth”, and they use him to show proper brushing technique!), and then used him for a pillow!  We all had an “all clear” report, so that was excellent!  In the afternoon, BigGirl had her 4-H “picnic and filling out fair cards” meeting at the park in Plymouth.  The sad news is that our 4-H leader Hazel—who is in the middle of her 50^th year as our club leader--had another stroke and is blind, and not doing well.  The meeting started out on a somber note, and then the clouds rolled in so it was quite dark and menacing (with lightning!), and then the heavens opened—and we got about 4 inches of rain in an hour!  It was epic!  And I wasn’t willing to go out in it, so we just waited in the park shelter!  The town 25 miles away from us got 14” of rain in June (which is 2” more than Idaho’s average YEARLY precipitation!) We only got 7”—but that is still almost twice our normal for June, and it hasn’t stopped!  It is hot, humid and wet—which is doing great for my garden, but the boys can’t mow, so the back yard needs a baler, and I can’t check the bees when it is windy, rainy or threatening rain, so it’s been WEEKS!  From the outside of the hive, it looks like they are doing well!

I am enjoying my walking club at the library—mostly it is just me and Stephanie, who I have wanted to get to know, so this is great!  And, yesterday she wanted to know about bees and Mormons!  She kept apologizing for asking so many questions, but I told her my three favorite things to talk about are:

1. SmallDaughter, Special Needs & Service Dogs,

2. the Gospel

3. Bees, and Honey
so we hit 2 out of 3!

(and we usually talk about SmallDaughter & The WonderDog, so we are good there!)

In the evening, I went to Cub Scout Committee Meeting and sewed patches on LargeBoy’s scout shirts.  He leaves for the National Scout Jamboree on Sunday, and he needs 2 full uniforms, each with approximately 6 million badges sewn on.  I am slowly making progress.  Today I have to sew BigGirl a “Spiderman Apron” for her skit at Girls Camp.  I am also making a batch of deodorant and homemade laundry and dishwasher detergents as an experiment (the deodorant works great—we will see on the others!

BONUS KITTEN PIX!

(Yes, she is still at our house, why do you ask?)

)

Just a week in the life!

We had Sunday Seminary today after an excellent Stake Conference.  We are starting Luke, so we went through Chapter 1, with the birth of John and the miracles and prophecies that went with it.  Then we started Luke 2.  The most interesting part was the contrast of having LargeCousin, BigGirl & LargeBoy, who have heard the story every year of their lives, and Constance, who is not a member (her dad joined a year ago, she is investigating—I just LOVE her—she is awesome!), and their differing perspectives.  She asked such excellent questions, it was great.

My class is really excellent.  They are such great people, and they get along well—no conflicts or antagonism.  We also, besides our regular people, have BrotherC (the little brother of BrotherA, who is in the class), who is only 12, but loves coming—and I am not about to discourage anybody who likes to come and is burning up the Scripture Mastery!  He wants to have his 1000 days of scripture reading by the time he’s a sophomore!

 I had seminary inservice yesterday, which is always enjoyable. My main insight for today (I found it interesting, at least!)  is that when Christ was hanging on the cross, and he said  (in Mark chapter 15, verse 34 “And at the ninth hour Jesus cried with a loud voice, saying,Eloi, Eloi, lama sabachthani? which is, being interpreted, My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?”  He was quoting Psalm 22.  And, he expected his audience (who had been trained in Jewish Scholarship) to know—and extrapolate—the entire chapter from that one line.  Look it up during your scripture study.  It is very evocative imagery.   

I got to drive my new car down.  It is so nice! 

We had a nicely busy week--lots of things, but not crazy. Last Saturday, (the day BigGirl went on her date) LargeBoy and I spent the morning at the “University of Scouting”.  We got a lot of good training.  The only thing that makes me sad is that just as I get this scout thing figured out, LargeBoy is out of that phase—I need more boys to use my new knowledge on!!

On Monday, I went to Norwalk in the morning and picked up the election supplies, then, in the afternoon SmallDaughter had riding (tomorrow-Monday the 12^th is her last day this year—she will be so bummed!  She misses the horsies by Tuesday—let alone for 4 months!).    Tuesday was the election, which was nicely busy, but everybody was polite, and it was actually the smoothest election I have presided over.  We were very blessed!  For our little Township precinct (everybody in the area surrounding our town, but not actually in the city limits) we had GREAT turnout (85 absentee votes, and 265 live voters, out of 519 registered!).  It is always a long day, but I like the people I work with, and the people we see every year in our precinct. 

Of course, Wednesday was Scouts & Young Women.  The girls are getting ready for “YW in Excellence” next week.  SmallDaughter goes in to the nursery where the Faith in God girls meet, and she plays with the toys, and enjoys being near her friends.  The girls have adopted her—they talk to her, and watch out for her—it is SO sweet!

Thursday was Cub Scout Committee meeting.  Blessedly, our Committee has grown from my first meeting (which was just me and UberScoutMom!)  She was basically running the whole show single-handedly all last year.  Things are slowly progressing.  For quite a while, it was just four of us, then we added our representative from the Bishopric, and now (drumroll, please…) we FINALLY have new Webelos leaders—Scott H. is a new member of the Church, and he is gung-ho!  My dad has been called as his assistant.  I am really excited for this new year. 

My main job is generating papers—I do the monthly newsletter, and any other papers they need.  This week, I made a flyer for the bulletin, because we are starting a Uniform Exchange.  I also made invitations for the Ward Christmas Party, because the poor Sister in charge is basically doing it all by herself (I am not really a fan of having the Activities committee disbanded). 

I was looking all over for my purse on Thursday evening, so I could go to committee meeting, and I was going crazy, because I remembered hanging it up—but IT WAS NOT THERE.  I cleaned out the coat closet, and went room by room—no luck.  Finally, when I checked SmallDaughter’s room—mystery solved!  She is sure getting taller!

On Friday, we went to Wal-Mart and got the kids portraits.  They turned out cute, and I was very pleased.  BrotherA & BrotherC had another sleepover here, and BigGirl had a sleepover with her friend S, for her (S’s) 16^th birthday.  The boys burned the sticks in the yard (everything that had blown down in all the wind and that I chopped in my crazed Nopper escapade!) and had a cookout (we picked up supplies while we were at Wal-Mart, and I got them the HUGE marshmallows—which are almost a fatal dose to an adult—but they had eaten the whole bag by the time I got home from inservice!)

On Saturday, LargeBoy and the boys watched SmallDaughter while I was at my inservice, and after BigGirl got home from her party, LargeBoy and I went to his Order of the Arrow banquet.  I am really proud of him.  He is also filling out a job application to work at Scout Camp next summer—which is great, because they are the one job that doesn’t mind if he takes time off to go to the Reunion and then more time off to go the National Jamboree!

SmallDaughter has been being super cute and funny—although BigGirl was pretty grumpy when she realized that after all the work she had put in making chicken soup and rolling and cutting out homemade noodles (she took The WonderDog over to Kelly’s house for a bath while the noodles dried)—when she got back, she found that SmallDaughter had poured a whole bottle of cinnamon on them, and rubbed it in!  (BigGirl just used store bought noodles in the soup, and deep fried the noodles, and rolled them in cinnamon sugar—they were good!) 

I am off to bed to get ready for another week of adventures! 

Escaping Tyranny

I think all homeschool moms experience feelings of doubt, guilt, and occasional panic, wondering if we are REALLY doing the best thing for our precious children.

Every morning, I watch the school bus go past my house without stopping for my children, and every morning, I feel like we have escaped from prison. We aren't scrambling around making sure everybody has a lunch, a backpack (which, incidentally, for a middle schooler weighs about as much as your average senator) and any stray notes or homework. Whether we were in an organized phase (thanks, FlyLady) or a disorganized phase, there was always a scramble.

Now, we get SmallDaughter onto the van for her school, and then the rest of us go tackle our day. This morning was fairly typical. I got up with My Favorite Gentleman at 4:45, packed his lunch for work (it makes him feel loved), he wheeled the trash dumpster out to the curb (it makes me feel loved!) and I had my early morning seminary class at 5:15. (I am teaching New Testament this year, to some EXTREMELY awesome high school students--who attend this extremely early class every day, and then go to school and do great things!

After class, I invited BigGirl and LargeBoy in for "Snuggle Time" in my room. Snuggle Time is a long-standing tradition, born back in the day when they HATED to get rushed out of bed straight into the school chaos. I realized that their schedule was: get up-get ready-go to school-come home-do homework-eat dinner-go to bed-do it again. These are FIRST GRADERS! When did we have time for fun? For Love? For knowing that they are the most important things in my life? So they started coming into my room before they had to get up, for snuggles, reading aloud, back and foot massages, movie watching and, occasionally, sleep. When I am old, what I will look back on with love and nostalgia, is snuggling with my beautiful children every morning.

So, this morning, LargeBoy (who slept very well), was not sleepy, and wanted to be productive, but both of his sisters were still asleep. What to do? He went and got his scout notebook, wrote several thank you notes, and worked on memorizing the Boy Scout Oath and such. While he was snuggled up to me. When he finished, he went back to sleep. When he gets up, (I know from past experience)he will have a great day. He is very sleep dependent, and lack of sleep makes him a very grouchy guy.

When BigGirl was having a hard time with math, we started doing it snuggled in my bed, where it was warm and we could reduce her stress. Ironically, she is very good at math, she just gets frustrated and panicky (just like her mother!). Since I am doing math with them (I am learning and RETAINING more than I ever have, thank you for asking--I really love the Saxon Math program), we just got comfy and worked through the hard places together.

We are no longer under the tyranny of other peoples schedules, other peoples expectations, and other peoples ridicule. Why can't math be learned in bed?

So, my observations about "am I doing the right thing" and other guilt and panic?

I love to spend time with my kids. I would rather be with them than most other people--they are funny, kind and intelligent. I don't need to send them off to school to have other people babysit them because they drive me crazy.

In a typical classroom of 25, a teacher can only give each child 5-7 minutes of individual attention per day. Now, even on a crazy busy day, when I am rushing between projects, I can give them at least 15 individual minutes.

15 minutes doesn't sound like very much, does it? But consider this--it is three times more than they would be getting! And that is on my worst day!

In my school, we have no bullying, no harrassment (well, except from me about room cleaning!), no peer pressure to try drugs, sex or tobacco (let alone steroids given by overachieving coaches, etc.) AND if anybody in my school has a gun--it is because we are doing target shooting!

How can I possibly do WORSE for my children than the public Junior High Schools?

I am going back to bed, to snuggle my beautiful children and to lovingly face the future!