This year we took swimming lessons at Happy Hollow Pool instead of at McCutcheon High School. Even though Happy Hollow is a 15 minute drive for us, it was literally half as expensive as at the high school, and with three kids in lessons this year that made a big difference!
Spencer and Josh decided they liked this pool even better, which made all the slathering of sunscreen and driving worth it. (The pool at the HS is indoor.) I liked it, too, since my friends Cyndi and Kanien had kids in lessons and we got to chat. The only thing I wasn't much of a fan of were the swim suits the instructors wore - well, the lack thereof. All of the girls wore rather skimpy and ill-fitting bikinis. Okay, I'm not sure how professional you can really look teaching four year olds how to blow bubbles in the water, but I'm pretty sure a one piece suit would be a step in the right direction. On top of that, if you're gonna wear a bikini, you'd better make sure it, well, fits. Just sayin'. (Yes, judgemental Maren has made an appearance.)
Anywho, a grand and glorious time was had by all. I was planning on doing 2 sessions, but the next session was full and Spencer said he was kinda tired of lessons. (I don't know that he was really tired of the lessons themselves or of how they took up our entire morning.)
I tried to get some pictures on the last day, but it was hard to get close enough. I didn't get any good ones of Spencer, but I did get video of him jumping off of the diving board. This was the first time he ever did it all by himself - and he did great! After that he probably jumped off a dozen more times!
Poor Spencer still sinks like a rock in the pool. He must have lead bones. (And zero percent body fat.) He still has issues treading water and doing a few other things. So he'll be repeating level 2 again next time. This wouldn't be so bad, but Josh was just promoted to level 2! Josh is a little water bug. He LOVES swimming and actually wants to learn how to do proper strokes and such. I suspect we will have years of issues with the little brother being better at sports...
On the last day they got to bring pool toys.
Josh would go swimming every day if I'd let him. And we would, but it's been so dang unseasonably cool this summer! (Seriously - it's only been in the high 70's and low 80's lately. In July. In Indiana. Insane.)
Given Cole's sordid past with anything structured, I was a bit worried about how he would do.
He rocked it. The kid loved swimming lessons! Hopefully this will transfer over to preschool this fall...
And where was miss Tess during all of this? Sitting with momma. She's just a bit too young for lessons this year, much to her dismay. But next year? I'll have a whole half hour to myself while the kids are all in lessons!
We've been busy around here, which is why I haven't been blogging regularly. You know about most of the big stuff that's been going on, but here's some of the day-to-day and behind-the-scenes things that I've been able to document.
One morning I forgot to turn the water off in Tess's bath. (I was actually in her room cleaning, just across the hall. So no danger! Other than flood damage...) Luckily, Josh walked in and thought clearly enough to hurry and turn off the faucet and then run to get me! The picture doesn't do justice to how high the water was - it was at the very edge when I first walked in and the emergency drain was working really hard!
Tess was sad we ruined her fun.
Cole got super dirty one day. I still can't figure what he got in to.
Is that not the epitome of a little boy?!
We're working on getting Spencer's Bear done for Cub Scouts. One of the things he had to do was make cookies with adult supervision. So he did, and he served them at the LAN party. He was quite pleased with himself, and the cookies were really good!
Tess thought she was going to play at the LAN party. See? She even has her laptop out. Boy, was she disappointed when I took her upstairs!
Tess still has a thing for socks. At any given time she's walking around the house with at least one random sock in or on hand. I've taken to calling her Dobby the House Elf.
She discovered that it's kinda hard to eat with socks on her hands.
We decided to conduct a little science experiment this summer: determining which kids meals the kids like best. Each week we've been going to a different restaurant and then recording our findings on an Excel chart. So yeah, we're really scientific and such.
We started with McDonald's because that's pretty much the gold standard as far as kids meals are concerned. (At least in my kids' eyes.) Spencer and Josh always get the cheeseburger meals with sodas and Tess and Cole always get the chicken nuggets and chocolate milk. That's just the way they roll. I get whatever I feel like having.
I could bore you with all the nitty gritty results, but I won't. Mainly because I don't feel like typing them. Also, they're boring. But here's a brief synopsis:
- Everyone liked the fries a lot
- Only Tess really liked the apples
- The toy was a Hot Wheels car, which they all really liked.
I asked each child to give it a score, with 1 being the lowest (YUCK) and 10 being the highest (YUM).
Spencer: 9 (that boy loves McDonald's)
Josh: 8 (he was mad I made him eat his apples)
Cole: 3 (he really likes the number 3)
Tess: 12 (Tess is unclear on the concept)
Maren: I had a cheeseburger meal. And it was delish.
Last week we went to Burger King to see how things compared. I even remembered to take a couple of action shots!
Verdict? Surprisingly, all the kiddos seemed to like Burger King better!
- Everyone liked the extra-thick fries. They were really tasty!
- Tess was upset that they forgot to give her ranch for her nuggets. The horror!
- Burger King now has one of those Coke Freestyle machines, which the boys LOVE.
- The toy was LAME. Jungle Book was the theme for the month, and each kid got some weird orange, plastic, cell phone-shaped thing with a picture of a tiger on front, with a tiger pennant/bandana/piece-o-junk thing on the inside. They were thrown away within the week.
Here are the ratings:
Spencer: 10 (he was just as surprised as I was)
Josh: 10 (I think this was in reaction to the Coke Freestyle)
Cole: 3 (still with the number 3)
Tess: 65 (I didn't even know she knew that number!)
Maren: I had a grilled chicken salad. It was gross. I forgot how gross Burger King salads ALWAYS are. Blech blech blech. Next time I'll just go for the Jr. Whopper.
And today we went to Wendy's. I had the carpets cleaned this morning and they still weren't dry, so I schlepped all of the kids into the car and went to the drive-thru. Where we waited. And waited. And waited because they were having computer problems. I was seriously about to drive away, but they got their act together.
We ate at the little park by our community pool. It was actually chilly and windy enough that we were cold in the shade!! Seriously, it's the 1st of July and the rest of the country is broiling in the heat, but Spencer was literally shivering. Weather is weird.
Here's how things turned out:
- No one was really into the fries. I know they're supposed to be all natural and such now, but seriously? When I'm eating fries I don't care if they're natural and have sea salt. Bring the flavor or go home!
- Tess was in LOVE with the nuggets. She chowed down on those first.
- The toy - a Sea World Board Game that you have to put together - was kinda lame. Spencer tried putting it together and playing with it, but wasn't very impressed. But that's okay because Wendy's toys are always expected to be lame. (Sorry, Wendy's.)
Here are the ratings:
Spencer: 9
Josh: refused to answer. He's being a punk today.
Cole: 3 (surprised?)
Tess: 3 (She likes to be like Cole.:)
Maren: I had a Almond Strawberry grilled chicken salad. It was awesome! Seriously, yummy. I mean, no fast food is going to match the magical salads of The Cheesecake Factory or other restaurants like that, but it comes pretty darn close. It had a TON of blueberries in it, which was good because Tess wanted to eat half of them.
So there you go. Over the next few weeks we'll start hitting some of the more unusual places for kid's meals. Any suggestions? (Not Chic-fil-A, though. My kids never eat when we go there and I'm not willing to waste my money.)
I bought two jalapeno plants for my garden this year.
Or so I thought.
Either these are some very rare anaheim-jalapeno variety, or someone mixed up the plants. (By the way, here's what my plant was marked with. I stuck it in next to the plant when I planted it in order to avoid confusion. So at least I know I didn't pick up the wrong plant by mistake!)
Every week as we are driving to church I ask my kids "Who's going to be good at church today?" or "Are you going to be good at church today?" or something along those lines.
And every week they all claim "Me! Yes! I'm going to be good!"
As I literally wrestled my way through Sacrament Meeting today I came to this realization:
My children can only be trusted to tell the truth about 50% of the time.
(At least when claiming good behavior is concerned.)
And, no, pointing out their discrepancies did nothing to help the situation.
Last night we took the kiddos to their first real baseball game at Victory Field. It was the Indianapolis Indians vs. Rochester Red Wings.
You can tell Cole was super excited.
Yes, that armrest is his pillow.
We decided to sit on the lawn since I knew it would be a waste of time and money to try to get Tess and Cole to sit in seats for any length of time. (I was totally right.) Since we were sitting on the lawn we brought our own hot dogs and goodies, which meant we had to schlepp our cooler and the stroller and all four kids into the stadium. But it was worth it.
*Side note: I've figured out how to keep hot dogs hot in a cooler. You make the hot dogs, put them in buns, and then wrap them in foil. Then, you heat up one of those rice bags (the kind you heat in the microwave and put at your feet to keep them toasty warm) and put it at the bottom of the cooler and then put the hot dogs on top. Then you cover that with a towel. Viola! Our hot dogs were still steamy hot almost 2 hours after I made them.*
After getting all our bags and such searched we walked into the stadium. As soon as Josh got a glimpse of the field he let out a sincere and awestruck "Oh. My. Gosh." He was pretty excited. That boy's got a bit of his Grandpa ElRay in him.
He kind of watched the game for about 4 innings, which I thought was pretty good considering 1) he's only 6, and 2) we were pretty far from the players and they were kinda hard to see. The first thing he said to me this morning was "I had so much fun at that baseball game last night, Mom!"
Spencer had a good time, too. However, at one point during the game when Josh asked how much longer it would be Spence said, in all seriousness, "Oh, there are 7 hours and 54 minutes left in the game". Um, that's the clock, Spencer. We all had a pretty good laugh about that. (Especially Lance, who unfortunately finds baseball a bit slow and tedious. (Seriously, it's a miracle my dad let me marry this Ute who does not like baseball!)
Tess and Cole just ran around and got into trouble the whole time. Tess was in heaven dancing to all the little songs they played between batters. As soon as we finished dinner Cole declared "It's time to go home." He was a bit disappointed when we didn't and got into his usual Coley mischief. (Stomping on Tess, stealing toys, getting into things he shouldn't.)
Josh wanted me to take lots of pictures of him sitting there.
There was this huge factory right there - it was actually pretty cool looking. And trains kept running right by it, which kept Cole pretty entertained.
No, that is not Tess's beer. (She spilled hers earlier.) ((KIDDING.)) Although Josh did ask if he could have a drink when the beer guy game through. Um, no Josh.
The only picture I could get of all four of my brood.
Always dancing, always moving, and always talking!
I got sick of being climbed on, so I 'closed' my lap and Lance had to take over. Seriously, there are times I feel like a freakin' jungle gym. It gets to be a bit much, you know?
Tess only liked the creamy center of the mint Oreos. I like the cookie part best, so we made a good pair. (Can you tell I'm a mother of four? I really don't care if my two year old licks out the middle of the cookie!)
Even though it was hot and HUMID all day, it was actually a pretty comfortable night. A big storm was blowing it, which meant it was overcast with a great breeze.
It was pretty typical minor league ball - three home runs by the Indians by the 6th inning. That's okay, it made it very exciting for the kids. We decided to leave at the 7th inning; the storm looked a bit threatening and Tess and Cole were still happy but getting close to melt downs. (Might as well leave on a good note, right?)
Driving home was crazy - there was a huge electrical storm to the north. It was really quite impressive, although not so fun to drive through. I drove because poor Lance was having to deal with some huge issues at work via his phone. I expected everyone to fall asleep - but nope! We got home at 10:30pm and everyone was wide awake and happy. Must've been a fun summer adventure!
Since we aren't going on any big trips this summer we decided to go on several small adventures instead. Our first one was actually last week to the dairy farm, but I can't seem to get around to blogging about that. Dang.
But yesterday we went on our second and decidedly more fun adventure: camping! I know, camping isn't really that adventurous, but it is for us because I had never before been willing to take all four of our kiddos camping.
I like camping. I did a lot of it as a kid and a teenager. But for moms, camping is a lot of WORK. It is anything but a vacation. Instead of just taking some clothes and basic necessities like you do when you stay in a hotel, you have to take everything. Only in smaller form. The prep work beforehand is pretty extensive, and the clean up afterward is enormous.
But. My kids LURVE the father/son campout for church each year, and each year they ask if we can go as a family and each year I have a good excuse not to go. But not this year. So I gave in.
I gave in even more readily when my friend Gigi and I decided that our families should go camping together!
Going with the Reams was one of the best ideas I ever had because 1) our kids have a BLAST together (i.e.; we didn't have to entertain them), and 2) the Reams are expert campers.
We decided to camp at Shades State Park because I had heard it was pretty and its sites were pretty cheap. Fun fact: in Indiana during the summer you HAVE to reserve any campsite for a minimum of 2 nights. Since I knew we didn't want to stay more than one night, I figured the cheaper route was the way to go. (Two nights at Shades was basically half the cost of one night at most other places.)
Fun Fact: Shades State Park used to be known as Shades of Death State park because of some rather bloody Indian battles that took place there and a rather gruesome incident with an axe, a drunken husband, and a wife who had had enough abuse. No, we did not relate these stories to the kids at bedtime.
So yesterday afternoon we met at our house, shuffled children, and drove on down to Shades. Bergen fit right in with our family in our overstuffed minivan.
When we got to the campgrounds we realized why they were so cheap - they were pretty tiny! But the campgrounds were nice enough and really, how much space do you need? We set up camp and decided to go on a little hike down to Sugar Creek.
However, we didn't go on a little hike. Craig lead us on a bit of a detour and our hike got much longer and much more rugged than planned! We probably hiked a good 2 or 3 miles, which doesn't sound that far, but for little kids (and the adults carrying them) who weren't expecting that distance it was a good hike!
We saw a pretty cool snake in a tree and lots of caterpillars all over the place.
Josh was in his element, inspecting everything and just having a great time. What a lovely picture of a mother and son. (No, I am not lovely in this picture. But I love Josh and he loves this picture, so there you go.)
The kids LOVED playing in the little streams we crossed. Tess kept freaking out because we wouldn't let her out of her pack to play. (We never would have gotten her back in.)
After hiking through some pretty cool, rocky ravines we finally made it to Sugar Creek. The kids had a blast chuckin' rocks and getting generally filthy.
Tess was excited to get out of her pack, throw some rocks, and taste the local mud. Yum.
Spencer posing for a shot for his "What I did over summer vacation" PowerPoint presentation he has to give on the first day of school. (Yes! He has a summer project! Fourth grade is going to kill us both!!)
Cole had so much fun that I couldn't get a good picture of him. And do you see that flip-flop wearing foot in the upper left corner? That's Gig's foot. Like me, she thought we were going on just a short, easy walking hike. She rocked it hiking in those flip flops, though! I was quite impressed!
I decided to wade further out into the creek and take an obligatory shot of my foot.
From there I could see Lance giving some fatherly advice about skipping rocks.
I also took an obligatory selfie. Camping hair is so attractive, no?
Hiking back Cole refused help from me. Since Lance was further ahead and carrying Tess, Craig was nice enough to help the boy out. Cole just adored Craig and held his hand behaved so well! The last little easy bit of the hike Craig got ahead of us and Cole lost all his steam. He wouldn't let me carry him and refused to hold hands, so it took Gigi and I quite a while to get back to the campsites. (So long that Lance went out in the car looking for us!)
We got a fire going and made dinner. We were pretty laid back in the food department, but really, are there any better hot dogs than those cooked over a fire? I submit that there is not.
Spencer was frustrated with how long it took to cook a hot dog. Welcome to camp cooking, Spence!
By the time we were making s'mores (my FAVORITE!), the wind really started blowing and thunder could be heard in the distance. We quickly put everything away and got inside before the heavens opened and it began to rain. And by rain I mean POUR. It was a pretty awesome thunderstorm, complete with howling winds, close lightning strikes, and loud thunder.
Cole was not so happy being caged in the tent, but he wisely didn't try to escape. Tess sat on my lap while I dominated Spencer and Lance at Phase 10.
Poor Josh cowered on our air mattress. That poor kid - he's never been a fan of storms.
The worst was soon over, though, and it just rained and rained. I was impressed with how water tight our tent was. It was damp, sure, but we never got wet. Good job, Coleman tent I got on clearance so many years ago!
During the middle of all of this Cole decided he had to go potty. Right then. And that Mommy had to take him. Thanks, Cole. It was so fun getting wet with you walking to and from the lovely-smelling vault toilets.
We entertained ourselves with cards and yelling at Josh and Cole to not jump on our mattress and stopping Tess from running through and ruining our card game. Good times. (It was actually pretty fun.) The highlight, though was watching the raccoons come into our campsite and look for food. Seriously, these were the most brazen raccoons I have ever seen! They were most definitely not afraid of humans. Especially when they knew those humans were not going to come out into the rain to stop them. Fortunately, we had seen them around earlier and had packed everything safely into the minivan.
I tried to take a picture from our tent, but nothing really turned out well. It really wasn't that dark - I just liked the night vision effect.
Those raccoons didn't care how much the kids yelled and screamed and later chased them. They knew we had food and they wanted it.
Well, the rain finally stopped and the kids played for a while the adults chatted. Lance was a good sport and helped an EXHAUSTED Cole get comfortable and fall asleep in the tent. Tess had a grand time, staying up super late and going from lap to lap. Somewhere around this time Spencer totally biffed it on the ground and tore up his knee. It was pretty impressive; I'm kinda thinking he'll have his first scar from this adventure. But that's okay - like Gig told him, chicks dig scars.
The Reams had brought Jiffy Pop, which was a definite favorite of the evening. Who knew popcorn could be so fun? And so tasty, topped with M&Ms and Skittles. Gigi was the queen of excellent snacks for this trip. I hope I can be like her when I grow up.
While we were eating the Jiffy Pop the Reams discovered that the raccoons had knocked over the gallon jug of water on top of their cooler and gotten into it! We could hear Logan calling from the campsite "The raccoons have gotten into our food!" So Gigi went over and we heard her say "Oh no! They've gotten the cheese! And the bacon!" At that Craig sprang into action, saying something along the lines of that the raccoons had crossed a line in stealing his bacon.
It was hilarious. Lance and I sat back and ate popcorn while enjoying the show. Because we're good friends like that. (It was later discovered that the 'ccoons had chewed through the cheese and bacon to get to a bag of chocolate chips, which they then stole along with a Pampered Chef clip that Gigi mourned. Stupid raccoons.)
We finally called it a night and bundled off to bed. It wasn't cold, but it was late and damp and just time for some sleep.
Too bad our neighbors didn't think the same way.
So the campsite on the other side of us had 4-5 guys staying there. Even though their site was nicely set up (tiki torches and everything!) they had been gone all day, including during the rain storm. Their tent didn't have the rain fly on it, so everything they had got soaked. Well, they got back from golfing about the time we went to bed and we could hear them excitedly talk about what they had found. I figured they'd calm down soon enough.
Wrong.
They talked - LOUDLY - ALL. NIGHT. LONG.
Fortunately, the kids all fell asleep pretty easily, but I just couldn't get over how LOUD THEY WERE TALKING. ALL. NIGHT. LONG.
Seriously, I could hear just about every word they said. They were lame private school teachers complaining about teaching and administrators and all sorts of stuff that really should not have been discussed in the MIDDLE OF THE NIGHT. I kinda dozed here and there, but never got any good sleep. Three times during the night I heard other campers go over there and ask them to keep it down. Tess woke up several times because of them, but fortunately I was able to calm her down and get her easily back to sleep.
During this time I also had the joy of listening to a herd of raccoons that went from camp site to camp site, foraging for food. They got lucky with ours since the kids had spilled popcorn everywhere. Those dumb raccoons traipsed around right next to the tent, eating popcorn, lapping up water from the tarp, and getting into snarling raccoon fights.
The raccoons were not even a tenth as obnoxious as those dumb guys next door.
Finally, around 5am - I am not making this up - I had had enough. I was super tired and super grouchy and SUPER IRRITATED with these IDIOTS. So I snuck out of the tent.
Only to discover they had shut up.
So I decided to make a potty run and get back in bed.
They started talking again. I would have started ranting and raving at them, but didn't want to wake the kids. Finally, they fell asleep and I was able to get an hour or two of sleep.
I woke up to discover Tess sleeping like this. Wouldn't it be great to be that comfy?
Oddly, Spencer and Josh didn't want their pictures taken in the morning.
We had a breakfast of champions that morning with Pop Tarts, pancakes, bacon, OJ, chocolate milk, grapes, and bananas. I got to use these awesome cast iron skillets that I inherited from my grandpa, which was pretty cool. We ate and ate and ate because food cooked at camp always tastes better.
Then we chatted and snoozed and basically did nothing while the kids played, which was very nice. We didn't try to keep the kids quiet because everyone in the campgrounds but those idiot loud talkers were already awake, and I felt not the slightest bit of sympathy for them. (They quickly snuck out of camp while we had breakfast, decked out in their golfing finery. Seriously, who goes on a golfing trip and camps?) We had originally thought we would do more hiking or something that morning, but with grouchy Cole and Tess and Spencer's injury, Lance and I decided it would probably be best if we went home instead.
So we started the onerous task of packing and cleaning up. The worst thing about camping is the clean up, because first you have to leave pack up and clean up at the campsite and then you have to unpack and clean up at home. It's a double-whammy.
However, it's a double-whammy I'm willing to deal with because we (and especially my kids) had such a great time. I have been converted to family camping. We had some not-so-fun episodes, but these were certainly overshadowed by the great ones. I'm not saying we're going to go camping all the time now, but we'll definitely go again, and sooner rather than later.
Especially if the Reams are involved, because they are awesome.
(But not those raccoons or the loud talkers. I think next time I'll take a bucket of rocks to throw in case we run into either again!)
