One CrAZY summer!

It has been a crazy summer. First we begin at the end...the end of the school year that is.

Carter's class did a play call the Grammarosaurus. It was all about the finer points of grammar: words (like the difference between who and whom) and punctuation marks (period, comma, semicolon, etc) that they had learned that year.

 

Carter and his friend Jaime were the Marks, the quotation marks that is. They sang a song that included the words, "I am at the beginning and I come at the end, we're Marks, we're buddies we're pals. We always stick together. It can't get any better than this. We're Marks, We're Marks. We're the quotation Marks."

This is Carter with his best pal Josh (who he just found out is moving to Alaska). They have been buddies for 3 years (since kindergarten). 

James' class play was pretty involved. Unfortunately he couldn't go to his evening performance and so they did not give him a costume or speaking part. It was all about the history that they had learned during the year. The theme song was "Greece is the Word". It was a clever play on words and a parody of the song from Grease.  

James signing yearbooks with classmates and his language arts teacher. 

James received an award for academics in excellence (he and I were both shocked!) His teacher said that if his grades were based solely on his test scores, he would have had one of the highest grades. My smarty pants kid hates to do homework (he gets bored too easily). And now...may we present our sixth grade graduate...yes that means I am now mother to a Junior High Schooler. Scary, I know.

Loreli received her graduation diploma (from kindergarten) from the principal. The greatest principal there is by the way. We love her lots! Loreli's class sang some songs at the end. This is my favorite:

Skida marinky dinky dink

Skida marinky doo 

I..

Love...

 You!!!

 

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In June, Carter and I got to go to Cub Scout Day Camp. 12 scouts, 8 and 9 years old. What an adventure that was!!!

 

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In July, my friend Robin and I took my kids up to her parent's place in Oregon. It was a grueling 8 hour drive, but well worth the surprise we got to give her daughter Sydney when we showed up for her birthday!

Syd and Loreli are good friends. During the school year she eats breakfast with us every morning and then catches the bus with the kiddos.

What a great campground! We were so lucky! We were located by all the important things (for example the bathrooms and the showers). 

This little stream was located right behind our tents (in the above pic). The kids played in it nonstop, that is until they discovered all the other things there are to do there. We went miniature golfing, rode in paddle boats at the lake, played on the 200 acre farm, and played (and wasted money) at the arcade/pizza joint. That made Carter's day! Pizza and camping could life get any better?

Bumper boats were a hit even though the pool was not much bigger than the one they swim in at the gym ;-) 

The biggest attraction for my kids was riding the tram to the top of the mountain. 

 What an amazing view of the lake. James did a great job of taking the picture, as I was cowering with my eyes closed until my feet were on solid ground again!

From top: Taylor, James, Bryson, Loreli, Sydney, Carter

 

The kids all made it to the top in one piece and then we hiked a little ways up so that we could feed the chipmunks. They literally ate out of your hands. What a fun experience that was. 

What a cute pic of Robin and Sydney! So glad we got to be there with them! 

Sydney got a dune buggy for her birthday. They have an empty field that they are going to make a track on. How fun is that! Syd was so surprised! 

 

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August has been a busy month! My friend Kristie came (and just like the lame people we are, we forgot photos) with all four of her kids. She stayed with us for two days. It was so much fun to see her and to let the kids hang out. Loreli got to have roommates for the first time ever and decided that it's really okay that she doesn't normally share a room. She was so tired from all the late night giggling that was going on :-)

 

Anyways, in preparation for their visit, we did a lot (a lot) of work on the house. We repainted the upstairs bathroom, repainted and re carpeted the small bedroom upstairs, re carpeted the living room, ordered all new doors for the upstairs, cleaned the backyard and patio (like crazy) and clean the house for pretty much 4 days straight (ewe!). It was nuts. Glad that it's done though. The house has been cleaner since then. I guess the kids figured out that if we don't let it get that dirty, we won't have to clean it. Imagine that!

 

Last week, Scott took the kids to our annual camping trip with the Aardema family. We go to this really awesome campground in the mountains that has cabins to stay in. I didn't get to go this time, due to not having any dog sitters and not to mention breaking my toe/foot (not really sure, just painful). This year they got to do the zip line. Man did they have fun! Being the chicken that I am, I am not to sad to have missed doing that myself, but I would have loved to watch them fly!

 

What a good dad! Not only did he take them camping, but he met them at the bottom of the zipline course. Sure love that guy tons! They are lucky kids to have such a great dad (and mom too, not to toot my own horn)!

 

Whew...done just in time for the next adventure...school starts again on Monday. Wish us luck! With all 5 of us in school, 23 credit hours between Scott and I, and 3 continually crazy kids, we are gonna need all the luck (and blessings) we can get!