A nice day.

We are enjoying having N♡-'s sister (L♡♡) visit with us this summer from Spain.  It is hard to believe that it has already been two weeks since we picked her up at the airport.  Since we have been living at the pool with swim and dive team, I have not been able to take her as many places.  I am also a LOT slower this last month and the heat is getting to me.  Of course with 100 degree days, I think the heat is getting to everyone!  So today I made an effort to get L♡♡ to DC to see the White House and the Jefferson Memorial.  We got very lucky with parking-yeah!! yeah!!! yeah!!! My rule is you take 20 minutes of driving around for free or metered parking and after that you go home or pay.

Constitution Hall.  

We got to park here- this is barely a block from the White House.  See what I mean about getting a great parking spot!!

Elizabeth, Christopher, Rolo, Keener and L♡♡.  Thankfully it wasn't crowded.  Notice there is NOONE else in the photo- not a normal thing.

The White House.  

The  1st lady's vegetable garden is off to the left, but not visible in this picture.

Christopher and Elizabeth

Is it just me or are there a TON of fences in DC!

Of Course no matter where you go, all it takes is 

a simple flower to inspire a child. 

It just proves God knows best.

The National Christmas Tree without all the gaudy decorations. 

Crazy Picture of kids at backside of Jefferson Memorial.  

In Front of Memorial

A Memorial can be fun.

and a little "arty" too.

And to make the day even better for me.  They KNEW who Jefferson was, remembered seeing his home last year and that he sent Lewis and Clark off on their expedition.  Ahhh, a little reward for their teacher!

5 weeks left! Venture to make a guess?

I went to the OB appointment today and the time is coming near for our newest family member to show up.  A very active little one.  I had bruised ribs last week.  I have noticed that if they are active in, then they are active out, so I think I will be running from day 1 with this little one.  Luckily both baby and I are healthy.  I am a LOT like a waddling duck, but it is always worth it.  I am just grateful for our local pool this summer because otherwise I would be miserable in the heat.  It has been difficult to get anything done when it is 100 degrees out.  I do actually like the heat, I say it gets the chill of winter out of my bones.   BUT, there can be too much of a good thing, and I think I have reached that point!  I hope you are keeping cool.
 So, as the countdown begins, I thought I'd share my guess on the sex of the baby since we did not find out.  I am convinced it is a boy. Only time will tell if I am right (probably not!) or wrong.  The Chinese calendar is not on my side and has been correct with 3 of my 4 children.  My OB even said that they once checked 150 women against the calendar and it was 100% correct.  Pretty amazing I have to say.  Feel free to leave a prediction.  I'll even venture a weight guess 8 lbs 1 oz.
Let the guessing begin.


UPDATE:  Now I am frustrated, there is another calendar out there.  Which is the right one.  They are similar, but have small differences,  Of course they would be in the month that makes a difference to me!
Here is the other Chinese calendar #2!

Playday in the park

Today was a GORGEOUS spring day.  I just love the spring weather.   I took the kids to Clemyjontry Park to play on the fully handicapped accessible playground.  I went with my friend Mary (@ Passionate Perseverance) and her daughter Courtney. Courtney was a little sleepy today, but the vitamin D was good for her anyway.  (She has a Vitamin D Deficiency).  Mary and I traded seeds for our gardens.  We are going to be doing square foot gardens this year.  I'll let you know how that works.  I have been very busy planning the garden and getting things ready to plant.  This is my first year using the square foot gardening method.  My sister has used it with a lot of success.  I am looking forward to learning a little more about gardening.  Hopefully I will have LOTS of pictures to share.  I have a lot of experience with flowers and bushes, but not so much with edible plants.  Unless you count the pumpkins I get for free every year by throwing all the pumpkin guts into the garden in the fall after carving them for Halloween.  I would say that pumpkins are SUPER easy to grow, as long as you don't care how many you get!
                   At the park my kids ran, and climbed on EVERYTHING.  You would think that they would be tired, but they came home and played on the new trampoline for hours.  We did manage to sneak in  a little homeschooling via religion class.  The only important class of the week!   I use a Catholic teacher planner from Creative Communications.  It lists the Saints of the day and Holy Days as well as contains the readings for next Sunday.   It also has a word of the week that is contained within the gospel reading. We spend the week pre-reading the scriptures that will be read on Sunday.  It has helped the children to listen and gain a better understanding of what is going on in Mass.  It also has helped them listen with more interest to the homily. I have been very pleased with the information contained in this planner.   It has helped me to stay on track this year.  Something I always need help with!
 

Two rescues at once

I traveled to my friend Mary's house to rescue her from insanity.  The snow is really making it hard to get out around here.  Since I have 4 wheel drive, I asked her if I could come rescue her.  Trust me when I say that I needed it in her neighborhood.  My street is fairly cleared, but she lives further out in our county and hers was in horrible shape.
   We quickly hopped in the car and started to leave her neighborhood.  When we were almost at the exit to the neighborhood, I saw a little boy peeking his head out of the snowbanks.  He was around 3.5 - 4 years old, wearing pajamas and shivering.  I stopped, honked my horn (to alert him and his parents).  He stopped, but there was no adult around.  We rolled down the windows and asked him if he lived at that house.  He did not.  Then we asked if he lived nearby, "No I lives far away".

Uh, oh!

So we quickly go into mommy mode.  Mary gets out and tries to talk with him and also talks with a neighbor from a few houses down.  The neighbor does not recognize the boy and says he does not live in the houses next to her.

Double Uh, oh!

While Mary talks to the boy to try to calm him, get his name and a location of where he is supposed to be, I call 911 and talk to the dispatcher.  While I am on the phone the boy bolts out running.  Mary chases after him and I follow in the car.  Another neighbor joins in the chase to help this boy while I remain on the phone with the dispatcher.  I had to stop at the street intersection, in order to pull over and allow cars to pass and be at a location the police could easily recognize.  Mary and neighbor #2 are no longer in sight.  I waited anxiously for her to return.  When she does, the news is not a great big happy reunion story.  The boy ran to a house and she knocked on the door.  No one answered. She turned the handle to see if it was open (it was) and the boy darted into the house.  She yelled to see if anyone was home.  A man came to the door, not all himself.  Mary was not sure if he had been asleep or if he was using some mind altering substance. He did not seem concerned for the boy, or appear that he had been looking for the boy.  He barely addressed her when she asked if the boy belonged here.  He answered her with, "Yes. He's in daycare." Close door and lock it.
Uhhh, in my book a THANKS is in order.  Even a little bit of concern over the boy being lost????

When Mary gets back to the car and relays this to me, I know in my soul that there is only one thing to do.  It is not to call the police and say the boy has found his home, and get on with our day.  The right thing is to stay and wait for the police and explain the situation.  Is the man sleepy? in an altered state?  Is he fit to provide daycare to this child?  I did call back the dispatcher and alerted her to the change of situation and that we would be willing to wait.
    The police arrived shortly.  They were driving a school security SUV instead of the standard police car.  They had a chuckle with us about being "real cops" in a borrowed car.  (Due to all the snow, any county SUV was being put to use for other purposes).  I was glad to have police officers that were friendly, but diligent.  They took all our information and went to investigate while we waited for them to return.  When they did return they told us, that the wife was actually the day care provider.  They told the police that they were starting to look for the boy when he came back, and that he had not been gone for long. This is not true.  Based on where the boy was located, he had to have been out of the house for at least 15 minutes.  Think about how long it would take a typical curious boy to meander around and travel about 2-3 blocks.  15 minutes is a fair estimate.  Not to mention that a daycare provider should have child safety locks on the doors.  The police were able to assess that the man was not under the influence and had probably just awoken when Mary knocked on the door.  They were filing a report, were notifying Child Protective Services, and were going to call the mother of the boy to inform him of the event.   This is the best result that we can hope for.  At least the mother was informed and if anything else happens with this daycare, there is a report filed.
   I am no perfect parent and these things can happen to all of us, but I know that I would never feel comfortable leaving my child at that daycare again.  I think that your minimum expectation from a daycare provider is the safety of your child.  I can only say that I wish that little boy the best of luck and I am glad that Mary and I stopped to rescue him.

After that hour detour,  I was finally able to rescue Mary!

Snowmageddon, Will somebody please shoot that groundhog!

I created this poster with a program from http://www.studentposters.co.uk/templates.html  and a picture from www.tech4kids.files.wordpress.com. 

I am feeling a little sick of all the snow.  Our third snowstorm this week brought us the "Snowmaggedon" We had already had 4 inches last Saturday and 4 inches on Wednesday.  I know all you people from Buffalo, NY and North Dakota are telling us to just calm down, but it's a LOT of snow for us.  We don't all have snow tires, chains, snowmobiles and snowblowers only SOME of us have shovels, and the very few have snowblowers.  This is not normal for us, and no it's not due to global warming or climate change (Please! What a bunch of malarkey!).  It's because we were due a big storm or two, or three, or .....       I just think there are cycles to weather and we drew the snow card this year.   That said, my back is hurting from all the shoveling and saying that I am tired would be an understatement.  Honey and I have shoveled around 30 inches of snow from the driveway and sidewalk and cleaned off the cars.  He did a lot more work than I did, and it is moments like this that I am SO grateful that I have such a hardworking man for my husband.  I don't know what I'd do without him. (Well, maybe I do... but let's not repeat last year.  I'm SOOOO much happier with him home!)

I am going to leave you for now with our pictures from all the snow, but if you see any groundhogs, would you PLEASE shoot them.  I don't think I can bear much more of this... of course there is the storm that's coming on Tuesday (sigh, sigh, sigh.......)

This is actually from the Wednesday storm.

This is also from the Wednesday storm, but such a sweet smile!

You know you have a lot of snow if you come out for the second round of digging and the snow is taller than the blade of the shovel.

Take 2 of digging, Can you even tell?

Rolo climbing on the pile of shoveled snow! 

He's almost as tall as the Suburban now!

Our neighbors.

Elizabeth begins her tunnel.

Two littlest ducks in the snow.

Notice the pajamas that Keener is wearing.  Somebody snuck outside.  About 5 seconds later she starts to cry because she is cold.  Duh!

Rolo sitting on a pile of snow, he is having so much fun.  There are bushes underneath all that snow!

Our street looking west.

Our street looking east

After Digging the 2nd round, one more to go!

Front of house.

The bricks are almost covered!

Playground out back.

My path to the bird  feeders.  I refilled them.  Where else are the birds going to get food?

Back Door, we are not even bothering to try to get out here.

Back view of house.

That orange thing is the top to the T-ball stand.

I love icicles!

This lamp looked like it was wearing one of those Russian hats.  Made me smile.

After taking this picture I promptly shoved my way through the gate beside it and promptly brought all that snow down on my head.

This is one of many measurements.  Unfortunately we are having camera trouble, but we had about 28 inches of snow in 24 hours!

See my foot way down there, it was hard to walk through this snow to take pictures.

Luckily I had my path to walk back through.

I hope that you enjoyed them.  Whew! I'm tired!

One last Trial before the end.

I woke up today and didn't want to move. My back was and is killing me! But I have lots to do before Honey gets home TOMORRROW!!! I need to keep the house clean, find a dog sitter, pack for the beach and the most necessary - the car must be cleaned. It's waited too long. It's been sitting & festering in the hot summer sun too many days. All the kids melted madness in the backseat was started to smell.... The most disgusting thing is not the yuck that is unidentifiable, but the chicken nuggets and french fries that look not one day older. Makes you wonder what it's really made of?!

After quickly cleaning Honey's car. I started on the Suburban. First I had the kids get all their stuff out (while I cleaned Honey's car). Then I had to pick up all the sticky change($) that they seem to accumulate in the backseats and in crevices. I also try to get things put away during this phase and strip the car seats so they can be cleaned as well. Next it was onto the vacuuming. There is a LOT of space in the Suburban and I normally have to make a few passes with the vacuum because of all the fries, crackers, candy, stickers, crayons, you name it!. Yuck! Yuck! Yuck! Just when I was almost done with the vacuuming it started to pour down raining. Why does this always happen to me? So I of throw the rest of the vacuum in the car, go unplug it so I won't get electricuted (that would be my luck!), throw all the miscellaneous junk into the house and grab the keys so I can roll up the windows. I come back to the car, put the keys in the ignition, turn on the car, but it won't start! I know it's not the battery (I already replaced that while Honey was gone!). So, I called roadside assistance to come give me a jump. Apparently, I took an exceptionally long time cleaning the car! ... and I'm still not done! I still have to scrub the gunk off the seats and reinstall the car seats.

Who knew that you could spend so much time cleaning the car that you could wear down the battery?

For some other of my bad luck before vacation stories, visit "Family Oldie," "Why to Not Travel with us!" or "The Rest of the Story."

A/C in DC

          So here it is July 2nd and I have turned on the A/C 1 time for 1 day.  Would someone please explain to me about global warming again?  Not that I'm complaining.  I LOVE the weather.  The windows are open and I get fresh air, oh I love it!  Love it! Love it!   But seriously now, my A/C is my comfort that I really could not live without.  I don't think I could handle living 100 years ago because of no A/C.  I could handle the no dishwasher, no washing machine, no car, no freezer, no TV  but the no A/C---- well that is one thing I would put right at the top of the "Honey Do List" if his name was Adam and mine was Eve.  On the downside, it is a little cool to go to the pool, but we are still chilling out at home after our long trip and enjoying being vegetables.  Since I do not allow TV until 5 pm, the kids have been playing with their toys and on the backyard playground (aren't I the MEANEST mom EVER!) ... and me, well, I've been watching the pile of laundry grow.  Where is that laundry fairy when you need her?

Love hate relationship with rain

          Yesterday was a little scary.  I took the kids to their Lacrosse practice before CCD (like usual).  Then I went to fill up the car with gas.   I was on empty and hoping that the car would not stall because it had no gas.  (This is something that Honey does for me since I hate doing this.)  When I finished filling up and was driving back home, I saw lightning and a storm coming.  I knew I needed to hurry and get the kids from their practices. Of course I then had the pleasure of sitting in our horrible traffic (I SOOOOO want to move from here!!) while the downpour with thunder and lightning was going on.  I was very  anxious over the safety of the kids.  Of course they were safe, because their coaches are intelligent people that would not let them remain outside in the storm; but Christopher's practice area has no building to hide out in, so I was very concerned about where they would be.  I love thunderstorms, I just don't love it when my kids are out in them.  

          One of my favorite things to do is curl up in a chair with a  book on a rainy day.    It is actually one of the things I did not like about Hawaii.  (And I LOVE Hawaii!!)  Hawaii has very few thunderstorms a year (about 5).  So while we lived in Hawaii I really missed them.  I was really glad when we moved to Norfolk and were able to have a good thunderstorm.  The best part about Norfolk was the covered front porch where I could sit on the swing and read while it rained.  It just goes to prove that simple things in life can make a soul happy.  So in honor of Earth Day, go read a book Hmm, maybe that's not very really earth friendly, but go read a book anyway.  It's good for you!

Let it Snow!

 Home Sweet Home

Yeah! Finally the kids got snow this winter.  We were visiting with Daddy in South Carolina during the last snowstorm, so the kids have not had the chance to play in the snow.  7 Inches!   Boy were they thrilled.  I, of course, had a Chiropractor appointment,  so I had to go shovel the 7 inches of snow to get out!   

     Elizabeth stayed outside forever!  The boys on the other hand thought 10 minutes was fine.   Oddly enough our Hawaiian born dog LOVES the snow.  She frolicks and jumps in the snow like a kid herself.   The snow did give us the opportunity to make Laura Ingalls Snow Candy (Little House Cookbook) .   I remember making this when I was little.   It is sooooo easy, so here's the recipe.

1 cup Dark Molasses

1/2 cup Brown Sugar

 

4 nine inch cake pans filled with snow

1  two quart pan

1 spouted ladle or small heatproof pitcher

1 cup with cold water (To test for hard ball stage of candy

or you city folk can use a candy thermometer if you must!)

Combine Molasses and Sugar.  Heat on Medium heat on the stove.  Stir to prevent burning.    When it reaches hard ball stage, pour on snow in patterns.  Eat when cooled.  

The kids loved making the candy, but don't like the flavor of the molasses.  Oh well, sometimes the adventure is the journey not the destination.

   The kids do love eating the icicles