The Very Flooped (Bored) Children

In the afternoon of a Friday, 4 children finished school.One Sunday morning, the warm sun came up and !wow! they just weren't sure of what to do now!
They started to get flooped.On Monday, they went swimming, but they were still flooped.
On Tuesday, they went to Magic Mountain, but they were still flooped.
On Wednesday, they went to the library, but they were still flooped.
On Thursday, they went to the beach, but they were still flooped.
On Friday, they played with their friends, but they were still flooped.
On Saturday, they went to baseball practice, the movies with their friends, a birthday party, went for a bike ride, and blew up water balloons. That night they were tired.
On Sunday, they went to church and rested, and after that they felt much better.
Now they weren't flooped anymore, but excited about the rest of the summer.
They made plans, talked with friends, busted through the floopiness, and......
They had a great start to the summer!

Summer Couldn't be Funner

Whew, the first week of summer!! I was looking forward to the first week of summer when all of the scheduled events would be over and maybe I could accomplish a few things in my life. What was I thinking? I forget how summer has a life of it's own. For the kids, there are lazy days with not much to do, peppered by days where mom takes them on an adventure. There is no such laziness for me as I try to pack in all of my normal activities while taking a few days off for adventure! But truthfully, I really do enjoy summer when the schedule is lax, and I can go on adventures with my children. It really is my favorite time of year. So if I don't get around to dusting the living room, oh well. I only have so many summers with my children left in my future and I am not going to miss any of them.
This week, Maddie headed off to girls camp. We were sad to be missing our Maddie, Gabe asked where she was every morning when we gathered for scriptures. I will try to convince her to write about her adventures.
Jayd still has baseball practice everyday, so we had to curb our activities and be home before 4:00 so he could eat something and be on time to practice at 4:30.
My goal is to take Allie and Gabe swimming at least twice a week. They need to practice swimming, especially Gabe who informed me that he has forgotten how to swim.
But we had a great first week of summer, and am looking forward to all the weeks that are coming. For a more detailed account, see The Very Flooped Children article.

Graduation

To mark the end of another academic milestone, there was an 8th grade promotion ceremony for Maddie this week. The ceremony was held at the school in the amphitheater during school hours. So Jayd was in school (watching movies in homeroom) while the 8th graders were graduating 100 yards away. Since I had to take Jayd to school, I just stayed and reserved some seats. We had front row seats (although that didn't prevent parents from standing in front of us to snap a quick picture of their student). I was very impressed with the whole procession. To announce the 600 students, they employed two sides of the stage and alternated calling out the students names. This way, they were able to go very quickly. The principal stood in the middle and just swiveled back and forth to shake everybody's hand. I would have been seasick by the end if I were her. But we were happy to see her officially graduate, and it was fun to see her celebrate with her friends afterward. Next year, my little girl is off to the high school.

Hooray for the Red, White and Blue

As is tradition, the last week of school was full of activities. We had awards ceremonies for everyone, except for Gabe (they don't give out awards to 1st grade). We also had the flag celebration for Gabe. It is traditionally done on Flag Day, June 14, but since we wouldn't be in school on this day, they performed early. The 1st and 2nd graders wear red white and blue and arrange themselves in a flag. Then they sing patriotic songs and give patriotic speeches. It is very cute, and I will get to see them perform again next year, bringing the grand total of performances to 7!

Too Many Hay Day's

Last October, the activities committee chairperson of our ward asked if I would be willing to store some hay bales in my yard until December. They were for the hay rides at the ward Christmas Party. So I dutifully drove my truck down to the school, loaded up 12 hay bales by myself (in two trips) and neatly stacked them in my yard. I covered them to protect them from the rain, and babysat them for two months. About the time of the party, the Bishop informed the chairperson that we would NOT be having any hay rides. Understandable, except that I still have a dozen hay bales in my front yard. I asked the activities committee to come and do something about this, but it must have slipped their minds. I asked everybody I knew if they wanted them, several people expressed interest, but no one appeared to take any. By April, I didn't know what to do. So I decided to just try and put one in my yard waste can, and see what would happen. It didn't really fit, there was more of the hay bale sticking out of the can than was actually in the can, but I hauled it down the driveway. They actually took it away! To date, they have taken 10 of the 12 hay bales (it is quite an exercise in patience, diligence and brute strength to put one in the garbage each week), and I keep expecting the garbage man to knock on my front door any day and tell me to stop putting hay bales in my yard waste can. But I think that I just might be rid of the things in less than a year, and I have had a good laugh about the whole thing.

Bridging for Brownies

Allie moved up a notch in the world this weekend. Her Brownie troop "bridged", a symbolic gesture to indicate that the girls are no longer cute little brownies, but full fledged, ready to take on the world juniors. It was a nice little ceremony to commemorate all the fun that they have had, and usher in a new era of their Girl Scout experience. Plus, they had a rocking pool party afterward!

Camping

After several mis-communications, resulting in 15 total hours of driving to camp 80 miles from home, we brought the family together and spent a nice afternoon and evening camping this weekend. We went to the Los Padres National Forest in the Santa Barbara area. Our campsite was quite remote (which accounted for 6 hours of the driving), but very beautiful. It was surrounded by oaks trees which provided plenty of shade. There was a nice creek about 70 yards from our campsite with a gravel beach alongside. We walked in the creek and built a dam and skipped rocks. In the afternoon we drove up the road to the "hot springs". They had built a few pools and piped the hot water into the pools. I was expecting something mildly lukewarm, but those pools were downright hot! They were hotter than the water in my shower! I couldn't even get in because they were so hot. I was quite amazed. We went for a long creek walk where we were able to see all sorts of wildlife, tadpoles, frogs, turtles and even a water snake. We topped of the evening with a round of the card game spoons, and s'mores.