Silly girl

So here I am trying to just record a little of our lives even though it's boring on a blog without pictures. Then I picked up our camera yesterday and found all kinds of good stuff on there that I had forgotten about. Sheesh. So now I'm going to have do overload on posts a little bit. Let's start with the Beach. We have gone a little bit but these are from the day after school got out in June. My kids could stay at the beach all day long. Not even the jellyfish phase them anymore. We just have our handy vinegar spray bottle and they come to me when they need to. On this particular day we stayed too long. I really just wasn't aware of the time. And I noticed Kaden's back getting a little red at one point, and tried to reapply sunscreen to everyone, which is very tricky in the middle of water and sand and all their play. Anyway, I got roasted on my back and all my kids were slightly sunburned. Just a little--but I don't remember the last time I have let them get burned and it was very sad to me.

4th of July Weekend

I looked and looked for my camera this weekend, and then saw it in front of my nose while washing dishes last night. Sigh. I really could have used it a few times and now these moment will be all but forgotten. Not really, though. We had such a fun weekend. I love when I don't realize I am going to get a 4 day weekend with Travis and then find out. Friday we did a lot of yard work and housework in the morning and I got to go the the store by myself, and in the evening we went to Ft Monroe "Pool and Beach". It is free on Friday nights, and they have a band playing there. We had never been and were a bit nervous it would just be crowded and crazy, but it was really fun and not too crowded. But this was during that cooler week I was just gushing about, so we did freeze a little and the band, while very neat, was also very loud. We did the beach first and there were a lot bigger waves than we ever see at Yorktown Beach so the boys had a blast playing in those. I just got them all matching sun shirts--that was the best idea for keeping track of them all. Then we went over to the pool and did okay, just partially freezing until they blew the whistle for adult swim, and immediately Micah was screaming. I thought it was because he had to get out, which was partly true, but since my teeth were chattering I did think to wrap him in a towel, and he was SO happy. My little blue boy. So we just headed home. We should try again this week since it's so hot again.

Saturday, Trav played racquetball in the morning, and was supposed to actually be working that evening but we found out the last minute that he didn't have to after all. We went to Costco while he was doing racquetball--I think my kids had more fun there than any other place we may have gone. They had tons of samples and we just took our time and let them try lots of things, and they were in heaven. My kids love to eat. Later we went to our LDS friends on our street for a barbecue and game. They had told us that Poquoson does fireworks every year on Saturday, which would be so perfect and not as crowded, but before we left to go there, the Richeys called us and said they were there and apparently it was not happening this year. So they all came over and we did Smores in our firepit out back. We haven't done a fire for awhile and everyone had so much fun--I think it made up pretty well for not getting to see fireworks.

Sunday, a nice normal Sunday, with a new family in our ward to invite to dinner and we ate yummy waffles with cool whip and blueberries and strawberries. And yesterday we went to the Botanical Gardens, which is always fun. I don't know how much fun Trav had, because it was so HOT. But we made a shorter trip of it than usual. The last time we went we were shocked they hadn't yet opened the Butterfly exhibit--it didn't open until July 3rd. It was sad, but we made up for it this time. There were the hugest caterpillars there that I have ever seen, ones that turn into very big pretty moths. That was the moment I missed the camera the most. Oh well. Last night we had our friend Emily and Keith and there daughter Grace over for dinner, so it's been a full weekend of fun and friends.

We have just one week until our big trip to Washington and Idaho! It kind of snuck up on me. We bought our tickets so long ago, that it's just always been a big future trip. We are getting excited, but I need to start planning!

Busy Busy

Ha, I had pictures after all...

Goodness. How is it that you feel all this freedom in the summer, and have a little more time, and do lots of things, but can't find the time to write about any of it? Maybe a little of it has to do with the fact that I was actually called as the new Primary President in our ward a couple of weeks ago. I feel utterly inadequate and clueless compared to the rest of the world, and I did feel panic up until the moment I was set apart. I know the Lord support and qualifies you for whatever he asks of you, but it still somehow surprised and amazed me to feel the panic dispel, and even though I still feel overwhelmed, it's a whole different state of being from serving as a counselor. And I feel excited about changing things up a bit and making it the best primary I can, and I feel like everything is going to be fine. Well, at least I felt that way until just after I was called, we found out that our Bishop suddenly got orders to move to Idaho, and will be gone in a couple of weeks. Hmmmm. Anyway, there is SO much involved in Primary and so many things our old Primary President did that I never had any idea she was doing. And half of our ward has moved or is very soon moving, so I just keep praying we can get some great families moving in before the end of the summer.



So I already see I am not going to be able to write a hundredth of what I have been thinking I need to write. One thing that I have been so grateful for lately and that brings me such warm feelings, is Noah in the mornings. Okay it's only been the past few mornings, and other times Noah can be such a challenging guy---but Micah has been waking up and I hear Noah go in to get him, and they end up reading books and playing games for an hour before I even see Micah in the mornings. It's so fun to have a child old enough to play with the youngest, and enjoying it at the same time. I think he is just now catching on to how to play with a 2 year old without getting frustrated. And how to not expect that certain 2 year old to be reasonable, and to not get offended when he doesn't react the way that's expected or desired. We are making progress.
Sometimes there is so much bickering and bugging and fighting that I feel discouraged. I love the moments that help me see they really do love and enjoy each other.

My last entry was when we were still in school. I probably have a few picture to post but I'll go through our summer so far.



Scout Camp: Our first whole week out of school. HOT HOT HOT, kids going home early and getting sick the first couple of days from heat exhaustion, but by the end of the week they seemed to adjust and finally take all the water drinking seriously. Trav got to go the first day and I got to go the next day. Noah had a BLAST. I was a little worried the heat would make the negative side of him come out, but he claimed it wasn't hot at all. And he drank and drank and drank and reported to me on the color when he went to the bathroom....



We have only had one normal Summer week since camp, and it's been so nice to not have much of a schedule to work around. Beach trips, park play, painting days, lots of drawing, working on flushing toilets (supposedly it is more difficult to do than I had known), and lots of primary stuff.



Last week was SO MUCH cooler than the couple before and it's been heavenly. We've tried to spend as much outside as possible, and it's amazing how much difference 10 degrees is. This week is supposed to be another killer.

Baseball

A season of baseball over. And here are....the 8 year old champion Cardinals. The championship game was on Tuesday. It was so fun and exciting! I didn't know I would get so stressed out watching my kids play sports....at least not already by the age of 8. My heart pounds and I have to cover my eyes once in awhile. This season has been full of ups and downs for us. We go back and forth between yanking Noah right out of baseball, and knowing it's good for him and he's learning lessons he couldn't learn any other way. (He's just having a harder time learning those lessons than most it seems). His coach described him last night at "intense", so I'll go with that. But really, Noah has improved SOOOOO much from the start of the season. Baseball is so big out here and everyone always seems to have so much experience. And it's hard when you move around and get started later than everyone else. They always do all sorts of intense camps and things, too, and I have been way too cheap for that. Anyway, it's actually been very fun to watch the games at this age (as long as Noah is being happy). I remember back in the day when we tried T-ball and he just played in the dirt and looked for plants and bugs. Now they understand the rules and it just gets really fun. He had a great encouraging coach (who reminds me SO much of my brother in law!), and great teammates. And it's become actually fun to play catch with him, instead of frustrating like it was in the beginning. (I always ended up being the frustrated wonderful example of a mom who just refuses to play anymore--but really I only remember playing catch as being FUN)

That's my son with no hat and shirt untucked. Both a constant battle during the season. I wonder why? He also always walked around with his shoes untied, but not in baseball so I should count my blessings.

Soccer

Really, how did we end up on the white shirt team?......At first I thought it was just a crazy color to make a soccer shirt for kids. But I looked around on this day, and my son was the only one with mud splattered all over his clothes and the others were all still sparkly white. It looked much worse tha the picture shows. Kaden has an uncanny ability to get things very dirty, very fast.

Botanical Gardens

On Monday we cleaned during the day and after naps headed with our friends the Pinegars, to the Botanical Gardens in Norfolk. It was so fun being back there again. It's one of our favorite places and I really wish we lived closer to it. It's right by the airport, so it worked perfectly to go there for a few hours and then drive to the airport and pick Trav up.This was our big exciting find of the day at the Gardens. The snake!

Yorktown Beach

Memorial Day Weekend Trav was gone playing Racquetball in Texas. (My awesome husband won the military tournament there, by the way--that makes me pretty cool by association). Saturday it was supposed to rain but all through Micah's nap that day it was so hot and sunny that we decided on the spur of the moment to make our first beach trip of the year. Noah wanted to go to Virginia Beach...."It has bigger waves, and the other beaches are BORING". Well that's exactly one reason I wasn't taking them there. I don't want bigger waves when I have four kids lives in my hands, plus it's a long drive and down through the tunnel, and way too many people. This is the perfect low key and safe beach, with little inlets blocked off where they can wade out pretty far. Not crazy amounts of people and crowds, and only 20 minutes from the house. Noah definitely wasn't bored. He and Kaden both found friends to play with and explored and gathered all kinds of cool things and we stayed almost 4 hours. Very fun.