A New School Year 8/26

On August 26th, Charlie and Matthew started 4th and 2nd grade. After a great summer, we were all excited to see this day arrive. Matthew has Mrs. Owan this year and so far, so good. We were surprised he didn’t get the teacher Charlie had for second grade but she seems like a good fit for him (calm and structured). He is adjusting to the school life again and the homework battles have been minimal.

Charlie’s is attending a new school for 4th grade. He is going to the Highly Gifted Center at Clearspring Elementary in Damascus, Maryland. This was a BIG decision for our family because while there are obvious benefits to the program, it also includes an hour long bus ride each way for Charlie. In the end we decided Charlie could make the choice (we felt both options were fine) and he decided to try it out. His teacher is Mrs. Marama and she has A LOT of energy. He’s been going for about a month now and while the bus ride is really long (he reads a lot), he is being challenged in new ways and has already gone on a field trip to a museum in Baltimore where he saw “a lot of naked statues.” I’ll call it a win!

Matthew wasn’t looking forward to riding the school bus without Charlie but that problem has now been solved. Charlie has a friend down the street who is also attending the same school as he. The boys have to catch a bus about 4 minutes from our house every morning (a different bus than what the traditional students take).  I wasn’t looking forward to getting everyone in the car for this drop off every morning so I was happy to make a trade with our neighbor’s parents. Their younger son stays and plays at our house until he and Matthew walk to the bus together and they take Charlie to his bus every morning with their older son. Win, win!!

Cute boys.

This little girl wishes she was starting Kindergarten but is starting preschool in October. Until then she is keeping things interesting at home.

Calvert Cliffs 8/24

The Saturday before school started Seth’s lab planned a family hike at Calvert Cliffs State Park to the Chesapeake Bay. We were all very excited for one very last hoorah before the new school year (we seemed to have a lot of last hoorahs).  Unfortunately, it was pouring rain when we woke up Saturday morning. All of his lab mates quickly bailed on the trip but we had everything ready to go, and with four kids that’s a big deal. We decided to go anyway because this State Park is 1 1/2 hours south west on the bay, and the weather forecasted there was more favorable. We loaded everybody in the van and took the gamble. After our previous summer excursions, rain doesn’t scare us too much.

The weather was actually perfect when we arrived and not hot and humid like it often is in August. We fed everybody lunch and started our 2.8 mile hike from the entrance to the park to the bay. It was a beautiful hike and perfect for kids. We had no backpack carrier for Conrad but he kept up well and got a piggyback at the end.

Our favorite part was hiking through a marsh land filled with Lilly pads.

Lucy finally found a throne worthy of her.

It was complete jubilation when we finally spotted the water. This particular area is known for having shark fossils. We didn’t find any but we founds lots of interesting shells and rocks. The water was warm and the kids jumped right in.

Beach Bums

The rain did eventually catch up to us but a warm drizzle on our way back wasn’t too bad. Seth and I traded off carrying a sleeping Conrad and I was able to prove to myself that I am stronger than I used to be because I was able to lug him for so long, next time we’ll remember the backpack!

It was a great family activity and we even stopped at IKEA on the way home because it was on the way and we had some returns to make. I took Conrad in the bathroom with me and he was the happiest I have ever seen him washing his hands in a sink made for his size.

Winding Down the Summer.

 

August was a blur. Our weather was unbelievably mild but we still hit the pool almost every day. Having older kids definitely adds intensity to summer vacation. There were fewer days of lounging around playing with toys and more days on the move.

Matthew outgrew his bike and passed it down to Lucy. Conrad decided he wanted the bike as well and now they both claim it as their own. I left Matthew outside with Conrad and came back with Matthew pulling him up and down the sidewalk with some rope. What would we do without older brothers? (I love the jammies Conrad is wearing because ALL my kids have warn them for consecutive years)

We spent a rainy afternoon at an indoor bounce house with friends. The kids were absolutely exhausted when we left- perfect!

I can’t admit to how many McDonalds Ice-cream cones my kids ate this summer. It just seemed that the next logical step after an activity was a McDonalds drive-through.

We went to the “Splash Pad and Mini Golf” in Germantown the Friday before school started. The kids had never mini golfed before but enjoyed the experience. Charlie and Matthew where into the shots and angles while Conrad and Lucy just ran around hitting their balls at will. The splash pad was deserted because a storm was moving in. We were able to play for an hour before we ran for cover.

I did a lot of running with some great women. On this occasion we ran to get froyo in celebration of Erin’s birthday.

Nancy was gone for most of the summer so it was complete jubilation when she returned! With our move, we are now up the street from her so we don’t get to see her as much which is sad for everyone. She was kind enough to bring her lawn mower over and mow our little patch of grass, I love kind neighbors.

Assateague Island 8/14

The week after we moved into our new home we took a family vacation to the beach. I was dreading this trip because I felt there was still so much for us to do to get organized around the house but I’m so glad we went anyway. Sitting on a beautiful beach and playing in massive waves is good for the soul. Assateague Island is a barrier island located on the Eastern shore of Maryland. It’s a state park so it’s not built up with hotels like its counterpart Ocean City. We drove over the bridge Friday morning and set up our tent shortly after we arrived. It rained almost the entire drive so we were all nervous how it would all work out. Thankfully we only had a few sprinkles on the beach and enjoyed overcast skies and high 70s! The waves were also massive and we even saw a few people trying to surf. Matthew was a big fan of the waves, he stayed out in the water the entire time we were there.

That evening the sprinkles continued but we were able to roast our hot dog and smores. We all went to sleep early and that’s when the real fun started. The rain picked up but we had our rain fly on so I figured we were fine. Seth and I both woke up around 2am to heavy rain and strong winds.  I was nervous the tent would blow over but it never did. We were both surprised that our kids continued to sleep though the loud noise of the rain and wind. Eventually our water proof tent began to fail and the water started seeping in. Seth and I were on higher ground on an air mattress so wet kids started popping in our bed. Eventually there was five of us on a queen air mattress. Conrad slept the longest in his pack n play in the middle of the tent and also stayed the driest. Matthew actually crawled into his pack n play after he woke up to enjoy a dry spot. We all napped for a few hours and then once the rain stopped around 5:30 we decided it was a good time to break camp (there was more rain forecasted throughout the day). We had some massive garbage bags we loaded with the wet tent, sleeping bags, and pillows. By 6:30 we drove 20min into town for some breakfast at Dunkin Donuts.

So, what to do with a family of 6 at 7am? In Matthew’s first grade class, Matthew’s teacher told them all about Ocean City, Maryland. In Matthew’s mind, Ocean city was the greatest place on earth and he asked us often when we would take a visit. Ocean City was only about 30 min from Assateague so that’s were we went. We walked along their boardwalk at 7am with all the joggers. We rented a surrey (bicycle car) and rode it farther down the boardwalk. All the kids loved taking turns to drive it. After we returned it we all bought candy at a local candy place called The Candy Kitchen. We had thought about staying at Ocean City to swim but quickly realized Assateague was the place to be. We drove back over and spent the rest of the day playing in the water before driving home that night.

Matthew made it to Ocean City, Maryland!

I sadly have no picture of our family driving the surrey because my phone died.  Thankfully I do have a stock photo and Seth’s photo editing skills so you get the idea of what we looked like on this contraption. It was  a lot of fun to drive and we were able to cover a lot of distance with it. I loved the little front seats for Lucy and Conrad. 

I think it’s funny how Charlie and Matthew both claim their favorite memory of the summer was sleeping in the wet tent while it rained. I’m grateful they found the fun in something unpleasant.

July in a flash!

Summer always goes by fast but this one is going by REALLY fast. Here are the highlights of July.

July 4, 2014

July 4, 2011

We celebrated our three year anniversary of living in Maryland!  A lot has happened in three years!

Our ward hosted their annual 4th of July breakfast. We made another trip to the dollar store to buy stuff for the kids to bling out their bikes for the parade. Charlie opted to decorate his roller skating this year, I loved roller skating as a child and am happy he enjoys it as well.

After the parade and breakfast we pulled out the jump ropes. It’s crazy to think that we were able to jump rope happily outside in July but the weather was heaven with low humidity.  There was even a band playing patriotic music for the parade.

On the afternoon of the fourth, Seth took the older kids swimming and I relaxed at home while Conrad slept. We drove into DC shortly before the fireworks started and pulled of the side of rode by the Pentagon to watch. For the amount of effort we put into the experience, the payoff was great. We got turned around coming home because they closed some freeway entrances but it still took us about the same amount of time it took us to come home from the Rockville Firework show last year.

We celebrated 7-11 with free Slurpees and also hit up Chick-Fil-A for free dinner that evening by dressing up as cows. I sadly neglected to get a group picture.

The kids took more rounds of swimming lessons and they all improved. Matthew got bumped up to Charlie’s class which but he rose to the challenge by perfecting his front crawl and kick. Charlie can freestlye across the entire length of the pool!! Lucy……..finally put her head under the water. We had four rules for her every day and we recited them in the car: 1. No crying 2. Stay in the pool 3. Keep your goggles on and 4. listen to your teacher!! If she obeyed all the rules we went to McDonalds for ice cream cones. Out of eight lessons we got cones twice. Hopefully next year goes better.

Other than swim lessons we were able to spend more time at the pool playing. Conrad’s two favorite things in the world are his friend Willa and blueberries. He would eat them all if I let him.

Before and After

I entered an online weight loss competition with some friends in May. It lasted for eight weeks and ended on July 18. I ended up winning 10th place and $150 bucks!! Not only could you win for percentage of weight loss but you could also win for accumulation of points. You earned points every day for healthy behaviors like exercising, eating fruits and veggies, drinking lots of water, and more. Crazy thing……eating less and exercising more really does lead to weight loss!

Kids entertaining themselves  and box forts!

At the end of July  was the climatic point of our whole summer which was our move down the street. This move really didn’t need to happen. The owners of our townhome decided they wanted to move back into the townhome so they would not renew our lease…..then they changed their mind. By the time they decided to re-rent it we had already signed a new lease and given our new landlord a lot of money. So, we moved and then new renters moved in a week later.

Old Home

New Home

The move itself wasn’t too bad because we had an overlap of the places so we were able to make trips in the minivan a few times a day and unload it. By the time the day came to actually “move” we only had furniture left. I tried to put stuff away as it came in so we were able to reuse boxes. Our new home is also almost identical to our old home so that made the configuration of things a lot easier. We have a more open floor plan upstairs and we have color on our walls which are both improvements.  We don’t have an oven but that’s just a small detail we will laugh about some day.

Right in the middle of our move week, we celebrated Seth’s birthday! We needed some fun and loved celebrating the star of our family. This man is everyone’s favorite and we are so grateful for all he does. For his birthday I arranged for us to go play racquet ball together. We hadn’t played since we were in college but it all came back. Seth killed me once again but it was still fun!

The week after we moved Charlie went to cub scout camp for four days. He loved it all but especially archery and shooting. He would give us a play-by-play of all of his shots when he returned.

We also went to the library a few times where the kids checked out an insane amount of books with many of those being Garfield books. I’m not sure how it got started but Charlie, Matthew, and Lucy have all become completely obsessed! It started with the books and then they discovered the show on Netflix. Lucy always wants me to read them to her even though most of the time I don’t think she understands the jokes but she laughs anyway.

The weather has been ideal this summer! We have had some warm days but we have also had some really mild low humidity days. We stopped at the park one morning after dropping Charlie off at cub camp and it was barely 60 degrees and the kids were shivering.