The Weekend of Flowers and Fire

The first thing we did upon arrival in West Virginia was admire Karen's flower garden. Aliza said, "The Garden Tour is HERE!" It sure was! We had Brandi's birthday to celebrate and plenty of play time. Aliza, Josiah and Anna sure look forward to playing with Joel and Brandi. Anna gets Brandi all to herself while Aliza and Josiah play all kinds of chasing games with Joel that include all manner of imaginative intricacies.

Everyone was commenting on the shade of Anna's hair color after supper. I had to confess that she had put a bunch of product in her hair before we left--lotion, lip gloss and mineral oil!

Saturday morning the ladies were off to the Shepherdstown Garden Tour and Tea. It was a very enjoyable tour. Karen is knowledgeable about flowers an,d Brandi and I, we just enjoy the sights. Iris were the flowers that were really blooming in so many varieties of color.

Van has built a fire pit and has collected large stumps for stools to sit on. Josiah was a most enthusiastic helper to get a fire started for smores. It was just the right kind of chilly for a fire.

Just cool enough that a blanket felt good. Of course I only packed summer attire. Ah well. Everyone survived!

Suffice to say, Aliza did not enjoy the fire so much. Sometimes I'm not sure what I'm going to do with that girl! =)

I'm so happy to have my parents close by to live life with, but it's sure fun to have far away Grandparents too. We get to do so many extra fun things with them that aren't part of normal life. We got home just in time to go to my parents house to celebrate my sister-in-laws birthday. Yay!

Summer is in My Sights

 My head is so congested. I can't breathe. I'm mostly miserable. However, we have exactly 8 days of school left and I am hoping that Aliza does not get this cold because I do not want to have to miss a day of school! You see, I don't count days of school--we finish the curriculum. (But maybe I should count days because I think finishing the curriculum put us at less than 180)

Anyway, I've been feeling the tension increasing between Aliza and I. Last week Aliza became adamant that she wanted to visit a real school. In her words "so I can decide if I want to go to school in 2nd or 3rd grade." This brings up the interesting discussion of when a child reaches the level of maturity in which they can choose where to attend school. Aliza and I had a chat. I asked her what she thought she could do at school that she couldn't do at home. She said, "eat out of a lunchbox." It boiled down to a genuine curiosity of what was inside a school building. Fair enough. The next day I called and scheduled a tour at my preference of school. It happens to be where my high school diploma is from. Aliza, Anna and I visited the school last week and I was very scared that Aliza would manage to embarrass me with her behavior. I'm happy to say that she didn't! We visited with the principal and then spent a few minutes in the 1st grade classrooms. My impression was the room was very very quiet! The students were having individual reading time. I noticed that the students were all reading chapter books. Aliza noticed that all of the students had a lollipop! I assured her this was a special thing because they were reading for Library Week.  Aliza's comment when we got to the car was how big the building was. She didn't have a whole lot else to say. I decided I wouldn't ask a lot of questions and instead just listen to see what she brought up and what she told other people. As of now, she hasn't said another word about going to school.

Instead Aliza's focus quickly changed to learning how to sew. It came out of the blue to me, I'm not sure where she picked up the idea. Actually, she had a whole business plan originally which made me instantly want to clean bathrooms. Thankfully her plan included her Grandma teaching her how to sew. That's what happened. Grandma thought the best thing to do first would be to learn to sew a straight line. Logical. Aliza is NOT a perfectionist. She sewed a less than straight line, but it was straight enough for her and she was ready to learn curves. Ultimately Aliza wanted to sew designs on fabric. She took a pencil and drew a bride and groom (her aunt just got engaged) and proceeded to sew the teeny tiny shapes--at full speed--calling every 3 seconds for Grandma to rethread the machine or help with some other mishap. I have yet to get my sewing machine out for her! She had a ball and was pleased with the product.

After so much frustration the last couple weeks and moaning during yesterday's reading lesson, I was ready to fall over when, as soon as we finished said reading lesson, Aliza picked up a handful of books and headed outside to read--alone!--for fun!! It was a profoundly satisfying moment. One that gave me much hope for the future.

Family of Fisherman

My Dad is the Grandad who gives each of his grandchildren a fishing pole in the hospital the first time he sees them. He grew up fishing with his dad and brother and I remember being on the water at a very young age with him when we lived in Florida. When my uncle visits from New Mexico it means a fishing trip is on the agenda.

This time Dad chartered the Karen Ray II out of Crisfield. It's one of his favorite boats. The boat was filled with my Dad, my Grandad, my uncle, Jeremy, Josiah, Brian, Caleb and Jeff. I was approached with the possibility of Josiah going along a couple weeks before the trip. It took me a few days to wrap my head around that one! They go 2 hours out in the bay. They get up before dawn to leave the dock at 6am. I knew that it was the chance of a lifetime for Josiah to go. Only family on the boat and it turned out to be a perfect weather day for fishing. We ended up having to sortof tell Josiah that he WAS going. He needs some encouragement to try new things sometimes. I'm so glad he went. From all the reports it was an amazing day on the water.

The little boys had to help their Daddy's reel. You'll see...the fish were huge!

When Josiah got home, he came running to me saying, "Mommy, I caught a huge whopper!"

They caught Rock Fish and all measured 38-40 inches.

My Uncle Jay from New Mexico.

The captain brought his dog along for the day. My children have an irrational fear of dogs. So Josiah had a bit of a rough start. I overheard him tell Aliza that Caleb protected him from the dog.

My Dad couldn't have been happier fishing with his Dad, brother, son, sons-in-law and grandsons. I'm pretty sure this is as close to heaven for him as he can get on earth.

Everyone slept on the ride back to the dock.

I packed Josiah all kinds of food to eat on the boat and he ate next to nothing so he was quite grumpy when he got home. He was really funny describing the fish wiggling and squiggling after they were caught. He wasn't sure he wanted to even get close to the fish for pictures.

Unfortunately Brian missed the picture--he had to pick up his family for supper.

The men cleaned those fish in short order and Mom and I packaged them for the freezer. Wow! We have a lot of fish to eat. 

Mom served my Gramma's traditional post fishing trip meal. Fried fish, boiled potatoes with brown butter, corn, and rolls.

Celebrating Laura

 My sister, Laura, received her certificate in hotel-motel-restaurant-management from Wor-Wic Community College. I was happy to be there to celebrate with her.

 Little did I know, the bigger celebration was yet to come!

Laura called me that night at 10:30 to tell me that John proposed to her and she is engaged!!! I am sooo happy for her. One more wedding to plan....my last sibling getting married. The first time I met John I knew they would get married. He fits into our family in an uncanny way. He will make a great husband for Laura, and a great brother-in-law and uncle!

Wedding in Pennsylvania

 Last weekend my cousin got married at her parent's home in Pennsylvania, north of Williamsport. It is tucked away in the mountains along this stream. The weather was simply perfect--the bluest sky I've seen this year, warm and so much sun that we all left with sunburned faces.

It was a harrowing trip Friday night. We managed to make 2 wrong turns and we have solid traffic from Annapolis to Harrisburg. I was driving while Jeremy was working. We did enjoy meeting some friends for supper and we arrived at 10:15pm to our destination. Now, we are in the boonies. No cell phone service. And it is dark. As we are driving in Aliza starts talking about wild animals and manages to scare her brother and sister so that when we walked into the hunting cabin where we were staying Anna was so scared she was shaking. And when we walked into the bedroom all 3 children declared there was no way they could sleep in the same room as a red fox hide. I removed it.

I was looking forward to a family morning before the wedding. Maybe spending some time by the stream. Unfortunately I woke up with an infection and figured out pretty quickly that I was going to be finding a doctor not playing. Since there was no cell phone reception I had to drive to where my Mom was staying to let her know and then drive to my aunt's house to get directions to an immediate care facility--half an hour away. 

I left with my written directions, my Mom's car and tears running down my face. Here we had driven 7 hours for this wedding and it was looking very unlikely that I would witness the wedding. I drove as fast as I could and was quite pleased to know that I could still follow written directions; however it was very strange not to let Jeremy know exactly where I was at all times! In the end I found an urgent care center, but it wasn't the one that my Aunt had directed me to. It was on the same road. I walked in and the waiting room was empty. I told them my story and the nurse said this was only the 2nd day they were open! I really thought maybe they were angels--it was too good to be true. They got me checked out and sent me down the road for my prescriptions. It took 10 minutes to fill the scrips. By the time I left the pharmacy it was 11:05. I pulled up to our house at 11:35, threw on a dress, slapped some make up on and arrived at the wedding at 11:40--just in time to watch the processional from the back. I couldn't believe it.

 I really wanted to start stewing on the drive back from the clinic. But I caught myself. That would be such a waste of energy on something I couldn't control. I started counting gifts instead--an empty waiting room, the blue sky and mountains, meds so I could enjoy the rest of the day, the dump truck in front of me to keep me from driving too fast.

Just after a wedding begins isn't exactly the best time to dive back into mothering responsibilities. My Mom helped Jeremy, but you know, as soon as Mommy is back on the scene everyone needs something. 

 Ah well. We survived. Josiah only fell backwards on his chair and complained very loudly about the sun hurting his eyes.

The reception was on the church grounds. There was plenty of room to run and play. And play they did. All of the children ran all afternoon. Their older cousins, Charlie and Katelyn, played so very well with them.

 

 

 My Grandma with her daughters. How special that my Grandma from Ohio could be at the wedding. I take every chance I get to see her. This weekend I knew I wanted to make sure I sat beside her and talked or listened. I got to do that.

 Josiah was sitting on my lap during the dances. I told him when he gets married I want to dance with him and I want a hug and a kiss. He said NO! So so sad. =)

 There were these 3 little girls at the reception. I'm not sure who's children they were, but they got into the candy bar. Like they made themselves at home with the candy dishes. 

 All the candy was combined and tasted. It was so much fun to scoop and pour, scoop and pour.

During clean up Jeremy took the kiddos to play in the stream. It was hot! Everyone ended up wet--very very wet.

We were at the stream for 2 hours before it was time to head to my Aunt's house for supper. Everyone was tired that night. It was a good tired. A playing outside all day and sun kissed tired.

Believe it or not...we were at the wedding and did not take one picture of the bride and groom! Pretty bad, I know!!

It's Coming

Dear Mother-in-Law,

I know you are anxiously waiting to see pictures from the weekend. There are some fun pictures and a few really great stores, but I have a library book that is due tomorrow and I have 60 pages left to read...so the blog will have to wait until tomorrow.

You really are the best mother-in-law. You make me think that lots of people actually read my blog. =)

Love,
Your Daughter-in-Law

Today's Moments

 This morning was our last day of Community Bible Study. It was Sharing Day so I wrote something to share because I am not an articulate speaker. I was pretty sure I was going to cry and I did. It takes a while to feel part of a group. For me it took most of this year, but over the past month or 6 weeks I've started to feel connected to these ladies. Being part of a community was really good for me.

The caterpillars  are out in force right now. Yesterday Josiah convinced Anna a caterpillar on the slide was a "snake" so she was stuck at the top of the slide until I rescued her. Silly boy! This afternoon all three of them were huddled around a little caterpillar. They sortof wanted to pick it up. Anna was the bravest. She touched it once and exclaimed how it tickled her. Then she thought about letting it crawl on her finger a couple times, but didn't let it. She enjoyed burying it in a pile of "food".

 Chrissy brought over some scrapbook supplies that she was finished with. I'm giving most of it away, but Aliza got in on the goodies too. She was so incredibly excited to scrapbook. I had to dig up some pictures for her to use. I was happy that she didn't cover the pictures with stickers (like she did a year or so ago). I was also pleased that she wanted to write. She was completely unconcerned with perfection--which is consistent in most areas of her life.

I'll interpret the writing because it is sweet. The title in the center says I Love My Dad. The title on the top right says Minecraft. Left side: I am playing on my first world. Dad loves me because he loves me (she meant to write Dad loves me because he taught me.) Right side: Me and my Dad played Minecraft. He taught me how to play. I am concentrating. Dad loves making me laugh. Daddy is silly. Daddy is special. Silly me! The last thing she added was the Memories sticker on the top of the page. She said she wanted the word memories because these are some of her favorite memories.

14 days of school left. We finished math yesterday.