Sailing Away !

Last week I went on a staff retreat for the day with my new colleagues at New Life Preschool. We went sailing on a Maritime Ministries sailboat on the York River. We enjoyed fellowship and training. The pictures are of me with my teaching assistant, Mary Lou. We had fun pretending I was pushing her off the boat, but secretly I was afraid of accidentally actually pushing her in when the waves moved the boat !!!

Pocahontas Pool

Every summer I take the kids to Pocahontas State Park Pool for the day. They love this pool for good reason - the playground built into the middle of the pool has slides, water guns, rope swings, tunnels and waterfalls and more ! Ellie laid out her swimsuit the night before and told me this morning she had dreamt about swimming there.
Well, who wouldn't love playing on this ? Ellie is the small girl in green in the center.
Ellie was excited about this day ! I think it was one of the highlights of her summer--she had been asking and asking "when are we going to Hocapontas?" so cute!!!
Ellie runs through the tall mushrooms !
sam and his friend Alex being goofy, as usual!
The big kids love these two water slides. I took a photo of the girls after they came off. Bethany and Felicia and their friend, Brooke.


Hanging on the rope swing !" Look at me , Mama!"

Braces !!!!!

Wow, the day has finally arrived! Today Bethany and Sam got their braces on. while they were back in the orthodontist's chairs, I was waiting with ellie and her friend Katherine, who were entertaining each other rather nicely for over an hour.
Bethany and Sam were able to choose colors for their braces. Sam chose blue and orange, for UVA colors (he wants to go there one day) and Bethany chose pink and black. After the braces were on, they received instructions on how to care for the new metal in their mouths by Dr. Kelleher.
Bethany let me take a photo, but demanded "no blog!", so Sam's teeth are shown here. They did not complain of discomfort this evening, but may feel uncomfortable tomorrow.
Bethany is sad she can't eat her favorite snack for a while--popcorn!

Library Reading Program

This summer Felicia and Ellie have participated in the summer reading program at the library. they are required to read 10 books (Felicia does that in, like, a week!).When they complete their reading log, they earn free coupons for Chik-Fil-A and Coldstone Creamery, a trip to the treasure chest and a meal for a dog or cat at the spca. these two girls LOVE their library! Or, as Ellie says-- "I like going to the librarian."

this and that

It's been a pretty low key week, going to the pool, going to cheer practice, doing the same day to day things we usually do so nothing much new to post about. Yesterday, though, ellie and I did something productive AND fun at the same time. We decided to wash her plastic kitchen she's had outside in her playhouse for 2 years. As you can see, it was looking pretty disgusting.

We scrubbed and hosed it down and wiped and it's almost good as new! We've had this kitchen since Bethany was 2!!

After the cleaning, we came inside to finish up her scrapbook she made about her trip to Grandma and Poppy's in Florida. I chose some of the paper and guided her on placement of things, but she pretty much did the scrapbook herself and she is so proud of it!

Sewing for a Smile

The new craft project of the week for Bethany and Felicia(and their friend Taylor) has been sewing pillows . Bethany found some fabric in the box with the sewing machine and immediately decided she was going to make pillows. I ended up finding 3 unopened bags of pillow stuffing at a yard sale for $1.50 !!! What a bargain!
Anyway, they want to make enough pillows so they can donate some to the children's hospital in Richmond for kids that are sick, hence their business name, Sewing for a smile. They would also like to make some they could sell.
What's so funny is that I can't even use that sewing machine, but my 13 year old daughter can !!! She asked me how to do something on it the other day and Steve had to help her!

Historic Jamestowne

Today we visited historic Jamestown together, Here we are by the split rail fence before entering the visitor center

Learning Jamestown history --Ellie was fascinated by the artifacts behind the glass and asked lots of questions.
We attended a program where we learned about the Indian tribes and how our word "wow" comes from the Powhatan Indians!
The kids made pinched clay pots, similar to the ones the Indians would have made.
Ellie stands next to Pocahontas !
This is an example of how the settlers built their houses.
Climbing on what's left of the rowhouses built in the 1600's
Bethany and Sam climbed on this neat tree I just had to take a photo of
The kids favorite part of the whole day was the ferry ride we took across the river to Surry, and then back again. Our car on the ferry ! (the red Yukon)


They thought this experience was so cool !

The Doggy Paddle

When we were in Florida at my parents house, Hollister decided to jump in for a swim while we were playing in the pool. Sure enough, dogs instinctively know the doggy paddle !
me and one wet mutt !

He decided that this was more like it--floating on the raft with me !

New Cheer Season

This week Felicia has started back to cheer practice.

This is her 4th year cheering and she is now in the Junior division. Her squad this year only has 7 girls and they all know one another and have cheered before so that makes it so easy starting out. They had an all-day camp over the weekend where they learned their half-time and competition routines in one day, so they've been working on that at the practices this week. Felicia is the "flyer" this year, as she has been every year because of her size and willingness to do stunts.


The last photo shows the girls about to toss her up into a "basket toss", where they literally throw you straight up in the air and catch you as you come down.

Appointments

This week is chock full of those necessary evils, appointments. The list includes dentist, orthodondist, doctor and fee days at the middle school. We just switched dentists for insurance reasons as well as the fact it took 20-25 minutes to get to the old office--it was just too far.

The kids, of course, were leary about a new place, but they all agreed afterwards that the new place was great. (or, as great as going to a dentist can be !). The office was bright and cheerful, they had a flat screen tV with a kids movie playing, toys and books, and to Sam's delight, 2 game systems, one being an X-Box. The four kids were all able to go in at the same time (which I loved!) and they got x-rays taken, teeth cleaned, flouride treatments given. They hated the taste of that flouride, hence Felicia's painful grin in that one photo. They were all done in about 30 minutes with referrals to the ortho for Sam and Bethany. Fortunately, the orthodontist office is right next to the dentist, so I was able to walk right into there to set up the appts. It couldn't have been easier.

Watermelon Festival

Every year, Carytown in Richmond puts on a Watermelon Festival and every year, it is brutally hot. This year was no exception. We headed out early so we could beat the worst of teh heat, but it was still in the mid-90's before noon. We enjoyed ice cold watermelon and snow cones, bottled water and the free spray misters we walked under.

We also went into lots of interesting shops in Carytown, heard different live entertainment, entered free drawings and played games. Ellie got her face painted with, what else, a watermelon !

One of the best parts of a festival is, of course, the food. Bethany got some Lo Mein, Sam got cheese fries and Steve and I ate a Jersey Grinder with homemade chips. Yummmmy!