Our little drama queen

For the 2nd year in a row, Lydia has participated in a summer drama camp at the high school where I went to school.  The drama students and their amazing teacher host a week long camp to raise money for a trip the drama club/group takes each year.  The students are the camp counselors and are so great with the kids!!

This year, Lydia attended this camp the third week of June.  She was a little nervous.  As they have gotten older, Lydia and Emily have developed different interests and activities.

While it makes it harder, taking the kids three different directions instead of two, it is really good for the girls to do things without the other to depend on.  She was a little worried because she knew she would not know anyone in drama camp.  I assured her that she would know the kids that were there last year, but since this high school is so far away from where we live and where she goes to school, there are no kids from her school who go.  Upon sitting next to a little girl named Camryn (who was also in the Sushi group), they were talking together and became fast friends.

At the end of the camp, the kids put on the play that they worked all week on learning their lines and show their acting ability.  All families are able to come and watch.  Prior to the show, they show pictures that were taken throughout the week.  The top two pictures are ones I took from the slide show.  She and Camryn are with their counselor in the top one and the bottom is a picture of her with her group--Sushi.

Lydia learned all of her lines without help at home.  She did a great job acting and her character of the Red Chief was flawless!  Such a cute play!

 Next year she will move up to the middle school group.  I am anxious to see how well she does with that.  The middle school group write the plays as opposed to the elementary groups that help their counselors decide what to write about and characters while the counselors write the plays.  All the kids work on their own props and pick their costumes.

It is such a great program and I hope that she is able to participate in it for the next few years.  Until she can be part of the drama club at her high school.

Penny and Adella were spending the week with my mom and dad and were able to come see Lydia's performance that night.  Each of us gave Lydia a flower.  She LOVED that!!  :)

Lydia and Camryn

Catcher in the first try

For the Little League portion of our softball lives, Emily played catcher for the first time.  (She is the catcher in this picture and as you can see from the dust coming off her glove--just caught the ball the pitcher pitched).  She rocked it!  There was one game where her coach put her in as catcher last year during a Crush game.  In 8U softball, the catcher is not all that important.  You are not able to steal in 8U.  In 10U the catcher is much more important.  They must be able to stop the ball when the pitcher throws a wild pitch as a runner on third can steal.  She typically plays 3rd base, but her Little League coach put her at catcher a good bit this season.  We were a little bit worried since she had never done it, but she seemed to take to it like she had been catching all along.  We are not sure if this will continue with her travel ball team, Crush or not, but think she did great for the spring season!!

Stay tuned for a Crush post.  Have not done one since she branched into 10U from 8U.  Anxious to see how their season goes.

Track this boy!

In Middle School you are limited in the sports you can participate in until you are in the 8th grade.  As a 6th grader, Ryan was able to participate in wrestling or track.  He decided he did not want to wrestle and really was not really interested in track, but several of his buddies were going to run track.  He realized that while there was A LOT of running involved, there were also other events that he could participate.  The events he chose were the 100 meter and the long jump.  I tried to talk him into the shot put, but again--his buddies were doing the long jump and the 100 meter.

I took lots of pictures during his track meets, but this is my favorite picture.  He said that his coach told him that when he starts to run, he should put his head down.  It took him a while to get that and he would often start with his head up.  This would cost him valuable time.  In this picture, he is the kid with the bright blue shoes on.  The closest to the camera.  As you can see, his head is down.  Love that he got it!  While he did not LOVE running track, he is already talking about doing it next year and has said that he will be attempting the shot put.  With his short, stocky build, I think he will be great!!  

Spring Concert

Ryan participated in band in school this year.  He played percussion and really enjoyed playing the drums.  His teacher, Mr. Todd, held a concert in the fall and another one just before school let out in the spring.  The improvement in their performance was crazy.  While I don't have pictures from the first concert, I did get some from the spring one.  My camera lens was not that great in the fall.

We are so very proud of what he has accomplished as a first year middle schooler in the 6th grade.  to finish out his year, he was one of four rising 7th graders who was asked to be a member of the East Rock (High School where the kids will go) marching band.  Stay tuned for pictures of Ryan on the football field this fall!!  :)

Getting my ears "perst" for Easter!

On her list for what she wanted for Easter, Lydia put "get my ears perst" at the top of her list.  Emily was a bit undecided since she was concerned that it would hurt too much and thought she would tag along to see how Lydia reacted to the "pain."

My original plan was to let them get their ears pierced when they turned 12.  12 is a good age, they can easily take care of their ears and keep them from getting infected.  Let's face it, I have a tough time getting them to brush their teeth each day so cleaning their ears can't be real high on their list of priorities.  For the past few weeks they have really stepped up and have shown me that they are responsible.  After talking to them and talking to Mike, we decided that since they are now "in the know" with the bunny and santa rumors, that we could take them to get their ears pierced for Easter.

My favorite part of the day was the look on Lydia's face (after having to go to the bathroom due to nervousness) when she realized the pain was nothing after having worried about it for a while.  As bad as she wanted it, she was quite nervous.  After getting the first earring pushed into her ear--realizing the pain was nothing like she had imagined--a look of relief washed over her face.  It was too funny.

Emily spent the next hour walking through the mall deciding if she wanted to have them done too.  We had some other stores we wanted to visit so she debated and debated.  We told her that it was completely up to her if she wanted to do this or not.  It was not something we cared if she did or not, but that if she was going to do it, she needed to do it now or she was going to have to wait until her birthday.  Easier for both of them to go through the ear cleaning together than to have one get a couple weeks under her belt and then the next one start.  Even after seeing Lydia live through the experience, she was still very scared.  I am happy to announce that she lived to tell about it too.

They each purchased some earrings with their own money and a coupon they received with their piercing.  Worst thing about it . . . it makes them both look about 4 years older.  :)

Back in the campin' saddle again

WOW!  It has been since before Christmas since I blogged.  Crazy!  We have been doing lots of things, but apparently I could not get it together to blog about any of it.  :)  Winter was filled with LOTS of snow and coooollllldddd weather!  I am so happy to see the warm weather I just don't know what to do with myself.  Spring sports are starting and camping is back in session!!

Due to Mike's aneurysm, last year we did not have a great opportunity for camping.  We are hoping to make up for it this year.  Our Spring Break was this week.  It is coming to an end and we go back to school in two days, but it was fun while it lasted.

Each year we typically go to Florida over Spring Break.  Each year we pick a park or place to visit while we are there.  In addition to a particular park, we will visit my parents who live in Clearwater Florida during the winter and early spring months of the year.  As a result of softball and track for Emily and Ryan, we decided we just had too much on our plate this year and decided to stay in Virginia and camp a few days instead.  We reserved two nights at Jellystone Park in Luray Virginia.  This is one of our favorite campgrounds so we are trying to make it an annual tradition.

We left early Monday, camped Monday night, Tuesday night and packed up Wednesday morning and headed home.

This is overlooking the campground.  With the mountains in the background.  It was very pretty and sadly, this picture did not do it justice.

Ryan found this chain and then hooked it to himself as if it were chained to a wallet.  It was too funny.  Had to take a picture.

For the first time EVER, we decided to rent a golf cart.  We NEVER do this, but we seemed to be the only people staying there who did not have a golf cart.  We figured they must not be that expensive and decided to check it out.  We rented one, for just one night, and rode the thing until the battery was not longer charged.  We charged it overnight and rode it several times until we had to turn it in before we left.  Mike took a selfie while he and the kids were on it.

You were not allowed to drive the golf cart unless you were 18 years old and had a valid drivers license.  The kids were not able to drive it, but decided to pose as if they were able to take it on their own.  It was crazy.  They wanted us to drop them off everywhere and then come pick them up.  Even places that we were so close to that we could yell at a person who was there (from our campsite) and we drove them there with the golf cart.  Normally we would not have agreed to it, but figured since we were paying for it.  Was kind of like an amusement park ride.  :)

Lydia and Mike shot some hoops.

We rode the paddle boats.  Lydia had to ride in the back.

Mike and Emily drove Lydia around.

Mike realized, after we got to the campground, that we had forgotten fire starters.  We keep them in the camper and only had one left when we thought there were more.  Instead of purchasing more fire starters, we noticed that we had pinecones all over the campground and there was no fear of them running out.  The kids filled a trashbag full of pinecones and Mike decided to give it a whirl to start his fire with the pinecones.  It worked!!  Not sure if you can see the pinecones in this picture (maybe when you click on the picture to make it bigger), but they are there.  We were quite proud of this fire so we took a picture.  :)

It does not matter how many times I download pictures on this thing.  I am NEVER able to get the pictures to load on here in the order I want them to.  This is Ryan and me on the boats.

Lydia was the only one I could convince to get in the Yogi basket for our traditional picture.  Ryan and Emily are sitting and leaning on the golf cart in the background.  

This is the other Yogi in the campground.  We were on our way to play mini golf.  We played the mini golf course there about 4 times while we were there.  We should be pros by now.

The two movies, if you can see them, are from the famous Jumping Pillows that are at the Jellystone Campground.  The kids LOVE them!!  I have a movie from way back.  We were at this campground when the kids were much younger.  They still loved jumping, but Lydia was not a fan of jumping when others were jumping at the same time.  Click on "camping" on the right side of the top of the blog, and it will take you to camping at Jellystone back in 2009.  My brother and niece make an appearance in these too.  Love to make memories!!

 

The Best Day!

Have you ever participated in a Secret Santa gift exchange?  We have all participated in the "bring a wrapped gift to exchange" thing, but this year one of my kids is part of a Secret Santa where they actually drew names and are picking gifts for the person they drew.  Emily had so much fun deciding what to get the name she drew and shared this with her brother and sister.  The three of them decided we should do a gift exchange with our family.  I, of course, felt that this meant that Mike and I just needed to get gifts for the person we picked and no one else, but that idea was quickly extinguished by the kids.  They explained that we were going to do our gift exchange as well as purchase gifts for our children.  Not sure how they get off so easy as to just purchase for their name.  :)

We decided to do our shopping at the Dollar Tree.  I thought this was the best idea for "shopping alone" and being contained while doing it.  It worked out great!  The kids really did put a lot of thought into purchasing for their person and were so excited about wrapping their gifts last night.  It was too funny.  We are trying very hard to keep the persons name we drew a secret as well, but all three of them have accidentally said things a few times.  They do their best to cover their mistake, but it is just so funny!

After our shopping spree we finished our great day off by going to Boston Beanery.  Much to the embarrassment of my children, I asked our server to take our picture.  Emily, in particular, thought this was very embarrassing.  I suppose, what kind or parent are you if you can't embarrass your offspring.  :)

Prior to our shopping trip, we spent the afternoon on Skyline Drive.  We had a great day at church and then headed to Skyline Drive after lunch.  It was very cold and windy up there, but the sun was shining and it made for really great views at the overlooks.  We saw many cascades of icicles and had to stop and take a picture of one.

We also decided to walk down to the Diamond Falls waterfall, but it was pretty wet, icy and slippery down there.  We did not go all the way to the falls, but stopped at the bridge overlook to take a picture.  Was still about a mile and a half round trip (2nd half straight up hill), but did not want to risk the slipping possibility.  Such a fantastic day!!

The kids are now planning on their Secret Santa gift exchange for next year.  They are hoping to bring more people into it.  Grammy, Paw Paw, Uncle Paul, Aunt Allison, Penny, Adella . . . the names just go on and on.  :)  I love the days that we all laugh so much!!