First Day of School

Better a month late than never, I always say!  Here's the happy crew on the first day of school, before Scott had to leave for band practice.  He had a week of school before seminary started and a whole new routine for our family began.

Tessa is in 1st grade and Caytie is in 3rd, and both are at the same elementary school.  Gracie is in 5th grade--it's her first year in intermediate school, and her first year wearing the uniforms.  Emma is in 7th, and it's her first year at the junior high.  Scott is in 9th.  He's been going to the high school for a month for band camp, but now he actually gets to go inside for class!

Here's to another great year!

(Benson missed this photo shoot because he was still in bed.  Smart boy.  He did start preschool again with me the next day.)

Another personal first

One night, a little before the end of summer, as I was getting things out to start cooking dinner, I heard a clicking coming from my stove top.  I went over, and realized the igniter was somehow on, though all the knobs were off.  We have a gas range, and I thought I could smell gas.  For a little context of the following events, I should say that several years ago, Ben's cousin and his wife had a new house, and it had a gas leak, and his wife took the repair man into the house to examine the problem, and the house exploded and both of them died.  It was truly tragic.  So, when I smelled gas, I turned the gas off with a knob in a cupboard next to the oven.  The igniter was still clicking, and I saw smoke and an orange glow under one of the stove top knobs.  That pretty much sealed it for me--I got the kids (as calmly as I could) and we headed outside.  My first call was to Ben, who confirmed I should do what I did next--I made my first call to 911.

I used my cell phone, since that's what I had with me, and they asked what was going on, and then where we lived, and transferred me to the right county.  They asked me what was going on, and where we lived, and transferred me to the right city.  They asked me what was going on, and where we lived, and said they'd send people out to help us.  It was a long process to contact a fire station five minutes away from my house!  (Next time, I'll grab the house phone, I guess...)  I had no idea what the status of the smoke and glow was with our stove, but I didn't want to open any doors in case of gas, so I sent Scott around the back of the house to look through the kitchen door to see if there were flames or if there was nothing.  Thankfully, there was nothing, so I was able to relax a bit and reassure the kids that we were just being extra careful.  I noticed that of the seven of us, only one had shoes on (Scott), and Benson had no pants.  If there was a fire, we would really be left with so little.

We finally got the fire chief there, and he went in and looked around, and a fire truck pulled up with the crew, including the dad of one of my former preschool students.  The others went into the house, too, but he stayed out and immediately started talking with my kids, and let them get up into the firetruck.  Ben also pulled up about this time.  The fire chief came out, and then everyone else, and the report was that the igniter was broken and there was no gas in the house.  I don't know what the problem was with the smoke and glow, but there was no evidence of a fire. 

We were glad to hear that news, and I was sorry to have called when there really wasn't a problem, though that's why the firemen are there anyway, right?  I didn't hear of any other major catastrophes that we had kept them from that evening.  I did hear a comment about "mom making dinner and starting a fire" from one of the firemen, even though I hadn't even started cooking, and I'm not shy about trying to put out a fire by myself before calling in help.  It was the gas and smoke that really got me to get us out and call.  Anyway.  It was an interesting, educational, and thankfully relatively uneventful evening--and we were so grateful for it to end--after we went out for dinner.

Anniversary trip--hooray!

We did it!  We took a trip!  Ben had some points for airlines and hotels, and we decided that our 15th anniversary was a perfect time to cash in on some of those.

We first had to drive the offspring over to Uncle Devan and Aunt Kim's house.  Our kids were thrilled to be there, so we didn't feel too guilty about leaving them.

 Benson and Naaman settled right in.

We left for the airport early, early Sunday morning and hopped our way around the country a bit, until we arrived in the late afternoon in West Palm Beach, Florida.   This is the view from our balcony:

  The hotel was a group of five buildings, and there were lots of activities every day on site, two large pools and several smaller ones, mini golf and other sports, as well as private beach access.  After listening to a conference talk (on keeping the Sabbath Day holy!), we walked along the beach for a bit, and then walked into the town for some dinner.

The next morning, we had a free breakfast with the hotel orientation .  We signed up for a couple things, and then headed for the beach!  The water was so nice--just a tiny chill so it didn't feel like a bath.  We also went swimming in the pool and found a cabana for a nap.  We ate lunch at the hotel and then went to our painting class!  It was fun to paint together, though I kept sticking my paintbrush into my soda cup instead of the water one.  The paintings in the picture below are works in progress--I guess I don't have one of the completed projects.

Next we rented a tandem bicycle and rode around the little village for a while.  We found a park and parked the bike, and walked along the trail, and found ourselves at the beach again!  This time we had a camera, though, so we got a picture:

 On the way back, we rode past an enormous banyan tree that the hotel lady had told us to look for.

 A selfie didn't do the tree justice, so we took these two:

We still didn't get all of the tree, but we got each other!  Maybe someone can merge us together? :)  (We stopped by a little grocery store and got some cereal and milk for breakfast, since our lunches and dinners were already abnormally large.)

That night we dressed up nice and had our official anniversary dinner date.  I'm so glad that we found each other 15 years ago, and that I know that it's just the beginning!

The next morning was probably one of our favorite activities, but because of the nature of it, I don't have any pictures.  Ben and I went out in the ocean in a kayak!  Neither of us have any experience in a kayak (though Ben canoes enough for Scouts), and the only one who knew we were out there was the teenage kid who got us set up and pushed us out into the ocean...where we promptly fell over.  But he had confidence in us, and we were mostly confident, so we climbed back in and tried to get over the waves again (with lots of hard paddling!), and we did it!  It was pretty amazing.  The current was strong, so we followed it along as we got used to what we were doing.  The water was so clear.  We were a good way out into the water, but we could see down to the bottom, which seemed to be maybe only 6 or 7 feet deep.  (Ben kept it to himself that the clear water made him very nervous--because he could see if something [a shark] was on its way to get us!  He later said he'd prefer to not know if anything was there!)  The current had carried us pretty fast, so we turned around (without tipping, I proudly add), and started back.  I started to see these purplish floaty things, and when one got close enough to my paddle, I moved it and realized it was a jellyfish!  Then, I saw the one thing I thought I'd never see--a sea turtle!  I saw its back and head just before it went underwater.  I was so surprised, and so pleased!  It was surprisingly large.  There were sea turtle nests all along the beach (marked off with sticks and yellow caution tape), but unless you're out there when it's dark and you're really lucky, you don't get to see the mamas.  (At least that's what the teenage beach attendant told us.)  After about 45 minutes on the water, we made it back to our beach after much hard paddling and dragged the kayak and ourselves onto the sand and marveled at it all.

After that, we needed to relax.  So we did.

Later that afternoon we went back to swim in the ocean, but there were lots and lots of jellyfish  One brushed up against Ben's leg, and that was enough for me to get out, but Ben stayed a bit to collect shells for our kids.  

After dinner that night, we spent some time in a hot spa with some delicious smoothies that we couldn't seem to have a meal without.

The next day was our last, so we started out with the sunrise over the ocean.

The clouds hid the first sunburst, but the weather was so beautiful.

 One more...

 (One of my preschooler moms gave me a nail salon certificate, and I saved it specifically for this trip, so that I could have cute toes for pictures like this!)

You can see the yellow caution tape where the sea turtle nests are.  I was surprised that this was all the protection they got, and people set up their things all around them.  In Corpus Christi, the nests were much more protected.  Maybe the turtles in Florida are not as endangered??

We spent the morning playing ping pong, mini golf, shuffle board, and so on, and having one more delicious lunch (and smoothie!) before heading to the airport.  We had such a great time, but it was time to see our kids--and relieve Saint Aunt Kim from her extra six charges!

We got to their house late, late that night, and the next morning, after a trip to the neighborhood park, we headed back to our home--and arrived just in time for back to school orientations for two schools and and band parent showcase and soccer practice and my book club meeting........real life!

Ben, let's do this again.

I love you!

Perot Museum Take 2

We went to the Perot Museum to check out all the stuff we missed on the first trip!

We are officially fans.

Language Development

The other day, at our latest birthday celebration (Hi, Ben!), after the candles had been blown out, Ben was picking off little bits of wax that had splattered on the cake.  Benson saw these little bits, and decided that they were probably something to be desired, so he said, "I need a wack!"  A wack, you see, is a single piece of wax.

This reminds me of another day a couple months ago, when I dared put dinner on his plate with out his permission.  He dumped it off, but there was one piece of cheese left.  He said, "I don't want this chee!"  Chee is singular for cheese, you know.

This reminds me (though less) of a word that Benson modifies.  He was playing with Tinker Toys about a year ago, and said, "I made a baym!"  I said, "A what?"  He started hitting it on the table, like a hammer, saying, "Baym, baym, baym!"  He now correctly calls a hammer a hammer, but the noise it makes is still baym.

And why not include Benson's rendition of "Baa, Baa, Black Sheep" now.  He has done this rendition consistently for several months, though I'm afraid it might change soon, as we're singing it in preschool this month.  This is what he sings, as far as it is translated correctly:

Blah, blah, black sheep,
Howla eena wool,
Yes, sir, yes, sir,
Blee black full.
One for dee day for dee night,
One for dee day for dee night,
Blah, blah, black sheep,
Howla en our wool,
Yes, sir, yes, sir,
Blee black full!

I have a recording of him singing it, and if I get smart enough, I'll post it here.  But not now.

I love three year olds!

Summer fun!

Some of our other summer activities included...

Pioneer Day covered wagon treats!  Gracie, Caytie, and Emma also spent time this day learning some family history and making family group records and pedigree charts for Faith in God/Value Experiences.  It was nice it worked out that we had time to do those on the 24th.

This year is the 20th anniversary of "The Family: A Proclamation to the World," which means it has been five years since our 30 Days of the Family Proclamation summer activities!  I had meant to do a reprise of that this summer, but alas, it did not happen.  I did, however, make new silhouettes of my kids, which was one of the activities we did five years ago.  This time I did them on plates with a marker that becomes permanent when baked.  I happen to really love how they turned out!

 These are the plates I had above my kitchen cabinets, and I put them back, with some new lanterns.  I've changed it around a bit since this picture, but you can get the idea.

We had a visitor one morning on our new pear tree.  It just sat there while we came out and inspected this large lump on the trunk.

 It was so, so big!

It was also so, so loud the next day when it started making its sprinkler sound.  I went out to see if it was really just one bug making so much noise, and it was, but it got scared and flew away.  It looked like a small bird.

This is Benson settling down for bedtime:

This is Scott, getting his band uniform fitted.

We also went bowling a couple of times this summer, with the Kids Bowl Free program.  Scott insisted on no bumpers, so sometimes it was thrilling and sometimes it was overly frustrating, but for all the bumper users, it was just fun.  I thought I had a picture, but it's probably on my old cell phone.  You can just imagine it instead: Scott is either exhilarated or bummed, Benson and Tessa are running back and forth to the drinking fountain, and Emma, Gracie, and Caytie are trying out different balls, different stances, and different throws to get that ball to knock down those pins.  Fun, fun times!