After the Storm

If you remember (ha ha), last year while Matthew was at Scout camp, it rained most nights. That was good because they could still do everything during the day, but bad because you can only imagine sleeping in a tent in the pouring rain. Matthew didn't seem bothered, but we had some worry, especially the last night which was especially bad.

This year, on the first night at camp, there was a storm that was worse than last year! All the boys had to sleep in the dining hall and all but 2 tents were blown down and everything not in plastic was wet! The 15 leaders with the troop sent out a request for more help the next morning. I was in Omaha (LOVED IT) so Ken took the other kids to camp and help set the tents back-up. I think part of the reason the tents blew over this year was from all the previous rain we had. Ken indicate it was VERY easy to put the stakes in the ground this year, which probably means the wind pulled them up pretty easily too.

Here is the site after the storm.

Here is the after-after shot....when everything was back as it should be!

Camp Mitigwa - year 2

Matthew is off to camp again. I am a little less nervous than last year. I don't have any pictures to post yet, but I love this program I found on Wordle.net When Matthew gets home I will let him choose the words that he wants to add to the wordle and we can print it for his album. I am sending him this wordle at camp!

Snapshots of summer fun

Red Rock Wildlife Exhibit
We are trying to keep busy this summer. First of all, it leads to a lot of fun. Secondly (and probably more truthfully) the kids are nicer to each other in public!


In addition to many outings to the pool and other fun places, it has been nice to have time for puzzle marathons and hours for Legos, Imaginext building, game playing (Clue and Checkers are big favorites this summer) and reading.
We have built MANY Duplo pyramids. Initially we built a solid pyramid, but Matthew threw out the challenge to make a larger pyramid by leaving it somewhat hollow! We did it, but let's just say that you can't build a hollow pyramid on carpet - tile is a must! It was great to work as a team to get the job done.


Anna received a Slip-and-Slide for her birthday and I have never seen kids so happy to have their sister receive a gift before :)


We have had many baby bird sightings and it has been so sweet. The kids were worried that they needed to feed the bird and were trying to find him seeds and worms. I finally convinced them to just leave the little thing alone. (He wasn't a new baby, so he could take care of himself, plus the mom and dad were near.)

All in all we are having a great summer. Things "heat up" a bit next week, when Matthew goes to Scout camp, Carolyn and Joel will do SKIPS (summer kids in the park) and I will start working at the Audiology clinic at Boys Town Hospital in Omaha. I will be gone 2 days a week for 5 weeks - so say a prayer! Ken's folks are coming twice and our sitters will help, but mostly Ken will just use some vacation time and have some quality time with the kids. (perhaps he needs the most prayer :) I am nervous to venture back into clinical audiology, but am just taking the step despite my worries!

Pandomania

I really love that we do the same VBS program that is done in Newburgh. It is fun to see the similarities and differences. I personally like the smaller group sizes of the VBS in Newburgh. Additionally, I think it is great that they have a large pre-school program. (In Ankeny you need to volunteer to have your pre-schooler participate. Believe it or not, next year Anna will be considered a kindergartner!)

Although I wish this program did a few things like Newburgh, I am smart enough to realize that a woman with ideas like "expand the pre-school program" ends up running the pre-school program. Since I volunteer, Anna gets to go to VBS anyway, so for my family it doesn't matter.

Again this year, Matthew was a volunteer with me. He and I worked with in-coming 1st graders. They were a lot of fun. The other kids had a great time too. Last night during bath time Anna asked, "After bed will we have VBS again?" and was disappointed to hear that it was over. The big kids did sing and dance in church today to "How Great Thou Art". Anna could have joined in, but wasn't very good last week in church, so we split up today and kept her home. We didn't mention she was missing the VBS flash-back.

Last year I was Joel's religious ed teacher. It didn't go very well. I decided that he would do better with someone else as his leader at VBS and I was proven right. It was a great relief to hear that he did fantastic. Carolyn was made for VBS with her love of crafts and singing. Hey - maybe she can be the leader of VBS someday. I don't aspire to that job :) I will gladly be a crew leader, though, each year my children participate or volunteer. It is a fun atmosphere, with great people.

Potty Problems

Last night, Ken was playing kickball with Anna, Matthew and Carolyn while Joel and I were reading Stone Fox . Joel didn't know about the kickball game, or I am sure he wouldn't have wanted to read :) We started reading before the kickball game began.

Luckily, after awhile Joel decided he wanted to do something else, and he went downstairs to find that Anna had flooded the bathroom accidentally. Since Anna cries over anything, Joel's shouts were more quickly responded to by both Ken and me. Basically it was the perfect storm in the toilet world. The toilet became plugged and the flapper was stuck in the up position. It took a lot of work (mostly in the basement) to get everything dry.

Fast forward to this afternoon. Last night every towel in the near vicinity of the bathroom was used to soak up the water in the bathroom. Therefore there was no towel in bathroom today to dry hands. If you look closely at our towel rack, when the towel is gone, you might notice that it resembles the rings that can be used to swing from on a play-ground. Ok, you might not notice that, but Anna did - CRASH - down came the towel ring. The dry wall was so thick in her hair that she need another bath. So in less than 24 hours Anna has required major home improvement time for the bathroom - TWICE!

While she was in the tub, she asked, "can daddy fix it?" Did you notice, she didn't ask, "can mommy fix it?" She must not have read my Handy Mandy post from last month. Ok - let's be honest, Ken will be patching the wall by himself :)

By the way - if you haven't read Stone Fox - it is a MUST read for the early elementary years!

First Full Week of Summer Fun

To be honest - the first day of summer vacation was STINKY. It lasted 100 hours...I will leave it at that.

Ken came home and gave me a pep-talk and 3 days of rejuvination (Memorial Day weekend had perfect timing for my world).

We started the new week with a plan to have lots of positive interactions and many sites to see.

This week, we hit the YMCA pool twice, the library twice, the Living History Museum, the Des Moines Museum of Art and The Pappajohn Sculpture Garden. It is good to get out of the house a little bit and we had a great time!



The last time we visited the Living History Museum, Anna was 1/2 her current age. We took the stroller and I had to carry her a bunch. Well not this trip. 1st of all she is 42 lbs. She occationally crouched down to take a rest, but she also ran from place to place with the big kids. All the kids asked "when can we go back?"....so it is good that I bought a year pass, although I was just thinking the pass was less than us paying to go back one more time in the next 13 months! It is great exercise and has beautiful views, so I am happy to go back.


The Des Moines Museum of Art was sort of a bust. We went in for a bit and there was a nice "art guy" who was very helpful, telling us things. We arrived just before lunch, so we went and had our picnic before returning. WELLLL....our 2nd visit was short lived. I wanted to keep Anna attached to me at all times and the others close by. I think that would have been ok, but let's just say that it isn't the most welcoming place in the world to families. This guy came up and said, "first of all there is no touching at all" (that was WAY established by the time we met him, since we had been in the museum earlier and I discussed this with the kids before we left home, on the way to the museum, during our picnic...you get the idea) Then he looked at me and said, "and you don't have any candy or drinks do you?" no - clearly I wasn't schlepping food into a fine arts museum. anyway - we left pretty shortly after that. I told the big kids I would bring them back some day this summer when I had a baby sitter for Anna. She didn't touch anything, I wasn't going to let her touch anything and the kids were all behaving very well, but it just felt.....I can't come up with a good word, let's just leave it at unwelcoming. I also knew the Sculpture garden was less than 3 miles away, and decided that would be a better place for us! I was very right! It is still a "no-touch" kind of place, but you could take pictures and there weren't people everywhere looking at you like you were going to let your children be wild monkeys.