More Backlighting

One more with backlighting.

Grandma Camp '08

This past weekend was Grandma Camp. For those of you that don't know about Grandma Camp it was created by my mom and her friend Sara, the kids call her Grandma Sara. Sara lives in Kittery Maine. Between the two of them they create a busy fun filled weekend for the kids. But before I tell you a little about Grandma Camp '08 lets review from Grandma Camps of past years. First up Grandma Camp '03. This was the first year. Jessica was not quite 2.5 and Justin was only 2 weeks old.

Here we are Grandma Camp '04.

In '05 the Grandma Camp bus left from Baystate Hospital- Justin was waiting to get his broken leg X-rayed!
In '06 Rebecca joined the team! Now there were the same number of campers as counselors.

In '07 Justin finally got his chance to go to Grandma Camp- very excited. Now the campers outnumbered the counselors. No worries they roped in Grandma Sara's son Andrew to be a surprise counselor (it might have been a surprise for him too).

This year we were in charge of driving the Grandma Camp bus, and um we forgot to take "the" picture. It started to rain and the kids were SO excited they were all ready to go before we remembered. So here they are in the car! Kathy and Becky came along for the ride (oh and to go shopping at the outlets after drop off). Justin said to Becky on the road, "Becky isn't this so fun you are going to Grandma Camp?" Becky did inform Justin she was not staying.

Feeling bad about the missed Camp Bus picture we tried again at our McDonalds potty break. Still raining so no pic by the car. Oh forgive Justin current desire to NEVER look a camera.

Here is the whole gang. Kids were BEYOND excited upon arriving. Everyone could not wait for us to leave- campers and counselors alike.

As we left Justin said, "now Grandma Camp can begin!". When we pulled out we heard them all singing the new Grandma Camp song- Hail Hail the gangs all here. Don't worry it does not replace the old Grandma Camp cheer:

Grandma Camp Grandma Camp

Sun and Ski and Sea

Grandma Camp Grandma Camp

It's made for you and me

Grandma Camp Grandma Camp

It comes but once a year (Marc tried unsuccessfully to change this line to 3x a year-no go)

Grandma Camp Grandma Camp

Let's give a mighty cheer!

Andrew stepped in again on Saturday. Next year Ryan will be joining the campers- hmm I wonder who will be roped in to be the additional counselor. Kids had a lot of fun and told me they did not even miss me.

One last picture, of Justin trying out Grandma Sara's new window seat.

Playing in Puddles

We have been getting a lot of rain the past few days. The good thing is that the kids are having so much fun playing in the puddles in the street. They take out our push brooms and push the water all around and make believe they are cleaning up their farm. It was nice today, no rain, so they had to turn on the hose to create their puddles again.

A few more Light pics

Working on the next Light assignment. Jessica is in the "zone" dance wise, so she had to do some dance poses.

Jessica's Dance Recital

Officially Jessica's recital is tomorrow and tonight was just her dress rehearsal, but since we aren't allowed to take pics at the recital and since she had the most watcher tonight we called tonight her recital. Before we left Jessica indulged me in a little photo shoot. [yes that is makeup on her face]

Here are a couple of shots from her dance numbers. This dance is to Hannah Montana's "Nobody's Perfect".

Here are two pics from her Ballet number.


She did a great job and took her dance very seriously. She told us on the way home that she messed up on the jazz dance but we told her we didn't even notice (um because we didn't). The "real" recital is tomorrow, but just Marc and I will be there and no pictures.

Don't laugh at me

So we really want to sell our house. a) we are ready to move on b) we have found a house we like c) we want to be in our "new" house before next school year begins and d) maintaining a clean house is killing us. There is this belief out there that if you bury a St. Joseph statue it will sell your house quicker. Riiiiiiiiiight. I mocked, I laughed, I am not a believer. But alas my house has not sold. After the 3rd person mentioned that I should bury the statue I broke down and bought one, I am told I don't have to be a believer. For $10- price of statue and shipping I got my St. Joseph. Now let's be clear they also sold him with a statue of St.Jude, saint of desperate situations, and I did not get that. So here is our St.Joseph, all ready to be buried and sell our house.

um, yeah, moments after opening the box I dropped him and broke his head off. He looked more like John the Baptist at this point.

Don't worry Marc glued his head on- phew! He is buried and ready to bring on the sale! Seriously don't mock me.

Justin's Gymnastics Show

Justin's end of the year Gymnastics show was on Tuesday. I don't really have too many pics, there were 41 children "performing", it was 100 degrees outside and inside, and a little hard to get a good pic with the crowds of kids and viewers. Justin did great and was very excited to get his trophy, and even more excited that it was red- his favorite color. Kudos to Mom and I for sitting through the event!

next up: Jessica's Dance recital this weekend.

Justin's end of the year show

Every year Justin's preschool does a big end of the year show, Justin's was last Friday. Justin has come leaps and bounds from last year. No longer was he the little green frog trying to trip the blue horse or was it the purple cat? This year the theme was Cats. They did a bunch of songs based on the Cat theme. Before we continue let me apologize for the poor quality of the pictures I had my "bad" lens on the camera, but it is the only zoom I have.

In the audience, Jessica and some of her former preschool classmates there to cheer on their younger siblings.

As Justin walked onstage to introduce himself he did a little swager/ saunter- no idea why, but pretty funny.
Here are Justin and Brian as "cool cats". Justin is a tiger and Brian a cheetah.

Unfortunately I have no picture of my favorite moment, and we barely caught it on video. After one of the songs Mrs. B calls the girls up front to sing a song. Justin turns around chats with Mrs. S and they walk off stage. I give Marc that "look". You know the you-were-in-charge-of-bringing-him-why-didn't-you-have-him-go-to-the-bathroom-first look. Marc gave me his sheepish Ooops look. Well at least the boys aren't singing. The girls were adorable, giggling and silly singing about finding a black cat with a white stripe down its back and they pulled its tail. Out from the sides of the stage comes Justin dressed as a Skunk! He has the hugest grin on his face and struts in the front of the girls and heads back off stage. Hysterical. He was so proud that he kept that a secret from us.

At the end the children put on their graduation hats and parade in down the aisles to receive their "diplomas". We have decided to not send Justin to Kindergarten next year. We just feel he isn't quite ready and it will benefit everyone (except our bank account) if he stays home. Mrs. B makes sure that the non-graduates aren't left out. They are the grand marshalls and they are in charge of introducing and leading the graduates on stage.

Justin taking his job very seriously.

Here is the adorable cake to celebrate the occasion.

Justin tells everyone that Mrs. B told him he is lucky because he gets to have one more year at school- he agrees. It was a totally enjoyable evening and they did a great job.

End of the year events Part I

Last week was Jessica's Author's Tea. Each of the children in her class wrote and illustrated a book. The parents were then invited to the class to hear the children read them. Jessica's book was titled, "My Cat Bonk". It was very sweet. All about Bonk. She did a great job and took it very seriously. She spoke clearly and loudly.


Each child received a certificate from the teacher for their accomplishment.

Jessica would love to show you her book next time you visit!

Just had to Blog this pic

Ok, I have a lot of other things to blog but I just downloaded this pic and I had to blog it. We got our pool set up on Thursday and the kids have been having a blast. Last night before bed we let the kids go out for a quick dip since it has been oppressively hot. Justin did a perfect belly flop. We all cheered and he was so proud. Then he quietly turned to Marc and said, "my belly hurts a little". But it didn't stop him from doing it a few more times. This morning Marc walked Jessica to the bus stop and Justin couldn't wait to belly flop again. So he put on his scuba suit and he did it over and over for about 15 minutes. I got this pic this afternoon. I love this picture. Look at his form! Pointed toes, arms totally outstretched, fingers flexed and mouth wide open. His mouth is wide open in every picture I took. Awesome.

More from Frost Valley

I know I am behind in blogging and with the end of the year there are many events that are occurring but first I need to finish with our Frost Valley Visit. So what does one do at Frost Valley for the weekend? We started with the climbing tower on Saturday. Both kids were pretty willing to give it a try, but they decided before they even started exactly how far they would go and once they made the goal they bailed out. Pretty sure they each could have gone farther but they were happy with their accomplishments and so were we. Here is Jessica getting ready to climb.

Here she is at the point she said she would quit, mere moments before quitting.

Justin on his way down...

Here is my family scootering over to archery. We were so glad we brought the scooters. Marc and I are ready to buy adult ones for us.

Justin wasn't that interested in doing Archery until we explained what exactly archery entailed and then he booked over. Couldn't believe we let him try an actual "weapon".

By far the kids favorite thing to do at Frost Valley was just sitting by the brooks and throwing rocks into the water. Daddy showed them that many of the rocks work like chalk when wet and they had a great time trying out different rocks to make different colors. Truth be told this is one of our favorite things to do at FV as well.

We made Tye Dye T-shirts- of course!

We learned about animals.

We made candles.

We saw old friends both human and animal. This is Hamlet one of many birds on property.

We went on a trail ride (ok the kids did).

Guess what Jessica's horse did on her ride....

We ended Saturday night the way you would expect at camp, with s'mores!

Here are two pictures I took of the kids at High Falls on Sunday morning.

The look I got when we said, "please just look at the camera for one picture".

The kids running along the "new" path the High Falls- much bigger and more accessible than the way we bushwacked to get there.

Well that about sums up our Frost Valley adventures. Next few posts will cover the end of the year events.