Grandma Camp!

At the end of June, just as school was ending, it was time for Grandma Camp! This is the first year that all 4 grandkids would be attending. Last year the Grandmas took a year off so the kids were VERY excited to go again this year. Here are the campers before loading up in the camp bus and heading out.

Upon arrival at Grandma Sara's house in Maine they are greeted with pictures from all the previous years. There were three years with just Jessica, then one year with Jessica and Rebecca and two year with Jess, Rebecca and Justin.

They were shown were to find the Camp Schedule and checked to see what they needed to do. They needed to take a picture and raise the flag.
Camp Picture first attempt....

Camp Picture many attempts later- pretty sure Kathy has given me some bunny ears or something to get these giggles.

Then they raised the camp flag.
Finally they ended with the Camp Cheer:




The kids came home 3 days later and were full of all the fun stories and adventures they had. They were mostly bummed that we, the moms, missed out on all the fun. We, the moms, did have our own fun so we were not that bummed. Another great Grandma Camp session- thanks Mom and Sara for giving the kids a wonderful experience. Most of my friends are exceedingly jealous and many have requested the registration forms so they can send their kids.

Sharon's Shower

At the beginning of July I was heading out to NY for my friend Sharon's baby shower. Before we left Jessica and I went for a tour of her new school. Yes our town is changing the school set ups and now all 4th and 5th graders will go to the same school. As we pulled out of the driveway we noticed a peculiar site on the yard. We got flocked. It is a fundraiser for the Lacrosse team I think. They place a flock of Pink Flamingos in your yard. You have to pay $20 to have them removed or you can pay $30 to have them placed in someone else's yard. Yeah we coughed up the $30 and had lots of fun discussing who would receive our gift (the Dunklee family won the prize).

On the way back from the tour I called Marc to make sure he was going to mow the lawn since it was getting out of control I was hosting parties for both their classes later in the week. I am not allowed to mow since I seem to have the knack for breaking the mower every time I use it, and no I don't do that on purpose. By the time we arrived home it was raining but Marc was out there mowing. Mostly to teach me a whiny wife lesson I think. But he refused to stop so he mowed the entire lawn in the rain. When Amy arrived to pick me up you could hear Marc singing or saying, very loudly, "Nope it isn't at all ridiculous that I am out here mowing the lawn in the rain". The kids thought that was awesome so they joined them. Here they all are posing with my flock.

What to do after the lawn was mowed? Go Swimming of course! I think it was at this point that Amy mentioned her son would rather live in this house than with them.

Amy and I then headed off to pick up Jen Weaver who was flying in from NC and was going to surprise Sharon. Hi Jen!

We hung out that night with Sharon and Tom which was very nice and got to see their apartment and their plans for where they nursery was going to be set up. The shower was a small Smithie affair that the Ritz for tea.

Hi Amy (she hates having her picture taken but realized it was going to happen so she should just smile).
The guest of honor arrives.

Hi Angela! Angela made the mistake of mentioning to someone else that she has a lovely guest room in her apartment in Manhattan. She and her husband have no children and was a little surprised when I mentioned that my kids and I would love to take her up on her offer of the guest room. Hmmmm still haven't decided if I will go through with it.

It was a small group- no pics of me though- so sad.

Sharon is expecting a girl- so she had to get a Smith sweatshirt- right?

And to prove how far behind I am in my bloggging.... I got a call from Amy on Saturday that Sharon had her baby, a girl, Caroline and everyone is doing well. Can't wait to go down and see her in person and maybe, just maybe, take a few pictures....

The Last weeks of school

I went on a bit of a volunteering binge at the end of school- a little too much I am afraid. I joined Justin's Kindergarten class for a field trip to the local zoo.

Later in the week I was supposed to help with Jessica's field day. BUT... when I spoke with the woman who was setting it up she mentioned that she had more than enough helpers. SO... I showed up late (oops) and it was already going and they didn't need me after all (yeah not the best mother of the year move). So I hung out with Jessica group for a little bit.


Here is her teacher Mrs W- she was the teacher assigned to Jessica's group- Synchronized Swimming (that was the name of her group). There are children from all the grades in each of the groups. Mrs W had these glasses she claimed brought good luck.


Also this week were the try-outs for the soccer league. Jessica played for the rec dept team last year- and it wasn't a great experience. Here is the thing- Jessica is not that good at all. She doesn't really like to run and is very hesitant to approach the ball. Her coach would play her for exactly 1/2 of a half = 10 minutes of a 40 minute game. NEVER a minute more. Anyway- when the flyer came home announcing try outs for the more competitive town league she made sure I saw the flyer and mentioned it many times. Here is the problem: Jessica doesn't know she is not that good. I am not overly complimentary on her performance or skills- she just has an amazing self protective or positive view of herself. I was hesitant to throw her into this league, but after our negative experience at Rec we thought it was worth a shot. At Rec it was a team made up of 3rd/ 4th/ 5th graders and at least on this team it will only be 4th graders. They quickly sorted the girls by skill level and Jessica fell to the bottom- no surprise. Basically she enjoys playing and we are going to encourage that as long as possible. Here she is on the second night of try-outs (um she is not attacking the ball it is actually go right past her).

I have to say it is hard to be the parent of non-athletic child playing sports in this town. It seems there is an unusually high number of very good athletic children. Our town is often the regional champs in various sports. But we will continue to chug along at the bottom of the pack and hope to find our place eventually.

A few house improvements

So first of all I know I am WAY behind in blogging. But you see the thing about summer is that the kids are here ALL the time so I am having a tough time getting to the fun things like blogging. I will try to add a few things every now and again and hopefully I will be caught up soon.

As you might remember there were two trees outside my kitchen window. I have had it in for these trees since before we moved in. a) they completely block my view of the backyard/ pool area so that is annoying b) the kitchen is very dark as it is so why should I block what little light is coming in and c) they didn't bloom or do anything pretty so I really didn't see the point of keeping them around.

One day Marc, finally sick of listening to me complain about the tree and hesitant to allow me tree cutting priveledges, set out to cute them down.



For some reason Marc stopped after cutting one down- not really sure why. And before he got to the other one a robin built a nest and laid some eggs inside thus delaying the trees demise.

The next big improvement was to our master bedroom closet. After we added the closet organizers to the kids closets and realized what a difference that made we began to make plans for our closet. We had to completely empty our closet in order to have the wood floors laid down- so it seemed a good time to move ahead with our plans. Here is the before shot. It was just a wire U shaped shelf/ hanging bar.

Marc designed a new closet organizer on line, had it delivered and then installed it himself. Here is a picture at the half way part. The plan was for the other side to have the same set up- but after putting it together and beginning to fill it up we realized we didn't need quite all that space so we have left an opening along the wall on the left side- offering some breathing room and a place to sit and put your shoes on. We also filled in the holes on the wall that were left behind by the previous owners.


It is SO NICE and we have tons of space now- anyone remember when we didn't even have a closet in our bedroom?