LIFE WITH FIVE LEGGS

Sunny Monday fun

2012-02-13T13:32:00.000-08:00

Today the kiddos decided to film a movie; it was about a robber (Johnny) who breaks into the home of a Marine (Francie). Natty directed and filmed it and if I could figure out how to post videos here, I would, because it made me laugh out loud.

Here's their picture anyway! :)

We also all spent some time outdoors on this beautiful sunny day- we walked Schatzi, played with the new pooper scooper (who would have thought that would be so much fun!?) and then the kiddos decided they wanted to play in the boat and break up the ice. They had great fun with that adventure! Unfortunately, I only had my old "stupid" phone and it doesn't take very good pictures.

And, of course, Woody came along for the outside adventure of the day as well; here he is drying in the sun after being thrown through a big mud puddle for a while.

Poor Woody.

More drawings!

2012-02-12T15:11:00.000-08:00

I realized I hadn't posted any of Francie's drawings in a while (not since this one over a year ago and before that this one) so I went into her room the other morning and snapped a few pictures of her most recent ones. I didn't dig through her pile for the best ones or for anything in particular, I just took the first couple on the top (Francie has been spending all of her time after we say, "It is time for bed" NOT going to bed but either drawing or reading, which I love, of course!) Here are five of them:

And finally, this one makes me smile, and feel like I am doing an okay job with some things in this parenting/raising children role.

She has three characters here: the first is a mean bully and her caption says, "Don't be a bully."

The second is a happy girl who says, "Try to make others feel good."

The last is a girl who has dressed herself to look like someone she thinks will be "popular" but she is unhappy. The caption says, " Don't try to be someone you're not."

Wise words from my little nine-year old! :)

And then...just because...here is one Johnny drew of his great Aunt Wendy:

Out and about

2012-02-08T08:01:00.001-08:00

Here are a few things that have been keeping us busy these past few months:

December:

Francie joined a program called, "Girls on the Run."

She met twice a week with the group throughout the fall, had great discussions about various topics with them while training to run in a 5K race!

Francie needed a "running buddy" for the race and she picked her grandpa, my Dad. :)

She said he made her run (jog) faster than she wanted to go but she enjoyed it anyway. She was quite proud of herself for completing her first 5K!

We went to the Sight & Sound Theatre in Lancaster and saw the show 'Miracle of Christmas.'

We got together with friends for a secret Santa exchange. One boy knit Francie a purse for her gift and she was quite thrilled by that!

We went to Hershey Park for Christmas Candylane. We loved riding the rides in the dark, with all of the Christmas lights and music and drinking up the hot chocolate.

My next car! :)

We enjoyed a wonderful Christmas season with each other...

with our grandparents/parents...

and with our cousins.

January:

We've been to local playgrounds to play, hike and JUMP!

Natty and Francie graduated in karate from brown belts with black stripes to red belts.

We visited Longwood Gardens.

We traveled out to Harrisburg for the PA farm show. The kiddos loved the carriage races and all of the food the best. I was reminded by a friend that I had been there before, twenty years ago!! That made me feel pretty....old!

We saw and enjoyed the play, "Pirates of Penzance."

We went to a "Road Rally"- where a bunch of us got together with our roller-blades or scooters or bicycles and rode around indoors for a few hours. It was a blast!

We finally had a little bit of snow--just enough to do some fun sledding and to make some maple snow syrup. It was pretty delicious!

We visited the Academy of Natural Science with friends.

We went to Chinatown! Least favorite to see there were the roasted ducks hanging in the windows...eek!

We played lots of Rack-O!!!

How I love playing Rack-O...and Francie will finally play with me as well!!

February:

Natty and Francie started a (very) creative art class.

We visited and toured the Herr Potato Chip Factory with a group of other homeschoolers.

Natty and Francie began a drawing class (must be art month!)

We did some tree hugging at Nottingham County Park.

And we went exploring at Hopewell Furnace.

West Virginia

2012-01-13T14:07:00.001-08:00

I have been meaning to post about two wonderful trips we have taken and time keeps getting away from me! They were two trips to West Virginia, and to tell them correctly, I need to go allllll the way back to August!!!

That's right, August. August is when I grabbed a little stomach bug, which turned into a nasty case of pneumonia, and left me exhausted and with a couple bruised ribs from all my hacking and coughing. It wasn't pretty and I fell behind on a lot of things, this blog being one of them (okay, lame excuse, I know, but I had to have some excuse for going all the way back to August!!)

Our trip, though, in the midst of it all, was to head to a beautiful rental property in Canaan Valley, West Virginia, along with my in-laws and brother-in-law's family. Johnny was lucky enough to have two loving, doting grandparents who decided to keep him while we were gone, so that I could rest and relax more (thank you, Mom and Dad!!)

We played games, talked, ate a lot, hiked, went horse-back riding,

relaxed in the Jacuzzi, played with our cousins,

watched an approaching storm from the deck, etc.

Well, some of us did some of that, I pretty much just sat around watching everyone have fun. :) But, it was just what the doctor ordered- a wonderful, relaxing, beautiful vacation!!

And jumping ahead two months to October....

We headed back to West Virginia, this time to the little town of Webster Springs, to enjoy the big Burgoo Cook-off.

We had a great time at the event, tasting food, taking 'train' rides & hay-rides, buying great wooden spoons and other such items, watching the kids compete in a fishing contest, etc.

Johnny won a cake in the 'cake walk' and was super excited about that (mainly because of the candy corn on the top!!!)

(Woody was pretty happy about that as well!!)

Francie and her cousins stole the stage to sing mostly all of the verses to John Denver's "Take me Home, Country Roads"!! They had a great time belting that one out and I am pretty sure they left everyone in the crowd smiling!

In addition to the fun at the cook-off, we had a big family reunion with Sean's side of the family and had a wonderful time visiting with lots of different relatives. My brother-in-law returned for the event from Kyrgyzstan with his Kyrgyzstan girlfriend and they brought us some great Kyrgyzstan gifts!

(My nephew also returned from Japan, bringing along his Japanese girlfriend and their Japanese gifts, but unfortunately, I don't have pictures of those.)

The many cousins and relatives enjoyed playing with each other throughout the days...

and Woody had a pretty good time as well (I think).

We also truly enjoyed our surroundings, as we were blessed with beautiful, warmish weather (for October in West Virginia!), sunny days and lots of blue skies.

Thankful Thursday- Friend

2012-01-05T07:38:00.001-08:00

I just need to take a moment to say thanks, for I have been blessed with an amazing and absolutely wonderful, trustworthy, honest, loving, kind, creative, supportive, fun, beautiful friend. I love her dearly.

You can too; here she is. :)

Thankful Thursday- Today

2011-12-15T19:25:00.001-08:00

Thankful this morning for the little boy who woke up and said, "I love you more than a peacock."

Thankful this evening for the girl who yelled to me, while jumping in a twirly dress on the trampoline, "I think the meaning of life is to love, have fun and take care of all the animal creatures of the world!"

And thankful at bedtime tonight for the exuberant excitement of the boy who found a new way to create super-hero drawings and can hardly sleep because he is so full of new ideas to try.

Wordless Wednesday- Tie-dye girl

2011-12-14T05:13:00.000-08:00

Yes, she really went out in the world to play like this...and she was happy. :)

Gettysburg

2011-12-13T07:37:00.001-08:00

We had a great trip to Gettysburg, PA, recently, to see their sites and learn some history.

Sean and Natty loved it, of course...

while Francie, Johnny and I were pretty much bored to tears.

Francie finally discovered the highlight of her trip-- bones in the woods!!

While Johnny found fascination in exploring the cannons for a really long time...

A fun, educational trip!

Fort Story/Historic Villages at Cape Henry

2011-12-06T05:40:00.000-08:00

While we were in Virginia Beach, we went to Fort Story to take their American Indian Village Tour and see a Native American Pow-Wow.

We enjoyed the dancing and the beautiful trails through the woods. Natty enjoyed buying a new cross-bow....and I enjoyed, once again, the opportunity to teach my children, untraditionally, and watch their fascination with what they discover and learn.

Wordless Wednesday- Take a Hike!

2011-11-30T12:11:00.000-08:00

Sweet Sunday

2011-11-27T09:27:00.000-08:00

Sweet boy. :)

Kim turns 40!

2011-11-23T11:37:00.000-08:00

About a month ago, my wonderful Aunt Karen reminded me that my sister's 40th birthday was approaching. Somehow I had missed thinking about this and quickly made plans to go visit her for her special day- last Friday. Last Monday I was chatting with her on the phone, moaning about how I had no gift for her and couldn't believe I wasn't given more warning that she was turning 40 this year (I only had 37 years, after all!), when a brilliant idea struck me. I decided I wanted to secretly put together a TOP 40 list for her 40th- forty people saying forty wonderful things about her, or memories of her, or anything they wanted to say about her. I emailed and facebooked and wrote to as many friends and family members as I could, asking for their contribution, all as quickly as possible.

In a couple of days I had reached my goal of forty and was all set to just print it all up for her and hand it to her when an email came in to me from her mother-in-law, saying that she wasn't sure what I was planning to do with it all but that I was so creative (ha!) she knew I would think of something. (Enter me staring off into space with an oblivious look on my face......me? Creative? Me...think of something to do with all of these memories? Ug!!)

But then, naturally, I had to do something with it all!! I raced to Michael's craft store, with four children in tow (three of mine and one friend who just happened to be over) to pick up something that I thought might work to create something brilliant (in under two days).

And then, for two days, I cut and printed and stuck and created...a memory book!!

And I was very happy!!

BUT THEN more people wrote...and MORE people wrote... and then I realized I hadn't even written...so I had to make another memory book!! (back to Michael's we went!!)

I quickly finished writing what I had to say for Kim (it was five pages...haha!), did some more printing and cutting and sticking and ta-da...the books were done! Whew!!

And off to Virginia Beach I raced, to celebrate the big 4-0 with my favorite (and only) sister.

All things considered (well, mainly just my lack of time in planning and putting everything together), the books turned out pretty wonderfully (I think!) and the things her friends wrote in about her were even better. These are the things people usually save to share at one's funeral- and now Kim gets to hear it all before she drops dead! I love it! :)

And Kim loved them too. :)

AND then, I relaxed and we had a nice, long, great night out celebrating at the Melting Pot with a few friends and crazy Aunt Karen.

Happy 40th Birthday, Kim!!!

Frog Hollow Farm

2011-11-13T07:19:00.001-08:00

Last week we went with a few other homeschooling families

to visit a local chicken farm, Frog Hollow Farm.

Although it was the coldest day of the week, we happily bundled up and found some warmth indoors near the hen house and chicken nursery. :)

Here everyone was able to pick out an egg from the henhouse to take home. The children were all super excited about this and loved that the eggs were all different colors!

After warming up a bit and visiting with the kittens (Francie's favorite), we had a wonderful tour of the farmyard, learning all about how the beautiful, happy, healthy chickens there get to live, eat, forage, survive and spend their time.

Turns out chickens really love spending their time outside, in the woods, pecking around and digging for different plants, worms and bugs. And, fortunately, for the very lucky chickens at Frog Hollow Farm, they get to spend as much time as they want outside, doing exactly what they love to do the most.

The chickens also have access to a great big bin of organic chicken feed and they have two beautiful white dogs to watch over them and protect them from predators at night.

Besides the chickens we also saw the farm's sheep and were introduced to some of their really adorable, friendly goats that the kiddos all enjoyed petting.

They were sneaky little things, though, and we had to be pretty sneaky ourselves to keep them from following our big group into the chicken area, where apparently they love to eat the chicken food. We didn't quite outsmart them, though. ;)

If I ever come back to life as a chicken, or even a goat or sheep, I hope to be lucky enough to end up on this beautiful farm with such a perfect, healthy, clean, comfortable, safe, natural environment and such friendly, loving caregivers!!

Francie in action

2011-11-11T06:04:00.000-08:00

Francie is constantly jumping from here to there and wanting me to try to capture her jumps in mid-air. I'm not the best photographer but I try to get her action shots for her and sometimes they work. Here are a few shots from the past couple of months!

Wordless Wednesday- Friends

2011-11-10T05:52:00.000-08:00

Hike

2011-11-08T04:33:00.000-08:00

Snapshots from a hike we took recently~

Despite the fact that we had a snow storm last week and lost power for four days, the weather has been wonderful for being outside, playing, running, walking, raking, visiting playgrounds, hiking, etc. We have been loving it!

This is what happens when you shoot a zombie.

And this is what happens when the zombie comes back to life!!

Zombie Attack

2011-11-04T13:43:00.001-07:00

Wordless Wednesday-Fall time!

2011-11-02T17:48:00.000-07:00

Weaver's Orchard

Oley Turnpike Dairy

Linvilla Orchards

Barnegat Lighthouse State Park

2011-10-27T07:51:00.000-07:00

Yesterday we spent the day unschooling at Barnegat Lighthouse State Park on Long Beach Island.

We met up with a few friends there and spent the day exploring tide pools,

playing in the water,

(yes, my children ended up all the way in, soaked from head to toe...)

jumping/climbing/walking on the rocks,

(retrieving Johnny's shoe which fell into the cracks of the rocks...reaching into the dark unknown hole was not the highlight of my trip, haha!)

climbing up and down the 217 steps in the lighthouse,

playing in the sand

and hiking the short nature trail.

What a fabulous day trip!!

We had a wonderful time!!!

We found little crabs,

a beautiful complete starfish,

dead stingrays,

dead horseshoe crabs, great shells, driftwood, slime (not really sure what it was...),

and seaweed

(Francie called this one "plastic seaweed")

(and this one she called "bacon seaweed!")

After we were all tuckered out,

we returned to a friend's beautiful beach house for a delicious dinner

and some evening kayaking (which didn't turn out exactly like Natty and Francie expected, but they learned a lot and had a great adventure anyway!)

Wordless Wednesday-Parade time!

2011-10-26T02:12:00.000-07:00

September- Francie and Cherry Crest Farm

2011-10-25T09:05:00.000-07:00

September was Francie's ninth birthday month!! She was very excited to be turning nine, but I wasn't as thrilled...I liked eight. Eight was good. :) Anyway, we spent her birthday day at the Crayola Factory with my parents

and then had a party for her later that night. Her next big birthday plan was to go to Hershey Park with just Sean, but unfortunately, it rained that weekend and they didn't get to go. She is still pretty mad about that, so I'm trying not to remind her. :)

We also spent a wonderful, beautiful, completely un-crowded, fun day at Cherry Crest Farm.

We were there for six hours and didn't even make it into their amazing corn maze, which is half of their attraction! The kiddos and their friends had a fabulous time running around,

seeing and feeding the animals,

jumping on the big pillow, sliding down the hill,

playing with the various new ball games, holding the chicks,

riding the go-carts,

riding on the hayride and the train,

and Natty built a house out of the big 'lincoln log' type logs around Francie and a friend.

He didn't build them a door, however, much to everyone's amusement.

Johnny's favorite attraction, as usual, were the singing chickens, and this year he loved the various chicken jokes they told.

Unfortunately he was too scared to go up and press the chicken joke button himself, so I had to stand there for a long time pressing the button, over and over so Johnny could hear the jokes.

His favorite two, which we heard an awful lot in the weeks that followed were: "Why didn't the chicken skeleton cross the road? Because he didn't have any GUTS!!" and "Why did the chicken cross the road, roll in the mud and cross back? Because he was a dirty double crosser." :)

Down syndrome awareness month

2011-10-20T07:38:00.001-07:00

This year I am (obviously) not doing the 31 for 21 blogging challenge. In fact, I'm being completely slack in even doing anything for Down syndrome awareness month (October)!! I feel a bit badly about that but not badly enough to do too much at the moment. Maybe later I will get more motivated. For now, I'm directing everyone to last year's challenge, which I actually managed to complete! Here's where it begins! But, if you don't like that, there a little link to the '31 for 21 challenge' over there on the right, and you can find all my posts from last month there as well. :)

Happy October!

Wordless Wednesday-Crayola Factory

2011-10-05T08:29:00.000-07:00

Natty

Francie

Johnny

Johnny love

2011-09-19T13:01:00.000-07:00

This is the little boy who took my hand yesterday as we were walking and said, "You're my best friend. I love you." I can't imagine much more in life that is sweeter than that.

I love you too, Johnny-boy!!

Wordless Wednesday-Beach

2011-09-14T20:24:00.001-07:00

Back in Sandbridge, Virginia-- LOVE it here! :)

Great last end-of-summer beach trip for all of us.

Wordless Wednesday-Nature Trail Walk

2011-09-07T19:39:00.000-07:00

Wordless Wednesday- Fun with Face Paint

2011-08-17T06:24:00.001-07:00

August

2011-08-12T12:54:00.000-07:00

Summer just keeps on going, as much as I try to slow it down. We've been keeping really, really busy, not intentionally, it just sort of keeps happening. Here are some more recent snapshots of what we've been doing!

Visit and tour of The Mill at Anselma

Hike and lake swimming at French Creek State Park with friends

Swimming in the "new pool" (as Johnny likes to call it because it was a pool we hadn't been to before) with new friends

Kayaking, canoeing, square dancing, eating, talking, laughing, people-watching, getting rained on, watching children's games, listening to live music...all at a local harvest supper and hoedown event

The "Balloon Freak" show- once again, the kids loved it!

Wordless Wednesday- Reading Fair

2011-08-10T18:04:00.001-07:00

Natty's VA adventure

2011-08-08T17:14:00.000-07:00

I mentioned in yesterday's post that Natty had the wonderful opportunity of being able to go stay with my sister, Kim, in Virginia Beach for ten days in July so he could see and spend lots of time with the girl he met (and likes a lot) from Spain, Elena.

He came back home thrilled at having had the chance to see her (and his cousins and his aunt/uncle!) but very sad that she was returning to Spain in just a few days. He also brought home tons of memories and a few pictures from his time there. Naturally, most of his pictures are of his cousins and Elena but he did get a few of himself as well.

Some of his highlighted activities were:

going to my sister's church's Vacation Bible School every night,

going to the Cinema Cafe' (where they brought food and his check to him without him even noticing!),

hiking at the the Great Dismal Swamp,

going to the beach,

going swimming in Kim's pool,

going fishing on the boat of a friend,

playing games (his new favorite, 'Take a Chance'),

and engaging in other such fun activities in my sister's house-- like, their fashion shows.

I am glad to have Natty back home with me, thankful for the great time he was able to have in Virginia (thanks, Kim!!), and happy for new friendships and good times together. :)

July

2011-08-07T18:29:00.000-07:00

I keep trying to jump right into August with my posts but my head keeps screaming, "Finish July first!!!" So, I'm going to try to do a short (haha) recap of July so I can move on to August!!

After our great visit with my parents and sister at my parent's house (that would be this post) our July flew forward with a long weekend visit from Sean's parents as well as the arrival of my cousin's daughter, Kelsey, who came all the way from Tennessee to spend a week with us!

Francie was super excited to have her come and the whole week was filled with laughter, playing, eating and engaging in lots of fun activities.

First stop....Burger King!

And a later stop...Friendly's! (I know, I know, not our usual stops-- but not much else to do when your guest refuses to eat anything you serve...even a blueberry!!)

Flea Market shopping- with a stop for some 'cow chip bingo'-- we waited for that cow to poop for a long time, finally gave up and went home. :)

Eating soft pretzels and waiting for Natty and Francie to finish up their karate class.

Fun at the beautiful pool!

Waiting for Dominoes Pizza (blech!!)

Shady Maple Smorgasbord

Wii Dancing

Waiting for another karate class to finish...

Blueberry picking

Although I didn't post any pictures of Natty, he went along with us for mostly everything and enjoyed Kelsey's visit as well (not as much as Francie, but he had a good time anyway.)

His big excitement was to come the weekend Kelsey left, when Sean took him to Virginia Beach to spend time with my sister, and his new friend from Spain, Elena, for ten days. But...that's a post for another time. :)

Meanwhile, a day after Kelsey (and Natty) left, Francie took off for her first over-night camp experience. She spent her days doing crafts, swimming, eating, sleeping, going to the nature center, singing, trying archery, etc., and had a wonderful time (although she did miss me and isn't quite sure she wants to go again next year.)

While Francie and Natty were both gone, my Dad was also gone (off hiking on the A.T.) so Johnny and I stayed with my mom for awhile. I relaxed a lot, took long hot walks, swam, ate lunch and had a long, super-hot, sweaty bike ride with a friend for my birthday and played with Johnny (though he really mainly only wanted to play with G'ma, of course!)

Here we are enjoying Photo Booth on G'ma's deck.

After retrieving Francie from camp and returning home for a couple of days, we turned right back around and drove to Virginia Beach to pick up Natty (it was good to have him back!)

Of course, then we stayed for a couple of days with my Aunt Karen & Uncle Jerry, and were spoiled by their beautiful house (just two roads from the beach), their great food, their deck pool,

their company (that's my sister and Karen),

the early morning walks up the beach to the market for donuts,

and some absolutely fabulous beach days full of sand digging & "sand-drip castle" making,

boogie boarding & playing in the water,

porpoise watching, stingray sightings, blue crab catching,

and treasure finding.

It was a fabulous beach trip!!

(Sean and me)

July came to a screeching halt the next week, but not before we finished if off with some dentist visits (yeah for no cavities!), pool time with friends, Thai food, Mexican food, karate classes and a fabulous birthday dinner out with some good friends (that's me in the oversized green polo shirt, hahaha, nobody told me it was 'wear purple' night...ha!)

Wonderful, wonderful (but went too fast!) hot, busy, July, summer birthday month!

Wordless Wednesday- Zucchini cars!

2011-08-03T18:46:00.000-07:00

Having fun at the Farmer's Market at the Mill at Anselma!

Brandywine River Museum

2011-07-31T16:13:00.000-07:00

We have made two trips lately to the Brandywine River Museum for the kiddos to enjoy a couple of art classes.

It is a bit of a drive for us to get there, but we went both times with a friend, which made the drive go faster. We also went out to eat a Mexican lunch after each class, in a great Mexican restaurant, that has the same white sauce we know and love from all of our Mexican eating in Virginia. Yum!

In our art class each week, we had the pleasure of being walked around the museum to find and enjoy different pieces of artwork.

For the first class, we looked for people, in the second class, we looked for animals. Each time our tour guide did an excellent job of having us discover different things about each painting. I enjoyed it as much (or more) as my children did.

Afterwards we created different pieces of artwork...

and played outside on the cow

...and on the pig.

We look forward to more of their art classes in the future! (and I wouldn't mind some child-free time to explore the museum myself!)

Duck love

2011-07-22T13:52:00.000-07:00

We were having fun raising our little ducklings, Ruby and Webster, right up until the night Ruby got brutally murdered and eaten by an unknown predator because of my stupidity. While we are very sad to have lost Ruby (at least someone had a good meal...), we have been enjoying Webster a lot more, since now he wants us a lot more (poor lonely duck!)

He likes to follow us down to the pond to swim,

and likes to come back home with us too.

We are hoping one day he will love the pond and want to stay there.

A couple of weeks ago we found two very sad ducks for sale on the side of the hot, dry road in a little cage and we decided what they really needed was a big pond to swim in and play. So, we bought them up, put them into a box and brought them home.

Needless to say, they were VERY happy to be in some water and have been enjoying our pond ever since, despite the algae everywhere!

Hopefully soon Webster will enjoy being with them as well.

Natty, Johnny, Francie and second cousin, Kelsey (ducks are in the background)

Wordless Wednesday- My views this past week

2011-07-20T18:11:00.000-07:00

I love these hot, sweaty summer days out

walking on the towpath!!

Blog hits

2011-07-19T18:38:00.000-07:00

I love the little feedjit button I have over there to the right that tells me where people who visit my blog are located and sometimes it tells me how they found my blog. Over the past few months, I've recorded the hits and now I'm going to post it for the heck of it. So, these are all the things people have googled.... and then ended up on my blog! Enjoy!

weird al yankovic songs on shoveling snow
clothesline haiku (x2)
ajiri tea (x9)
beach haven sandbridge facebook
jiffy pop extender (X3)
how to decorate a canoe for a regatta
Norman Rockwell big brother
leggs (x3)
legg's lucky
"unschooling" site:blogspot.com
Friday Fun Johnnie
hummingbirds in Sandbridge
beach haven sandbridge va
what would cause a petrified frog
sandbridge beach
natty poems
longwood gardens cross country ski
best donuts in sandbridge virginia beach
mud an fun
is jiffy pop recycle
thank you to an anonymous person
crowe's nest homeschooling classes in pa
a poem about natty boy
unschooling down syndrome (x2)
when salamanders are babies
can toads lay eggs in a puddle
natty hat
days it snowed in virginia beach 2011
15 Wednesday German
fun description of a fun husband for kids
crunchy chocolate truffle pie
norman rockwell model T
natty birthday 2010
life with 5 leggs
rollenbaun
handsome wank
der wank
pictures of dead raccoon bones

A fun summer visit

2011-07-16T13:57:00.001-07:00

I love our summertime visits with family and friends!!

Earlier in July, we spent nearly a week at my parent's house with my parents, my sister, Kim, my sister's two little girls, Bryn & Molly, my sister's mother-in-law, Georgia, and an 11-year old girl, Elena, from Spain, whom Georgia is hosting for the month. This worked out perfectly because everyone had a playmate their own age (pretty much!) with whom they loved playing!

Molly and Johnny.

Molly is so good with Johnny. She chatters away, playing with him, making up games, involving him, reading to him, etc., and Johnny loved having a patient, kind (and oh so cute) playmate!

Bryn and Francie

Elena and Natty

We all had a great time swimming in the pool

and in the canal.

We also...

went to Rice's Flea Market,

Went paddle-boating & canoeing in the canal

Played games

Relaxed

Visited Ringing Rocks (with our hammers, of course!!)

Johnny loves Aunt Kim!!

Played with Sparklers

Took walks and bike rides, ate ice cream, played with our ducklings and spent lots of good time with our parents/grandparents. :)

What's up?

2011-07-14T04:02:00.001-07:00

When I was high school age, out checking our mail, my neighbor approached me and asked, "What are you up to these days?" and I was, at the moment, flabbergasted about what he meant and how I was supposed to answer.

I replied, "Huh?" and he said, "What are you up to these days?" and I still couldn't figure out what he meant. Did he mean my height? My grade? What exactly did he mean? Poor me, a sleep deprived teenager, haha. I'm too embarrassed to say how many times I said, "huh?" and he said, "What are you up to these days?" but it went on for a while.

This is for you, Mr. Artie Burger, I finally figured out what you were asking. Here's what I've been up to these days (well, at least, this is what we were up to in June):

Swimming in creeks with friends

Paddle-boating

Pool-side!

Playing games

Francie and I had manicures (this is Francie):

Natty and Francie (and their friends Tessa and Sarah) attended an all-day candy making class. They loved it, came home with great treats, and begged for meat and veggies, ha!

Our homeschooling June co-op; after the co-op that we attended all year ended for the year, we went to a new one for the month of June and had some great times. We cooked together a lot,

did science experiments, read books, did activities, tried our hands at paper mache, played lots of games, did crafts,

played outdoors, had art classes, show-n-tell (not just for the kiddos!!) enjoyed eating lunches family-style together, etc.

Two of the bigger highlights in our co-op were having two ladies come, with their seeing eye dogs, to talk to us about the Seeing eye dog program. What a wonderful program! We knew some about it since my dad raised seeing eye dog puppies when he was little, but a lot has changed since then. If you get a chance to check it out and support it, it is a worthwhile cause!

The other big highlight was a woman, Kristen, who came in to do a creative movements class with us. She was from Feet First in Phoenixville and spent an hour with our completely attentive and engaged children, moving, dancing and story-telling. Everyone loved it and wants to do it again. Kristen was excellent!!

Whew, I think that's enough of June!! Really quickly, a jump into the first couple days of my favorite month, July!!

This is what you might look like after swimming in our pond! Eww!

And, finally, to kick off my birthday month, I had a wonderfully long (but not long enough!) hike with Lorena, followed by dinner out with her and another friend as well...

and a movie. I won't talk about how they made me see the worst movie ever, ('Bad Teacher') and I'll leave it at the fact that I have finally forgiven them for it. :)

Animals!

2011-07-09T19:38:00.001-07:00

Here are a few photos of our recent wildlife sightings as well as some of our new additions!

A pheasant in our driveway.

We've had lots of wild turkeys with their babies too, but no pictures of them.

Our new ducklings, Webster and Ruby.

One morning I was walking Schatzi and came across this little bundle of fur! How cute are they?!

This is the rooster that peeked my legs/ankles to death when I went into his cage. Evil bird. Ha!

Turtles!!

Wordless Wednesday- Fruit picking

2011-07-06T13:06:00.001-07:00

We've been having great fun picking (and eating) fruit this spring at a local orchard- strawberries, cherries and blueberries, yummy, yummy!

Blueberries!

Cherry ant art!!

Natty's 11th birthday

2011-07-01T07:07:00.000-07:00

I need a break (maybe a forever one!) from posting about Germany because it is taking too long and I am ready to write about something different!

The first is Natty's 11th birthday, which was almost a month ago!

Last year, he and I took our own trip to Knoebels.

While we had a wonderful time, just the two of us, and he wanted to recreate that again, he also thought it would be great to have all of us there.

So, Sean took off of work and out we headed!

It was a beautiful, perfect day for being there, amazing weather, rides with no lines, no crowds and everyone in a good mood.

We split up at various points so Francie could ride the roller coasters or Natty could spend time with just one of us.

At one point, Francie and I were watching Johnny ride a ride only he was still small enough to ride on and enjoy. As we stood there watching him, Francie exclaimed, "It's so nice watching Johnny having so much fun riding this ride!"

Moments like those are the ones that just melt my heart.

I love my kiddos!! :)

After a long, fun-filled day, we spent the night at my parent's house and then woke up to have a party with friends and family to keep on celebrating Natty's special day.

Happy 11th Birthday, my sweet little first-born boy! :)

Wordless Wednesday- Francie with "Frances"

2011-06-29T04:42:00.001-07:00

Oma bought Francie this little German doll at one of the gift shops at the Neuschwanstein castle. Francie named her 'Frances' and loved playing with her. :)

Going down 'Der Wank'

2011-06-28T19:06:00.000-07:00

My last post was about going up, this one is going down!

Everyone except for Natty, Francie, my dad and me decided they would (wisely) take the cable car back down.

We decided we would hike it down. Straight down.

Over an hour and a half of straight down.

But with wonderful views like this one the whole way and the absolutely beautiful weather, we couldn't really complain!

We made it back to middle-station and happily jumped back into a cable car for the rest of the ride down. It was a great hike but we were all pretty happy to have a ride the rest of the way.

Der Wank

2011-06-26T17:43:00.001-07:00

One of the many things to do in the part of Germany where we were is to ride a cable car to the top of a mountain. We chose 'Der Wank' because...well, because it was cheaper than the other one we were considering and looked like fun.

We hadn't really planned it out, we pretty much just drove there one day.

After purchasing tickets

and eating all the gummies they gave us,

we all jumped into different cable cars to ride up. I hopped into a car with my two boys (and not with the couple that tried to get on with us as well! Not sure why they thought they would get in our car with us, there was no line and a car was coming right after us in about five seconds!!), while Francie rode up with my parents and Sean with his.

We went up,

and up

and up some more!

When we reached "middle-station" we thought it was the end (see that little building on the left? That's middle-station)

but no, we were going to go straight up from there!

The whole ride up had breathtaking views.

Once at the top, we scurried our hungry selves into a restaurant to eat some more German schnitzel, wurst and beer (except, of course, those of us who happen to be vegetarians and/or don't like beer...)

and then went outside to enjoy more of the spectacular views

Dad and Natty

Opa (Sean's Dad)

Francie, Natty, Johnny and my mom

and to run around on top of the mountain.

Some of us pretended to be cows...

but most of us didn't. ;)

Getting back down 'Der Wank' is a story for another day!

Neuschwanstein Castle

2011-06-24T19:07:00.000-07:00

A real castle! And the inspiration for Disneyland's Sleeping Beauty Castle!! Of course we had to go!

Learning about the Neuschwanstein Castle and King Ludwig were both quite enthralling.

Of course, Natty, Francie and Johnny found the snails and slugs at the base of the castle just as enthralling...

And the ketchup weiner-man was quite entertaining too....

And, the poles to hang on were pretty fun...

But when we finally made it (some of us hiking and some of us riding a bus but all of us having to walk the last ten minutes), it was well worth it!

Natty and Johnny

My mom, Johnny and me!

Johnny, Natty and me

Natty, Francie, my parents and I all went inside for a tour (Sean & his parents had done it before so they stayed out with Johnny) and it was pretty impressive!

Mom and Natty on a balcony of the castle

Fascinating castle, fascinating man, fascinating swans and fascinating views!!

Dad and Francie checking out one of the many views from the castle!

Hike in the Alps

2011-06-24T08:18:00.000-07:00

Hiking in the Alps!? Who could resist?

We dropped my dad off with Natty and Francie at the bottom of this mountain one morning:

Later, Sean and I left Johnny with my mom and headed out to find them. The picture above shows Sean looking for them, haha!

We had walkie talkies but we couldn't reach them.

We stared at the map for awhile wondering...

and then decided to just start walking. We had to guess along the way.

Did they decide to hike up this way....?

Or did they take this trail instead?!

We really weren't too sure.

When (if) they came to this gate with the sign written in German, were they able to read it? Did they keep on going? We figured they would.

We looked at the sign, hoped that it didn't say, "Do not enter or you will be shot" and kept on going...

Of course, seeing this moments later didn't really make us feel that great about our decision, ha!

But, we enjoyed the route we took anyway and especially loved all of the glorious scenery.

We also enjoyed seeing some things that we didn't expect to see...

After an hour or so more, we finally picked up a good signal and were able to talk with Natty on the walkie-talkies. They were far, far away up the mountain, but heading back down and having, of course, a great time.

Moments later we were all caught in a big thunderstorm. We took this picture as we were hiding out under some awesome trees that provided perfect coverage from the rain. We didn't want to leave!

The storm passed almost as quickly as it erupted and we headed back down the mountain, finally catching up with the wet, hungry, tired (but happy) hikers.

Here they are trying to figure out exactly where they hiked (who knew they wouldn't have any clue where they were going either?!) :)

Road-trip in Germany!

2011-06-22T05:47:00.000-07:00

We spent most of one day in Germany driving over to Sean's old town, Trunkelsberg, where he lived and went to school when he was younger. It was a little bit of a drive but absolutely beautiful. Here are some road-trip pictures!

I don't think anyone got tired of seeing the fabulous Alps!

Remnants of a castle on top of a mountain.

Francie took this one from the backseat of the car.

We made it! Here is the Gasthaus from Sean's town.

And this is where we finally ended up, in the backyard/house of Sean's old school teachers (husband and wife)! It was nice to see them all reunite and tell old stories...except I didn't hear very many since I was outside playing with the kids. It was a gorgeous day!!

Natty

Johnny and me

Johnny and Francie spent a really long time digging up about 45 acorns out of the ground. Johnny ended up with a sticky dirty substance all over his feet- he is trying to pick it all off here.

And, this is the spot where my new picture at the top came from-- I am not sure how long I will leave it up there, so I will put it here-- as well as the one that didn't make it on the top! ;)

Zugspitze

2011-06-21T05:07:00.000-07:00

Top of Germany!!

The Zugspitze is the highest mountain in Germany and we set out to see it.

We rode a train, a bus and a cable car to get to the very top and most had beautiful views the whole way.

At the top there was snow but also, unfortunately, fog, so we didn't get the best views. We did, however, have lots of fun throwing snowballs at each other (and Johnny even managed to eat some of it before I could stop him-- eww!!)

Also, unfortunately, the battery for my camera died just around this time and I can't seem to get any of my mom's pictures to load here. But, we had a delicious German meal at a restaurant at the top, as well as roaming around dropping snow on each other's heads, before making the long descent back down. What a great experience!

Wordless Wednesday- the Alps

2011-06-15T05:03:00.000-07:00

Our view every morning and evening...

German Rollenbahn

2011-06-08T19:48:00.000-07:00

Although we know we have mountain slides here in the good ole' United States (we know because we've been on one somewhere up North- in Maine, or New Hampshire, or Vermont- or one of those Northern states!!) we couldn't pass up a trip to Germany's Rollenbahn (roller track), especially because Tanina and Patrick took us there!

Dad at the top! It was beautiful up there!

Everyone was eager to get on and go, except for Oma (Sean's mom) and Natty. Oma was understandable, but nobody could understand why Natty wouldn't want to go. Sean told us when he was Natty's age, his brother, Eric, brought him there and he, too, was too afraid to go. The difference was, Sean ended up going on with Eric. Natty did not want to go on with anyone. He flat out refused offers from everyone to go with them. And everyone kept trying and trying to get him to go. And he kept saying no.

I get torn in these situations- do I keep trying to get him to do something he might end up liking or just let it go? I know Natty- he wants to be in control at all times and know exactly what he is getting into before he does something. If he could have had the little car to test drive and walked the track before actually getting on it, he would have been fine. But, he couldn't.

So, he refused to try. I let it go.

Meanwhile, we all kept riding.

Even Opa.

Tanina and Johnny

Sean and Johnny (Johnny loved it and wanted to go with everyone!)

Eventually, one way or another, everyone, or someone/something, convinced Natty to go.

He got in. And out. And in again. And out.

Finally, he was in for good and headed up the hill.

We waited. And waited.

He didn't come down.

We walked over to the starting point. There, showing on the little T.V. screen was a great picture- a picture of a little boy, my son, standing at the top of the mountain.

When the car stopped at the top, he saw it as his golden opportunity to jump out and not have to make the descent. Tanina was at the top as well and we watched her trying, in vain, to convince him to return to his car and come down. Natty wasn't budging.

Sean asked the man if I could go up on a 'rescue Natty mission' but we were told to just wait. And as we waited, we watched the other German man, who spoke no English, ride a car up behind Natty, get out, walk over to him and gently guide him back into his car. He brought Natty down, slowly, safely and without judgement.

Natty said later that he was a really nice man, although he had no idea what he was saying in German. I think Natty was partly worried that the man might have been saying something like, "Get back in your car or I'm going to shoot you!" and that scared him more than the prospect of coming down the hill!!

All is well that ends well, I guess. The English speaking man told him that he wasn't the first one to jump out at the top and I think that made Natty feel a little better. He finally let my mom go with him and they came down the hill, slowly, breaking the record for the slowest moving car on the Rollenbahn ever.

And then, of course, he had to go again and again, and wanted to come back and do it again another day as well. We did return, but Natty didn't ever try going by himself again (though he would reach back and steer if you went with him, in control but not alone...)

That's my boy!

Opa with Johnny

Johnny and me- check out that wild flying hair!!

Sean and Francie kept trying to beat the speed record- they didn't use brakes!

Oma watching and waiting for us.

Wordless Wednesday- German cows

2011-06-08T04:27:00.000-07:00

Germany - Our first day

2011-06-01T16:05:00.000-07:00

We left the Philly airport around 6:30 PM (actually, it was closer to 7:30 PM before the plane actually made it into the sky!!) and arrived in Munich, Germany around 2:30 AM our time; 8:30 AM their time! After a long plane ride where nobody slept, arriving in the morning of a new day was quite an adjustment - we were all really tired!

Sean handled renting us two cars and we bustled our way out of the airport, out of Munich and two hours away into Garmisch. I am pretty sure most of us who could, slept, except for Sean and my dad, the drivers. We arrived at the Edelweiss Lodge safe, but tired.

We had two deluxe cabins, a little bit away from the actual resort, and we immediately set out to find them and to explore them.

The loft upstairs- very comfy! The boys are in the corner- the rest of the loft was big enough for us to stand in- we didn't need to go into the corner (but the kiddos had fun in it!!)

Dad and Johnny on the front porch

The view of the Alps outside the cabin doors. (And those are the big rocks both Dad and Sean backed the rental cars into, despite our upgraded expensive cars that beeped to tell them they were inches from the rocks AND showed them a picture of the rocks they were about to hit!!)

After exploring and unpacking and running around in the beautiful, fresh, wonderful German air, we headed back out to find and meet an old friend of Oma and Opa's, Tanina, and her boyfriend, Patrick. We found them downtown Garmisch and they had hunted down Burger King crowns for us, just like at home. Ha!

We parked and enjoyed a nice walk through some of the town.

And then Tanina and Patrick took us to a great restaurant for some real German food. This is where we learned we had to pay for water and ketchup!

After a great meal (lots of us had the fresh German white asparagus!) we walked some more in the town to see what we could find.

We found a neat little walking trail, some slugs, an old water wheel...

a cow on an upstairs porch...

and then topped it all off with some delicious German ice cream.

It was a wonderful first day in Germany!

Germany- The airport

2011-05-27T18:44:00.001-07:00

We just returned from a wonderful week in Garmisch, Germany!!

It was a lovely, relaxing, beautiful vacation.

We took along my parents and Sean's parents and I think everyone had an equally fabulous time.

The worst parts of the trip were the airports- the entire process was stressful- getting there, parking, shuttle buses, checking in, checking bags, going through security, getting to the right gates, going through passport checks, going through more security and waiting...rushing...and waiting. The kiddos all handled it really well but I am not sure I want to do that again anytime soon!

Here are Oma and Opa (Sean's parents) waiting at the Philly airport.

My mom- waiting with Francie and Johnny.

My Dad, helping Natty write in his journal while we wait.

Johnny torturing my Dad.

Well, maybe some of us didn't find the wait too long and stressful!!

Thank goodness for grandparents!! :)

Happy Mother's Day!

2011-05-08T08:52:00.000-07:00

Not only have I been blessed with my own wonderful mother

but I have been blessed to be the mother of three wonderful children as well.

I love you,

Natty,

Francie,

and Johnny.

Thank you for choosing me to be your mother. :)

Frog & toad time

2011-05-06T04:26:00.000-07:00

It's that time of year again around here- or at least it was a couple weeks ago.

When we returned late at night from Virginia Beach on Easter Sunday, we had to stop at the end of our driveway and get out to move all the frogs and toads off so we could drive up without squashing any.

Natty and Francie were more than happy to help out with this and even had to walk back down around midnight to look at them all mating again.

Have you ever felt a frog croak while holding it in your hand? It is the neatest feeling.

Of course, lots of mating frogs and toads means lots of tadpoles and we are knee deep in them now as well.

We have a depression in one of our fields and the frogs/toads love to lay their eggs in the puddle there. It is a perfect spot, except when it doesn't rain and the puddle dries up.

We have all gone down now, more than once, in knee high water boots, to rescue tadpoles. We aren't really sure if putting them into the pond will save them, but we are hoping they have a better chance there than getting dried up in the puddle!