Back to School

So the summer is over and third grade has begun. Despite some first morning jitters both girls like their teachers and being back in school. No one has ignored them on the playground, blamed them for something they didn't do, or given them homework. So it was all good. Here they are on the first day of school:

At the bus stop (aka our driveway) they got to hang out with our neighbor Abby who we hadn't seen since the last day of school!:

They each selected a new backpack to start the year. Hannah picked one based on "Victorious" her new favorite show, and Lizzie picked one with two dogs on it. She ended up with Labradors because they didn't have poodles:

Here's the full effect. They are wearing their brand new Twinkle Toes shoes and carrying their Pack-It lunch boxes that keep the food cold for up to 10 hours. (Which I have to say, they do!):

And..... they're home, enjoying some oatmeal scotchies and milk. They each came home with a bunch of paperwork and an assignment to show up with a full set of multiplication flashcards by Tuesday. By the end of 3rd grade they need to know all the times tables through 12x12. YIKES!!!

Summer Count Up 11

This is my last count up, because this is the last week of summer vacation. I always get teary-eyed on the first day of school because I miss the routine of summer and on the last day of school because I miss the routine of the school year. I can't believe that Hannah and Lizzie are starting THIRD GRADE tomorrow. I hate to be cliche and all, but seriously WHERE THE HELL IS THE TIME GOING???? Anyway, we had a great last week of summer which included both an earthquake AND a hurricane. Good times!

Day 68: We looked at this condo with a lake view and totally fell in love with it. Prices are rock bottom, but unfortunately NOT so rock bottom that we can buy it, but boy oh boy was it tempting!!

Day 69: Our annual trip to Walter Francis Dam. We had a picnic this year (you'll see more Poconos pictures during the week) but couldn't take our walks down the road because it was covered with water. And this was BEFORE the hurricane! This is the view from the road to the dam:

Day 70- Waterpark Day. One of the highlights of our trip to the Poconos is visiting H2O, the waterpark there. It's a lot smaller with fewer rides/slides than Great Wolf Lodge, but the kids all still love it. Here are Hannah and Liz coming down one of the slides in a double innertube:

Day 71- Aunt and Uncle Anonymous came to spend some time with us on Tuesday and left Wednesday morning to go home and prepare for the hurricane that was supposed to hit them, but hit US instead. Here they are with the four kids:

Day 72 - No trip to the Poconos is complete without a trip to Hog Heaven, the local ice cream place. As you can see, Grandpa is especially excited when we go. ;)

Day 73 - The NY Garritys had to leave early Friday morning so we were left to fend for ourselves without Tommy and Brenna as built in playmates. We thought of them often throughout the day, including when the girls visited the fort the four of them (plus to other kids in our little condo area) built near the playground:

Day 74 - All good things come to an end. For us that meant leaving the Poconos on Saturday to get home in time to take the patio furniture off of the patio and fill the bathtubs with water in preparation for the hurricane. Oh, and we also had to get Cash back home with us. The girls actually missed him while we were away. Here they are with the very odd statue of a wildcat chasing a deer that is near the registration building at Split Rock. About 10 minutes after I took this photo it POURED rain ... which it then did for about the next 24 hours:

Day 75 -- I was styling in my new boots (9.99 at Target on clearance) when the hurricane hit us Saturday night into Sunday. We didn't get a whole lot of water, but we did get a bunch of branches down in the yard. Oh and my power went out for two minutes at 4 a.m. causing me to have to reset all my clocks -- I am wondering if FEMA covers emergencies such as that...:

Bonus Hurricane Photo:

The hurricane wasn't so bad. We were prepared (had chocolate and canned chili on hand) and really the scariest part were all the tornado warnings Saturday night. Luckily the girls had a campout in the basement so I didn't have any worries about them. The next morning we went out to look at the storm damage. This is the road to the girls' school. That yellow sign is the bridge that the water is supposed to go UNDER, but instead it went all around it:

This is one of the tree branches that fell in our yard. We had another tree top fall down closer to the road, too, but my camera was out of batteries so I couldn't take a picture of it:

This is the Manatawny River, which was pretty high, but we've seen it higher. It was moving debris pretty fast though:

And this is the Schuylkill River, which flooded its banks, but again, not as bad as we've seen it in the past. So we are all very thankful that the storm wasn't as bad as predicted. Now I just have to figure out what to do with all that emergency chocolate:

So, that was our summer. Seventy-five days of fun. We just got a call that it MAY be 76 days as some of the schools don't have power, but I'll post more about that if it happens. The girls were sad to see the summer end, but once they packed up their backpacks, laid out their clothes and had their baths, they were excited about tomorrow.

Summer Count Up 10

So we are back from vacation and awaiting the hurricane, so I am posting these pictures from Week 10 of our summer, which was TWO weeks ago, so I'm not sure I'm going to remember exactly what happened. Because I'm not really even sure what happened two DAYS ago. Anyway, I'll post week 11 tomorrow as usual, and then some additional pictures (and VIDEO!!) of our vacation during the week. Summer (sadly) ends on Monday morning unless Irene (the hurricane) decides to cause enough damage to delay school for a day (or 30 if Hannah and Lizzie get their wish...)

Day 61: This is us at the Ridge Diner, after church. I think Lizzie is explaining to Rob how big her pancake needs to be, but I'm not sure:

 

Day 62: A surprise visit from the Hand family. YAY!!!!!! I've know Kara since she only had three kids :) and now she's got SIX. Yes, it's true, only TWO of those kids are mine and the rest are hers! Kara and I met when her daughter Georgia (standing to Lizzie's left) and Hannah and Lizzie were in the same preschool class. I love it when Kara stops by as my house always sounds so full and happy:

Day 63: I had a lot of back to school things to do this week, so we didn't get to go as many places as we usually do. So today we discovered the fun that you can have in your own backyard on this swingset that we've had since the girls were three or so. Hannah's favorite thing to do on the swings is to  jump off them. Barefoot.

Day 64: This is the day I discovered that I left my camera out in the rain and it wasn't working anymore, so I had to switch to my yucky camera (that's not the official name for it) and go into deep morning. On a happy note, I discovered when we got back from our trip (during which I took only yucky pictures) that the camera is working, although the auto-focus is not. So at least I can take cool pictures of the hurricane. If it ever gets here. Anyway, on Day 64 I will let you know that school-time meetings have already begun. This is the agenda for my Service Team meeting for the Girls Scouts. I'm the liaison for the elementary school as well as a delegate to the state organization. The night before this I had a meeting of the Everyday Math Task force and next week I've got my first CCD staff meeting:

Day 65: I took a break from the back-to-school laundry and watching the rain to take Hannah and Liz to the local McDonald's play area -- also known as the 7th ring of hell. Especially when everyone in the town of Pottstown had the exact same idea. And the place's credit card machine wasn't working so I had to dig to the bottom of my pocketbook to find enough dimes to afford two happy meals. The girls had a good time though and I did find two other moms to commiserate with, even if one of them thought I was so nice to take my grandchildren to McDonalds on a rainy day. Big sigh...

Day 66: The last coffee of summer. Hannah and Lizzie were very upset that coffee time has ended for the summer. They felt bad for themselves and bad for me, too, so I didn't tell them that coffeetime for ME is year-round. They marked the occasion by going formal (this is Hannah and Zoe):

Day 67: VACATION!!!! Yay!!!!! Oh boy did I need to get away from all that laundry!!!! Here we are at the start of our annual trip to the Pocono Mountains at our favorite restaurant (well Rob and my favorite restaurant) Terra Cottage. Stay tuned for lots more pictures from the Poconos:

Don't Worry, I'll Post More Soon...

Hello from the lovely Pocono Mountains where I JUST felt the tremors from the Earthquake. I'm sitting in the bar using the WiFi (no I'm not drinking) and my table started swaying.... I actually asked the bartender if he felt the room swaying and he said "a little" but kind of gave me a weird look. 10 minutes later they break into the television report and said that there was an earthquake with tremors felt all the way up to Scranton. So then the bartended realized that he hadn't just overserved me (in fact, he didn't serve me at all!!) ;) and then he started telling other people about how I had felt the earthquake.
So now I'm famous.

Anyway, I'll get the count up, up on the blog on Saturday as the WiFi is a little sketchy here -- but I wanted to send you a picture or two so you can see how much fun we're having!!

Beanie and the girls at the Lake House for dinner. It had been raining, but stopped JUST so I could take this picture:

Here are all the kids playing outside our condos:

I'll post more on Saturday and throughout next week!!

Summer Count Up, 9

There are only two weeks left of our summer vacation. WAAAAAAAH!!! I love summer vacation in ways I NEVER thought I would. Mostly because I don't have to spend the hour between 7 and 8 a.m. yelling at everyone. However, I intend to really enjoy these final two weeks and pray that we are all now mature enough that yelling will not be necessary, because I think it will be a looooong time before not getting up at 7 a.m. will be allowed.

Day 54: We took Cash over to my favorite park, Pool Forge. He loved it too, because he got to run around (well as much as his 6-foot leash would allow) and drink water from the creek that runs through the park. Good times! The yellow rope in this picture is to keep kids away from this area of the creek. Next to it is an electric fence to keep the cows out of this side of the creek:

Day 55: FINALLY a collecting craze I can get behind. These are small Japanese erasers in the shapes of animals. They are IWAKO erasers and Hannah and Lizzie LOVE them. Hannah lost one of Lizzie's dogs, so she had to replace it and since we were buying ONE, we decided to buy 7 of them to add to their collections. They came in the mail on Monday so the girls played for hours with them, eating BBQ potato chips and NOT fighting. I love those little erasers. Also, when I step on them, they don't break.

Day 56: We took Cash to Rita's for their Dog Days event. He got an Italian ice with a dog biscuit in it, and his picture taken for their contest of cutest dog. Earlier in the day we got Cash's hair cut (see bonus photo below) so he looked quite handsome for his modelling debut. Unfortunately we also discovered that he'd  hurt his shoulder (when Hannah tried to pick him up to dance with him) and he had to go to the vet the next day where we were happy to find out that it wasn't broken, but sad that he had sprained it. He's fine now (on Sunday):

Day 57: COOKIE TIME!!!! We decorated a couple dozen cookies for friends who were joining us at the pool the next day. True to their personalities, Hannah was done decorating in 5 minutes and Lizzie had to come up with an individual design for each cookie and carefully create it. After nearly an hour I had to rush her along to finish so that we could get Cash to the vet:

Day 58: We spent the afternoon with our friends the Savages again. This time we met at our pool. I had bought some pool toys (a giant alligator and two inflatable rings) so they had a blast playing with them. I love end of the summer pool toy sales (or really, ANY sort of sale.) Here are Samuel, Logan, Hannah and Lizzie having some sort of parade with the alligator:

Day 59: Star-gazing at the pool. A friend of one of the pool members made this giant telescope and he brought it to the pool on Friday night. Lizzie was enthralled! It was pretty cool as we saw a close-up of the moon, a double star and Saturn. A couple of the families camped out, but we just stayed for the star-gazing and campfire, much to the chagrin of Hannah and Lizzie, who have very short memories and have already forgotten the camping fiasco of 2010 where they both abandoned the tent in the wee hours of the morning because the ground was too hard:

Day 60: I took Cash for a walk on the bike path while Rob and the girls rode. Saturday was a GORGEOUS day for a walk as the bike path is mostly shaded. I ran into a little girl who asked to pet Cash because she'd "never seen a poodle that looked like a poodle before:"

Bonus: Here's my handsome boy. If he looks a little ticked off, I swear it's because of his injury. Once he felt better he was jumping all over the house, just THRILLED with his new 'do.

Oh, and I feel I should mention that while it LOOKS like Lizzie never changes her clothes, that's not true. Once in a while she'll put on her PJs for bed. She seriously loves the flowered capri/dog shirt that is her summer uniform.

Summer Count Up, 8

Week 8! Three weeks of summer left and still lots to do on my TO DO list. You won't see pictures of it, but we did get our school supplies this week, which means that school is just around the corner. It's also very very very humid, which means it must be AUGUST. Here's how we spent the last week o Crazy, Hazy, Lazy days of summer:

Day 47: My mother attempted to teach me to knit at least seven or eight times. I simply couldn't do it. I don't know why. I'm crafty. I'm ambidextrous. I like yarn. But yarn it seems does not like me. Although I never learned to knit, I figured that one day I'd excel in another of the fiber arts. So last Sunday I decided to teach myself to crochet. I did this using a crochet kit for 8-year-olds that came with a huge crochet hook (with a flower on the end of it) and the assistance of the internet. After four house. And I am serious, FOUR HOURS, this is as far as I got. I've not given up completely, but I'm starting to think that or some reason yarn is not my friend:

Day 48: Hannah and Lizzie started the Jump Start program at school. The program is for kids who may need some academic help with reading and/or math over the summer. Last year Hannah and Lizzie did the program last year to improve their reading and this year were recommended to improve their math. The program is every day for two weeks, for about two hours each day and is free! The girls really enjoy it -- even if it is a lot of math -- but I'm not so sure that they are learning more than I was teaching them at home. There seems to be a lot of reading in the library and then playing some math games on the computer. I am getting a lot of shopping done though. So it's a win for me. :) They enjoy going though as you can see from their smiley faces:

Day 49: It has been raining off and on AND Lizzie is still on medication for Swimmer's Ear, so we spent Tuesday trying to figure out something to do that didn't involve being outdoors or in the pool. The answer was to build forts in and around the chairs in the family room. Here are Hannah and Lizzie enjoying their afternoon snack in Hannah's fort. Lizzie's was behind the other chair and they spent the afternoon decorating their own spaces and visiting each other:

Day 50: Right after Jump Start we raced down to the library to see the Amazing Magical Stylings of Eddy Ray. We ran into some friends there, so that was a bonus. Here Eddy is doing some magical thing with rings that he learned in China (he said.) Hannah was amazed. Lizzie said she figured out how he did three of his tricks, so the show was obviously meant for "littler kids who believe everything you tell them.":

Day 51: Playdate with Samuel and Logan. We met Samuel and Logan when the girls (and Samuel) were about 18 months old and Logan wasn't even born yet. We met them through the Moms Club and Deb and I hit it off right away. One of the sad parts of moving from our house is that we moved into a different elementary school, so the girls don't get to see Samuel every day at school. Luckily whenever we do get together, they all have a great time playing together and Deb and I get to chat about ... well, everything!:

Day 52: Lizzie's back in the pool!!! She's wearing an ear plug and was a little worried at first, but very happy to have something to do in the hot and humid August afternoon:

Day 53: We went to my nephew Casey's graduation party. Here are his happy parents (Terry under the tent, Ray wearing the somewhat loud Phillies shirt). Everything was great, except the weather, but we didn't mind that too much because there were lots of tents to hide from the rain. And the 8-year-olds were as happy running around in the rain as they were in the pool. Happy Graduation Casey (who is not in this picture because he was off hanging with his friends at the pool house, leaving the old people to fend for ourselves):

Bonus: Hannah and Lizzie didn't mind being left to their own devices at Aunt Terry's house, as Aunt Terry's newest dog, Max, offered them lots to do. For some reason I see a King Charles Cavalier in Hannah's future:

Hershey Park!

This was our second year going to Hershey Park, thanks to the generosity of Rob's company. They pay for the park AND for an all you can eat food buffet that runs for four hours (we eat at least twice!). Last year was really really hot and humid. This year was really, really hot, but NOT humid. At the end of the day we were still every bit as tired and sweaty.

  Here we are at the beginning of it all, at  the catering pavilion

And here the girls are with my favorite candy, Peppermint Patty. When I was a kid my mom always kept these in our freezer for me (not the character -- the actual candy...) so I couldn't resist taking a picture. The characters come out and dance three or four times an afternoon and everyone takes pictures with them.

This is Lizzie's cotton candy face. Pure sugar happiness:

 We didn't do a whole lot of buying, but we did go into some of the shops because they are air conditioned (so are the bathrooms!) Here is a pair of wolves that we did not buy because first, we do not need robotic wolves no matter how much Hannah says we do and second, they cost $1,500 each. EACH. And they don't even turn into good looking men like in Twilight:

We did a few more big kid rides this year. The line were INCREDIBLY LONG so we only did a few, plus a bunch of kiddie rides. This starship went around in circles really fast and flew high into the air. The girls loved it. Me? Not so much:

You can't skip the Merry-Go-Round. Here's Hannah on her trusty steed:

And Lizzie on hers. If you look in the background you'll see Rob trying to pretend he doesn't know us. Oh, and he's also on a horse that does not go up and down. So we pretended that we didn't know him, too:

I really felt sorry for these mascots because it was HOT out. Real chocolate wouldn't have stood a chance. This particular chocolate bar came over to visit us as the catering pavilion:

This is a huge pirate ship that swings back and forth. The girls adored it and had no problem finding a great seat near the top. Last year (and this year, earlier in the day) they went on the kiddie version of this ride, but it was nothing compared to this one (according to the kids!):

Entertainment: The Milkmen performed several times. Interestingly they are drinking water in this performance not milk. Probably because it would have spoiled in about 47 seconds.

This was a little train that we took around the park. It was cute and shady and didn't go too fast, so we all loved it and I didn't have to worry about someone (and by someone I mean me) falling out:

The adult rides (especially the roller coasters) were extremely crowded, but the kiddie rides were not, so we were happy that the girls are still short enough to ride them, and still young enough to enjoy them. This is a drum that you can spin really really fast as you go around:

During the day we also played some games, won some prizes and Rob even took the girls on some of the water rides. It was lots of walking and sitting in the sun but we did have a great time. It ended on a high note for Rob since they had this drive a car thing on the way out. There he got to go on HIS favorite ride, A Camero:

The girls are already planning next year's trip. I am already praying for cooler weather!!