Way Back Whenever

As we get ready to attend our 11th year together in the Poconos with the Garritys I happened to come across this gem from our first year together in the Poconos. In this picture Tommy had just turned three and the girls were just shy of their third birthday. When we gather together in a couple of weeks, Tommy will be a teen-ager and Hannah and Liz will be ALMOST teen-agers. And, of course Brenna joined in on the trip a couple of years later. This is the mini-golf course at Split Rock. What I remember most about this summer was that Ann and I got to spend TWO weeks with the kids, there were about a million deer that would come right up to the door for a snack and it was on that vacation that I wrote the bulk of The Verbal Behavior Approach! Fun times!!

70s Summer Week 4

Back in the ACTUAL 70s we went to a big amusement park once. It was Rye Playland and I remember going on various roller coasters and those swings that fly around in a circle but my favorite ride was the adult carousel they had. It was different from a kid's merry go round because the horses slanted to the side and bounced up and down quickly while the ride whipped in a circle at Kentucky Derby speed.

Flash forward about 40 years and I still like the merry go round and it's the only ride that I go on during our annual trip to Hershey Park, which just happened to be during this week. It's Rob's company's summer picnic and I think that this was the sixth or seventh year we've gone. This year both girls were tall enough to ride one of the big roller coasters, so they did that. You won't see pictures though because I couldn't watch. In fact, I stayed in a different area and played games until Rob and the girls returned (and just for the record, Rob didn't ride the coaster ... and the girls loved it!)

So we did play a lot of games, rode some rides and of course ate the catered picnic. The best part was that THIS YEAR it was NOT the hottest most humid day of the year. In fact it was warm with no humidity.

I love that Hannah and Liz will still pose with a giant Reese's Peanut Butter Cup:

Make this picture bigger so you can see Lizzie's face. Priceless. I'd feel the same if I was in there with Hannah steering.

And they flew pretty high, too. I shot this when they flew right over my head:

For something a little different we decided to have Hannah make a karaoke music video. (Lizzie didn't want to). Hannah had a blast. The place was air conditioned and Lizzie and I took advantage of that while Hannah made her video. When it was done, they showed it on the giant screen outside. She sang Taylor Swift's Shake It Off:

Lizzie on my favorite ride:

This is Hannah on my favorite ride. I also ride the horse but only got a picture of my foot. Which is actually kind of interesting because it was my feet that got all tangled up when I was trying to get off the horse, almost causing me to fall off, which I think would have been pretty embarrassing (not to mention painful) but I eventually figured out which was the right and the left foot and got off the horse safely, if not gracefully.

Hannah on the big screen:

This is the swinging pirate ship ride:

And this is the see how much you can eat throughout the day ride:

THis week was also Theater Camp week. Both Hannah and Lizzie think they'd like to be famous, so I thought they should have some lessons. SALT Performing Arts offers a camp that's a half day and the kids go through the whole process of putting a show together. This week the show was Annie. Liz was an orphan and Hannah was the Maid.

This is Lizzie delivering her one line. She had to cross the stage while delivering it, so it was kind of a multi-tasking role. :)

Hannah was Maid 1, Maid 2 and Maid 3, so she had three lines. And a costume. Rob and I were most impressed that she knew how to actually use a broom:

They learned a production number, too. Here's some singing:

 And here's some singing and dancing:

And of course there was time after the show was over, to pose with fans. Rob surprised all of us with stopping by on his lunch hour!

And in case you are interested, here's Hannah's video:

70s Summer Week 3

As we begin our fifth week of summer, I thought I should post about our third week of summer ... !!

Our week began as we said goodbye to the last of the blueberries. They went a lot faster than I thought they would, and they sure were tasty. These are the blueberry muffins I made. You probably can't see it, but I put them in 4th of July cupcake tins and felt very much like Martha Stewart.

And so, we continued with our 70s summer theme. The girls have been spending a lot of time with our neighbor Abigail, so expect to see a lot of photos of her!  Here they are catching fireflies. The caught about a million of them and named EVERY SINGLE ONE. They used the most sophisticated instruments available to make the catching easier: a spaghetti sauce jar covered with a plastic bag and a Dunkin' Donuts iced coffee cup.

 The method was successful though and here are just a few of the haul. I think these were George, John, Ringo and Paul ... oh wait, those were Beatles not fireflies... (ha ha I crack myself up!)

The girls also made some pom pom crafts. Each pom pom took about 400 yards of yarn to yield a tiny ball of fluff, so it took the better part of the morning to finish the craft. But the pom pom puppies sure were cute:

Hannah and Pugglee:

Lizzie and FiFi:

 We ended the week by taking a trip up to the Poconos to a favorite restaurant (Boulder View, in case you ever find yourself in the Lake Harmony area...) ROb and Lizzie toasted the 4th of July weekend while Hannah was being a teenager...

See what I mean. Teenager all the way...

And since it was 4th of July weekend we did go catch some fireworks. I took these just before my camera broke (don't worry, I bought a new body so week four will follow shortly!)

Enjoy the fireworks!

That 70s Summer Week 2

So. We don't have a lot to do this summer because we decided not to go to Dallas for the Cinderella International Competition (Lizzie qualified as the talent winner for the state of PA). Instead, we are having a 1970s summer. YAY!!  I've been reading a lot about this online (which is ironic) and it basically means the kids play outside all day, eat peanut butter sandwiches and stay off the Internet.

In this house (because, you know I spent many a youthful summer in the actual 1970s) that also means we watch game shows and soap operas. We're all about authenticity here.

So here's what we did during our second week of summer.

The pool! We really try to get to the pool almost every day and sometimes twice a day. This year it's extra fun because we have a lot of new members who have KIDS. Yay for other kids! Here are Hannah and Lizzie one hot day when we went to the pool for lunch.

Here, you can see how crowded our pool is! The other kids are most often there during the weekends and in the evening but sometimes we bring other kids along because I find that the MORE kids available the LESS I get bothered. And an important part of the 70s summer re-enactment is that the Mom is NEVER bothered.

We have a farm stand about 25 minutes from our house that does pick your own fruit (and they also pick for you, if you are lazy, like I usually am) so on a gorgeous cool Wednesday the girls and I decided to go fruit picking. We started with the blueberries:

The blueberries were DELICIOUS and we picked something like four or five pounds of them:

Then we moved over to the strawberries. The rain that we've been having (a lot!) kind of ruined the strawberries, but we picked enough to enjoy some with cream later on. They spoiled before we finished them all.

 Our haul:

So far this summer we've had TWO tornado warnings. No tornadoes but LOTS of rain. And of course dancing, jumping, chasing, playing in the rain is always a lot of fun in any decade.

See? Here are the girls with our neighbor Abby.

Stay tuned for week three - our spectacular 4th of July!

Back for Real!! Summer Week One

Hi everyone!
I know it's been a loooooooong time since I've blogged with any regularity, but I was a little bored with it and facebook is so much easier. But I still want to have a more thorough record of what goes on in this crazy family of mine, so I'm back to blogging. I'm going to be doing the Week in Review for the summer and probably through in some Way Back Wednesdays since I like to have those photos preserved, too.
So.... away we go!

So our first week of summer was spent at the Shore with Grandma Connie. Connie has had a long, slow, up and down recovery from cancer, so it's always so great to see her up and around. My favorite part of this week was the several hours I got to spent gabbing with her while the rest of the family went out for crabs (blech).

Here's some of the other things we did:

Well even I, hater of sun and sand, can't go to the shore without ACTUALLY going to the shore (although when I lived there I managed to not go quite frequently!) It is extra impossible when you've got a couple of 12-year-old water lovers. Here's a few shots from our favorite Stone Harbor Beach.

Oh, and we broke the cardinal rule (no pun intended) of the beach and DID feed the seagulls.
Here, they prove that seagulls share about as easily as twin tweens:

We also spent time at Diamond Beach. Here the girls spent some time looking for Cape May Diamonds with Uncle Dude. They aren't real diamonds, but are pretty little quartz stones that can be buffed into a diamond shine -- which they do at a little gift shop next to the beach where they are a million times more expensive.

And speaking of Uncle Dude, I like to call the following series of photos, WHO exactly is the kid here? :)

We also went to Reed's Beach where we usually save horseshoe crabs. This year we saved horseshoe crabs at Diamond Beach, so instead I just took pictures of the girls and Rob on the rocks and (of course) looking at the sunset!

We also had a birthday party for Uncle Dude and Grandma Connie's dear friend Marion, made a soda fountain with Mentos, got out for ice cream and had a bunch of barbecues!

All in all it was a great week and a great way to kick off summer vacation!! And or course I took some time for some "arty nature shots!"

Annnd... a couple bonus shot of the happy beach goers:

See you blog readers soon ... it's great to be back!!