road trip

Everyone up early on a Sunday morning...it can only mean one thing: road trip to the beach.

Although night-before preparation would have made things a little easier, we still managed to stock the cooler with PB&Js, hard-boiled eggs, grapes, granola bars and water bottles and get on the road by 10am I think.

I've been a little hesitant to take a baby to the beach...with all that sun, sand and water.  But it was a perfect overcast day.  Plus JP grabbed a long pvc pipe just before we left with the promise of some homemade shade.  (Yes, we do just have pvc pipe laying around....unfortunately, our front porch often looks like Sanford and Son.)

Carmen got her first glimpse of the surf and sand for just a bit before the salty breeze put her to sleep.

Diego set to work right away...just like the old days...digging a giant hole.



He was throwing sand left and right, over his shoulders, high in the air.  I was just too far away and pinned under a sleeping baby to stop him.  Thankfully, no one got it in the face.



The other three spent most of the four hours we were there surfing the waves.  Isn't it amazing how calm it looks, like there will never be a wave big enough to carry you in?



Diego's still digging away.



JP's homemade shade collapsed as soon as he left for the waves.  He had bent the pvc pipe into an arch, stuck it in the sand, and threw a towel over top of it.  There was just enough shade to cover Carmen's two foot body, and as I set her in it, the towel fell on top of her.  There was no way I was going to mess with that for hours, so I set my sights on the umbrella rental guy.  Fifteen dollars until 6pm...the best fifteen dollars I ever spent.  Carmen and I parked under it and I watched the rest of the family have fun through the zoom lens on my camera.

Wild hair is Isabela's trademark at the beach.  I barely saw her the whole day.  And this was the one that didn't even want to go!



Diego's throwing more sand.



And the hole digging expert has arrived!  There's a way to do this, you know.



Smiles caught off-guard are the best.



Carmen still snoozing away.



Diego is serious about his sand hole.



Dig.  Flip.  Splat.  Repeat.



I did a lot of people watching while I was sitting there.  There was this one couple who I figured must be newlyweds.  JP asked me why I thought so.  Well, the lady was sunbathing on her back with her eyes closed while the man smoothed out the sand nice and flat in front of him.  I thought he had OCD until he started writing his initials plus her initials.  I said only newlyweds would do something romantic like that.  (Although I'm pretty sure I said corny instead of romantic.)



Looks like daddy caught a good wave in.



It turned out it wasn't so much a hole he was digging, as a bunker.



He's not throwing sand....he's throwing grenades!  Whose boy IS this?



And just to prove I was there...one last shot of me.  Do I look like the old pictures of my mom at the beach, or what? How does that happen?!!

surviving the summer

We did it.

Ten days without air condition.

Not by choice, mind you.  It was broken, and the home warranty company thought it would be best to order the part instead of use the one the heating and air company had on hand.

So we suffered through.  Although 86 degrees was about the hottest it got in the house thanks to this mild summer we're having.



I've never seen this much rain in August.



To keep the kids cool one morning, I pulled out the surprise ice balls I had frozen in plastic cups the night before.



They had to chisel all the ice away to get at the toys inside.  That lasted a good ten minutes.



I tried to keep us out of the house during those ten days.  No sense being hot and having to clean up the house.  That meant bowling, dollar movies, roller skating, and Barnes and Noble.

We found a new park, too (check off our bummer summer list!).  Although we had to drive pretty far for this one.  And someone said it was the worst park they'd ever been to...but they just like to complain.



I thought it was funny to have this fake tree to climb, surrounded by a forest of real trees.





There's a trail around this lake...mostly gravel...and Carmen hates to be bumped around on gravel, so I carried her most of the way and had a helper push the empty stroller along.  At one point we had to pass a few angry hornets flying around a tree.  We just closed our eyes and walked fast.

Further on there was an interesting brick bridge leading to a little island.  I urged the boys to explore it by themselves, but they said there were too many bugs.  Joaquin had walked into a spider web at Pocahontas State Park one day, and that's been the end of that.



Where's my fishing pole when I need it?  Although if we ever caught something, I'm not sure who would take it off the hook.



We also came across not one, but two giant snapping turtles.



Can you see the one wedged in among those branches.  I thought it was dead at first, but I guess it was just tricking me.



And here's one of sweet Carmen as we started out.  She really is an amazing baby.  She falls asleep on my shoulder in the grocery checkout line, she smiles at every passerby she attracts, and she's happy to go anywhere.



We're toy minimalists around here.  I mean, what could be better than the face of your brother to play with?



And while they were busy playing, the others were quite bored.  I love this photo.  I've been trying to let the kids be bored intentionally this summer.  Maybe it will spark some imagination.



Besides being bored around the house, we've been living at the library.  We did our first Read to Rover trip last week.  Diego had a great time reading to the dogs, even though I had really gone for Isabela to practice.  She ended up bowing out because other kids were sitting around listening.  Maybe we'll try the PAWS to Read so she can get a dog all to herself.



The school garden is still growing strong.  I put JP to work building a gate for it this summer, but I keep forgetting to take my camera there.  Next time.  These carrots were too yuck to eat...they've been in the ground too long, but they were still fun to pull.



And guess who started rolling over this past Sunday?  Now it's all she wants to do.



That means a lot of 'surprise face' photos.  What just happened here?



She's four months old now.  We're loving that baby!

Who Can?

One afternoon, the house was in disarray as usual.  I was trying to motivate the troops to pitch in and help without much success.  As I stood on a chair trying to straighten out a high cupboard, I glanced around the room and asked, "Who can put the shoes in the shoe basket?"

Joaquin quickly spoke up, "I can!", dropped what he was doing, and suddenly the shoes were being picked up.

Since he was busy now, I asked, "Who can pick up the orange eraser and put it in the drawer?" expecting someone else to volunteer.

Quickly throwing the shoes in the basket, Joaquin yelled, "I can!" and he ran off to put the eraser away.

I wondered if this could continue for much longer.

"Who can fold the blanket and put it on the couch?"

Again, "I can!" from Joaquin.

I smiled at Isabela and we both had a little giggle over how hard Joaquin was working to be the first to complete the task.  He ended up cleaning the entire living room in a few minutes with me asking "Who can..." and him replying, "I can!"

But all good things must come to an end.  I pushed my luck with, "Who can put the dirty dishes into the dishwasher?"

"Not me!" shouted Joaquin.

I asked, "Where did 'I Can' go?  I want 'I Can' to come back."

Joaquin stated that he was both I Can and Not Me.

I asked Isabela what her name was and she replied, "I Can't".  No, Isabela try again.  "I Won't?"  No, that won't do either.  Isabela said, "I know.  My name is I Shan't."

We ended up giving Diego the name of 'I Will', Joaquin is still 'I Can' (and occasionally, Not Me) and Isabela somehow stuck with 'I Won't'.

I said that I had the most important name of all.  I Did.

Who made dinner?  I Did.
Who washed the clothes? I Did.
Who went to the grocery store? I Did....

summer update

I think we're hitting the dog days of summer about now.  How do I know this?  Yesterday, I banished the kids from the house for 45 minutes.  How did they pass the time?  Sneaking around to different windows and doors trying to find a way in.

Despite making good progress on our "not bummer summer list", we have yet to complete a row.  Plus when asked what they've been doing over the summer, the kids seem baffled and look to me with a questioning look....oh well.

Bowling was a huge hit!  Way better than the hot as blazes putt-putt game.  (Isabela and I took 'six' on the last two holes just to get the heck out of there.)  Somehow though, 'kids bowl free' costs around $18.



Diego almost beat all of us with his amazingly super slow ball that would knock down almost every pin, every time.  He celebrated each throw, and his enthusiasm was contagious.



Joaquin had one thing on his mind.  He used his own money for snacks and video games, then cried on the way home over how he shouldn't have wasted his money.  ( I feel the same way all the time!)



We got outside a lot towards the beginning of summer...definitely, the 'play in the rain' spot on our list was a huge foreshadowing.   The thunderstorms seem to know exactly when we're getting ready to leave the house.  It's quite amazing.



We have yet to leave our footprints on a beautiful sandy beach.  This is as close as we've come....



.....play dough!  We made it with whole wheat flour and it looks just like the real thing.



Joaquin made a sand dune obstacle course.



And Isabela made a turtle and seal enclosure for an aquarium.  The seal could even be trained by a ball on a stick.



When it's too hot to play real soccer, how about a table top version?



Joaquin thought up cutting out the advertising signs to line the field.  He wanted to add bleachers so his trashpacks could be spectators, but there were some technical difficulties and he gave up on that idea.



The straws are used to blow the cotton ball into the goals.  I think the boys also used them as hockey sticks.  Later, Joaquin and I just forgot the sticks and blew the ball back and forth....which is super hard to do when you are laughing hysterically.



Joaquin's big project this summer has been to build a go-kart with his dad.  They researched a lot of YouTube videos, then gathered some scrap wood and spare bicycle parts from the old bikes in our shed and spent several weekends firing up the power tools.  Right now it's looking more like a rickshaw than a go-kart though.



And Isabela's doing a great job earning money with her lemonade stand.  The first weekend, we had three customers and earned $6.50...thanks to the corn muffins she whipped up to sell, as well.  Last weekend, she sold for Anthem's LemonAid and only made $4.00.

There are some great lessons being learned out there, too.  We had one customer who the kids fought in front of, tried to pick a bug out of her cup, then dropped the second cup all over the ground as they were handing it to her.  We gave her a free bag of homemade chocolate chip cookies for her troubles.  (I hope there was no hair in them.)



And Carmen's just been along for the ride.  She seems oblivious to all the summer bickering and is just as smiley as can be.  She is the calm for all of us.  Love that baby!