Anything for Rita's

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My Porch

I've always wanted a house with a front porch. As a matter of fact, my forever house in my mind has a wrap around porch. In 11 or 12 houses (I've lost count), I've never had a porch until now and I love it. It's so nice to sit out here in the mornings when it's cool and the bugs aren't out yet. It's the perfect place to read a book and listen while the kids play with their new friends. We have chairs and a hammock. I need a swing!!!

Sewing

I love having my sewing area back.  I'm making steady progress on Jaelyn's quilt.  I have 1 or 2 more words to make and then I can start piecing it.  I want to get it finished.  I started it in April.  It's time.

 

I found this cute fabric in a clearance bin at Joann's the other day.  For $7.50, I made skirts for both girls.  Allie is saving hers for her first day of school.  Ahhhh!  Funny, it matches Jaelyn's quilt very well.

 

 

I'm not the only one who's been sewing.  Jaelyn made a lined bag and she's been working on a memory quilt made from Nana's fabrics and buttons.  We took it to Joann's to buy binding material.  The cashier loved her quilt and made a big deal out of how well she did.  She even showed other customers :).  Jaelyn was embarrassed, but I was a proud Mom.

 

 

Over Run With Bicycles

I remember fondly the days when the kids had teeny tiny 12" bikes.  They took hardly any room at all to store.  It seems overnight, we have graduated to almost full grown bikes.  Now that we have a garage, in which Dan gets the prized spot - I might contest that decision as soon as it gets cold, I decided I needed to get our bikes organized.  We've already had one tumble that thankfully only caused minor hand grip rubber transfer to the bottom of a door panel. 

I located plans after a quick search on google.  All we needed was 50 feet of PVC, 34 Ts and 6 elbows :).  We even splurged and bought a PVC cutter - so much better than a hacksaw.

The parts

 

In progress (Dan miscounted the Ts - I think he blamed taking a child with him to the store ;) .)

 

The original plans were for a rack in the back of a truck.  We modified it and spread the tire spaces out, but not enough.  While grown-ups could manage to share the space perfectly fine, kids and handle bars and brake lines all together in a small space don't mix.

 

We doubled the space and now it's great.  It even left room for scooters to be propped up inbetween.  I love it!  Everything in its place!

 

 

 

Schooling Byrd

One of Jae's assignments this year will be to maintain a blog to document our year in homeschooling.  It'll include summaries of what she's learning, stories, pictures and anything else she wants to share.  It will be a private, password protected blog.  If you'd like an invitation to check-in and follow our progress, leave me a comment with your email address.  I'll share a link in the right hand column of my blog so you can find it easily.

A Day in the City

I love being close to STUFF!  We've been busy settling into our house and shopping for things that we need here and there.  Dan starts school this week so we decided to have a fun day sight seeing instead of hanging our the house.  Our goals were to visit the Bureau of Engraving and Printing and the Holocaust Museum.

 

By the time we made it to DC, we could only get afternoon tickets to what we wanted to see.  We decided to fill in the morning with a walk around the tidal basin to see the Jefferson Memorial.

 

Next, we visited the Franklin D. Roosevelt Memorial.  I don't think I've ever been to it before.  There wasn't a museum attached and they didn't have a lot of informational plaques.  We told the kids what we knew about him mainly learned from trips to Warm Springs, but I think someone missed the mark on this monument.

 

My favorite quote of the day.

 

Jaelyn was not enjoying the heat or the sunshine or our walk.

 

I want to come back in the spring when the cherry blossoms are blooming around the tidal basin.  I imagine it's absolutely gorgeous.  It was fun to read the history about the cherry trees.  I knew they had been a gift from Japan.  I didn't know that the first gift of trees were infested with bugs and had to be burned.  It caused slight international tension.  The second gift of trees was bug free.  In the 1950, the Japan trees that ours are descended from suffered a blight.  We send babies from our trees back to replenish theirs.  Neat story!

 

"I'm starving" seemed to be today's mantra.

 

I made my first trip to Washington with my Grandpa Lou on our way to Philadelphia when I was 12.  I wanted to go up in the Washington Monument so badly.  Since then, I've tried to go up in it on every trip, but we've never manage to get tickets.  I was so disappointed to see the scaffolding surrounding the monument today.  It was damaged by an earthquake a couple of years ago and is being repaired.  It should be reopened next summer.  I will go up in it before we leave Virginia!!!

 

I have no pictures, but we took the kids in the Holocaust Monument Memorial.  It feels wrong to say we enjoyed it because it's such a dark period in history, but it's good, I think, to share history.  The kids all showed interest in Daniel's Story, which shared a fictional Jewish boy's experience.  The rest of the museum was pretty deep right down to the miniature models of the gas chambers and incinerators.  I think my favorite part was the list of people who helped the Jews at grave consequence to themselves, their families and in some instances entire villages.  There's good in this world! I told Dan I can't imagine that happening today with technology, yet it is.  Mass genocide is happening in parts of the world with no one (or everyone) watching today.  I might add the Diary of Anne Frank to Jaelyn's 6th grade reading list.

 

Again, no pictures, but we finally got to visit the Bureau of Engraving and Printing. We've tried to get tickets once or twice before.  It was really neat to see how paper currency is made from start to finish.  Did you know, they still made 2 dollar bills until 2 years ago?  I still carry one in my wallet my mom gave me for Christmas almost 20 years ago (she wrote on it and I've never been able to spend it.)

 

 

We've decided to make a monthly trip into DC.  Next month, the kids wants to ride the duck boats.  I'm not sure what October and November's visits will bring, but December will bring a visit to the Kennedy Center to see Elf the Musical and January will be a visit to the Spy Museum to celebrate Caden's birthday.  We are going to make the most of our time here!

A Visit From Friends

 Jenn is my super friend who battled Lymphoma and kicked it's butt almost two years ago!!!!  In Abingdon, I looked forward to our once or twice a year visit from my friend's family when they were traveling between Florida and New York.  We are back in their path so they stopped to visit with us for lunch. We normally met at a Chick-fil-a because Jenn is allergic to cats, but they came to our house this time.  Big thanks to hubby Bob for bringing our friends to us!

Look at all these beautiful kids.  Pretty amazing for two chicks who met during primary infertility.  We have 3 Russian and 3 home-grown kids.  Who would have thought?

 

Mason Neck State Park

I haven't pulled out my camera much since our vacations in June and if I did pull it out, I didn't pull the card out to put it into my computer.  I did a photo dump of about 100 pictures this evening.

A few Saturdays ago, we went hiking in a nearby state park.  Here are the pictures.

Looks a little like home...I'm glad to be back on the Eastern side of the US.

 

The dragonflies were beautiful.  The kids and I have a weird fascination with them.

 

  I'm not sure what body of water this was, but it looked yucky for swimming.  We did see boats and skiers so it must have been okay.

 

New Friends

Gone are the days when the kids were happy to stay home and be with us. Jaelyn is happy to visit with her new friend Isabella.

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Random Thoughts

These kids are growing too fast.  I was hoping to put off new bikes until Christmas or next summer, but the girls bikes are just too small.  Technically, I guess I should say the girls are just too big as the bikes are the same size as when we bought them 3? summers ago.  Jaelyn's tire developed a flat over the move and the wheel itself was bald (the girls learned her to skid sideways on their bikes before we moved).  We couldn't find a new wheel or the right size innertube, with all the shopping choices even.  It didn't seem fair to buy Jaelyn a new bigger bike when Allie is a lot bigger than Jae so we bought two new bikes.  Jaelyn's is a 21 speed and Allie's is 18.  I took them up to the school today to ride around in big circles to practice shifting.  It wasn't quite as bad as taking off the training wheels, but it was close.  Who knew changing gears would be so complicated?  I guess that's why it's worth it to pay a little bit more and get a nice bike, but when you are buying two, $300 bikes are just out of the budget.

I ordered all of Jaelyn's homeschool materials.  It's started trickling in.  I'm getting more excited as the pile grows, but I think she's getting less.  I love my new planner book I picked up the other day.  I need to sharpen a few #2 pencils to sit beside it ;).  Kidding.  Anyway, she wanted to start so I gave her the math and language arts pre-tests.  It wasn't an hour and she'd had enough.  She won't be doing school again until September 3rd.  Ha!  I don't think she's realized homeschool would be real school.  I know some people unschool, but I come from an education background.  Our homeschool experience is going to be very school-like.  I mailed in her intent to homeschool form and I've joined a local homeschool group.

Dan's been home with us since he out processed at FLW.  We have 4 more days until he starts his orientation.  I am excited to get into our routine.  Next week, I want to focus on getting kids registered for activities.  I've found several dance studios.  One also has a kids drama program.  I think Allie would love that.  Dan wants Caden to try out Jujitsu.  I'm leaning more towards a Tae Kwon Do club that meets at the school once a week.  We have a couple of options for gymnastics for Jaelyn.  We'll have to try a class at each and find a good fit.  She also wants to take piano lessons.

We are still working on getting the house how we want it; although I'm not doing too much more.  I'm done hanging pictures and curtains.  I am even going to try to live with the crazy closets.  Why organize when it's going to be boxed up in 11 1/2 months?  Is it possible to already have short timer's attitude?  I was thinking about making friends this morning so I can have two emergency contacts on the school forms.  I need to meet one more person :p.  If it wasn't for that, I'm not sure I'd make that much effort.

Gracie has had a good week or so.  Her knee has only dislocated once since the movers dropped our stuff.  Granted a lot of that time, she was in her crate while I unpacked, but still, one time in 11 days is good.  Dan says he can tell she's favoring her leg.  I would love to put off her surgery until after the kids start school.  There are so many other things to think about.

I'm still trying to get the kids into our new doctor.  Dan called and found out where we are assigned (the letters haven't come yet).  Unfortunately, they are booked up until Sept 3 and the kids aren't missing their first day of school for doctor's appointments.  I do need to get them in as quickly as possible because while our old doctor filled out the physical forms, I didn't get the form giving them permission to take medicine at school.  Caden has an inhaler at school and Allie takes a second ADHD dose at lunch.  I feel sorry for her afternoon teacher until we can get the form filled out.  Anyway, would you pray I can get them cancellations?  I'm going to call every morning until the operators are tired of me :).  At least we have enough medicine to get everyone until mid-October.

Friends

Leaving friends is hard.  It's getting even harder as the kids get older.  When we first met our neighbors, I was disappointed to see everyone on our pipestem (that's what the little private drive is called, I've learned) is retired or heading that way quickly with college-age or grown children.  Since then, we've found the kids.  There's a group of 6-7 girls around 4th and 5th grades.  We've found 2 boys who are 7 and 9.  I'm not quite sure about the dynamics of the pack of girls - Dan laughed that I referred to them as a pack, but I maintain that that's what a group of tween-aged girls is.  After observing them a short time, I can smell the drama that I'm sure will engulf Allie before too long.  We've also met a 9ish year old girl who seems very nice and is not a part of the pack.  She's close-by.  Her house is at the top of the pipestem.  Jaelyn seems to enjoy visiting with her. They exchanged emails and were texting each other last night. She reminds me of her friend, Carlee, from FLW.  I'm not sure how the friendships will form, but I'm glad to see options.  The kids already seem happier.  I don't think I've heard the dreaded "bored" word for a few days.  One of the moms brought us bread (Air Force wife, military families know how to welcome new neighbors!) and I had the chance to visit with her at the pool yesterday.  Slowly, but surely, we'll make friends and find our niche and then...it'll be time to pack and move on!  Sigh!

More More Rooms

More Rooms Continued

(Weird...I sent a blog entry along with those last pictures but for some reason it didn't post. Trying again)

I might beat my two week record at getting us settled into a "lived in" house. I finished Jaelyn and Caden's rooms tonight. Actually, Jae has done most of her room. I took a few short cuts in Caden's room by not hanging his shelf. I'm leaving lots of pictures packed too. It's hard to justify the work when I know I'll be undoing it all in 11 1/2 months. I also finished decorating the living room. Things are shoved everywhere in the kitchen. It's going to take me a few weeks to get it all sorted out. I spent a good hour building the kids their box fortress in the basement, but they've hardly played in it. I think they are all getting too big :(. And last, I'm thankful for a gigantic storage room. Can you believe most of this stuff was in closets in our last house. We are seriously lacking in closet space here.

I still have to work on the computer/sewing room and sort out Jaelyn's classroom. Those two rooms have become the catch all. The garage is piled high and deep with empty boxes and paper. We won't tackle that until the movers come back and pick everything up! But yea! we have a garage!!! I'm much happier than I was to begin with. The house is clean and the handyman has taken care of the major issues. Once that ugly shutter gets taken care of, I'll post a family picture in front of the house or maybe I'll use the magic of photoshop ;).

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More Rooms

One Room Down

Allie's room is unpacked and ready to be lived in. Her room is tiny 7.5x12, but we are making it work. She gets her small doll house in her room and her huge Barbie house has been relocated to the basement inside a play-yard to make it Gracie-safe ;)