Jumping Back In

Five months later and I still need to "jump back into my blog"!  Here goes.  I am excited to post once again just about our family life and homeschooling adventure.  I am so ready to get back to a routine and schedule and leave the lazy days of summer behind.  I can't believe I am saying that but it has been kind of a blah summer taken up by moving once again!  I know the kids have had fun and we have done some fun stuff but there was no camping or family trips this summer and the summer heat here just sucks the life out of everything.

So we are settled in our new house, I have lesson plans complete for the year!!  ( I will post separately about that) I am ready to embrace the business of our upcoming semester.  Natasha will be officially joining us in school as a Kindergartner! Anastasia is in volleyball and Chemistry co-op.  The younger ones are going to be in a co-op once again and I am so excited about that!!  Three of them are going to be in soccer and one in gymnastics.  We are back to doing unit studies and notebooking and I am so excited and feel as if I am getting out of a slump.

We are going to keep plugging away and working hard until October and hubby is working hard to qualify for a vacation for all of us!

So here is to "jumping in with both feet" back to blogging.  :)

Summer Fun

We officially took 6 weeks off this summer.  It was filled with swimming, swimming and more swimming and I am sure we did some other stuff as well.  :)  We were also blessed with spending most of the summer with Jutem and my nieces and nephew.  There were here on and off for over a month and we even went to visit them in San Diego (more on that in another post).



Anastasia and Chance got to participate in a week long camp (two hours a day) for volleyball.  They really enjoyed it and Anastasia is going to try out for the homeschool JV team.

We had a MaryKay facial party....Aren't we so pretty!  LOL

Lots of smoothies and fun sandwiches this summer.

We took the big girls and little girls out shopping one day.  The little girls got slushies and us big girls got Starbucks coffee.   :)

We had a surprise visit from Uncle Chad, Aunt Lori, Nathan and Emma.  So of course we lined up the kids all together for a picture.  However, Nathan and Emma are technically Jay and Jutem's cousins.

We went to the public pool and the kids all loved going off the diving board and showing off their new skills.  This was one of the best times at the pool.....no stroller, no chasing a toddler.  Savannah and Alexa could go off together and do the slides and lazy river and Jadon and Tasha played nicely in the shallow area.  It was great!

We had a family night for the opening ceremonies of the Olympics.  For dinner we had pizza and dessert was ice cream floats.  YUMMY!

Swimming

It has been sooo much fun having our own  pool this summer!  This is the first time we have ever lived in a house with a pool and we love it!!   We have also taken safety and rules very seriously. So I was amazed that within a week of swimming Savannah and Alexa no longer needed swimmies. Natasha was not going to be left behind and by June she was also swimming with no swimmies!!!   Whoo hoo! So we now only have Jadon who can not swim on his own and hopefully that will change very soon.

Of course it was cold to go swimming when we first moved in but that didn't stop the kids.  They insisted they weren't cold as their lips were blue and teeth were chatting.  LOL  We usually go in once or twice a day and since our house faces east west the afternoons (after 3) are perfect for swimming.

Here are some fun pictures:

Our Annual Camping Trip

It's summer time once again and that means camping! We look very forward to this trip and getting up of out the heat for awhile. This year it worked in every one's schedule to go over 4th of July weekend and we actually stayed for 7 days. (That is the longest I think we have been camping at one time). It was of course us and the Roger's family and this year two other families joined us.

I have so many, many, many pictures I could post but I will try and limit it some. ;) We headed up on Friday morning and stayed until the following Thursday. There were no fires allowed and hiking was very limited due to fire restrictions. So we stayed busy with fishing, crawdad catching and game playing. It rained at least once a day and that was so nice! It even hailed once.

I hope you enjoy the pictures:

This is the trailer we used this year. I have never thought of our suburban as small before! LOL. It was a nice trailer. It needs some work but it fit our family really well. There was a queen bed up in the front and two sets of bunk beds in the back.

Our whole gang!
The Pearces, The Rogers', The Lindsay's, and The Polmanteer's
(8 adults and 11 kids)

Camp Happenings: (no particular order)

A boy and his hatchet

Cooking some grub!

OK first look how dirty they are! lol Next notice the size of the marshmallows! They are called "campfire marshmallows" and we used Reese's peanut butter cups instead of plain chocolate. YUMMY!

We got to deal with these lovely (said with sarcasm) creatures each night as we tried to play games at the table outside. They were attracted to the light and the guys kept trying to flick them on us!

This was a highlight of the trip! Since we would be camping on a Sunday, we planned ahead of time to hold a time of worship at this outdoor amphitheater. On Friday and Saturday the kids and dads went around the entire camp and handed out fliers that Nikki had made up telling people the time and place of our worship. Jay and Roy led music and Dan preached. We had about 39 people show up. It was awesome! We provided some cookies and drinks afterwards and I think it was a great time of praising the Lord for all!


Our Family!

Me and my honey!

Joshua and Jenny (Best Buds)


Daddy and his boys

This was the largest of all the crawdads that were caught. Jadon was not scared at all. He giggled and kept wanting to hold it.


One of our many hikes to the lake we were trying to take some cover from the rain....we heard a really loud boom and on our walk back this is what we found.....

So glad we weren't walking by when the lightning actually struck this tree. Wow to see God's amazing power! Lightening struck the middle of this tree sending parts of it flying, splitting the center of it. It was still smoking and was so neat to see the inside how soft and wet it was.

When we were stuck indoors during the daily rain we played games. The Rogers family brought Mancala. It quickly became a favorite game for all.




Daddy's fishing buddy!
Catching crawdads
The last night we had a fish fry.

Jadon loved playing the crawdads and the worms.
and of course he loved splashing in the puddles.

We took this last picture as we were leaving camp. It is a look out sight. I told Jay he could just photo shop me in because there was no way I was going out on that ledge! :)

Stories with no pictures but memories that will last a life time:

1) Tasha got pinched by one of the crawdads and it made her MAD!! She shook the bucket it was in and yelled at it "You baby gaga"

2) The kids would go over to the pit toilets and take turns opening the door to the men's and women's and then scream. They were comparing which stunk the worst!

3) Jay actually stuck a crawdad down my shirt and I completely lost it and was hysterical! He is lucky he made it back home with us (lol)

4) The attack of the poop wand! Some of the joys of taking care of a trailer. I will just leave it at that.

Another year of great memories!