Thomas Swimming

Thomas loves the water and has no fear of it. While in Utah this summer, it became very clear to me that I needed to teach him to swim. So this week I taught him how to kick and reach/pull. He picked it up in one afternoon at our pool. He is such a determined little boy. Each time he would swim to me, when I pulled him out of the water he would say, "Again" and twist out of my arms to head back to the stairs. He also replied several times, "I did it, I did it!" He truly thinks he is one of the big boys! I caught him trying to do a 360' jump off the edge of the pool. He was very proud of himself. Everyone at the pool comments on him swimming. You don't expect a two year old to be swimming all on their own. It is the cutest thing to watch!

Last Day of School

The school year comes to a close a little bit earlier than usually this year. Typically we are in school until around the 19th of June. However, this year we pulled the boys out of school a week and a day early so we could leave for our Utah trip. Saying goodbye to Mrs. Oynes, Mrs. P and Mrs. Furtek was sad, however, our EXCITEMENT for our trip out weighed it.

I can't believe another school year has come and gone. The boys loved their fourth and first grade teachers! The boys have grown physically as well as academically. All of the teachers who associated or worked with the boys spoke very highly of them.

Highlights from this year were:

• Christopher enjoyed razzing Mrs. Furtek about different sport teams and games.
• Matthew loved learning all about Virginia's history and his favorite subject continues to be Social Studies/Science.
• Both boys enjoyed getting to school early to participate in the jogging club. They also spent their recess jogging.

This year I enjoyed being Room Mom for Christopher's class. I loved planning the parties and being very involved in the happenings of his classroom. I will particularly miss my kids that I worked with in my reading group from Christopher's class. Every week I was greeted by big hugs and smiles! I especially loved watching these children grow as their reading skills improved over the year. I will miss are principal Mrs. Jackie Brownell, who is moving to another school. She is a FANTASTIC principal! She was so easy to work with as we transitioned to Selden's Elementary last year.

Shenandoah Camping

Memorial Day Weekend Camping 2009

Thursday afternoon we loaded up the Suburban and headed to the Shenandoah Mountains. We decided to be more adventurous this year and left on Thursday.

With it being a Thursday the traffic was a lot lighter and so the drive went by a lot a faster. Once we got to our campground Big Meadows in the Shenandoah National Park we set up camp. The boys were a big help to Ryan in getting everything set up. I wasn't much help since I had had mouth surgery earlier in day.

Friday morning we woke up and had breakfast in the tent trailer. We made yummy crepes! Can't say we've ever had those for breakfast while camping. After breakfast we went on a hike to Dark Hollow falls. It's one of our boys favorite hikes in the park and is a must to do every year.

This year we dared the older boys to get into the water at the bottom of the waterfall. I brought a pair of flip flops for each of the boys to change into. Matthew & Christopher got into the water first. Brr it was super cold. We ended up losing one of Christopher's flip flops over the edge. We ended up finding it down river a bit.

On our hike back out, we stopped in one spot and let the boys slide down the rocks in the river into a pond pool. The boys had fun sliding down. They had to be careful though because getting back up the rocks were slippery and steep. I ended up sliding down one of the rocks getting over to where the boys were sliding. I had our expensive camera in my hand and ended up doing all I could to protect it from getting wet. Thankfully I was successful!

This particular waterfall hike is about a mile and a half round trip. So not to long of a hike for the little ones. However it is all down hill in a rather steep incline until you get down to the waterfall. The boys always hurry down and are good hikers climbing back up. This year we let Tommy walk the whole way. He did rather well getting down and keeping up with his older brothers. However climbing back up was a little different story. He was wanting to be mister independent and do the hike all by himself, with no help. However, he was walking at a rather slow pace. He kept stopping every inch to admire this or that but particularly the bugs. So I decided to work that to my advantage. I would walk ahead and call to Tommy, "Oh, I found another bug, hurry Thomas come see!" He would run as fast as he could, bend down and get a close look at the bug. He had no fear of them and often ended up touching them.

Friday night we enjoyed roasting marshmallows and making smores especially Reese's Peanut Butter smores over the campfire.

Saturday we enjoyed a big breakfast at the campground with a bunch of friends. After breakfast a bunch of us went on hike to a different waterfall.

We have never done this hike before. It was a pretty hike through the trees to the waterfall. It is a much longer hike but a more gradual incline than Dark Hollows. The trail was much further away from the river too which was nice because the kids could run up ahead with their friends.

We enjoyed our evening walks/scooter rides down to the meadow to see the wildlife. Followed by our ice cream popsicles from the camp store.

The kids love to chase the deer in the Big Meadow.

The boys also enjoyed riding their scooters throughout the campground.



It wouldn't be camping without getting dirty and Tommy seem to have no problem with this. He enjoyed playing in the dirt with the big trucks.

Joshua had fun running around with his friend Clara. They were so cute, laughing and giggling together.

We had a great time camping with some of our closest friends here in Virginia.

But most importantly we enjoyed another great year of camping as a family in Shenandoah National Park.

We did end up taking down camp Sunday night, after Christopher burned his hand pretty good with a roasting skewer, he had left in the fire pit. By the time we broke camp, it was pitch black. The boys and I slept all the way home.

Can a bike trailer go Mtn Biking?

We decided to go for a bike ride on the WO&D trail the other day. The WO&D is a nice paved biking and jogging trail that runs from DC to the west about 50 miles. With 4 boys, it didn't take long to find some mud and dirt. Can a bike trailer go on a Mountain Bike trail?

It started out pretty easy...


However, the trail quickly became muddy.



The boys had a BLAST!!!!!



Shauna and I used to do a lot of Mountain Bike trails in Utah before the kids came along. We look forward to getting back into it.

Patriototic Program

All of the seven first grade classes at Seldens Landing performed a Patriototic Program in which they sang different songs to the student body at a school assembly on Thursday. (They also sang in the evening for the parents, however we left to go camping.)

Christopher has been working very hard to learn the words to all of the different songs. We have enjoyed singing them before bedtime every night. The assembly was amazing. I left feeling very proud to be an American! My favorite song that all the classes sang, was the closing song "Heart of America." Our gym in the elementary school has bleachers on one of the long sides of the gym. The older grades get to sit on them for assemblies. Well, when the children started to sing this song, the song has a very strong beat. All of the children on the bleachers began to stomp their feet. WOW!! I cannot express the energy that came into the room. I am so grateful to be an American!!! To have the freedom that we are blessed with. I am thankful for the men and women who have and do serve our country in order for me be so richly blessed in this land.

For those of you who don't know, our children are very shy! It has taken years to overcome standing in front of people. As you can see from these pictures I could get Bruce B and Emily W to look at the camera and smile, but not Christopher. Christopher took the performance very seriously. He did a good job singing.

Shoelaces

Christopher loves a challenge...We just bought him new tennis shoes. I told him that he was not aloud to slip these new shoes on and off his feet. He had done that on his previous shoes and had ruined the backs of them. Anyways, he went to school and I guess Mrs. Thompson an assistant teacher in his class had to tie his shoelaces. She told him that while he was on vacation this summer it would be a great opportunity to learn to tie his laces. Well, Christopher came home and told me all about this. I told him why wait until our trip. So we sat down on the floor in the kitchen and I taught Christopher how to tie his laces. He stayed very calm as he made a few mistakes and I jumped in to tell him different things to do. Christopher stayed glued to the floor for a little while, re-tying his laces until he had it down perfectly! This kid has such determination and drive in him when he wants to accomplish something or has a challenge placed in front of him. As you can see from the above picture he was very proud of himself.

Preschool Graduation for Joshua

Joshua's last day of preschool was on Wednesday. WOW! Where did the year go? He has been looking forward to this day for a couple of weeks now. He is more than EXCITED to go to kindergarten in the Fall. He can't wait to be at the same school as his big brothers and also ride the school bus. Joshua has learned so much this year at Hope Preschool.





We loved his teachers Mrs. Bower & Mrs. Huggler. They are the best teachers! We will miss them dearly, but hopefully in a few years we will be back at Hope Preschool and Thomas can have them as his teachers.





Mrs. Bower gave all of the children these cute lucky duck hats today. They wore them for their program in which they recited 11 Happy Little Ducks. (We now have two Lucky Duck Hats, one for Christopher and now one for Joshua.) Mrs. Bower also gave us several books that the children have been making throughout the year. One of the books is a journal which contains an entry every Monday about what the children did over the weekend. It is priceless to read what Joshua did over the weekend in his mind.





His class celebrated the big day by having an ice cream party!




Joshua's favorite thing about Preschool was laying under the tables with art paper tape to the underside of the table. He then laid on his back on the floor and reached up with his hand and paint brush and painted his picture. Mrs. Bower had just taught them about Michelangelo painting the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel.



Joshua's teacher's always commented on him always being so HAPPY and easy going! I know Joshua will do great in Kindergarten! I am so proud of you, Joshua!!!