Sunday, August 21, 2016

Camp Week 2016

We had a new item on our summer agenda this year - farm camp at Casey Farm! Julia attended a full week of camp in their Growing Together program and Benjamin attended 3 half-days as a Little Duckling. 

Both kids had fun completing farm chores, doing crafts, and playing games even on the couple of rainy days! Benjamin also got to spend some extra one-on-one time with me and some friends and had a fun day out with Grandpa Rick at the ballpark and miniature golf course.

The first day, Benjamin and his friend were turned into turkeys!



On our day together, we found an old fashioned soda counter and of course, had to try a milkshake!



They even had the paper hats!


There was lots of silliness.


At the bookstore we found some new Minecraft manuals for the 2 big sisters, Julia and her friend Elizabeth.


Somehow, a Pokemon got into the adventures!


Ben and Sarah spent a quiet, rainy afternoon comparing Minecraft worlds.


Julia was all geared up. We don't need backpacks for school so we showed for camp instead!


From turkeys, they transformed into cows.


And a final afternoon of miniature golf (Ben's second round of the week!)


And a carousel ride on Narragansett Nessie


The final camp activity for Julia was an egg drop. Each group of campers created a contraption and the head of the camp, Adam dropped them all. Spoiler alert: they all broke eventually but Julia's team creation, the Sparkleduck, performed admirably!





Friday, August 19, 2016

Rapunzel


Rapunzel, Rapunzel, 
let down your hair!


Wednesday, August 17, 2016

1,2,3 Jump!

It was big day on the diving board this past Saturday!


First, Julia dove off the board for the first time!


And then Ben jumped off for the first time!


I should note that this means that Benj can now swim the width of the pool and back by himself. That's the test he had to pass to go off the board!

Monday, August 15, 2016

Swim News!!!

It's been a busy summer of swimming culminating in some great news! First, Julia swam in the Narragansett All Pool Meet on August 6th and 7th. Her goal was to make it to swim in the finals (top 16) of at least two events. I am very proud to say that she accomplished that in BOTH her events - Individual Breaststroke and Butterfly. And on Sunday she finished 13th in breaststroke and 12th in butterfly! She was thrilled!!

ready!

take your mark!

the first three medals! 

At the swim banquet she received her first three medals as well as the Coaches Award! It was given to 5 swimmers on the team who had the best attitude, participation, flexibility and overall good spirit. Julia showed up at practice everyday with a smile on her face, ready to jump in the pool. Her excitement was evident and her coaches noticed!

The second bit of news is that on the following day, about 4 hours after she was lamenting to me how sad she was that summer swim team was over, she was promoted to the year-round swim team at the swim club that she takes lessons from, Envious Swimming! So she is now a year-round swimmer with practice 3 times a week. She was beyond excited and literally could not keep the smile off her face - it was fantastic to see! She kept saying that she had been working so hard to make this goal, and she had finally achieved it. Which was exactly what she did do but it was nice for me to hear her recognize the direct connection. Our schedule is going to have a change a bit but we're thrilled that she's found something that she absolutely loves!

Friday, August 5, 2016

Poetry Reading by Julia

The popularity of Minecraft has continued to soar in our household and along with it have come increasing requests for new apps, skins, texture packs, and other purchases. Our new rule? To earn a purchase you must memorize a poem! 

A Galaxy written by Douglas Florian, performed by Julia


(it's kind of amazing how quickly memorization happens with this kind of motivation!)

Wednesday, August 3, 2016

All in the Details

I've been experimenting with a fun little gadget for my iPhone, an EasyMacro lens. It attaches with a rubber band and provides 4x magnification to the camera - fun!

Ben's eye

tomato flower

Julia's baby blues

parsley buds

Monday, August 1, 2016

Date Night!

Benjamin and I shared a mini-golf and Pokemon date night! We're not obsessed with Pokemon but both of us are having fun trying to catch the critters.

First up - mini-golf at Mulligan's Island! Ben had some impressive shots; I think all that practice in the basement on the first hole of his own course is making a difference!

Then to Garden City for Chipotle, Pokemon hunting, and ice cream (a choose your sundae with chocolate ice cream, chocolate sprinkles, rainbow sprinkles, and m&ms).



And THEN, we opened our car door and found this! Is a rock, is it a toad, is it a snake curled in a ball??? We wondered... we dared each other to touch it... we both refused... we looked around and did not find anything suitable to use as a poking device... so we left it, closed the door, and headed for home where there are plenty of BIG sticks!



After a little poking and prodding our little friend woke up and revealed himself to be a toad!!!


It was a fun end to a great afternoon!