Homeschool end of summer picnic

We had such a great time at the homeschool picnic. We meet at the Boyscout camp grounds. After lunch we had a gamepalooza! There was prizes for the winner of the games. One prize per winner. So a kid could win a few times but only allowed to get one prize. Zach and his team won the sack race. My camera wasn't working right so I didn't get a picture of that unfortunately.

Sam won the apple bobbing contest. Does this really surprise anyone that Sam won a contest involving food?!


Here is Zach with his good friend, William doing a 3 legged race. The tie broke right away so they just put there legs together and did their best.
They didn't win, but had a good time.

Zach's birthday.

Zach had a low key birthday this year. The theme was Neopets. He made his own pinata and helped me decorate his Neopet lemon poppy seed cake. He has been all about Legos recently so that is what he got from almost everyone. Except the few who gave him money. He is trying to save up money to got to camp next year so he put the money in the bank.

Mary Beth's visit

Mary Beth, Mabe for short, arrived at our house around midnight August 7th. She was greeted with lots of hugs and ticked off barking by my dog, Frost, who is normally gentle and thrilled to having people over. This time, however, Frost was freaked out by this person who dared to arrive so late at night in a cap and scarf. She pretty much held that first night's offense against Mabe for several days, but eventually did warm up to her.
Mabe stayed with us for little over a week. It was nice to get a chance to catch up with her and hear all about her time in Kenya working at a school for Deaf children. She has such a heart for them and it pained her to leave. Mabe is gifted in working with children. She knows how to relate to them. What make them tick and what helps them learn. She did so much good there and I know the Lord can't wait to use her again, now that her time there has ended. Speaking of which didn't end well. She was working for Peace Corp, but they fired her. See, Mabe made waves, by showing the teachers what works to help the children learn. The children started improving and making leaps in their education. They didn't like being shown their errors. Once she slipped up and traveled at night they proptly fired her as well as make false accusation about Mabe doing inappropriate things with the male students. We were floored by this news and wished we could have done something about it. Mabe hopes to make it back there for a visit to see how the kids are doing. For now she is back in CA, but we are trying to lure her to move here by us. You know, entice her with snow and a small city with not much to do :-\. I don't know if it's working.

Fair.

My friend Monica called and asked to meet us at the fair here in Janesville. If not for her call, I would have totally forgotten about it. We live so close to the grounds that we can walk there. The kids had a blast with their friend Mathew and I got a chance to catch up with Monica. Zach had a little incident. He bit down wrong, knocked a tooth loose and his mouth started bleeding. It was one of his lower k-9s that we thought was an adult tooth. So I had to leave Sam with Monica and take Zach to the dentist. Our fears were relieved when we were told it was a baby tooth and the adult tooth is trying to push it out but a spacer was preventing it. So we set up an appointment with an orthodontist and went back to the fair to join Monica, Mathew and Sam. I'm glad we were able to go back. It would have broken Zach's heart to have missed the fair.
Eventually the Mega Loop caught Sam's eye. So she went to see if she was big enough. I was secretly hoping she wasn't. But no such luck, Sam was just big enough.
I couldn't join her, but she didn't care. She is a roller coaster girl and nothing was going to stand in her way of a thrill! Zach was like, 'no way, am I going on that!' He went in the fun house next door with Mathew. Monica and I watch in amazement and trepidation as the roller coaster went round and round and occasionally hung upside down! When she got off she was shaking. She said it was scary, but fun! That's my girl!
Eventually the afternoon faded and Monica and her kids had to leave. We stayed and continued going on pretty much ever ride except the toddler ones. We ended the day with a nice relaxing ride on the Ferris Wheel.