Zach's music lesson

We had a discussion with Zach about the importance of practice. Even on things he already knows, like minus problems. Zach seemed to be having a tough time grasping the idea that practice is a good thing and is helpful. So Matt, takes him over to the keyboard and shows him how to play "Mary Had a Little Lamb" while Sam and I watch. Matt shows Zach several times how to play the beginning of the song. Then Zach gives it a try. Once he got the beginning, Matt proceeds to show Zach more of the chords. Which Zach finds difficult to put together with the first part of the song. Thus illustrating Matt's point that in order to get the song done right he would have to practice a lot. Sam looks at me and whispers "he's not getting it." Meaning the song, because Zach was still not able to do the song right. But we didn't care because that was not the point of the exercise. So Zach leaves the keyboard and Sam rushes in and starts to play the song perfectly after only watching Matt and Zach play it over and over again. I look and Matt and we both start laughing. Matt was better able to compose himself, but I had to excuse myself into the living room because I was busting a gut laughing. Of course she would get it right the first time without even practicing! I'm just glad she didn't turn around and say "see Zach I don't need to practice."

Sam and Lily

This past summer has bared witness to the development of a wonderful friendship between Sam and the neighbor girl, Lily. We've live here for 3 years and occasionally saw this little blond girl across the street by Jeanne's house. Jeanne is an older woman that doesn't have any young children at home anymore and her grandchildren live farther away. One day I was visiting Jeanne and this little girl came over and ask if she could use the swing set. I didn't know Jeanne had a swing set so Jeanne invited the kids to join lily on the swing set and that was it; Sam and Lily instantly bonded! Lily is a year younger than Sam and a sweet polite child. We like to say that Lily is Sam's blond twin! They are like sisters. They can have a fight, then forgive and forget so quickly. I sometimes watch the two of them playing and know that one day they will look back on these warm summer days with fondness. Jeanne says she just knows they will be live long friends. I hope she is right.
It's great to watch them say good bye. They are a reminder of how we should cherish one another. They always hug and say they love one another. If you were to witness this for the first time, you would think they weren't going to see each other for months or years. And then the next day, there Lily would be again at our front door.

Labor Day weekend camping trip at Lake Emily

So here is the camp site for Lake Emily. It was beautiful and couldn't ask for better weather! This site is clean the bathrooms are actually decent! the rent-a-site that we were in was really large and we had 3 families on it with room to spare. the kids had this one area that they mainly used for playing light saber fights. The camp grounds have these great big shower rooms that you can sit in. There was also a bird of prey presentation that was super cool! They guy had a live hawk, owl and a turkey vulture with him. All of them were at one time hit by cars, but where rescued and now used for this educational program. I wasn't able to see the presentation because I was dealing with buying firewood and reorganizing our tent. So, all the above info I received from my kids.
Pictured below is our tent and it's kinda hard to tell, but the lake is behind us just beyond the trees. We woke up every morning to this magnificent view.

We had a great time at the lake. Of course getting to and from the lake meant trekking up and down some major stairs. Quite the work out, but totally worth it!

We rented a boat and John took the boys fishing. Zach is laying down against Caleb in his blue hat. He looks totally relaxed. He later told me he got a nibble but didn't catch anything.
To my surprise the kids were not freaked out by minnows in the lake. They actually chased them!
And then to top off the vacation we celebrated Nathan's 2nd birthday with cupcakes! Doesn't get any better than this.I don't know if we will return next year but, at least we can catalog this vacation for the most part a positive. We did have one hiccup on our last night of camping. I won't got in to details of exactly what happened. But, basically we had 2 sleeping bags that we were not able to use. So the kids had to sleep in the back of Jenny's van with a thermal blanket and some other blankets were were able to scrounge up. It all worked out in the end.

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.