This week Rock turned the big 34 and I made the best pie I’ve ever made in my life!  That is not really saying much because I’ve made very few.  My mother was not a pie maker (to the eternal chagrin of my father) and so I am not a pie maker.  But I’ve made one most years we’ve been married on Rock’s birthday.  Oh, and I always make sure he gets a pumpkin pie for Thanksgiving.  So here is the beautiful pie he got to enjoy for his birthday.

And I should point out that I had help with this pie.  All the boys helped out.

And also this week Liberty learned to dance.

I’m going to do a blog post each week about what we learned and did in school. I’ll title them all Homeschool Highlights so that if any of you don’t want to see what we did in school you can skip it. Some weeks I’ll write about the academics and some weeks I’ll write about our other experiences that week. But I suppose these posts will evolve over time. Maybe they’ll even morph into their own blog. Who knows!

Our second week of school went great!

• Liberty took her first steps this week and the boys were all there to share in the excitement. She just stood up in the middle of the room and started walking! I thought the boys were going to scare her to death they were all cheering and hollering so loud for her!
• The boys learned their second poem, “Higglety Pigglety Pop”
• For writing this week the boys journaled about their summer vacation… better late than never! Cade’s entry about our trip to the Statue of Liberty was titled, “Liberty Finally Realizes She’s Famous”
• In history we learned about the Code of Justinian and his interesting wife, Theodora from the Byzantine Empire.
• Reagan started piano lessons this week.
• For our field trip we went on a hike at the Watchung Reservation near our home. These boys LOVE being out in nature and we are going to have to do this more than once a week I think!
  
  Lake Surprise

  
  Walk Softly and Carry a Big Stick!

  We ended our field trip at the Loop Playground. Reagan pushed Libby on the swing and she loved it!

  

Our next stop in Utah this summer was Uintah to visit Grandma and Grandpa Hymas and family.

Libby and Monica hit it off really well, being kindred spirits and all.

The kids had a blast playing with their cousins

Marvelous Mud!

Awesome Uncles!

Liberty was a little unnerved by the similarities between these two.

Cute Cousins!

 
 

We spent a fun day at the lake.
 

Libby and Levi were NOT into the water.

But they liked the sand!

Ummm, what’s wrong with this picture?

Bathing Beauty

We also spent a fun day at the Fair.




Food break

Foot massage

We played at the water park too!

We roasted Smore’s in the back yard.

And just had lots of fun playing around Grandma and Grandpa’s house.

Mooching food from Grandma

Playing Piano with Grandma

Playing Pit

The favorite place in all of Grandma’s house.

We had a great time and miss everyone already!  Thanks for the wonderful trip!  (sorry it took so long to tell the story!)

Our first week of homeschooling  (last week) went rather well!  The first couple days were a little rocky just like our trial week back in February.  But once we got into our groove and once I figured out my curriculum and lessons, etc we were running like a well oiled machine for the most part!  Here’s a few highlights:

-We set up an obstacle course around the house for break times that grew each day.  We added a floor of the house to it each day.

-Instead of sitting still at a desk, Reagan got to run and jump around while he answered math questions.

-The boys decided on their own to  memorize several of the extra verses of the primary song Book of Mormon Stories and begged to sing it every morning.

-For science this week, the boys studied an animal of their choice.  We checked out books at the library on Cheetahs and Peregrine Falcons and learned all we could about them.  Then we typed them into Google and watched all the fun videos we could find of these beautiful and amazing animals.  I loved watching and learning right along with them!  Cade was so excited about science this week he was literally running and jumping all over the house.  Here’s a picture of his little page that he wrote for his science binder.

-And the biggest highlight was our first ‘Friday field trip’ to a creek that runs through one of the parks in our town.  The boys have been begging to go fishing here for weeks, so they made their own fishing poles with sticks, string and some bent paper clips and we headed to the park. 

I chose to ignore my irrational fears that someone  would stop us and demand to know why my children were fishing (FISHING!) instead of sitting in a classroom somewhere or that Child Protective Services would show up and haul me away.  It’s striking how strong societal norms and the need for conformity really are.  I’m told it gets easier with time, this being a rebel.  And we had a great time! We hardly saw any fish and none were caught, but we saw some great animal tracks and bugs galore and Levi had a blast running through the creek  in his galoshes.  It was the PERFECT thing for little boys to do.  They wandered all over the creek, climbed the banks, looked at rocks and bugs and it was just wonderfully NATURAL!  And as people walked past us on the path I just smiled, looked them in the eye and said, “Hello!”

Tying the worm on the hook.

  Deer                                             Raccoon

I’ve been meaning to blog about our trip to Utah since we got home from our travels this summer, but just never had the time with school preparations and the fact that we lost these pictures for a while when we got home.  Kudos to my computer genius husband who recovered them for me!

Our first stop in Utah was to visit the Utah Wesels; Derek, Penny and Lincoln and our wonderful Aunts who missed us so much, Alli and Sarin (an adopted Utah Wesel).
We went on a hike up to Stewart Falls, which was probably biting off more than we could chew with 6 little kids and a thunderstorm, but it made for some good memories! I ended up
carrying Levi for a good portion of the hike. 

Hiking buddies

I know, it’s pathetic how much taller she is than me.

And what trip would be complete without Levi falling flat on his face?  This is taken just after he fell.


We managed to finally reach the falls just as the rain started.  We spent a total of 1 minute “enjoying” the view before we had to run for cover.
We had a wonderful time visiting the Utah Wesel’s.   It was great to spend some time with Penny who we haven’t gotten to know much yet!  We sure love her.  And her husband is nice too.

We also spent some time with our good friends the Weiss family.  Wherever they move, we find them!  They can’t get rid of us, no matter how hard they try!

The Hymas and Weiss kids LOVE to tackle Rock.

And the Hymas and Weiss dads (and moms) LOVE to talk!

There’s never enough time with the Weiss’.  We love you guys!

While we were with the Weiss’ we went to visit Derek at the National Guard base where he was training to be deployed to the Middle East.  Der gave us an awesome tour of the Apache helicopter he flies.  The kids (and the dads) were in awe.

That’s a LOT of firepower!

Yeah, well, I’m still older, smarter AND better looking! So there.

I will admit that it was very cool to see how much my little brother knows about this massive amazing machine.   I was proud. 

Thank you for serving our country, Derek!  You are a great example to our boys.  We love you and admire your courage.

Stay tuned for Part II!

Today, one week after our last visit, we were back in the Urgent care.   Miraculously enough, it wasn’t Levi for once!  Which is good because he just got his stitches taken out just yesterday.  At the park Reagan tried to open a heavy metal gate that didn’t work right and it came back and hit him in the head.  He got a nice gash on his eyebrow and a goose egg.  This time we just used the Liquid Bandage stuff that a friend had and closed it up well enough, but he was very pale and sleepy afterward so we took him in anyway.  The doctor congratulated me on my “stitching up” job and said he wouldn’t even need to do real ones.  He then did a full CAT scan on Reagan just to make sure his wooziness was nothing more than the heat and the trauma.  But we got to spend another 2 hours waiting around for the medical profession to proclaim us good to go which was not fun with Libby climbing the walls.  All in all it was a very pleasant experience as ER experiences tend to go (I’m becoming an expert, you know).  Reagan did great.  He didn’t even cry and is thrilled to have a real scar. 

He also loves his nice black eye. 

Let’s all say a small prayer that I will not have to go to the ER or Urgent Care again this week, shall we?

Well, we have survived our first hurricane. And boy was it a doozy. I spent all week stocking up on non perishables and beefing up my 3 month supply. Saturday morning there was no milk to be found at any store on the East coast and so I did the unthinkable. I took my life in my hands and braved Wal-Mart -the day before a a hurricane. I know. You are impressed by my dedication to family, by my bravery in the face of danger. The mother bear instinct really kicked in, I’m tellin ya.

Our neighbors, city personnel and governor told us that power outages would be rampant and that our basement would probably flood. So, never having owned a basement before, we believed them and spent the whole day cleaning and organizing our basement and then moving it all up a foot or two off the ground to protect it from the onslaught of water and muck that might very well rush in when the sump pump stopped working. We involved the boys telling them we were going to have a Hurricane party! “Let’s get our basement prepared and then we’ll eat all our ice cream and make forts upstairs with all our empty boxes when the power goes out!”

And then we waited. And watched the news. And tracked the amazing white clouds of Irene wreaking havoc in states south of us knowing it was heading straight for us. This week was like waiting for Christmas to come. Every night; “Is the “Huwicane” coming tonight, Mommy?” “When is the power going to go out?” “When is the flood going to come in the basement?” “Is it going to fill our house?” By 8:00 PM it was raining and that was it, so we sent the kids to bed prepared to wake up to a massive storm the next day. We finally went to bed as well, exhausted from our preparations.

THIS is the incredible damage that we woke up to. Be advised, there is some graphic material in the following photos.



Irene’s mean fighting windy machine. One branch down.

Needless to say the kids were pretty bummed when as the morning progressed all they had to show for their first hurricane were a few leaves in the yard, no power outage and some puddles that were already disappearing. Reagan bitterly said, “I can’t believe the puddles are already gone!” After all our work emptying and prepping the basement it looked more like the hurricane hit inside the house instead of out.

I am very grateful our home wasn’t flooded or destroyed. I know thousands of people were not so lucky. But even I was a little bummed that my first hurricane was such a wimp by the time it got to us. After 7 days without power following the windstorm in Duvall, we felt like veterans who could weather anything Irene wanted to throw at us. We were ready! We were prepared! Oh well. Better safe than sorry I guess.

“Does this mean we aren’t going to have a hurricane party, Mom?”

”Yep, no hurricane party this time, kids. But maybe we can have one next time we get to have a hurricane!”

Yup, we felt the 5.9 earthquake today that happened in VA. It gave the kids quite a scare as it was very obvious and lasted a long time. But it just shook things, nothing fell off the walls. We got a good rolling and shaking though. I put my Southern California training into practice and had all three boys stand in the doorway with me. All three were crying and I couldn’t help myself, I just started to laugh because never in my wildest dreams did I think that earthquakes would be something we’d experience in New Jersey. Once everyone calmed down we used it as a chance to study some seismology. Levi would NOT stop talking about it for the rest of the day. He nominated himself earthquake preparedness expert and went over and over the procedure we all have to follow if another “ewethquake “comes. (He was the most freaked out. lol) Rock hardly felt it at work in Manhattan, but they evacuated everyone from his building anyway and he got to walk down 25 flights of stairs because no one on the East Coast is ready or used to earthquakes.

Earthquakes in New Jersey, who knew!

Here is the extent of our damage:

This morning, as I was just about to sit down and finally blog about our Utah trip, Levi decided to fall against the kitchen counter and split his chin open just one cm from the scar he got a month ago when he tripped and fell against a cement step and cracked his chin open.  He should have gotten stitches then, but it was not gaping, so we didn’t take him in.  It healed fine, but he got a scar on his chin to add to his collection.  Today, thanks to his impeccable balance and agility, Levi took his second trip to the ER in less than two years to get six more stitches… and ANOTHER scar on his face.  That is a grand total of 22 stitches and  FOUR scars on his beautiful little face in less than two years. Two of which happened only one month apart.   I’m telling you, this kid is cursed.  And just in case that’s not it, I’ll be taking him to the doctor so they can check his depth perception!!!!!! 

And now you’ll have to wait till tomorrow for the Utah blog posts. 

We spent a week and a half with my parents in Washington and had a great time.   Here’s what we did;

 
Airplane ride to WA. 

Sarin and I flew with all 4 kids to Chicago and then on to Seattle.  In Newark we managed to get everyone through security, onto the plane and buckled when the captain came on and said, “Just kidding!  We won’t be leaving for an hour because of thunderstorms in Chicago.”   So there we sat.  And sat.  And sat.   The heat was almost unbearable for about 20 minutes and I was just about to to haul them all off the plane again when someone above took pity on me and convinced the flight attendants to turn on the ac even though they were not cleared to.  And once again, the wonders of modern technology saved me while we waited for the plane to take off.  

Chicago was a mess once we finally landed.  All the gates were switched around and the departure times delayed so we sat all four kids down on the floor in front of McDonald’s to feed them a quick lunch.   One of them (they still won’t admit who) stuck gum on the glass of the moving walkway, while the others rubbed their greasy fingers all over the glass and the hand rest of the walkway before I could stop them.  My apologies go out to all the Chicago airport travelers that day for our little germ fest and to the employee who got to clean up after us.  Turns out we very nearly missed our plane due to all the confusion, but it was my lucky day and we managed to get on our plane just in time.  It is written in the great book of Mothering that all mothers must have  an airport/airplane horror story.  So far, I’ve managed to escape such a fate, but I can’t see that lasting forever with my little brood.  When it does happen, though, I’m sure it will make for a great blog post.

While in WA we celebrated Cade’s 7th birthday.



Cade’s two loves, LEGO’s and drawing

We also went to Duvall to visit all of our wonderful friends we miss so much.  Reagan and his little friend, Sydney have known each other since they were 6 months old.  They saw each other at least 3 times a week their whole lives until we moved away.  They were the best of friends.  But this year Reagan decided girls were yucky.  On his door he would put up signs that said no girls allowed (except for Mom and Sydney).  But I knew it might be a little weird for him at first when he saw Syd again.  Sure enough, he hid from her or ran from her for the first 30 minutes we were at the park with them.  But they finally warmed up to each other and were inseparable the rest of the day.  We ended our day in Duvall at our favorite Mexican restaurant, Ixtapa.  Oh how we missed Ixtapa!!!!  You can’t get good Mexican food in NJ!
 


We love Ixtapa!

Even Liberty had a good time!

We helped out in the yard while at Grandma and Grandpa’s.

Liberty dressed up in her prettiest dress to impress the Aunts!

We also took the boys to see Mt. Rainier!  It was a perfect day and the kids did well even though it was a long day.

My very favorite view of Mt. Rainier 

Liberty did fantastic and even got in a nap (with a little help).  Her head kept flopping down so Rock finally took pity on her and held it up.

Our last stop at Mt. Rainier was the Grove of the Patriarchs.  A beautiful old growth forest.

Cool Roots!

Favorite picture of the day (sorry it’s blurry)

Hug a tree 

Thus ended our Mt. Rainier trip.  It was a great day with no major mishaps.  And I think we made Grandpa’s year by going up to the mountain.

One funny ‘Reaganism’ from this trip before I end this post.  At dinner one night, Reagan was, as always, asking questions and Grandpa said, “Reagan, I think they’re just going to put a ? on your tombstone.” Puzzled, Reagan, asked, “Why?” 
When everyone burst into laughter he asked, “What’s so funny?” 
Sigh.  At least his  personality is consistent!

We had a great time in WA and the boys were very sad to leave it again.  We sure do miss our friends and family there!