School's out for Summer

   Our weather sent me through a time warp. We had a very consistently cool spring and then all of a sudden the heat and humidity blanketed Baltimore. The coolness kept me in winter mode, so when the heat did hit I felt quite behind on summer plans and fall registrations. Every summer requires multitudes of forms and calender checking for vacation and camps and a plan for daily activities, and it takes weeks in the spring to arrange all of this. The spring is probably also the most expensive time of year for us because I am constantly writing checks for summer activities and the fall registrations of sports, scouts and religious ed.  All of those things are now set and school's out for summer.
 

    The last few weeks of school are always a little out of whack. There are lots of special events and things to bring in, and then special schedules. In the midst of this Megan came down with a fever and aches. Headaches and tiredness started while we were camping and by Monday night it turned into fever and all over body aches. She felt fine when she had pain medication but would whimper and lay down as soon as it wore off. On Thursday I scheduled a Dr. appointment for her but as it would happen about an hour before we went I noticed a bullseye rash on her shoulder. It all came together, I had thought I had seen a tick on her the prior week (it was gone by the evening when I looked for it) and in that same spot I had noticed a big red spot 3 days earlier, and with the bullseye in the same spot I was pretty sure it was Lyme disease. That was confirmed at the appointment and because it was classic progression he didn't even make us do the blood work. Megan is in the middle of her 3 weeks of antibiotics and is doing much better. She did miss 3 days of school but was well enough to enjoy the last few days before kindergarten promotion.

    Emma's 6th grade bowling field trip was on the same morning as Megan's promotion so Emma did not attend but the rest of us packed in with happy families to see the kindergarteners sing and receive certificates. Megan had been practicing her songs for a month and did a great job. Rachael was eager to take pictures so we sent her to the front with our camera. The battery was getting low so we asked her to turn it off till Megan got her diploma. Poor Rachael got flustered with turning the camera on and zooming when Megan was called and completely missed the picture. Luckily a friends dad got a shot and emailed it to me. After the promotion we went to lunch to celebrate.

Friday was the last day of school and Jim's birthday. To celebrate we went to dinner at an English pub and then we went to the opening night of Toy Story 3 in 3d. We tried to fit in the opening of the Harry Potter Theme Park at Universal Studios but it was too far. The movie was a lot of fun although a bit scary for Bridget. Em, Rae, Meg, and I all got teary at the end. It was well past bedtime when we got out but hey it was summer vacation.

All of the girls did really well in school. Emma got on the honor roll every quarter while taking GT classes. Rachael finished with straight A's again. Megan doesn't get letter grades yet but made huge jumps in her assessment and ended in the highest categories in most subjects. And Bridget is accident free, even wearing panties at night. We are so proud of all of our girls.

And what did they do this first week of summer vacation? All 4 of them played school. I can't get over the irony.

End of the Scouting Year

    As school winds down, many activities climb to a crescendo of sorts. Emma has had concerts, all of the school girls have had field trips and field days, and Girl Scouts culminates in a weekend of camping. The first weekend of June all of the age groups of Scouts come together from all over the area for Encampment. We had a theme of Journey through Time this year and the camping theme was Little Scouts on the Prairie. Each Troop picked a famous woman from the 1800's, researched her, and prepared troop hats, shirts, swaps and cheers about the woman. They all learn a lot in the months preceding Encampment and then got to share that with other girls.

    This was the first year Megan would attend. Most kids her age only come up for the day, but since I was going she stayed overnight with our Brownies. Her troop picked Annie Oakley, so Megs was decked out in western gear all weekend. Megan joined her Daisy troop during the daytime activities but rejoined me and the Brownies after dinner. She enjoyed everything: Boating, candle making, swimming, and drawing a story board about Lewis and Clark. By the evening though she started to cry, saying her head hurt and that she wanted to go to bed. Megan perked up for campfire songs and smores. It was a very successful first camping trip.

    Rachael and her troop focused on Emily Dickinson and were much more independent this year than last. They were all 3rd graders and had a much easier time with the information part of the stations. They learned about American Indians and then made clay beads, they talked about Sacajawea in another station and made bracelets. The girls were also much more independent at getting their own food. Rachael was very high energy and needed some extra space from time to time. It was so hot the first night that she tossed and turned and thrashed about until 2 AM. It was hard for her to get up on Saturday but boy did she fall asleep fast Saturday night after walking all over camp doing stations. Saturday evening Rachael participated in the Girl Scout bridging ceremony, where they bridge up to the next level of Scouting. Rachael is now a Junior and will wear a green vest.

   Emma's cadet troop choose Queen Liliuokalani of Hawaii. I think the motivation was for much cooler options in theme. Her troop each made a t-shirt look like a bathing suit top and they wore flowers in their hair and gave out leis. I didn't see Emma often but she and her sisters were so sweet to each other when they saw each other in passing. She participated in a Sacajawea Challenge were teams raced through out camp reenacting parts of her life, like helping Lewis and Clark and their capsized boat. The team also had to carry a baby (watermelon) while doing the tasks as Sacajawea had her infant with her throughout the expedition. Emma had a blast.

   In preparation for Encampment each troop built a boat made out of cardboard and it could only be secured and decorated with duct tape, to be raced on Sunday. Most of this task falls on the leaders of younger troops, which means me and my co-leader. We have a blast engineering it. The girls vote on the design and help with the decorating. We have discovered that young girls make huge sticky messes of duct tape rolls so the leaders take a very active role in decorating.  I was proud of our boat, the next task was getting girls to row in a straight line. Last year the girls struggled to get the boat across the pool, so this year we picked the rowers prior to our lake time so they could practice together. We had five girls camping this year, and 2 would be rowers. 2 of the 5 rowed last year so they were removed from the selection. This brought us down to 3 girls and 2 spots. Rachael was so sad when she for the 2nd year didn't see her name drawn. I was sad for her, but so impressed at how well she handled it. We found out the morning of the race that we might not have the race next year, so we arranged for Rachael to be the caller in the back of the boat. She was happy for the job. We were excited to find out that Emma would be rowing her troop's duct tape boat in the older troop heat. It is hard not to feel competitive, because really I want them to win.

    It was super hot out when we gathered to race our boats. There are awards for things like most girl scout, most nautical, and most colorful. And then there are awards for speed. Our boat was very sea worthy and as soon as the whistle blew our girls stroked together and moved across the pool. They finished in 29 seconds. They were amazing. The other two brownie boats in our heat never made it past the 1/4 mark.  It was so great to see the girls so proud of their hard work.  Of 9 Brownie-aged teams our girls won the fastest ribbon. Emma raced a few heats later. She said that as soon as the boat went in the water it started to fill with water. They made it 3/4 of the way across and capsized. Pulling the water logged boat out took some extra adults. She enjoyed the experience even if they didn't win.
  
      We all packed up and headed home after lunch, eager to see Jim and Bridget. He and Bridget spent a lot of time playing. They also went shopping together. Jim got solid baseball hats for some new sports patches he bought and Bridget came home with Princess Tiana stuff. Both were happy as can be. All six of us were eager to share our stories. I started the laundry and storing the camping gear and realized how much I needed to catch up on. That thought is exhausting but I was smiling.

   I really enjoy doing Scouting things with the girls and I really enjoy leading. It is nice to be able to emphasize the service aspect with the girls and spend a lot of time on collecting canned goods, cleaning streams and making casseroles for the hungry while also doing fun stuff. But leading a troop is a huge time commitment and Jim asked that I scale back next year. I will help with paperwork and finances and camping but I won't be at meetings every Tuesday night. This kind of makes me sad but I am also looking forward to a less hectic week. I know that will be good for the whole family.

    Each of the girl's had a year end Court of Awards potluck. All of us went to all of the ceremonies to support the girls in what they accomplished. At Megan's potluck the leader asked for a volunteer to be next year's cookie parent, she got no volunteers. But as we were leaving I see Megan leading Jim by the hand to the table with all of the paperwork. Megan asked him to be the cookie parent and he agreed. I couldn't help but grin and I really hope he gets the enjoyment out of it that it offers.

Happenings in May

I haven't blogged in such a long time and too much is going on to really catch back up, but I thought it would be good to give some highlights from May.

At the beginning of May Grandma Kate came in for a 2 week visit. We were all so eager for her to arrive. The girls worked really well together to clean up their play area so that Grandma would have a place to sleep. That first weekend of May Megan performed in her dance recital. She really enjoys dance and I think that she has a lot of poise. I was worried when they first got the costumes. Megan didn't like the colors and cried that it was too itchy every time she put it on. But once she saw how amazingly sparkly it was under the lights, she was able to get past the itch.

We celebrated a nice lunch afterward with my parents and Jim's mom. I tried to enjoy the meal but I was frustrated when I had to accompany girls to the bathroom. It was at least 4 trips. I always have the girls use the bathroom after we order in the hopes that I won't have to get up while I am eating, but Bridget is new to the potty and had to go many times.

Bridge is doing pretty well on the potty. She does well putting her pee in the potty but pooping has been much harder to master. We decided to incent her with a chart and some very desirable rewards. Princess Tiana anything excites her so we have a towel and polly pocket set waiting for her. Bridget loves to talk about Tiana, role play the story, and listen to the CD from the movie that Jim burned for her.

Rachael came home one day from school declaring it her best week ever. She had gotten 100% on a difficult math test, but the highlight was a photo contest. Back in February she asked to use the camera, went out to take pictures on her own, and then picked her favorites to bring in. In May she came home with first prize for a nature scene and a strawberry plant of her own.

Toward the end of May Emma and I went to Hershey Park with the middle school music program. The orchestra performed in the morning along with the coral groups and band, and then we went to Hershey. Another mother and I had 7 girls to chaperon. Emma is a roller coaster fanatic: the bigger and faster the better. Not all of the girls were as adventurous and Emma struggled with not having the freedom to run from one coaster to another. I got on the wooden coaster with her, which was the first coaster I think I ever rode on back when I was in middle school and I realized that age has taken the fun out of them. She wasn't looking for me to ride with her anyway, so I became the bag holder. It was a long but really fun day. Jim had given Emma his cell phone to use for the trip and Emma commented on the bus ride home how well she handled the phone and suggested that she should be allowed to get one. In the morning however the phone was nowhere to be seen. We called the school and  bus company but it never turned up. She hasn't mentioned getting a phone since.

During the time that Grandma Kate was here the girls all enjoyed her company. This trip though had a different feeling than previous ones. The girls all had busy school and activity schedules instead of lazy summer days to spend doing things together. I was grateful for Grandma's help in all aspects but especially for being here during Jim's hernia surgery. I didn't have to worry about the girls getting off to school with me not there because Grandma had been taking notes and observing the routine all week long. Jim and I left for the hospital at 5 AM and all of the surgery prep went smoothly. Sending him off to surgery is a strange feeling. It really requires that I put something precious to me in someone else's hands. This time I felt much less peaceful about it and I spent more time praying for his medical team. The surgeon came out about the time I expected and was pleased with how it went, but Jim was in recovery for a long time. The anesthesiologist spent time with us when he did come out, because she was concerned with his breathing and oxygen levels. It took a little while for him to get to where they were happy, but once he did all of his stats were great. I think he and I both took what she had to say to heart and I really appreciated her speaking her mind.  4 weeks into recovery he is feeling much better. I am glad to see him return to normal activities. 

We ended May with a spontaneous trip to Pennsylvania. MarySue called and asked if she could come get our 2 big girls for the Memorial weekend. We worked it out that Emma and Rae would spend the night on Saturday and then Jim and I would drive up with the little girls on Sunday to join them for the Devon horse show. Our girls really enjoy the 2 Hess kids. We watched the ponies jumping and then walked around. They had a small carnival and lots of food. The girls all played games and won cheap stuffed animals. Bridget won a Princess tiara and has worn it as a headband everyday since. Megan won a big stuffed turtle that she likes to now use as a pillow. We caught another round of pony jumping before we headed to home Sunday night. We needed to be back to join scouts in placing flags on service men and women's graves the next morning.

That afternoon we met at my parents house. My Mom started a tradition of doing a May crowning of Mary on Memorial Day and then having a cookout. We have a program of Marian prayers and songs, with a procession to the back yard where one of the cousins crowns Mary with a crown of roses that my Dad makes each year. We light candles for our beloved dead and remember them on Memorial Day. It struck me this year how unique this tradition is to my family and I hope it continues for generations to come.