Co-op Camp

Last Spring I approached a couple of moms at Charlotte's school about putting together a Co-op Camp this Summer. They all seemed interested, so we have been sending emails back and forth planning for this week.

There are 5 moms and their kids participating. The plan is that we each take a day to "teach" the kids about a particular theme. So each person takes a day, but then you send your kid(s) to the other houses the rest of the week. Since the Olympics are happening this week, we decided on that for the theme. Then, we each took a different country that is participating in the Olympics. I chose England.

I picked the first day to have the kids over to my house. I wanted to have that part over with! The morning went great. Honestly, Max was the hardest one to manage. The kids were excited just to be together, so they mostly just ran around the house playing. I had some crafts planned, but they didn't really want to do them. They did make a Union Jack flag out of some strips of construction paper that I pre-cut. But one of the kids told me, "I don't really like arts and crafts".

We played out in the col-de-sac for a while. It was a cloudy day and not too hot. I also mixed up some chalk paint. They had a good time squirting and painting with that.

They started to get hungry, so we came in and decorated some Olympic ring sugar cookies. They each picked a color and spread the icing around. Then, we put them together to make the Olympic rings. As you can imagine, this activity was a hit. They ate their cookies, along with some peaches, for snack.

We tried to do a water balloon fight, but I couldn't get the balloons filled up fast enough and they lost interest while waiting. I should have filled them the night before.

They ended up playing their own game of Princesses and Knights which involved chasing each other around the house.

After two days, I think we would deem the week successful so far. It will be interesting to see how Friday goes!

K is for Kiss

Muddy Buddies

Yesterday, after a snack of popsicles, we were just hanging out in the backyard. I filled up the water table and they were helping water the plants. I was surfing the web on my iPhone. Life was good.

I heard some quiet giggles and realized that I hadn't heard any fighting for a while. Rarely a good sign. I looked over and saw my children covered in mud. Charlotte had decided to dig some of the red clay up and then pour a bunch of water all over it. Max sat right down and played in it. Luckily they were already pretty much naked. I removed their shirts after they got popsicle all over them. I figured it could hurt, and they were having fun, so I ran in and got the camera.









I turned the hose back on and filled up our little pool. After some splashing around the two little piggies were cleaned off and able to come inside.

Lemonade Stand

Charlotte comes up with a lot of "projects" each day. At least 4 or 5 a day. Some of them, she pulls out paper, tape, glue, and scissors and manages to do them all on her own. Others involve a lot of help from me. Some of them take her at least 5 minutes to explain and are just kind of impossible. She doesn't like it when I tell her "no" or "not today" and it turns into a 15 minute negotiation about what we can do.

She had been talking about a lemonade stand all summer. I told her when we were visiting my parents that we would be able to do one when we got back home. I knew that we had a few weeks in August with NOTHING to do and maybe I could stretch out the preparations to fill a couple of days.

Last Monday she created her sign. We chose the price point for the cookies and lemonade. We colored it. Then, she cut out "streamers" from construction paper to glue to the top. It looked great. We also did our grocery shopping.

Tuesday we decided was the day. We thought about what time would be good. She wanted to do the morning, but I told her that the afternoon would probably be better. People would be on their way home from work and there is usually a lot of traffic outside of our house then. After some discussion, she concurred.

We began squeezing the lemons. According to my lemonade recipe, we needed three cups of lemon juice. We squeezed about 23 lemons and had two and a half cups. We were out of lemons. We made a trip to the Dekalb Farmer's Market and found bottles of already freshly squeezed lemon juice for 20% off. Score! Back home we made our simple syrup on the stove and then mixed it all together. After a quick taste test, and adding some water, we decided it was good.

When Max went down for his nap, Charlotte and I pulled the mixer out and made some chocolate chip cookies.

From about 1-4:30 she asked me no less than 500 times if it was time to set it up. I posted to Facebook and texted friends asking them to stop by if they were in the area. She was so excited about it, I didn't want it to be a big disappointment.

Finally it was time. We set everything up at the corner. It was HOT. She came up with a little jingle to lure the customers in. Something about, "come get it now! holy cow!" It didn't take long to get our first customer. Our wonderful neighbors all came out and bought a cookie and a glass of lemonade. A couple of them came back to buy more cookies. Soon we had our big rush. Friends stopped by, random people stopped by, about an hour and a half into it, we sold out of cookies. She ended up making $50!



She had a great time. She had a cooler of ice. She would scoop the ice out into the cups and pour the lemonade all by herself. She took it very seriously. Max just kinda ran around the front yard drinking lemonade. I think he had a cup for each cup someone bought. We were all very sweaty and hot afterwards, but it was definitely worth the effort.

Since a 4 year old doesn't need $50, she has decided to tithe to the church. Then, we talked about it, and she decided to buy some packs of school supplies for kids that can't afford them. She did spend a little of it on herself and bought a recorder (which in retrospect was a terrible parenting decision).

She's already planning next year's lemonade stand.

Water Fun

The kids and I are spending some time with my parents this week while Judd is in Beijing. I was able to see both of my sisters and their husbands this past weekend. Sally and Jacob stayed for a while to hang out with us. It was great to have the cousins spend so much time together.

Haircut

While I spent my morning on Saturday with Charlotte visiting Drena and her darling new baby girl, Judd took my darling baby boy to have his hair trimmed.

It was a little shocking at first, but I'm getting used to this little man running around my house. I mean, really, he could have no hair and would still be darling - just look at those eyes.



After the above photo was taken this evening, Max played peek-a-boo behind the curtains in our room for a while. These next shots are technically horrible - they are so out of focus - but I'm in love with them.







His expression in this one! If there is one picture I ever wished were in focus, it would be this one.

Kauai Day 4

We woke up pretty early on day 4, Saturday. We didn't have any real plans and spent some time drinking coffee and taking in the view in our room. After reading through the guide book, we decided to get the car and drive to one of the waterfalls that was listed as something not to be missed.

We took a detour on the way and stopped at Queen's Bath. This is another lava rock pool. The walk down to the lava rocks was very nice and there was a beautiful little waterfall along the way.





We weren't really planning to swim in Queen's Bath, but if we were, I'm sure this would have made us think twice about it.



We took a look around and explored. We just sat for a while watching the waves crash against the rocks. It was really beautiful - but, so is everything there!



After Queen's Bath, we walked back up the trail to the car and made our way to the waterfall. Judd explored a few side roads and we took our time. We stopped at a Farmer's market and had a frosty at Banana Joe's fruit stand.

These things are amazing! They are just a frozen banana and pineapple squeezed through a champion juicer. It turns into this amazing treat that feels just like ice cream - but way better for you.



We got to the waterfall. I don't even have a picture of it if that shows you how awesome it was to see from the lookout. Not really that awesome. But, across the street we saw an old Hawaiian Village that you could rent kayaks to paddle to the Secret Falls (a waterfall you can only get to by kayaking and hiking). We decided to see if they had any left to rent. We were in luck. We put our money down and went to get a bite of lunch before we headed down the river.

After some mediocre fish tacos from a hut in a shopping center (that had rave reviews from some people we met) we loaded in our kayak and headed out. They gave us a "map" to use to find the Secret Falls.

This is the river we kayaked.





We kayaked to the landing, it took about 5 minutes. There were tons of kayaks docked there. We started out on what we thought was the trail to the Secret Falls. We kept passing people, so we were feeling confident we were on the right path. We gave up on our map, it was pretty useless. We passed grandmothers, children, a man with only one leg. So, this gives you an idea of the trail - pretty easy going. We just kept going and going. Eventually we started passing fewer and fewer people. The trail's elevation began to get a lot more tricky and the footing was slick. Judd almost fell down the side of the mountain. At that point we figured that this wasn't the way, and if it was, we weren't going. We made our way back and found the turn we were supposed to make, but we didn't. Finally we arrived. It was breathtaking.

You can't tell much from this picture, but you can see people swimming at the bottom of the falls in the background.



Unfortunately, a group of rednecks drinking wine out of the bottle decided to crash the party. Our serene spot looking into the waterfall pool was now blocked by 4 bleach blondes and their much older male counterparts. It was getting late, so we decided to start the hike back. We had a much easier hike back.

We got in the kayak and went over to the Fern Grotto. It was peaceful.



Then, we kayaked back to the Hawaiian Village to return our kayak.

After a run to Wal Mart, because my phone charger broke, we headed back to the resort. We showered and changed and went into town for dinner. We ate at a nice little restaurant, Postcards in Hanalei. It was delicious. A great end to a really great day.

We woke up the next day feeling good, but a little tired. We hadn't spent a day just lounging on the beach or by the pool at the resort, so we decided that Sunday would be our day to do just that. We took our time getting ready, drank our coffee, enjoyed the view, read the paper - then we headed out to Common Ground for brunch. It is a farm that has a restaurant on the property. You can walk through the veggie patch while you wait for your food to cook. All of the ingredients are whole food, local, organic ingredients. It was really yummy.

The rest of the day was spent reading at the pool. Doesn't get much better than that.

When we felt a few rain drops in the late afternoon we went up to the room and got cleaned up for dinner. We watched the sunset from the St. Regis lobby and went back to Hanalei for dinner. We heard about a good pizza place, so we put in a take out order. While we were waiting I walked around and did some shopping.

We ended back in the room eating pizza and watching Netflix. A pretty good night if you ask me - a fitting way to end a very relaxing day.