Pool Time

It's July 9th, and we are just getting into our summer routine. The twins are doing the Bridge book grades 2 into 3, and Jasmine is doing grade 6 into 7. Anyone else doing those? 

Today, we went to the pool for the first time this season! It was actually sunny for a few hours. Right after we left, it thundered and if there was lightining, the pool closed. So I'm glad we were done. Kind of frustrating because we only stayed a little while because Jasmine had drum lessons this afternoon, but when we got there, there was a sign on the door that said closed July 8-10. We should have been notified so we didn't rush around only to find the place closed.

Had similar "luck" getting our pool passes so ended up paying $15 just to get in today. Hope they will apply that toward our pass once the place that sells them is open! No, it's not the pool. It's at the bay where we jet ski (yeah, that's crazy) and it's closed Monday and Tuesday.

But we had fun at the pool. Here are a few pictures.

This climbing wall (in the deep end) is new this year.

It's harder to climb than it looks because it's angled forward.

I am teaching the kids to swim after losing so much money on lessons. I started teaching them last summer  because anytime there's lightning, lessons are cancelled, and they aren't made up. There are also way too many kids per class. So the twins bobbed under water twice in a 45 minutes lesson and that's all they did. And most lessons they only had ten minutes before lessons were cancelled. So I spent $110 for them to learn to bob under water. Not impressed.

So last summer I taught them glides first. I always start with that because when a child can glide, you just have to add the legs, then arms, then breathing and they are swimming. We get a lot of rain here in the summer, so I was only able to work with them about six times last summer, and they'd gotten as far as doing the kicks and arm strokes.

Today we worked on glides, glides with kicks, and floating. Didn't work on the arm strokes today. 

The twins are usually too far underwater like this. You only put your face in up to your eye brows. Otherwise when you turn your head for rotary breathing, you are still underwater.

She kicked her way to the bottom instead of forward.

We took breaks after they'd worked on each skill

I learned to swim in college, and then became a guard and WSI but am not certified anymore. This is about the last time I swam--1988!!

Jasmine has band camp Monday-Thursday mornings this week and the next two weeks. Yesterday I went to pick her up, turned off the car and it wouldn't restart. Not a peep. Rick came to rescue me. We got it jumped and took it for a battery. It didn't need a battery though, there was a crack in one of the connector thingies. Only cost $5 not $100!

I still have books to give away on my blog for girls for writing a review. This might be a fun thing for your kids to do this summer, especially if you  home school. I'll be adding some books to that give away shortly.
It's HERE

And I'm going to give away one book package on this blog soon.

If you read my comments about Monsters University in the last post, please leave your own comments if you've seen the movie! It's a fun movie to take kids too. Despicable Me 2 may be funnier, but MU one has more take away lessons.

Happy birthday to my brother today.

Not sure what year this is, late 80s? It's been a few years, but I'm sure he looks just the same : )

Today was training day one for Adam at Marine Boot camp.

Leave me a comment and let me know you stopped by.

Lessons from Monsters University

  I have lots of thoughts about Monsters University, but they are all rambling around in my head. So I'll see if I can get them down in writing and tell you how I think the lessons apply to ourselves and our kids. Since this blog is mostly about parenting joys and challenges, I'll be relating the lessons to some situations in our family. The children have all agreed to me sharing this.

I think the obvious themes are friendship, teamwork and persistence, but beyond that, one of the main lessons is that talent alone is not enough. Sully has scaring in his genetics and is a natural born scarer, but doesn't apply himself. He expects to get by on natural talent. That doesn't work out so well for him. 

I don't know about you, but most of my children struggle. However, I have a Sully in my family. He has many inherited talents from his birth mother. That child has never applied himself though so never really accomplished all that he could. He is gifted in many areas, but found out early he could get by without working hard. 

He recently began working toward some goals but found out that the laziness in the early years made it impossible to catch up in some areas. Sully figured it out of course, but the hard way. In biblical terms, to whom much is given, much is required. If God has gifted your child in certain areas, it's because he has big plans for that child that involve using those talents.

The opposite is also true. Desire, or really wanting something, is not enough. The path you want to follow might not be one you're gifted for. Mike wanted to be a scarer most of his life. He was the model student and knew all the ins and outs of scaring, but that wasn't enough. He just wasn't scary. 

People will say that you can do whatever you put your mind too, and while that might sound nice, it's not true. I  have a Mike in my house. A child who knew what he wanted to do, but when it came down to it, he didn't have what it took. And that's okay because that child has other abilities, he's just not seeing them. 

Like with Monsters University, some talents put you in the limelight and some put you in the background. Some people have what I call show off talents, the ones that get you lots of attention--musical ability, sports ability--but the support talents are just as important.

This next part will give away some of the plots so stop reading if you don't want to know some of the ending ahead.

Actions have consequences. In the movie Sully cheats. When he confesses to it, he is expelled. Mike breaks rules and is also expelled. I was glad that even though things worked out, they were still expelled.

We learn from consequences. I have a child who has gotten out of consequences by being cute and charming. He hasn't learned the right lesson from that. It will catch up with him. I also have two who have gotten away with poor behaviors because they were "refugees" (even though they really weren't because we'd been in the process three years when the earth quake happened). I had to be the bad guy to get teachers to hold them accountable for their actions no matter their background. 

I have children with diagnosises. They still have to do the best they can. Things like spending some of the formative years in poverty and in an orphanage, having ADHD or autism or drug effects is an explanation, not an excuse. All of us need to realize there isn't always a second chance so make the most of the first one.

There is more than one path to your dream. After being expelled, Sully and Mike almost gave up on their dreams, but then they regrouped and came up with another plan. The goal was to work on the scare floor. 

The original plan was to major in scaring at Monster University. But they took an alternate path of starting in the mail room and working their way up. Our kids need to realize that it's okay to fail. In real life there aren't trophies just for participating. Get up, replan and get going. 

Our family applied to adopt through our state. After a couple of years of nothing we realized that wasn't how we were going to add to our family. So we replanned, got an international home study instead, got loans and adopted through Haiti for the second time. It wasn't easy. Haiti changed its adoption rules monthly sometimes. But it worked. 

Everyones' talents and strengths are different. Don't look down on someone who doesn't appear to be talented or with it before getting to know them. Not everyone is athletic, smart or beautiful/handsome. 

In fact sometimes those people have so much confidence in themselves that they are useless to others. 1 Corinthians 1:25-28 says, This foolish plan of God is wiser than the wisest of human plans, and God’s weakness is stronger than the greatest of human strength. Remember, dear brothers and sisters, that few of you were wise in the world’s eyes or powerful or wealthy when God called you. Instead, God chose things the world considers foolish in order to shame those who think they are wise. And he chose things that are powerless to shame those who are powerful. God chose things despised by the world, things counted as nothing at all, and used them to bring to nothing what the world considers important.
Sully and Mike join together with a band of misfits for the Scare Games but they learn that each of them has a strength and by using each person's strength, they are a better team.

There will always be mean kids (and adults). Even Sully who started out as popular ended up on the wrong side of the mean kids. 

Our kids need to realize that not everyone will like them. Kids will make fun of their color, special needs and weaknesses. By making home a safe haven, they can overcome the effects of the mean comments and the teasing. They can learn that they have value because God created them in a unique and amazing way. That may be hard for our special needs kids to understand. But there is usually a strength to balance the weakness. My one who struggles with math and science can sing and play drums. Some kids may not have those obvious talents but they may be a good friend, able to take care of pets or to organize. Build on your child's strengths to overcome the hurt from mean kids. If all else fails, walk your kids to class carrying a baseball bat :)

Well, those are my rambling thoughts on the movie. Like I said in the beginning, there are the obvious themes of teamwork, friendship and persistence. Those fall in place with the other lessons.

What did you think of the movie if you saw it?

Back Home

For me, if I have the time, I try to make the journey an experience in itself. If we have to drive all that way, why not see something?

We stopped just over two hours into the return trip at Grissom Air Museum

Tyler at the top of the tower.

I have issues with height, but I didn't think this would bother me. Yeah, right, about half way up I realized I wasn't really enjoying it much. I thought about just climbing it to say I did it, but decided to go back down and take pictures instead.

In a fighter plane

After we left, we drove to Nashville which is just about the half way point. I don't usually stop until I'm into Alabama, but we'd planned to go to what sounded like a big mall. 100 Pines Mall. Good reviews online. So I used my Choice points (all of them I'd accumulated for the six days in St Louis and a couple other nights) to get a room ahead figuring we'd be at the mall until late. But the mall turned out to be just a few stores around a large medical facility. We were done in less than an hour. I'd have driven two more hours but I'd already booked the room and since it was for that night, it wasn't refundable.

It was a big room with a kitchen. A lot of people actually live there.

The kids watched about 2 1/2 hours of Duck Dynasty. I'm afraid I don't value its merits as much as some people.

Next day we left for Birmingham and it poured rain. At times it was very difficult to see the highway at all. Some of the time most of the other cars were pulled off, but we just kept going and arrived safely in Birmingham. We'd decided to go to McWane Science Center.

 

The Museum has four floors.

If you look closely, you can see Ty's face in the pins beside him.

DinoWars

High cycle

pulleys

Building a bridge

Bubble room

We had Subway and then drove the rest of the way home. The last hours felts so long.

I was gone two weeks and a day, but it felt like a month. And it will take me that long to get all the junk unloaded and  put back away. Anyone else get home, unload and wondered how they have so much stuff?? Or course some of it is book from convention, but some of it isn't.

Well, that is it about our trip. Overall, it was very good. From home to St Louis to Fowler to Elkhart and home was 2,400 miles. Everyone did well. There were issues, but they were dealt with and we went on.

Hope you all had a good fourth.

Hanging Out

Mostly this week has been spent hanging out with family and friends.

Rick's family came over and we had cream cheese chicken chili. Those of you who've been following this blog for a while have seen that recipe more than once.

My mom with Jasmine after church.

We went over to Rick's parents' apartment. Adam and Kaleb have been staying there with Rick.

Rick and his mom

We did some fireworks at my sister's.

Adam  made this.

We brought this to my friend Juanita's lake house (actually it's her in-laws')

Rick had to go back to Florida to solve a work problem, so he and the twins along with Adam left for home after our time at the lake.

Today is Juanita's 51st birthday and Rick and my 25th anniversary. She was in our wedding on her 26th birthday.

Our daughters with their Krispy Kreme donuts for good grades.

My sister bought us lunch at the food court.

So that's what we've been doing. How about you? Some of you answered that last post, but some didn't. Anyone doing anything exciting for the 4th?

We are headed home tomorrow so will drive the 3rd and 4th.