At the Bay

It is really hot in our shop, so I decided I wanted to swim once we closed the shop Sunday evening. But there are no pools, so we decided to swim in the bay. This is not usually done. I think only our family actually swims there. And Kaleb and I were the only ones who swam. We swam over to where you see the trees and back.

 He did great, so I asked him why he'd said he hated swim team when he is a very capable (although very unfocused) swimmer. He decided to try it for another year.

We took two of the dogs to the bay with us to cook out.

The top three pictures were actually taken after the ones below as you can tell by the setting sun.

 Jasmine is trying out a camera we got a second hand store for 50 cents. It works!

Now that school has started, schedules are already crazy, so we carve out time together when and where we can.

Life Now that School has Started

Now that school has started, we are kind of into a routine, and life is pretty ordinary. We still try to get to the pool or beach on the weekends, but it's not the same. Sigh.

Two of the kids have an insane schedule.

Our days go like this:

On school days, Rick and Kayla are out the door at 6:10 to drop Kayla at her charter school bus stop, and then Rick goes on to work. Jasmine, Kaleb and I get up when they leave. Previous years we all had devos and family meeting at 5:40. So it feels different not doing that. We try to read a devotion at supper because despite the crazy schedules, we try to all eat together even if it's at 4:30.

Kaleb does his afternoon jobs at 6:30 a.m. because his afternoons are crazy. He also does his homework before school. Jasmine does her homework in the morning, too.

Either Ty or I leave with those two at 7:45 and drive them to two schools in two very different districts. Jasmine's school starts at 8:30 and Kaleb's at 9:00. She is in kind of a poor school, and Kaleb goes to the rich middle school. It's laughable how different the school are. Sometimes they have club before school. Both twins plan to join Fellowship of Christian Students/Athletes.

In the afternoon, we pick Jasmine up at 3:10. We were going on to Kaleb's school (he gets out at 3:30), but the car line is so long that it was a two hour round trip. So Rick is picking Kaleb up at 4:00 after he gets off. That is about what time we actual got through car pick up anyway. His doing that really helps because we can get Jasmine home at 3:30 instead of 4:45. Kayla's bus gets here about 3:45.

On Monday evenings starting after Labor Day, Jasmine will have County Christian Choir from 6-8:15. This includes a Bible study each year. They will be going on tour to Michigan next summer.
The twins were going to be in the Middle School choir, but the director was just selected to sing with the USAF choir and tour the world. So middle school choir was cancelled. There has been a bit of a fuss over that, so they may come up with something for them.

Jasmine has percussion at 5 and full band at 6 on Tuesdays and Thursdays. There was no way to get her home, fed and back in the days before Rick took over picking up Kaleb.

Kaleb has swim team every night at the college which is about 45 minutes away, a little less if there is no traffic. Thankfully it starts at 6:45 so he has a short time to get home, eat, change and head back out.

We are going to take Wednesdays off from team and all three go to youth group at church. We may take some Fridays off too. Jasmine has football games many Fridays. I would like them to have some unscheduled time too, although the twins need the structure of schedule even if it's scheduled outdoor free play or Wii (electronics are rare around here with the exception of Ty which is pretty much all the time he isn't at work or driving).

Kayla was supposed to start city soccer, but she violated some counseling goals/rules/boundaries, so she will start with either school soccer or city basketball in a couple of months. She will do youth group with the others but is disappointed there is no middle school choir.

So life is a bit crazy around here. If grades fall or kids get too stressed, something will have to go. The problem is that band really stresses Jasmine out, but if you skip a practice, you can't play at the game plus you get an F AND have to write a research paper. That goes for excused absences too, so don't dare get sick! She is going to drop band either after first semester or after the year because of the stress. It also takes the whole summer. This summer we went on a family vacation at the only time we could, and she missed percussion camp. It wasn't pretty. She also missed an evening practice the week of her surgery and couldn't carry her drum during full band camp because of the weight and her recovery. I think kids need the summer off. We do our summer math and reading packs, but also family time and free play.

While the kids are at school, Jessica, Tyler, River and I get time together. Jessica, River and I went to the beach last week.

My Nikon is damaged, and my water camera's battery went dead after these two photos, so no cute water pictures.

Ty is always talking about how I do things with the girls, but that he and I don't share any major activities (our advanced scuba fell through--money and instructor changes), so he and I went to comic con in Pensacola for a day.

This morning before going to the pool, the girls went to Lowes to the free kid's workshop. Technically Jasmine is too old, but that's one advantage of being small. Even though her age is on the registration form, they have never told her she's too old.

They made the last of the Avengers characters they've been making each time. There were six total.

We've been also working on using the jigsaw at home.

So that's kind of how life has been here lately.

Kid Updates

There's a lot going on with several of my kids, but I can't share all of it obviously. So I'll share the stuff they don't mind me sharing.

Tyler
Ty is currently firefighting in Louisiana. Here is a link to a news segment online. He is one of the guys they mention when they say 20 guys came from job corps to help with the fire. He is one of the guys shown, but I don't know which with them all in uniform.

Watch here


Jessica
On Jessica's 24th birthday everyone got together, and she and Hunter revealed that they are having a girl.

Jessica starts her internship at the ME office tomorrow. I don't think I'd enjoy working with dead bodies.

Jeff
Jeff is currently stationed in Louisiana and is only an hour from where Ty is, but unfortunately won't meet up. Ty's group will leave as soon as their job is done. Jeff will be heading to NY sometime in the future.

I'm not sure what kind of fashion statement he is trying to make. This may be in Korea before he left.

Adam

Adam is currently looking into options in law enforcement. There are a lot of choices. He did not sign up for college classes this fall. He is mostly really busy with work now and trying to figure out the best options for himself.

Jasmine
Jasmine usually takes dance, but the two classes she wanted this year--musical theater and hip hop--are both during after school marching band time. So for now she has county Christian youth choir on Mondays and marching band after school Tu & Th (in additional to having it zero period). She might be able to join dance after football season is over. We need to see how the homework load is too.

Jasmine and I work in two year olds one morning each month, sometimes more if they need help. Today we met our new group. There are three different rooms of two year olds. I think we have the older ones. Our group that promoted July were much more rowdy and vocal. Of course they were all three by  then and a couple were close to four. I don't think we ever had that whole group sitting at the table at once.

Kaleb

Jessica, Kaleb and I swam the 3/4 mile shell island swim yesterday. He did great for his level of experience. He was tired near the end but pushed on.

 We swam from the grassy area you can see behind us to the pier in the last picture.

Kaleb tried out for the city swim team. You only have to be able to swim one length front crawl with proper breathing to make novice, and he did that. The coach was kind of surprised when I said he wasn't in their summer lessons, I taught him myself.

 I learned to swim in college and went on to lifeguard and Water Safety Instructor. I miss teaching swimming. I tried putting my kids in lessons, but I didn't like how they teach--18 kids to two teachers so in 45 minutes they might get two turns to blow bubbles.I don't even start with face in the water, bubbles and all that. I teach them to do a glide and then add kicking, then arms, then breathing. 

Also, we have a lot of thunder during the summer and if there's thunder or lightning, the pool shuts down. Lessons are not rescheduled. So we lost a lot of money the summer they had lessons and all they learned was to put their faces in and blow bubbles. The next summer I started teaching them and in a few weeks they were swimming the length of the pool (without the breathing), last summer we added the breathing and added back crawl. 

This summer the pool has hardly been open due to random thunder. Or imaginary thunder. Rick too the kids today after church and the pool was closed. He asked the weather person for the area, and there was no thunder reported. Hmmm.

 Swim team  practice

Due to the expense of swim team and the fact that it is four nights a week for an hour, Kaleb isn't currently doing gymnastics. He may add it back later.

Kayla
Kayla has just started meds for ADD/ADHD (one dr called it one, the other dr called it the other). Hopefully this will help with the issues. The pediatrician is not too sure though since what may look impulsive is sometimes very well planned out-ex. running over to a shelf, grabbing someone's back pack and throwing it across the room. I am not convinced she is ADD or ADHD at all, but the specialist coded her that way. I guess time will tell. For now she has an ODD, ADHD diagnosis.

We are working with her counselor to manage some of the behaviors. She can be a very kind, helpful person. And she can be mean, hateful and antagonistic. We are working on seeing the kind, helpful side more. The school year seems to be off to a good start, but we are only a week into it. She told me she probably won't get in that much trouble this year because they are too busy. That's good thing! There are privileges she can earn, and of course there are activities that don't have to be earned, but many require trust.

Check out our highlights of summer HERE. You can also read some of the kids' journal entries on earlier posts.

Teachable Moments in Open Water Swimming

The kids and I have been doing some swimming in the bay. Part of it is open water, but a bit protected, and part isn't as protected.

This summer we've been working on swimming out to a pole in the bay. One morning Jessica and I swam out and around, but we hit a "patch" of current and had to swim like crazy.

The twins and I swam at a different spot that was more sheltered, and we were fine. But it wasn't that much of a challenge. So we decided to swim the pole.

Jasmine was at band camp. Jessica joined us after the swim for our cookout.

One evening, I had Rick come along in the kayak and the three youngest and I started to swim out around the pole. The waves were pretty strong, and we were getting pulled toward a bridge. If we'd gone under it, we could have potentially been in trouble. We would have eventually hit land, but it could have been miles away in an area where there is nothing and really no way to get back. 

 Kayla was really struggling, so Rick fished her out. She wasn't happy about it, but safety is the first consideration. She is also somewhat afraid of deep water but didn't want to be left out. In an early half way swim, she had panicked, I'd had to chin-tow her back to shore and reswim out to catch up with the others.

I ended up helping Jasmine a lot, so she didn't mark "swim to the pole" off her goal list. 

You can't really see how far out the pole is in the photos, so I'm posting one below that's from July 4. They are already a ways from shore in the kayak. I'm shooting telephoto below.

Yesterday was a nice day, and there weren't that many waves, so Jasmine, Kaleb and I decided to swim out around the pole. Several yards before we hit the pole, we got snatched up in the current and rushed right by the pole and out into the bay, headed quickly away from shore. I was pretty calm until I realized that no matter how hard I was swimming, I was getting pulled farther from shore.

 I had a few moments of panic because of we were headed out into the open water. Then I realized that it would be VERY inconvenient, but we would be safe because there was a spot where the water turned, and we would probably be able to kick free at that point. The thing was, we'd be miles from where we started and from our car. And obviously we had no shoes or phone. We'd either be walking miles along the shore to get back, or go up to the street and hitch a ride back.

But then I realized that if we could swim parallel to the current, it would take us near a spot that is sometimes shallow. So I had the kids grab the string holding the dive flag, and I grabbed the wire,  and we all kicked like crazy. Of course this is the one day there were no boats out to flag down. Well, we hit a spot where Jasmine and I could touch. We had to really lean into the current and push forward. We could feel the current trying to pull us out into the water. But that shallow area saved us.

We got far enough toward shore that when we hit deep water again, we were able to swim parallel and get into a more sheltered area and kick our way to shore.

It was crazy!! We are going to have to swim in a more sheltered area from now on. The area by the pole seems to be bad for current!!!!

Glad to be back near shore! You can see the white structures way in the background. That's what we were headed for.

What I am thankful for:

1. For safety sake, we always wear snorkel vests, although we do not usually inflate them. But we did once we got sucked into the current.

2. For safety sake, we also take the dive flag with us. It gave me a way to tow them in.

3. I got to be their hero. : )

4. We all worked together to problem solve. And except for a few moments of panic, we were calm although thought we'd have to flag down a ride back.  

5. There was that shallow area that gave us a chance to get into an area where we had a fighting change.