Weekend Away

Hannah and I went away for a special mommy-daughter weekend in August. We left on Friday afternoon, and headed to the mall for a little shopping and ear piercing. We then headed to Chili's for dinner. Hannah had her favorite, ribs. We had fun, being out, just the two of us. We then drove a little ways out of town to a bed and breakfast I found. It sits at the base of a mountain, just outside the enterance to one of the many caverns in the area.

On the drive into the home, we followed a small river, which runs along one side of the property, it was evening so we saw much wildlife, we stopped and watched this doe and her fawns drinking and playing in the water.
The original house was built in 1790, with subsequent additons, mainly in the early to mid 1800's. It is known in the area because of it's beautiful setting and it's surviving intact during the Civil War, with troops and skirmishes taking place on the fields outside the home. Woodrow Wilson, FDR and others enjoyed staying here.

Our room was the on the second floor on the far right, in the section added in the 1870's. It was the Andrew Jackson room, furnished with period furniture and accesories.



After checking in we took a stroll around the property, after finishing our Molten Chocolate Lava cake from dinner!


This is the original Spring house that was used for storing milk, doing laudry etc. It has been renovated into a small cottage.
In the evening we sat on the front balcony in the rocking chairs and watched the sunset. It was peaceful and beautiful, we watched the deer come out into the pasture as well as a family of foxes. Unfortuanately it was too dark to get any pictures.

We spent some time in the room, doing some fun activites and having some good discussions.


Breakfast was served in the original 1790 log cabin. The owner had some neat photographs from the home and had an adjoining room that he has turned into a small museum of the home with historical documents, artifacts and pictures. The stairs are not original, but the fireplace, windows, and all the woodwork was.


We learned that there was a giant yardsale occuring all along the highway through this area, miles and miles of yardsale. So we drove along to see the sights. The area along this road is full of small towns, with lots of historic buildings so driving through all the small downtowns along the way was fun. We stopped a few times to walk around and then headed to our next desitnation.

This was a surprise for Hannah. I arranged for us to take a trail ride in the mountains. She has been horseback riding for awhile and I thought this would be a fun thing to share together. We rode for a little over an hour, up and around the mountain. It was beautiful, lush green trees, small brooks, deer, turtles, groundhogs, lots of birds.

It was a special weekend to share with my special teenage girl.

Summer Birthdays, the girls version

Lauren and I share the same birthday, and she is always eager to share this with others, of course it's always followed by "well not the same year" and giggles. We both awoke to a birthday breakfast, made by Hannah, of chocolate chip pancakes with candles.



Lauren turned the big 9 this summer. We had a family party at home with her favorites~ stroganoff for dinner and chocolate cake which Hannah decorated per Lauren's instructions. She is delightful, silly, inquisitive, affectionate, tender hearted, a wonderful big sister, loves horses, nature and art.

She enjoyed opening gifts books, trading cards, movie

Hannah made us official parents of a teenager this summer, she turned 13. Hard to imagine. She had a friend over for homemade pizza and a movie. And of course cake and ice cream.

Special birthday loving from a little brother, who adores her. He knew something special was going on and just ran over and gave her a big hug.

Getting a little harder to fit all the candles on a cake and then blow them out.

She got her ears pierced, no pictures to post ; ) of that, she also wanted a desk for her room. We found one at a used furniture place. She and Ken sanded, painted, fixed up some drawers and added new hardware. It turned out great and she is thrilled.

She and I also went away for a mother-daughter get away, I'll post about that later. We had a really nice and special time together.

She is turning into such a wonderful young woman. She is even tempered, incredibly helpful often without being asked, thoughtful, responsible, still willing to be a little silly and goofy, a terrific big sister. She loves books, creative writing, photography, her own blog, horseback riding, music and of course talking to her friends.

We enjoyed celebrating two wonderful young ladies whom we are so blessed to have in our family.

Summer Birthdays, the boys version

This year I really struggled with what to get Aaron, I wanted it to be something fun, that was really just for him, and really wanting to find something that was just for pleasure, no therapeutic or learning aspect needed. I was stumped, until I saw this......




It was perfect, Aaron loves balloons, as I'm sure I've mentioned before, but especially helium balloons, the possibilites of fun are endless. And now he could have them on a regular basis, until the tank ran out.



I think I made a good choice..........





He also enjoyed a t-ball and bat set and we all enjoyed the rocket balloons.

He's more of a brownie fan than cake, so we had cookie dough brownies with ice cream. Didn't even know there was such a thing, but it was a big hit.

Caleb also celebrated turning the big "2". He is crazy about trucks so it was fun to see him be delighted in his gifts.

He loves to eat outside on the deck, so we had dinner and cake out there. He loves sweets and so was delighted when he realized that the cake was for him, he wasn't sure about the rest of us eating it, but ended up being willing to share.

We had fun celebrating our boys. They are both uniquely wonderful and keep us laughing, loved, busy and well entertained. It is fun to see them together and how much they enjoy each other.

June Happenings

We spent a week in Durham for Hannah to attend a drama camp with her friends. She had a blasts and so did the rest of us. She was Gwendolyn the good witch in a performance of the Wizard of Oz. They all did a wonderful job of getting parts, learning lines and staging, and building props in a week for a Friday evening performance. She even got roses afterwards, thanks to Roger. She thought that was pretty neat.

While she was busy at camp Leslie and I and the rest of the kiddos had fun hanging out and doing a mini summer camp. For over a decade, Leslie and I have done a summer camp together with many other friends, co-op style. Each of us moms taking turns teaching. So we did two days together, focusing on insects. Here is a link to Leslie's post about our days, my camera was acting up so she got some great pictures of what we did.

http://www.homeschoolblogger.com/LeslieNelsen/698880/

http://www.homeschoolblogger.com/LeslieNelsen/698881/

We got to visit with my parents and enjoy some of my dad's famous, at least to us, strawberry ice cream. Greatly enjoyed by all.

And we had fun just hanging out with our friends.

We also got to enjoy a nice lunch out with our good friends the Troedssons.

So , June in a snapshot!

I'm returning to the world of blogging!

I've been on a summer hiatus of sorts, unplanned but just happened and seeing that it is now fall, I guess I need to start up again. I'm going to try and post some summer summaries, because it was full and fun. So the next several post will be of our summer.

Mini Society

As usual I'm behind in my blogging. We have enjoyed a week long visit to NC, details in a future post. We also had our hardwood floors redone, while away, that turned into quite the mess. We and our furniture are now all returned to their proper places. So a little bit of catching up on blogging, laundry and housecleaning.

This past year in our homeschool co-op, Hannah participated in a class called Mini-Society. It's a program for late elementary and junior high students on developing a society -government, currency, laws etc. The class is divided into groups of 2 students who then are responsible for developing a store with a theme, products, marketing, pricing etc. The overall theme for this year was Recyling materials. Hannah had a great time. They had to decide on products, make them, market them, price them and then sell them at market at our co-op. At the end of May, there is a big Market Day at James Madison University, with other local school groups consisting of about 500 students . They have several awards that they give out, for theme, ideas, how your group ran etc.

Hannah and her partner, chose a retro 70's theme along with the recycling. I know, its hard to believe that the 70's are considered retro, our childhood wasn't that long ago!

They made pretty flowers out of coffe filters, water color paints and pipe cleaners and then put them in small glass coke bottles that we got from a local store, before they recycled them. They also made some bath salts for the coke bottles.



Headbands out of scrap fabric




These were my favorite~ bowls out of old records. They softened them in a warm oven over a pyrex glass bowl and then shaped them. Very cute.


Lip gloss with retro flowers, and in those small condiment dishes from a local restaurant, not previously used though : )

They also made cute handbags out of old jeans. These were a huge hit and I didn't even get a picture before they were sold out.


I'm so proud of Hannah, she worked really hard on her projects and had so much fun. She also won two awards~ First Place in the essay contest for the junior high students and she and her partner won for their green marketing~ use of recyled materials for their products. She won Barnes and Noble gift cards which she was thrilled about.

An article in the local paper that highlights some fellow co-opers. http://www.vcee.org/misc/userfiles/file/Marketplace.pdf

Look Closely

Do you see anything? A chair, anything else? Well besides the mess of shoes and stuff.


Look even closer, now you see it, a nest, in our chair, on our back deck! Doesn't look like a great place for a home to me, but I'm not a bird.




An even closer look shows you that we have baby birds. They are baby wrens. Wrens are notorious for building nest in odd places, often in the corners of front porches. We had seen the mom and the nest but hadn't realized she had laid eggs, until they had already hatched.


A week or so later, they look much different. We've gotten to watch momma bird bringing a meal of worms and other insects on several occasions.






A few weeks later, we happened to be downstairs and got to watch the four little birds fledge the nest. It was really neat. They were all quite brave, leaving the nest, dropping to the deck floor, wobbling their way to our post and then leaping off into the back yard. Well, except for the last one, who was slow and timid enough for us to catch on film. He took his time, almost saying this seems crazy why am I going to fling myself off this deck. But he finally joined his siblings in the backyard and then onto the trees.

Carefully surveying the job ahead, he sat here for quite awhile, the momma bird even came to check on him and give him a little pep talk.



Onto a little higher place, but gripping tightly onto the deck.

Just about ready, and then he went. We cheered, knowing we had watched a big moment in the life of a little bird.