So many garden pictures - Summer Vacation Week 2

I feel like this was the week that summer truly started. And wow did we hit the ground running.  Veronica had summer school in the morning every day. Derrick had therapy in the mornings on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday.  And Charlotte and Lydia went to Girls Camp Wednesday through Friday. I literally made a calendar that showed what our schedule looked like hour by hour for the week. 

So let's do a run down of the week. 

Monday June 5th was Veronica's first day of summer school. Summer school works really well for our family because our regular elementary school hosts summer school. So it's really no big deal to get Veronica off to school in the morning. 

She made things even easier by not having a problem sleeping in. She was literally getting up at 6:45 every morning the week before so getting her up at 7:00 to be at school by 8:00 wasn't hard at all. Derrick was also up early. And he was full of energy. He was ready before Veronica and I literally told him to go get his bike and ride around the block a few times. So he did. 

Veronica was really nervous for summer school. She kept worrying that there would be a bully at school. She dealt with a relentless bully for most of the school year so her fears had some basis. I even told her that if that kid was also at summer school I would immediately take her to the office and unenroll her. But that kid wasn't there and none of the other kids were mean either. 

Derrick and I hung around outside the school with Veronica until the bell rang and she lined up. The classes are divided by the grade they just finished. So Veronica lined up with the 3rd graders. Yep, she is back in 3rd grade for 3 more weeks. Then Derrick rode his bike home and I walked home. 

We got back to the house and had about 45 minutes before Mr Mark came to pick up Derrick for Behavioral Therapy. After they were gone I went to work. (I think Charlotte and Lydia were still asleep when I left, but that suited all of us just fine.)

I got a lot done at work and then was back at the school at 11:30 to meet up with Veronica. She'd had a great day.  We came home and Mr Mark dropped Derrick off. 

We had lunch and then we all got ready to go to the pool. The kids had a great time there. I got in the water with them because it wasn't freezing this time.

After dinner that evening I went around and took pictures of the garden. 

Here's my small rosebush in the front yard. I love the color of these roses.    

And check out this Peony. It's amazing looking. 

For some reason I only had one white iris bloom this year. But it was spectacular looking. 

Here are some purple irises. 

Look at the blackberries!  Last year I was so excited that they were actually growing that I forgot to tip them. (Tipping is when you cut off the tip of the plant after its 15 - 30 inches tall. Tipping encourages the plants to put out growth along the stems and will lead to more fruit.) This year I remember to tip them so hopefully we'll get a lot of berries this year. 

And check out the raspberries. They are different than blackberries so they don't need tipping.

I was happy to see fruit on the peach tree.

And super happy to see fruit on the cherry tree!  This is the first year with a real sweet cherry harvest. 

Here's the veggie garden. I have green onions, spinach, and carrots in this one bed. I love planting these cool season crops because it's so fun to be harvesting them in June. 

The peas were growing really well too. A day or so later I added string to the tops of the wire because the peas were growing so high. 

This isn't an edible plant, but it's the flowers on the locust tree. They smell so good. I love how locusts smell in June. 

Oh look, more pictures of the peonies. 

I took all these pictures and then posted them to instagram and facebook.  While I was doing that Derrick took the hose over to the dirt patch and started filling up the holes with water. 

When I saw him I joked that I should do a follow up post and say something about how my garden also grows muddy boys.

This all falls under the "at least he's outside" category of things that I probably should care about, but I don't. I'd so much rather Derrick play in the mud than watch another movie.

And this is one reason why I have the dirt patch. I want the kids to have a change to play in the mud. Also nothing really grew over here anyway because the soil was so poor. I figure it needs to experience some life in order to generate living plants. 

Charlotte came outside and played in the mud for a while too.

Tuesday morning I got up early to water everything before I had to get Veronica up for school. I was happy to notice a few plums growing on the plum tree. These were a happy surprise because we didn't have that many blooms on the tree this year. 

I took Veronica to school and then came home and got the girls up. We had plans to watch the Hunger Games movie while Veronica was gone. I knew the movie was going to be too scary for Veronica so we took advantage of this time while she was at school. 

Derrick was home, but he's not really affected by scary - or implied scary - things like Veronica is. So I didn't worry about him watching the movie. He was VERY concerned about Katniss though. He kept saying, "She just needs to leave and go home." 

Charlotte and Lydia really liked the movie, but they'd often say things like, "oh I pictured him different."

Derrick and I met up with Veronica at the school and they ate lunch on the school lawn. Then I dropped Derrick off at home and Veronica and I drove to her tutoring appointment. Her tutoring program focuses on building visual memory skills and also on using movement to get the brain working in new ways.  So Veronica does a lot of things like jump rope and copying pictures.  She's improved a lot. 

We would have had therapy later in the afternoon for Veronica, but the week before we'd decided to go to every other week for the summer. So Veronica was able to go home and just relax after tutoring. 

I worked with Charlotte and Lydia on packing things for girls camp. We made a list of things they still needed to buy and went to Walmart to pick those things up. 

The girls were funny about packing. They were fine with me helping them gather the big stuff like the sleeping bags and camp chairs. But they didn't want me to help AT ALL with their clothes. I had no idea what they had packed in their suit cases. I was like, "I hope you packed pajamas."

When we were at Walmart Charlotte saw a strand of LED lights for like $6. She bought it for her lego house.   Here's the house without the lights. 

And here it is with the lights. It was so fun.

Here it is from another angle. 

That evening Charlotte was the first one to start playing in the mud. 

And then all the girls got involved. 

Derrick had been eyeing a drone at Hobby Lobby so Brandon went there with him to see if it was a good deal. They decided it was. So this is what Derrick bought with the money that he earned by being in the parade. 

Wednesday was the day the twins went to girls camp. But they were my last drop off of the morning. 

First I had to drop off Veronica at summer school at 8:00.  Then Derrick went with Mr Mark at 9:00. And finally I dropped Charlotte and Lydia off at the church at 10:00. I hung around with them until I felt like they were comfortable. I knew they were set when they asked my friend Justine, "can we ride with you."  Justine is a huge Harry Potter fan and I knew they would have a good time riding in her car. 

After that I went to work. I'd already done about 30 minutes of work from home from like 9:10 to 9:40. I got in about another hour and 15 minutes of work before it was time to meet up with Veronica.  And then I did another hour or so of work from home. It was very disjointed feeling, but I got everything done. 

Derrick and Veronica wanted to go to the pool that afternoon. But we couldn't because I was scheduled to record a podcast with Idaho Parents Unlimited at 3:00. So they watched a movie while I was on the phone with Amanda from IPUL. I told the story of getting Derrick diagnosed with Autism and into the services that have helped him so much. 

It was really fun and I'm definitely going to share it when it's published. 

After dinner that evening I took Derrick and Veronica to Dirkies lake. We bought a season pass for $25 so we can come back here whenever we want. 

This has been a very mild June so the water was not warm enough for me to want to get into it. But Derrick and Veronica got in.

Derrick had a lot of fun watching the fish.

Veronica did not have as much of a fun time.  I'd completely forgot that she's worn a life jacket every other time she's swam in the this lake. I thought about bringing one, but then was like, "Oh she's a strong enough swimmer. She doesn't need it."

And that was true. But she didn't like thinking about how deep the water was. She jumped in without her life jacket and ended up getting scared. She swam back just fine, but didn't want to get back into the water. Instead she came and cried by me for like 20 minutes. She wanted me to drive home and get her life jacket. I was like, "Nope, if we go home we stay there."

I told her to play in the shallow areas, but she preferred to cry. After a while we left and went back home. She went to bed and fell asleep so fast. I'd kind of suspected that she was just tired. 

And how were Charlotte and Lydia doing?  Well I got a few texts from them. They were staying at a school in Lava Hot Springs that has been converted to an air-bnb type place. They were in the living room. There were stuffed deer heads staring at them while they were sleeping. 

Thursday Veronica had school again in the morning and Derrick and I went grocery shopping. We bought a lot of food. It wasn't as much as we had on the first day of summer vacation, but it was close. 

Veronica had tutoring after summer school. After that we went home for a bit.  Then we went to Toy Town so she could buy something with the money she earned from the parade. 

She decided to buy a dragon like what Charlotte and Lydia got for Christmas. They come in these eggs so you don't know what the dragon looks like. 

She was so excited to open it up and find a completely red dragon. She named it Firey.  (Then changed it to Red Velvet, and then Mushu. But I think Firey was the cutest name.)

We went to Vision Therapy right after she bought the dragon so she didn't have a ton of time to play with it right away, but when she did get home she made a little house and bed for it. She loves it so much.

I went to work after we were done at vision therapy. Thursday is the only day I work from 3:00 to 6:00. It's kind of weird, but its also nice. I see some of the evening clinicians that I don't see other wise. And there are some data dumps that usually come in on thursday afternoons so it's nice to get in after those are done. 

Charlotte and Lydia texted me that they went to the hot springs on Wednesday night and they were going to Soda Springs that day. I already knew they'd be swimming at the big pool in Lava on Friday. I had been teasing them earlier that everything they were doing for Girls Camp was stuff they'd done when they were 8 in day care. I was like, "Either you have a really lame girls camp, or you had an AMAZING day care."  (We all know the correct answer is that they had an amazing daycare and an amazing girls camp. When I was a teenager we never would have slept in an actual building or gone anywhere besides the woods.)

Friday I dropped Veronica off at summer school and then got Derrick off to therapy and I went to work. I'd kind of imagined that I'd be able to enjoy an empty house while everyone was off on their various activities. But silly me, I had work. So Marcia enjoyed the empty house and I went to work. 

We all met up again at the elementary school. Veronica got out of school and Derrick was dropped off.  Both of them had lunch and then we went home. 

At some point on Friday I took these pictures in the back yard. Here's the rose bush growing back nicely after I hacked it down in January. (All part of the plan.)

And here's the fire pit. I think this was to show that we have nearly depleated the junky wood pile. 

And here's another view of the back yard. I really don't know what I was taking these pictures for, but everything looks very nice. 

We were thinking about going to the pool. But the pool didn't open for open swim until 1:00. And my weather tracking was saying that a storm was supposed to roll in about 1:30.  So we decided to go back to Dirkies lake for try number 2. This time we brought the life jackets.  And this time Veronica had a much better time. 

The lake was so calm and empty. I'm not sure I've ever seen it this empty in the afternoon.  But I've also never been there at 12:00 when the temperature is in the 70s and a storm is rolling in.

Derrick had a lot of fun in the shallow area.  He'd get on his belly and float. He'd wear his goggles and look at the fish. He called it, "swimming with the fishes."

Veronica put on the life jacket and dived on in and had a great time swimming around.  Here she is on the platform.

Derrick went out to join her. You can see the storm rolling in behind them.

Here's Derrick getting ready to jump.

And swim.  Both of them love the water.

Here's another look at how still the lake was. 

And another view. 

I was deep into season 2 of Cold. I'd already listened to Season 3. But Season 2 was only available on Amazon Prime so I had to wait to listen to it when I was randomly signed up on a free monthly trial of prime. (Brandon and I have been signing up for those free monthly trials and then cancelling them when they are over for over a decade and so far Amazon has never seemed to care.)  The podcast was so engrossing. 

We left the lake around 1:20 when the wind started to pick up. We could see lightning flashing as we drove home. 

Around 6:00 it was time to pick up Charlotte and Lydia.  They'd had a really great time at camp. It was better than last year. They said that was because they knew what to expect this time. 

Derrick had found all the balloons that were left over from the parade.  He'd spent the better part of the afternoon filling balloons up in the kitchen sink and then popping them on the patio. He enlisted Charlotte and Lydia into his endeavors. 

I went outside and picked the first of MANY strawberries. 

Saturday we kind of all had an unspoken understanding. The agreement nobody talked about was something like this, "because we had to get up early last Saturday NOBODY has to get up early this Saturday. We can sleep in as late as we want."

So we were in bed for a long time that morning. 

When we did finally get up we cleaned up the house. I also had Brandon help me put up the hangy ball that Veronica needs for both tutoring and vision therapy. We've struggled to know where to put it.  Like do you know where you would hang a ball in your house?  It was also tricky because it had to be somewhere she could see the memorization chart. Well, I finally had a bit of inspiration.  What if we hung it from a rod that was suspended between the door frames.  We could set it up when we needed it, but we could also take it down the rest of the time.  So Brandon helped cut a piece of PVC pipe the right size and it worked.  (He also made little brackets to rest the pipe on, but I was over eager too take a picture so I didn't get a picture of those in place.)

After the house was clean we had lunch and then went back to Dierkies lake.  We were 3/5ths of the way to getting that season pass worth the money. 

My mom had been asking me about the Catalpa Tree in my front yard. So I took a picture of this mature Catalpa so she could see what it will look like one day.

The kids wasted no time getting in the water. 

Brandon and I napped on the grass and I read a little bit. After a while Charlotte and Lydia were bored of swimming so Brandon took them down the shore a bit so they could fish. Veronica got sleepy so she came up and laid on the picnic blanket with me. Derrick NEVER got tired of the water. He didn't want to leave even when were all starving. 

Back at home we had a quick dinner and then hung around. Derrick and Charlotte played water balloon catch. Charlotte ended up soaked. 

I wandered around the garden. Here are the raspberries forming their little berries. 

I'm excited for these. 

And the blackberries were starting to make blossoms. 

Last year we grew radishes, but no one really cared about them and they went to seed. Now we have a bunch of volunteer radish plants growing in the dirt by the firepit. 

Sunday was rather quiet. We went to church, and we talked about going for a bike ride, but then there was another huge afternoon rain storm. So the bike ride didn't happen. 

The most amazing part of Sunday was this pie that Brandon made. It looked like something we would have bought in the freezer section of the store. But it was home made (except the crust.)

And that was the end of our second week of summer vacation. It was kind of weird that Charlotte and Lydia were already done with Girls Camp. When I was a teenager that was the HIGHLIGHT of the summer. But for my kids it was kind of just the opening act there was much more to come. 

Thanks for reading!