All the camps - Summer vacation week 3

Ah! Once again I'm feeling very behind on this blog. I need to write about the last two weeks and part of this week and I need to do it soon because we have big plans for the 4th of July and I'd like to be caught up before that happens. 

So let's just dive on in and do a quick recap. 

This post is about our third week of summer. Monday June 12 through Sunday June 18th. 

Monday

This was the week I pretty much had something going on for the kids every day of the week. Veronica had summer school every morning from 8-11:30. Derrick had behavioral therapy Monday, Wednesday, and Friday morning.  

And Charlotte and Lydia were doing something called the Modern Manufacturing Academy at the college.  I was pretty excited about this camp for the girls.  For one it was FREE!  It was paid for by some sort of STEM grant or something (I don't really know for sure, I didn't really care why it was free.) It was also nearly all day. It went from 9:00 AM until 3:00 PM. Lunch was even provided.  And it was all about hands on career type stuff. The girls got to use big drill presses, cut wood with big machinery, put together a circuit board, weld, and some other cool things. It was a super fun experience for my two budding engineers.

Their best friends were also at the camp, but they weren't in the same group. They did have fun seeing each other every day.

The girls never let me take a picture of them with the sign in front of the Technology building, but here's a picture I took out the car window as I drove away one morning.   

The other big news from Monday was that I got my foot looked at again.  It had been hurting really bad ever since the parade on Saturday June 3rd. Not only was the pain in the usual spot in the Post Tibular Tendon on my left foot it was also kind of in the middle of my left foot.  And the heel on my right foot was killing me. 

I dealt with the pain for a couple of days and really babied my feet. But I was walking funny and my feet hurt even when I was in bed. 

So on Thursday the 8th I'd realized that enough was enough and called my podiatrist. The lady who answered the phone said something like, "He's been really booked out because of all the holidays, so let's seeeeee, oh there was a cancelation for this Monday at 1:00. Do you want that?"

Of course I did!

I'm so glad I called when I did and was able to get that appt. And I'm so glad I didn't hobble around for 9 months before getting around to making an appointment this time. 

So anyway I went to that appointment and the doctor felt all around my feet and helped me pin point my pain. He said that I'd hurt what's called the sub-tailor joint. It's in charge of keeping the foot stable. All the hiking I did combined with being on my feet for 4 hours during the parade had probably upset it.  He said we could do a steroid shot if I really needed it.  By this point the pain had subsided enough that I didn't think I needed it now - but it's good to know it's an option. He also gave me an AMAZING brace to help keep everything stable and support my wimpy Post Tibular Tendon. I audibly sighed when I put the brace on for the first time and cinched it up to provide support on the arch of my foot. 

As for my right foot - well that just has boring old plantar fasciitis. At least I thought it was boring until I actually had it. I had NO IDEA how bad it could hurt. NO IDEA. 

The doctor showed me some stretches that have helped. But I still walk really weird when I first get up.

Since the twins had been at their camp and I'd had my doctors appointment we hadn't been able to go to the pool that afternoon. So we decided to go as a family after dinner. Last year the pool was open from 6:30 to 8:00. So we showed up around 6:40. But swim lessons were still going on. I asked the staff and they said they were changing things back to a schedule from a few years ago. Open swim would go from 7:00 to 9:00. 

Here are the kids waiting for open swim to start. 

The kids were so happy to get into the water. I was still thinking that we'd leave around 8:00, but 8:00 came and went and the kids showed no signs of stopping. So did 8:15, and 8:30, and 8:45 and yes we stayed right until 9:00.  

We were some of the last people at the pool. All the kids were playing on the lily pads. (It's real name is the wiggle track, but we've always called it the lily pads. 

Here's a video of them on it. 

On Tuesday everyone was super tired and grumpy in the morning. I had to create a new summertime rule. "We can't stay at the pool until 9:00 on nights when people have school or classes the next morning."

I got everyone off to their camps and things. Derrick was doing therapy that day instead of Monday. I didn't have work - well at least not at Aspen Grove. I was going to help with some billing stuff for my friend Ivan. (This is the same Ivan who stared in the Music Man and is Brandon's fish merchant frienemy at the Living Nativity.)

Actually let's do a quick recap of that whole situation because I haven't really been able to mention it until now.  

Rewind to March of this year. The Music Man has just ended and I happen to run into Ivan kind of randomly. I asked him what he was planning to do now that the play was over and we had a little conversation about that.  Then I asked him if it would be possible to get Derrick into Occupational Therapy with him. Ivan happens to be an amazing occupational therapist who specializes in helping kids overcome bed wetting. I was feeling like we needed to start working with Derrick on that again. 

Ivan said he'd be happy to help Derrick, but he said it would have to wait a few months because . . . and here he paused to tell me that this was a BIG secret . . . he was leaving his current employer at the end of the month and starting his own occupational therapy practice. 

And I was like, "That's great! Do you need help with your billing?"

And Ivan was like, "Actually I probably do."

So that's how I became like the first non-family member to know about Ivan's business plan, and how I became affiliated with the billing for another therapy company.

Ivan did end up leaving his employer and he did get his new business started. And now he had billing questions. So I was supposed to help him that morning. But then he scheduled clients during the time I was free.  So we ended up just having a quick phone chat. 

And then I had like 3 hours to myself at home for the first time all summer. I spent the whole time writing in bed. Actually I probably also took a nap.  

That afternoon Veronica had tutoring. And later she had therapy. I wanted her therapist to see how much Veronica worries about me when I'm gone. So I'd told the therapist that I was going to run an errand during the session so she could see what Veronica did. 

I'm so glad we did that. As soon as I told Veronica, "I'm going to run an errand, I'll be back."  Veronica was visibly agitated. Her therapist distracted her and took her back into the play room. She said that Veronica did okay until about the last 10 minutes. 

Then she was really worried and wanted to see if I was back. She was VERY upset when they went out to the lobby and I wasn't back yet. They sat on the couch and talked through stratagies for what to do and what to think. Things like saying, "Mom will be here. She's just running late."  And things like that. 

And guess what - it totally helped!  On Friday when I was a little late picking Veronica up from Summer school she said "Mom, I wasn't nervous at all. I just said to myself, 'Mom is always a little late. She'll be here.'" That is HUGE progress. 

In other news there was a spider in our backyard. 

We called these, Party Spiders when I was growing up. You don't want to know the reason.

And look at how pretty this rain was on an iris leaf.

The kids had been BEGGING to watch the new Super Mario Brother's movie. I'd put a reminder in my phone for when the movie was at Red Box. That reminder went off that afternoon. So I ordered the movie online and then Veronica and I picked it up after therapy. 

We all watched the movie after dinner. I fell asleep pretty fast, but the kids liked it. 

Wednesday

Everyone had therapy ,or school, or camp again on Wednesday. I had work. 

In exciting news I got a new black hat. My old one had served me well for 4 years. But it ripped the last time it went through the wash. So it was time for a new one. I was a little nervous about buying one because the last one had been such a lucky find at the Army and Navy store in Idaho Falls. But Amazon came through with a decent replacement. Seeing the two of them together was so weird. I had no idea how much the old one had faded. 

Here's the little rose bush in the front yard. It's looking so good. 

And here are the wild flowers. 

When Derrick went with Mr Mark on Tuesday they'd done a project with Photosensitive paper at the library. But it had been too cloudy to really get it to work. Derrick took it out in the sun on Wednesday and was so excited to see it change colors. 

Looks like we went to the pool on Wednesday. I have no memory of this trip. Maybe we went after the girls got home from camp?  I guess so.

That evening after dinner Derrick made a giant nutella sandwich.  He's so funny.

Thursday was a big day. Veronica had an evaluation with the Physician's Assistant for the psychologist with St Luke's here in Twin Falls. This was kind of an initial appointment to see if she felt like it would be a good idea to do a full Autism Assessment for Veronica. 

Veronica's therapist had suggested having Veronica evaluated for Autism and it's something I always wondered about so I'd made the appointment back in May. 

Veronica knew we were there to talk about the fact that she might be on the autism spectrum. And she was open to the idea. But it almost seemed like she was determined to not appear autistic AT ALL.  She walked into the room and immediately started talking to the PA. She told her jokes. She told her stories. She was SUPER outgoing and personable. I was thinking, "Well it's not autism."

So was the PA. She told me, "I just don't see the symptoms of autism, not even for females."

We talked about why I wanted Veronica to be evaluated. I mentioned that I suspected she might have ADHD, but the screener/evaluation we did in the fall didn't come back with enough data to support that.  The PA was able to access that screener and looked into the results.  She told me, "Yeah, it didn't flag positive, but based on the answers and what you are telling me I'd say that she has ADHD."

I was like, "YES!!!!!!!!!!!!!"  Who cares about autism. ADHD is the real diagnosis I'd wanted for Veronica for nearly a year. 

Let's take a minute to talk about ADHD. Because I know you are thinking, "But she's not hyperactive. How can it be Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder if she's not Hyperactive?"

Basically there are two types of ADHD. There's they hyperactive body type and there's the hyperactive mind type. (And technically I guess there are three because there's also a combination type.) Veronica has the hyperactive mind type. Her brain is bouncing around from thought to thought and making it hard for her to focus on stuff. 

The PA prescribed some medicine for Veronica to try and we have a follow up appointment scheduled in about 6 weeks. 

I left that appointment feeling like we finally had a really good answer. Between the medicine and Veronica's vision therapy I think she'd going to start 4th grade on a good footing. 

Oh and speaking of vision therapy. We also had that that afternoon. Veronica really likes that. 

I picked the twins up from CSI right after vision therapy. The other set of twins came home with us too.  They ended up staying over until almost 9:00. Their mom really appreciated that because she was able to get a lot of work done. 

All week long the twins had been taking care of Chicken Liz's chickens. They rode their bikes over to here house while I was walking to the elementary school with Veronica. Here's Lydia riding by.

And here's Charlotte. 

Veronica gets lunch from the school after summer school. She had a huge Strawberry this time. 

That afternoon there was a reception of sorts at the college so the kids could show off the things they'd been making. Here are all four twins with their stuff. 

This is the circuit they made. 

And they welded these cool garden windmills. This is Charlotte's 

They also made these metal boxes. 

Here's Lydia's windmill.  

And here's the bee houses they made. (I had to sneak into their room to take this picture.)

The girls were kind of shy about me taking pictures of their stuff. But they really liked the camp and want to go back next year. 

Oh and LOOOOK. My catalpa has flowers. 

All afternoon we'd been getting stuff together to go to Utah for the weekend.  There was a lot of drama involved in this trip because there were crisis's going on with both sides of the family. 

The first crisis was that my mother in law Jacque broke her leg in three places.  She'd been on vacation in Hawaii and fallen while walking in tide pools. She was able to get back to Utah, but she'd needed surgery and her leg was non weight bearing for 6 to 8 weeks.  We'd been planning to go to Utah for Father's Day weekend and we'd been planning to stay with Brandon's parents. But we changed that plan as soon as Jacque got hurt. We didn't want her to even think about needing to host us.  

So we planned to stay with my sister Emily. I was a little hesitant about that because I'd decided that we were all a little too old to couch surf. So we were only going to stay over there Saturday night.

But then Brandon wanted to go down and help his dad take care of his mom. So we decided to go down to Utah on Friday night. I'd stay at Emily's with the kids while Brandon went up to his parents for Friday night and most of Saturday. 

That was a great plan, but even that fell into some uncertainly with a family emergency on my side of the family. This is still a raw story, so I can't talk about the details. But let me just say that I have some of the best sisters in the world. 

Emily had been actively involved in part of the situation and so I was a little uncertain about bringing my crew of miscreants to her house for two nights. But she assured me it would be fine. 

So with all that in mind we started driving to Utah after dinner on Friday. 

We always stop at the rest stop after the 86/84 divide. This stop was a little unique though. There was  horse just standing there on the grass. 

We got to Utah without any other surprises. It was actually a really fun ride. We were listening to the radio and having fun singing along. It was a good time. 

Brandon helped us unload our stuff at Emily's and then he drove up to his parents house. He had a good time talking with his mom that night. And then on Saturday he hung out with his mom while his dad could go buy things for his deck project. (Steve needed something to keep him busy while he was on call for anything Jacque needed.)

I was surprised at how well Emily's kids and my kids hit it off when we came in. Last year it seemed like her kids and my kids tolerated each other. But this time they were all genuinely glad to see each other. I guess absence makes the heart fonder or something.  Hazel and Lydia ended up sharing a bed. And Veronica shared with Titus. Charlotte and Derrick each got a couch. 

Emily and I made sure the kids were in bed and then drove down to Provo so we could pick up a car that was down there. I drove that car back while Emily drove her car. We got home a little after midnight. The whole thing felt like a dream. The whole way back I'd been imagining wrapping myself in a big blanket and falling asleep on the couch. And that's EXACTLY what I did as soon as I got back. 

Saturday morning is kind of a blur. At some point I helped David with some billing questions for his private practice. (I never really expected to know so much about billing, but after doing it for nearly 4 years I do know some tricks and tips.)

That afternoon we had a Father's Day party. Emily and I hatched this idea back on Mother's Day. I'm glad we figured it out then because we needed it after this crazy week. 

My brother Billy and his wife and kids were there. My parents were there. And so was my Aunt Vera. Brandon showed up just in time to help get a peach cobbler cooking. 

The kids had a blast playing on Emily's trampoline. They jumped and jumped and jumped. 

Here are some of the adults. 

And here's the food!  We did BBQ pulled pork and other summer foods. 

My dad needs a table to eat and so we pulled over a fisher price table. A lot of  the kids wanted to eat at Grandpa's table.

More jumping.  There was also some sort of water fight game going on with reusable waterballons. 

And some people were planning a game with wood that I can't remember the name of. 

Emily took us on a tour of her front garden.  Remember when this was mostly dirt with the tiniest plants? Well those plants are starting to grow and bloom and Emily recently put down a lot of mulch. It looks so good. (This picture does not did it justice.) 

The party died down and the adults went home. But the kids were still going strong. I'd told my kids they could sleep on the trampoline. That turned into a cousin sleepover. Charlotte, Lydia, Veronica, Titus, Hazel, and Vance all made a big bed. 

Derrick slept inside on a couch. Brandon and I took different sections of the big sectional in the family room. 

In the morning there were only two kids left on the trampoline. Charlotte and Titus were the survivors. Lydia had given up and found a couch because Titus snored too loud. Hazel and Vance had come in too. Veronica came in and slept on Titus's bed. 

All the kids had a ton of mosquito bites. There hadn't been any mosquitos outside in the evening, but as soon as it got dark they came out to feast. Veronica and Vance were bit the worse. 

On Sunday morning Emily's family got ready for their church at 9:00. After they left we got ready.  We were going up to Liberty for Brandon's nephew Wally's farewell.  This was actually the whole reason we were in Utah. 

First we stopped at Brandon's parents house so the kids could say hi to Jacque.  She was going to come to the luncheon, but not to sacrament meeting. So we wanted to make sure to spend some time to her. 

Then we went to Wally's church building. ALL the kids were so tired. Brandon usually brings paper for the kids to draw on. He was getting ready to hand it out after the sacrament when he looked at all of us. Derrick and Lydia were both leaning their heads on my shoulders. Veronica was snuggled up against Brandon. Charlotte had her head down. Even I had to "rest" my eyes during the meeting. 

After Sacrament meeting we went to Melanie's for a luncheon. There was lots of good food. I had fun talking to people. After a while I decided I should probably try to take a little nap before we drove home. I fell asleep for something like 2 hours!  And when I woke up I found three of the kids also sleeping in the family room. Lydia and Derrick were on the couch and Veronica was on the floor. They slept about another hour after I woke up. I ended up having to wake Derrick up and tell him that we were leaving soon. 

What do you expect from kids who spent at least 6 hours jumping on a trampoline on Saturday. 

We drove home and made it home before dark. I went around and watered my garden. I had to take another picture of the catalpa flowers.  (I kind of have an opinion that if a plant doesn't make flowers during at least some part of the year then what's the point of having that plant.)

And that was the end of our third week of summer. 

Thanks for reading. 

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!