We made a fort and read stories inside. Elise was the coolest with the fort building. She loved using the clothes pins and was really good at it! Fun!
This summer, we made up a weekly plan based on
this lady's idea. We did: Make something Monday (usually a crafty thing), Be thoughtful Tuesday (service), What's cookin' Wednesday, Time to Read Thursday (trip to library or new book), Field trip or Friends play Friday. We didn't follow the schedule religiously, but really did pretty well. It brought a little organization to our summer without overdoing it. Here's some pics of some of the things we "cooked" on our Wednesdays - shark, pig (love the faces), palm trees (kids came up with the idea of coconuts as chocolate chips. Their trees were loaded!), and pretzel pictures. We also tried some new deserts. Yum!
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Playing "camping."
(really an excuse to haul junk from place to place) |
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I bought this nail painting pen and the girls (esp Elise)
had a ball making "decorations" |
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| "Look mom! I made Saturn!" |
One Friday night, George took the boys fishing (they have a monthly fishing trip with the church) and I took the girls to the Tahitian Dance competition at the Polynesian Culture Center. We wanted to attend the "invitation only" competition, which was advertised from 7-9pm. They ask "the best" tahitian dancers from the islands to have a dance off - 3 men, 3 women, 3 rounds each. Well, I'm not sure if the schedule changed or they were running late or what, but we ended up watching the keiki division round 2 (ages 4-18 - grouped every 1-2 years). But the announcer talked up the "invitation only" competition so much, the girls were dying to stay to see it. We left at midnight. I bought them both bottled root beers during intermission and in the last two hours, I made 6 trips to the bathroom with someone claiming it was an emergency. The dancing and drumming and costumes were quite amazing. The girls asked to go back next year and especially loved watching the girls dance who were their age. While the judges were tallying the results, random people would come up and dance. And if anyone else in the audience knew the dance, they'd stand up where they were and dance/sing along. Cool! (Austin LOVED the fishing, by the way. Cole...eh, not so much.)
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Lucy attended tennis camp for a week. It was held at Pearl Harbor from 8:30-12 every day. She thought it was great! Now we need to get out and practice with her.
One day, after we picked up Lu from tennis, we snagged Geo and ate lunch at a park on Hickam AFB. It was a beautiful day and probably one of my favorites memories of the summer. I just loved listening to the kids laugh. Elise showed Lucy how she could stand up and swing and Lucy nearly had a heart attack. When I told her it was fine, she tried to copy... until she chickened out half-way up. Funny!
George's work group has a family party every year in the summer time. This year it was held at a park on base. The kids were especially excited about the dunk tank. And I could not get Austin out of the bounce house.
Many summer days were spent playing school. Here is Lucy with her math manipulatives. Lacey, are you so proud? :) And if you look closely, you might be able to see Elise's braiding of leaves on the sides of the chairs. I found lots of leaves stuck together with scotch tape too. Apparently these were the "crafts."
We had an indoor picnic one day when it was raining outside. It was "Teddy Bear picnic" day (who knew?) but no one wanted to bring a bear. Austin chose "Trucky" which is apparently the name he gave Elise's boy doll. Since then, I've noticed whenever they play pretend anything, "Trucky" becomes Austin's name (or the horse's or dinosaur's or whatever.) He was kind of ticked that Elise made Trucky into a girl by putting a bunch of elastics in his hair.
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| homemade pizzas with the missionaries |
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| this is how Elise gets her dog and wolf to "stay and not leave." scary. |
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| riding the Nene Geese at the Bishop Museum |
At the start of the summer, we made a family bucket list of things we wanted to do. Everyone said one or two things. Austin's request: "Draw a big biting seal." Ummmm... ok. check. (Although I think this looks an awful lot like Mrs. Potts.)
I've mentioned a few times how much Cole likes to unload the cupboards. One night, we found him "drinking" the vanilla like a shot glass. We laughed and laughed. Every day, he empties all of the cupcake wrappers, crinkles about 10 and throws them in the blender or the garbage can. Another thing about Cole: He hits now. I know this is a bad thing. But I admit, sometimes I turn my back and ignore. The thing is, the other three totally deserve it for all the torture they've put him through the past 14 months (especially the middle two). The kids are sitting watching a movie and he'll walk behind them and smack each one down the line. It's kind of funny. He also has this furious windmill/helicopter swing. He uses this when Elise gets too close to his face. Its quite comical. He's starting to fight back!