Myann's First Dance Class

Myann started a dance camp today. It is one hour a day for 3 days. I thought this would be a good trial for her future in dance. She has been wanting to do dance, but I wanted to see if she would like it before I invested in a full session. Today was a little nuts, as I expected, but she seemed to have fun.





On a side note, when did my little girl become a lady. I took this picture a couple of weeks ago during VBS. She was in an adorable outfit with ponytails, created after she had been braided. She just looked so grown up and I had to capture it.

Camping 101

Camping 101
1. Do not camp with small children
2. Particularly do not camp with small children who experience night terrors
3. If you do camp with said children and they do experience night terrors, do not be surprised when your fellow campers on the surrounding camp sites pack up the next day and leave while giving you dirty looks.
4. Dirt gets EVERYWHERE
5. Despite all of the above, you and your children will have a good time, even the child who is addicted to video games.

We ventured out camping over the weekend to Heyburn State Park, on the south side of Coeur d'Alene, with the Prizemans. Todd and Sandra are more seasoned campers than Brian and I. I last camped in college and Brian last camped in his adolescence, so we had to rely on them for guidance. Setting up tents went well, cooking was great (camping food is always good to me), bugs were significantly less than Texas camping, and the weather was perfect (sunny and in the 80s). If there were no kids with us, it would have been a perfect adult camping weekend. So the kids loved the camping and loved all of the outdoor activities. Bug hunting and spider catching was a popular sport, as was playing in the water faucet. Thankfully only a handful of people ever ventured over to use the common faucet. Maybe they were turned off by the kid created mud pit or the soggy Lucky Charms and goldfish crackers.

As for the not pleasant aspects, my one hour of sleep the first night. Myann had night terrors which resulted in her beating up Shane during the night. So then I moved Shane to my place by Brian and moved me by Myann. Not an easy task in the dark. Then Myann awoke again screaming and it took me a while to calm her. Not longer after Anders woke up. I brought him to sleep with me, then Myann noticed and kept hitting him. So I woke Brian up, how he was sleeping is beyond me, because no surrounding tents were likely sleeping with our noise level. I gave him Anders and got Myann back to sleep. Then an hour later Anders came crawling over to me and wanted to be up for the morning, that was at 5am. So my day began with one hour of sleep. To make matters worse, I could not get the fire started, so no hot water, it was freezing cold and I NEEDED coffee. Then I had to keep a 22 month old quiet for 2 hours while everyone else slept and I was miserable and needing coffee - did I mention that already. I immediately began fantasizing about packing up and getting home to sleep in my own bed. As the day continued on and I had a one hour power nap, I felt human and we stuck it out another night. Honestly I did it because Brian said he did not want us to be quitters. I could have cared less about being a quitter at that point, but we stayed and the next night went much better. By the way, the nearest neighboring tent packed up and left. Maybe coincidence, but I am pretty sure they left because of us and their inevitable lack of sleep the night before. So we adjusted sleep arrangements, meaning I slept with Myann so I could endure the wrath of her night terrors. She only had 2 and the second lasted the longest, but I got her calmed down before she woke up anyone else in the tent.

The only other snafu was our paddle boat rentals. Todd and Sandra took the boys and Bree. Brian and I took Myann and Anders. Not longer after leaving the dock, we began taking on water. Yes, our paddle boat was filling up and we had two children in our laps as we tried to paddle. We were not too concerned until Todd pointed out that we had become completely lopsided. So we gave them Myann, yes in their 4 man paddle boat, they had 6 (We have kind friends). And we paddled back to the dock. I think that is the end of our paddle boat days.

Camp fire fun - of course smores and glow stick sword fighting






Anders - this picture made the whole weekend worth it.


Cheers


Prizeman Family Photo


The Jiffy Pop - Todd struggled with this one.


Kids loved the jiffy pop


BP (Before Paddle Boats)
Jacketed up and ready for fun


The boat of 5


Our boat of 4, we decided to take a last picture in case we sank


The boat of 6 coming back in

Vacation Bible School

The kids went to VBS this week at Redeemer Lutheran Church. I have been interested in visiting the church as a new church home for us and thought VBS was a good way to feel it out. I signed them up having no idea what we were in for. 15 minutes before start time, the kids and I head out the door and get there 5 minutes before start, to find a massive line up of cars outside the main road. They had traffic control and event tents set up for registration. It was insane. In total they averaged about 780 kids per day. It is a decent sized church, but definitely not the size where you would expect that kind of turnout. I know why after our week though, the kids LOVED it. They were very organized and had wonderful people working the VBS. I was so impressed and the kids loved it and learned a lot. Myann and Shane still talk about what they learned that week. However, love Myann, the other day after she hit Anders and I told her to apologize she said, "But I already asked Jesus to forgive me."

Chicken cordon bleu has been replaced

Well Grandma Anne has officially ousted chicken cordon bleu as Shane's favorite meal. She made french fried onion chicken nuggets this past week while they were visiting and Shane declared, "This is my favorite food in the whole world and Grandma Anne is the best cook in the world." I asked about his old favorite and he replied, "Chicken cordon bleu is my second favorite now." I must admit that the nuggets are pretty good, I made them tonight for dinner for friends. Over salad and it might be one of my top 20 meals. In case you want to do it yourself, I will divulge the secret, take notes, it's complicated. Cut up chicken, roll in egg, then roll in bisquick, then roll in crushed french friend onions. Put on pan. Bake at 375 for 20 minutes. Seriously, that easy and that good.

Grandma Anne makes everything seem easy. On that note, she spent her last night here helping me get my scrapbooking started and organized. That is a huge undertaking, but she got me off to a good start. Maybe I will actually finish Shane's 1st year scrapbook before he goes off to high school, ok so maybe college is more realistic.

Grandpa Jo and Grandma Anne's visit

We made the most of our week with Grandpa Jo and Grandma Anne. Anders still wanders around asking for Grandpa Jo and Shane never handles it well when Grandma Anne leaves. Myann insisted the day they left that they were still sleeping in the basement and would wake up and come upstairs any minute.
4th of July on the lake (actually celebrated on July 3rd) - it was pretty chilly, note the long pants and shirts. Not a lot of pictures because it was our first day home after that horrible night of flying and I had a headache.


Poor Grandma Anne fell in the kids mud pile while trying to save Anders from falling. Grandma Anne just likes getting dirty when she visits us.


Strawberry picking











Arbor Crest
After strawberry picking, we decided to do wine tasting at Arbor Crest. One problem, when we got there, there was a sign prominently stating that kids were not even allowed on the grounds. That surprised me, so we let Bob and Anne do the tasting, and Brian and I entertained the kids in the parking lot. Luckily the gravel lot is scenic and the kids found rocks to play with. So we took pictures:


Anders giving love

Anders running on the gravel and making me nervous

Shane wanting to pose for pictures with the pretty flowers

Anders pouting - what a cute pout




River Front Park
We finally took advantage of our passes and went to the park to do the rides.
Grandpa Jo took care of the spinning rides.












Not a look everyone could pull off


Shane was tall enough to ride, but could barely see over the top


Anders wants so badly to do the big kid rides



Hiking Tubbs Hill