funny children

My kids crack me up. On the way to church a few weeks ago we were listening to the primary Cd which has "Praise to the Man" on it. The line goes "long shall his blood, which was shed by assassins..." From the back I hear Max ask, "what's a shepard assasin?" and Simon answer, "I guess that's what you get for eating their pie".

New Stuff

I was recently reminded that I haven't posted anything on my blog lately. I just looked and sure enough, my last post was in July. Needless to say some things have happened since then. Cory went to school to change jobs in the Army. He was in Maryland for about 3 months (Oct-Jan). We had some holidays and some crazy winter weather and a few trips. I learned how to shovel snow which isn't as hard as I thought it would be - neither is driving in it, although I should apologize to all the people who had to drive behind my big SLOW van (25 in a 55, but I never ended up in the ditch). I learned exactly how much time four kids can be stuck inside before they go insane (about an hour after mommy does). And we found out what snow days are for. Here are a few pictures of the highlights.

Megan's visit

We just took Megan back to the airport after a 10 day visit. Shortest one yet, which was probably easier on her, but harder on the little kids. She has always been good at being patient and loving with them. Having her around made me pay a little more attention to how I speak to them too.

We tried to find fun stuff to do, close to home since Cory couldn't take any leave and has a crazy work schedule right now. We saw some historical sights and went to a local Ren. Festival. It was strange to hear Don Juan and Miguel tell the same jokes in such a different setting. Oh, and if you notice that there's no pics, Meg and I both forgot the cameras. We went to the Hill Cumorah pageant and saw Niagra falls and took Megan to her first drive in movie. The van pretended to break down at the hotel outside of Buffalo, and we got to have a little miracle.

Riverfest

Yesterday was Riverfest, which is a big thing around here I guess. We took a bus up to Alexandria Bay and then took a boat cruise around the 1000 lake area and looked at where all the rich folk used to live. The tour ended at Boldt Castle. Which was started by a guy named Boldt (duh) as a gift for his wife, but about 2 yrs before it was scheduled to be finished, she died and he abandoned the castle. For years it sat alone and untended and eventually wound up as part of parks and recreation as a tourist attraction. They are putting tons into it to fix up what time and vandals have ruined. Part of me wanted a castle of my own, all huge and spread out and fun, with crazy separate rooms for whatever you might want to do. The other part of me thought about having to sweep the place and decided it wouldn't be that fun after all. They had a lunch for us and back at the dock there were jumpies and a climbing wall and balloons. Fun stuff, good day.

Paddle boats

There is a small lake here on post, Remington Lake, and they rent paddle boats. So, one day after school we took the kids down and rented two boats (have to have a grown up on each boat) and took an hour to paddle around the lake. We started out with Cory and Simon in one and everyone else with me, but we swapped around so everyone got turns with mom and dad. Heidi was a paddling fool!! She paddled almost the whole time and never got tired. We picked lillies off the lily pads and saw a blue heron and some turtles and fish.

Yeah for Max!!

Max also had am amazing day today. I wanted to blog it separately because I thought it deserved its own spotlight. Every month at Calcium Elementary they have a different attribute they work on, to become Peacemakers. For May it was courage - the courage to do what was right no matter what. Heidi and Simon had received a peacemaker award the two previous months, and I am so proud of them for that but understanding the struggles Max has, I was not expecting the same from him. But he did it. He was so well behaved that he was nominated for the courage award for doing something that is hard for him - having a positive attitude at school. So today at the Peacemaker assembly Max got to go up and get a certificate ( and a coupon for free ice cream in the cafeteria - the real prize for him). Yeah for Max, and yeah for Calcium for helping my baby succeed.

Flag Day

Today was Flag Day and the kids school put on a little assembly to celebrate. Simon said he was holding a flag and wanted me to come, so I loaded up Spencer and went - sure it would be another boring school assembly (great mom, I know). So we went to the front of the school and listened to the Bell band (yep, they played the bells) and then some kids read essays about what the flag meant to them. The whole time, this crazy helicopter kept flying over the school. Being close to the airfield, we are pretty used to it, and I just figured it was a bored pilot checking out what was going on. Then the principal says, "if you'll all just turn around where you are, our special guests will be joining us." A black hawk and an Apache then proceed to land on the other side of the parking lot. The kids were going crazy!! Spencer has never held so still - totally in awe. Then one of the pilots hops out and looking completely "Top Gun"-ish runs over and takes off his flight helmet and gives the principal and school a flag that he flew on 9-11-09 in a combat mission over Iraq. By which time I was crying, overcome by the awesomeness of the American soldier I guess. They stayed all day and the classes took turns going out and meeting the pilots and climbing all over the helicopters. Very good Flag Day!