Family Camp

This is old news, but I had not yet downloaded the pictures or blogged about it yet. This past Memorial Day weekend, our church did its first ever family camp. It was so much fun. We reserved this nice place for just our church folks, you could stay in the lodge or camp tent style. We even got to bring our pop-up and have an electric hook-up even though it was not really a campground, but more of a retreat center. The Mcgarvey's did a great job with games for all. The morning was kid Olympics and the afternoon was adult olympics. There was a pond for fishing, canoeing, and swimming. The meals were easy and the total cost was really cheap for all. It was a huge success and I hope it becomes a church tradition. It is so nice being in a small church, it really felt like being with family all weekend.

This is me doing the elephant stroll. Lovely, is it not?
Games for all.
The kids all gathered around to watch him catch fish. He was quite good at it.
So was this guy.

All his hard work paid off big time!

Nathan and Maura prepare to play bumper boats.

The moms watch the kids swim and the canoe races.

Evan trying to coax Dania in.
This is the face I got when I told him to smile.
This girl is a hula hoop whiz.
A race for the littles.
Hanging out with friends.

Family vacation

This year we packed our bags and headed to Orange Lake resort. My parents and I own timeshares here and it has been a tradition since Luke was a baby. Last year we skipped it due to legal woes, but since this was to be Dania's first vacation with us, we headed there. She desperately needed to get comfortable in the water, she about grows wings and sprouts a beak when she gets near the water. I am happy to say that by the end of the week (thanks only to Nate) she was actually swimming a little bit.

It was very nice to get away and sit by the pool. All three of the boys could pretty much disappear and report back to us at intervals. Austin pretty much stayed gone taking in all the sites on the lazy river. If we were not in one of the giant 3 pool complexes we were playing miniature golf. We were there for only 5 days but that was enough, the boys are getting to the age where we need to have some activities planned. The resort is right behind Disney, but we have never coughed out the dough for the theme parks, except one year we went to Sea World because we had two free tickets. I am not a fan of theme parks. The amount of money they cost and the lines are enough to make me have a coronary, but someday I would like to go to Disney one of these days. I think we will have to wait until 2 of my children overcome their fears, otherwise it would be a huge waste of money.

My children are growing up so fast, which means so am I. It is getting harder to age gracefully. I still feel so much younger than I look and hopefully act. I am thankful for the wisdom I have gained over the years, 20-30 was a huge learning curve, but 30-40 has been more of a Plateau and I am missing my 30 yr old arms and legs. All is VANITY.


4 pages of photos

On the very last night Dania was able to overcome her fear and jump off the side of the pool.
We spied my parents eating at the same restaurant we

Heading back on the hot path back to our villa
This is the area where Dania spent most of her time. It was very nice.

Nathan makes a grand entrance into the pool.

This kind of brotherly affection went on every time they got in the water.
This little slide was the only slide Dania was able to conquer, the rest were too scary.
I tried to give some swimming lessons but I found that I sorely lacked the patience it takes to help someone who is afraid. My remedy would be to throw them in over their heads until they figured it out. That probably would not have gone over to well, so I left the rest of the lessons up to Nate.

The whole gang on the bridge over the pool.
Minnie Dania


Luke trying to hide to suck his thumb.

Putt-putt heaven

Austin was trying to be all cool sitting on the rock and Nate came up to bring him back to reality.



We spent a lot of time on the putt-putt courses. There are 4 there and you pay one price for the entire week, up to 8 people. It is about the only bargain at the resort.

The first year of school is over

These are all the awards that the two younger boys won at the awards ceremony at school. Luke completely caught up and exceeded all his goals. He and Evan were both on the honor roll all year. Evan was considered and granted permission to go into the gifted program next year. I am very proud of him, but I am not sure I want him in the program. There is tons of projects and more work. Coming from a homeschool perspective, I do not think that all the extras are worth it. They do enough work at school and I am not interested in us spending our evenings doing loads of homework or science projects, so we shall see how it goes. Austin was on the honor roll as well and received an award for having the highest GPA in math.

All 3 of the younger children will be in school again next year, while it looks like I will be homeschooling Austin even though he is begging me to let him go to the middle school, but that is not happening. I will look into another christian school that is closer than the one he went to last year and see if that is a possibility.

I thought that since the kids all completed a year of school away from home I would give my most honest assessment of their time away. I loved it and I make no apologies for that statement. Evan thrived, and all I saw was good things for him and our relationship. Going to school changed his and my dynamic. I became the support and encourager rather than the enforcer. It was a much needed change for us. Austin did very well with the change and it was incredibly good for him to be accountable to someone other than Mommy. He had to grow up and take responsibility for himself and his work. I saw no negative effects on him. Luke pushed himself really hard and became even more driven than he was. He took his work seriously and overcame some of his academic hang ups. I have noticed that the social environment had an impact of him. Of all the kids he is the only one that seems to have picked up some unpleasantness from his peers. He made some "enemies" on the bus, and his mouth was sassier, if that is possible. It was nothing incredibly alarming, but enough that I had to wonder if it was his age or his peer influence. Dania was not is school long enough to see any changes, good or bad. I will say that since she spent most of her life around people, she seems to really thrive in that environment. She will not be happy home with me all day, and I don't think at this point that is best for her. Overall, I am so grateful to God for this past year, so many good things happened and God's grace was with our family.