Saturday, March 24, 2007

Spring and Summer Activities

Sam is signed up to take piano lessons! I'm so excited. I was looking at our on-line neighborhood newsletter and found someone offering piano lessons. We've been looking for a while now. I tried to get a hold of this same lady earlier in the year, via e-mail, but she never responded. I even asked someone in the church, who was too busy. So I saw a new ad by this same lady and tried again and she responded immediately. I'm not sure what happened before. The great news is that she is in our neighborhood and is only a 6 minute walk away. I've never had Sam walk anywhere by himself. He's 10 years old so I think he is ready. His lessons are every Tuesday for $16 a half hour, which seems to be the going rate. We'll walk him the first time or two, until he feels comfortable doing it himself. I still have to get some books for him. She suggested the Lesson book (1A), the Theory Book and the Technic Book from the Alfred series.

Swim lessons have started at the local Civic Center and the kids LOVE it!! I think this will be great preparation for swim team. I might even have them go another session after this session because they are a couple of years older than everyone else in the group and I think are a little ahead of them in skill. That's OK, I purposely put them in a more remedial group because I wanted them to learn the basic skills the right way.

Doing these things for my kids has made me so excited and fulfilled! Yes they both were in Scouts and sports, but these are the things I have put off because I felt too overwhelmed with Ben and Mary. It makes me feel so good to focus on these areas for Sam and Abby. To see their excitement as they head for swim lesson is SO worth the money! Ben and Mary are still going to be a handful. At swim lessons, we are in the bleachers, watching, and after about 10 minutes, Mary is begging to be in the pool with Abby. It escalated and we had to take her out of the pool area. Luckily, Ted was with me on the first lesson and he took her. Next time, I'll be by myself. I probably won't be able to watch, but it's only a half hour and I got to see the first two, so that's OK.

In addition to Swim Team and Piano this summer, we hope to do some camping. We've made plans to go camping at Injun Joe Campground near Hannibal, Missouri over Memorial weekend. My two sisters plan on going with their families as well as my mom and dad. It should be fun! Over the Fourth of July, we'll to Eminence, Missouri where we camp at Harvey's Circle B Campground. We camp with a group of friends and it is a lot of fun! At the end of July, we plan on taking our big trip to Door County, Wisconsin. We've heard a lot of great things about it. We'll stay for a week. I'm hoping our camping will be a better experience than it was last year. Ben and Mary were NOT easy. They are a whole year older this year, so I'm expecting more maturity from them and hoping things will be easier.

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