Seven Quick Takes

Haven't done this one in a while!  Seven quick takes, comin' atcha.  Hopefully I can finish all of my updating in this post.  Enjoy!

(BTW, quick takes are hosted at This Ain't the Lyceum!)

--1--

So.  We went to West Virginia.  Some of our old friends from Matt's grad school days in Texas agreed to meet us halfway for a reunion!  They currently live in Louisiana and have two boys, and a little girl on the way (due September 25! the exact same day our little girl is due!).  We have seen them about every five years since leaving Lubbock and it's always a great time.  Kindred spirits, we are!  We saw some really neat sights in the Pipestem area of West Virginia.

The first day we rode the aerial tramway down to the Bluestone River in Pipestem Resort State Park.

 

(at the top)

 

You can sort of see the wires here in this picture from the bottom, and how steep the descent was.  The tram was basically a small gondola hanging from those wires, with what seemed to me like very thin flimsy walls.  I had a reeeeeeaaaally hard time stifling my panic attack and not scaring the kids.  Our friends hopped in the first car along with N and gleefully rode down the mountain.  It took M probably a full ten minutes to convince me to ride the next car down, after telling me there was no other way to get to the bottom.  If N hadn't been down there already I don't think I could have done it.  As it was, L and C enjoyed the ride immensely and kept shouting "Look Mama!" and pointing to things out the window, while I clung to the center pole, stared at the floor the whole way, and did some deep breathing.  Brave Mama!

 

But we made it!  The ride back up was much better.

 

The Bluestone River at the bottom was beautiful, and we spent a long time chucking/skipping rocks and playing on the swing nearby!  There were a lot of actual blue stones and N saved them for a collection.  We had our picnic lunch before riding back up.

--2--

The next day in WV was spent at the New River Gorge, checking out the world's fourth-longest single-span arch bridge.

 

We viewed the bridge from the top and the bottom of the gorge.  The drive down was steep and cool and tested our brakes thoroughly.

Did you know that the song New River Train (sung by Raffi and others) is about this river?  We learned that from the educational movie at the visitor's center.  Way cool.  The girls were excited about that one.

We saw a lot of rafters and kayakers while we were down in the gorge, and had some fun on the rocks:

There was frozen custard afterwards.

Pretty sweet!

--3--

On our way back from WV, we stopped in Virginia to stay over with my brother.  It happened to be N's 7th birthday that day, so it worked out that we were able to have a little celebration together.  She was so happy!!

 

Her restaurant of choice... Friendly's!

{I thought I had a picture of us all together at the restaurant but I guess I don't.}

 

Excited to get a new Lego set!

Hard at work putting it all together the second we got home.

Lots of excitement in a short amount of time!  What a fun trip.

--4--

A sneak peek at some of the re-organizing we've been doing.  Since the girls all moved downstairs we now have an official guest room/office upstairs:

 

...and the coolest little homeschool setup ever in between the dining room and the living room.

 

Isn't this desk from Ikea just the coolest?

 

The girls have been enjoying it lots already.

I hope to spend the weekend putting the final touches on organizing all of our supplies onto those shelves.  It will be really cool to have a central location for everything, in which they can work together.  I'm just loving it!

We are starting school next week to get a good solid chunk in before the baby comes.

Now the baby's room... totally a work in progress.  School supplies and setup were my first priority, but now that we're mostly organized there, hopefully I can focus on a place to welcome our little one. We shall see how much of that actually gets done.  Oh well... we all know they don't need a crib right away, so as long as I can clear all of the unfolded baby clothes off the changing table we should be good!

--5--

Speaking of school, we are going to be using some really cool new resources this year.  I hope to get a few posts going on our curriculum choices, but sadly I don't know if I will have the time to go into much detail.  Suffice it to say that last year was a learning experience and I feel really good about some changes we made and new choices.  I feel so much more well-equipped starting this year, and I'm excited that learning will be super fun, and also efficient.

One of the things we did was bought a refurbished iPad.  I really went back and forth about whether to include technology in our education just yet, but in the end I went with it because there are such exciting resources out there.  We will hopefully be limiting iPad time to 30-45 minutes a day per girl.  One of the main things we will be using the iPad for is Splash Math.  We started this a little bit last year with N on my iPhone and I cannot recommend it highly enough.  It's so comprehensive that we don't really need any other math curriculum, and it's totally rewarding and fun for her to do.  As a Mama who didn't really enjoy math much in school, and saw that same trend emerging in my daughter last year, it's really cool to find something that she truly enjoys.  We just got the kindergarten app for L and couldn't be more excited about it.

The other tool that I found that I'm so excited about are the Progressive Phonics books.  They are similar to Bob Books but are exclusively online and *completely free*.  So cool.  For only the cost of printer ink and paper, you can have a whole set of beginning phonics books.  L has been breezing through them periodically throughout the summer and her reading skills are already taking off.  The pictures and stories are so cute and funny and she enjoys them a lot.

There are many other things I'm excited about; those are just a few!

--6--

Have you been reading Grace Patton's series, What I Wish I'd Known?  It has been pretty great. Yesterday's post was particularly awesome, I thought. Especially Mary's contribution. In fact, I lol'd so much through that one that I'm just going to quote it here because as someone anticipating the fact that very soon my "brains will be leaking out my boobs" I just found this... well, great.

This too shall pass. No seriously. No matter what you are facing, this too shall pass. Like a kidney stone but it will pass. The day from hell will end and a new one will begin, filled with possibility, wonder and much more coffee. 

Days like this...after three nights with no sleep with the colicky baby as your brains are leaking out of your boobs and the preschool director calls to inform you that your son has been expelled for biting, which of course will lead to his future incarceration in adulthood. After you gather yourself and said screaming baby, face the utter humiliation that is waiting for you at the preschool, surviving the "tsk tsk" lecture on your failed parenting skills, leaving the building with your tail between your legs and feeling absolutely no love for the four year old that is currently skipping in front of you, enjoying his new found freedom all while being completely oblivious to being voted off the island. You arrive home to a sweet email from your sister-in-law listing what you need to bring to the next days family gathering, reminding you that you have to do laundry to make sure your family doesn't show up naked. By the way, you haven’t been to the grocery store in a week having survived on the jumbo bags of Dinosaur Chicken Nuggets and carrot sticks from the last Costco run, which itself was a nightmare. The thought of going back, leads you to deep despair and a binge of emotional overeating that begins with scooping out the dregs of the salted caramel ice cream container found in the back of the freezer behind the freezer burned chicken breasts you forgot about. This is quickly followed by a round of potato chips and dip, as you read the text hubby sent asking “What’s for dinner?”.

I wish i had know that these days would happen, for reelz, not just in a weekly sitcom on TV. I wish I had known they would happen AND more important that I would SURVIVE them!

I survived them and so will you. Your family will eventually eat a nutritious meal AND they will not leave the house naked. Well the adults won't. The toddler, may or may not, given the day. That former four year will not see the inside of the Big House but become a loving, caring big brother to his special needs sister (who had horrible colic) and make you so damn proud that your heart will burst. But first you will have to survive puberty. It will be ugly, but you will survive it.

Hah!

Oh, and while you're at it, Grace's post on her first visit to Target with all five kids is pretty hilarious too.  Sort of seeing myself in that situation pretty soon too.

--7--

Okay so this "quick" takes is "quickly" becoming "not-so-quick" and turning into 7QT Saturday Morning (just couldn't stay up another minute last night...) so let's wrap this up, Ab.

How 'bout a selfie with L?

...and maybe a 34-week belly pic?

Gives a whole new meaning to the phrase "Whoa baby!"

Why is it that, although I have cleaned that mirror twice recently, there always seems to be a fresh spray or smear of something on it when I'm ready to take a belly pic?

I think we may just have a Secret Spray or Smear Society in residence.

Okay, that's all folks.  Enjoy the weekend!