we're taking off on tuesday, july 1 for our 2nd annual summer adventure.
here's the plan...
july 1 drive to niagara falls, ny
see the falls lit up at night, fireworks for canada day
july 2 see more of niagara falls in daylight!
drive to brattleboro, Vermont
july 3 drive to lamoine state park in maine
july 4 see Bar Harbor/acadia
july 5 see acadia national park
july 6 see acadia national park
july 7 fun times in acadia area
july 8 drive coastline to mystic, ct avoiding boston
july 9 drive to hershey, pa avoiding nyc
july 10 play in hershey, pa
july 11 drive to fishers, in
see you when we return: pray for safe travels, we have no hospital visits, gas prices to go down, we get along!, seeing some wonderful pieces of God's creation!
blessings,
liz
Saturday, June 28, 2008
Thursday, January 24, 2008
science fair...
rachel wanted to do it. matt thought she should. i did not.
of 7 second grade classes, only 5 students did projects. rachel placed third. :) yipee! i'm happy for her. i sucked at science fair projects. she did most of the work & learned something.
way to go girl!
mama
of 7 second grade classes, only 5 students did projects. rachel placed third. :) yipee! i'm happy for her. i sucked at science fair projects. she did most of the work & learned something.
way to go girl!
mama
Saturday, January 12, 2008
it's cookie time...
some of my favorite cookies are girl scout cookies. they are the first cookies i remember eating. they may not have been, but they are the ones i remember first. thin mints. my dad taught me the value of storing them in the freezer to 1. make them last longer & 2. they are quite tasty frozen. what a great feeling to be looking for something in the freezer in the late summer and find a sleeve of thin mints. yummy!
great, now i'm craving them & they won't come till february! now that's a lesson in patience. i can make it! in our consumer driven/immediate gratification society, we really don't have to wait long for much. sometimes the things we wait for are the best. or we appreciate them more. we waited a long time for a child and now we are so thankful (most of the time) (no really, all the time) for our 2 kiddos. i waited a long time to hear God telling me what i was supposed to do in my life(this one is really all my fault. he was there, but i wasn't listening). sometimes it's our fault we have to wait and sometimes it's just how it is. maybe we should be more thankful for what we have.
my gram died this week. she wasn't married until she was 24. in 1938 that was pretty old. she hadn't found the right guy. then she and grandpa decided to get married. they had to wait for him to make some money & find a place to live and such--they waited 3 months. about a year ago, i found the letters he wrote to her from june to september. they were married sept 2nd. they had to wait. they didn't tell anyone they were planning to get married. they eloped!
it was so fun to finally be able to read them. gram said i had to wait until she was gone because she'd be too embarassed if i read them while she was alive. (how cute is that?) the letters were beautiful declarations of his love for her and his desire for her to be his wife and about the plans for their life together. he wrote about how hard it was to wait, but that he knew it was the right thing.
we are to wait upon the Lord. we don't know how long it will be, but we're to keep busy whilst we wait. grampa had to earn some money and take care of some things while he waited. we need to be getting busy chasing after Jesus and letting other people know what great things God has done for us while we wait until our time to be in heaven. we have to make the most of our time on earth. it will help the time pass till we get to spend eternity with God in heaven. that's where gram is now. i'm thankful for the assurance of her salvation. don't wait too long. you never know the day you'll meet Jesus. until that day: get busy! there's lots of room in heaven & God wants us all to be there.
anyhow, now rachel is a brownie & selling cookies. she enjoys selling them. me not so much. but her troop gets a portion of the money and that helps them do fun things. so, i'll buy some. if you want some, see rachel (or let me know).
new ones this year: lemon sandwich cookies & sugar free chocolate chip.
gone: the nasty brownie cookie from last year
perennial favorites: trefoils, samoas tagalongs & thin mints.
blessings,liz
ps. my roomate freshman year of college had never had a girl scout cookie in her life. there's just something wrong with that.
great, now i'm craving them & they won't come till february! now that's a lesson in patience. i can make it! in our consumer driven/immediate gratification society, we really don't have to wait long for much. sometimes the things we wait for are the best. or we appreciate them more. we waited a long time for a child and now we are so thankful (most of the time) (no really, all the time) for our 2 kiddos. i waited a long time to hear God telling me what i was supposed to do in my life(this one is really all my fault. he was there, but i wasn't listening). sometimes it's our fault we have to wait and sometimes it's just how it is. maybe we should be more thankful for what we have.
my gram died this week. she wasn't married until she was 24. in 1938 that was pretty old. she hadn't found the right guy. then she and grandpa decided to get married. they had to wait for him to make some money & find a place to live and such--they waited 3 months. about a year ago, i found the letters he wrote to her from june to september. they were married sept 2nd. they had to wait. they didn't tell anyone they were planning to get married. they eloped!
it was so fun to finally be able to read them. gram said i had to wait until she was gone because she'd be too embarassed if i read them while she was alive. (how cute is that?) the letters were beautiful declarations of his love for her and his desire for her to be his wife and about the plans for their life together. he wrote about how hard it was to wait, but that he knew it was the right thing.
we are to wait upon the Lord. we don't know how long it will be, but we're to keep busy whilst we wait. grampa had to earn some money and take care of some things while he waited. we need to be getting busy chasing after Jesus and letting other people know what great things God has done for us while we wait until our time to be in heaven. we have to make the most of our time on earth. it will help the time pass till we get to spend eternity with God in heaven. that's where gram is now. i'm thankful for the assurance of her salvation. don't wait too long. you never know the day you'll meet Jesus. until that day: get busy! there's lots of room in heaven & God wants us all to be there.
anyhow, now rachel is a brownie & selling cookies. she enjoys selling them. me not so much. but her troop gets a portion of the money and that helps them do fun things. so, i'll buy some. if you want some, see rachel (or let me know).
new ones this year: lemon sandwich cookies & sugar free chocolate chip.
gone: the nasty brownie cookie from last year
perennial favorites: trefoils, samoas tagalongs & thin mints.
blessings,liz
ps. my roomate freshman year of college had never had a girl scout cookie in her life. there's just something wrong with that.
Tuesday, January 1, 2008
funny/favorite things said in 2007
thought i would wrap up the past year with a refresher of funny and/or favorite things said in our family.
10. luke about our yellowstone trip. 'the badlands are bad because it's hot there'
9. luke on dec 31. 'i want the good old days to come back' (then something about a picture from when he was 4 and it was the good old days, but matt & i were laughing too hard to hear.)
8. rachel coined a new term. 'air hug' for when you can't actually get close enough for a real hug
7. matt to me in midsummer 'i'm so thankful that you aren't a high-maintenance wife!'
6. rachel during the 2nd week of school. 'second grade is harder than first grade!' (yep, that's sort of how it works.)
5. luke when he's avoiding going to bed makes multiple trips into our room. the last time usually included him flashing the sign language sign for i love you with both hands and saying
'double love'. (a nice thing to go to bed to.)
4. me to luke one night. 'no punching kerbatchi' (kerbatchi is his imaginary friend!) silly mama!
3. matt to me in february. 'i had a dream that we were camping in yellowstone. i think we need to buy a popup camper and go this summer.' (in less than 2 weeks we had a camper & this blog was started to chronicle our trip.) thanks for remembering your dream!
2. by the family 'Xtreme Chaos!' we do a little team cheer after finding a geocache. another new hobby for 2007. gets us out of the house & to interesting locations around us.
1. by luke and rachel. 'you're the bestest mama & daddy in the whole world'. (while that claim is debatable, we're thankful they love us & think we're the bestest.)
hope 2008 brings many great adventures!
blessings,
liz
10. luke about our yellowstone trip. 'the badlands are bad because it's hot there'
9. luke on dec 31. 'i want the good old days to come back' (then something about a picture from when he was 4 and it was the good old days, but matt & i were laughing too hard to hear.)
8. rachel coined a new term. 'air hug' for when you can't actually get close enough for a real hug
7. matt to me in midsummer 'i'm so thankful that you aren't a high-maintenance wife!'
6. rachel during the 2nd week of school. 'second grade is harder than first grade!' (yep, that's sort of how it works.)
5. luke when he's avoiding going to bed makes multiple trips into our room. the last time usually included him flashing the sign language sign for i love you with both hands and saying
'double love'. (a nice thing to go to bed to.)
4. me to luke one night. 'no punching kerbatchi' (kerbatchi is his imaginary friend!) silly mama!
3. matt to me in february. 'i had a dream that we were camping in yellowstone. i think we need to buy a popup camper and go this summer.' (in less than 2 weeks we had a camper & this blog was started to chronicle our trip.) thanks for remembering your dream!
2. by the family 'Xtreme Chaos!' we do a little team cheer after finding a geocache. another new hobby for 2007. gets us out of the house & to interesting locations around us.
1. by luke and rachel. 'you're the bestest mama & daddy in the whole world'. (while that claim is debatable, we're thankful they love us & think we're the bestest.)
hope 2008 brings many great adventures!
blessings,
liz
Saturday, December 15, 2007
the BIG snow 2007 ~ day 1
so in the first 4 hours of the BIG snow....this is what we've accomplished.
rachel did this mostly by herself--i lifted the balls up for her.
rachel did this mostly by herself--i lifted the balls up for her.
snow fort--we did have the help of 6 other kids and two other adults who all took off before i got around to taking pictures. i used a small cooler to pack the blocks, another mom shoveled snow over to use, another mom helped a little with the packing, and the kids did all the rest. rachel thinks it should go one row higher. it may also need to be 2 blocks thick. it's still early.
we'll see what we get done after lunch!
blessings, liz
Sunday, September 9, 2007
luke birthday part 3
so we celebrated luke's birthday with the simmonds clan today. we met at pizza king in southport. lunch for 9 adults and 7 kids! it was rowdy, but we had a good time. we were celebrating luke, matt's mom(turning 60) and matt's bro-in-law ken(turning 41).
yummy breadsticks, my favorite pizza and some tasty chocolate cake.
luke scored some fun presents. he really has lots of people who love him. his cousin celia picked out a hotwheels race track which provided lots of entertainment for the under 5 feet crowd. we also now have a kid sized basketball, a bubble machine, camo shorts & a basketball jersey with chinese/japanese writing on it (which we are hoping doesn't say anything vulgar--planning to ask our new next door neighbors if they can read it as they are japanese.)
fun times...
tomorrow is the first day of transitional kindergarten. another new adventure.
yummy breadsticks, my favorite pizza and some tasty chocolate cake.
luke scored some fun presents. he really has lots of people who love him. his cousin celia picked out a hotwheels race track which provided lots of entertainment for the under 5 feet crowd. we also now have a kid sized basketball, a bubble machine, camo shorts & a basketball jersey with chinese/japanese writing on it (which we are hoping doesn't say anything vulgar--planning to ask our new next door neighbors if they can read it as they are japanese.)
fun times...
tomorrow is the first day of transitional kindergarten. another new adventure.
Thursday, August 30, 2007
luke's birthday!
what a fun day!
luke woke up to present number one: present from daddy--maximum destruction monster truck & tickets to monster jam
luke had breakfast & present number two: present from rachel--honey bee tree game
luke gets the mail & present number three: present from nana & papa simmonds--$20 and instructions to get something from school (picked out colt's longsleeved tshirt & superman underoos at target)
luke invited neighbors over for cupcakes & ice cream & present numbers four, five & six--akane gave him a spiderman pflat ball, haruka gave him a lego truck & the cooley kids gave him little skateboard dudes!
luke requests taco bell for dinner & receives present number seven--from uncle mark, aunt amy & ella gets...rock 'em, sock 'em robot game! (in case you were wondering it's too loud of a game to play in a public place...not the game, but the boy playing the game) and a very nice taco bell employee gave him a fun pencil.
what a day! he had fun today...played his favorite computer games, got hot chocolate at starbucks, watched some of his favorite tv shows, played outside with buddies. big fun. nana & papa simmonds, aunt melissa & sydney, granna & papa duncan all called to sing happy birthday to him!
sort of hard for mama & daddy to believe that he's really 5. what a big boy...he even read most of his birthday cards all by himself.
luke woke up to present number one: present from daddy--maximum destruction monster truck & tickets to monster jam
luke had breakfast & present number two: present from rachel--honey bee tree game
luke gets the mail & present number three: present from nana & papa simmonds--$20 and instructions to get something from school (picked out colt's longsleeved tshirt & superman underoos at target)
luke invited neighbors over for cupcakes & ice cream & present numbers four, five & six--akane gave him a spiderman pflat ball, haruka gave him a lego truck & the cooley kids gave him little skateboard dudes!
luke requests taco bell for dinner & receives present number seven--from uncle mark, aunt amy & ella gets...rock 'em, sock 'em robot game! (in case you were wondering it's too loud of a game to play in a public place...not the game, but the boy playing the game) and a very nice taco bell employee gave him a fun pencil.
what a day! he had fun today...played his favorite computer games, got hot chocolate at starbucks, watched some of his favorite tv shows, played outside with buddies. big fun. nana & papa simmonds, aunt melissa & sydney, granna & papa duncan all called to sing happy birthday to him!
sort of hard for mama & daddy to believe that he's really 5. what a big boy...he even read most of his birthday cards all by himself.
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