Merry Christmas

Hair's a Story for You

Once upon time there was a little girl. Let's call her Sally. Little Sally had a beautiful head of hair that sometimes could be described as soft and flowing, when it was clean and brushed, which was rare for this young tomboy. One day, Sally's hair was not soft and flowing, but was in need of a good brushing, an operation which she attempted prior to the cleaning operation. This led to the very unsatisfactory result of a tangle of matted hair hopelessly entwined about the brush.

Sally had two choices: tell mom and possibly get yelled at for arriving at such a quandary, or attempt to rescue the entrapped locks with a pair of scissors. Sally chose the second option, resulting in quite a picture of lopsided bangs, unclean, unbrushed, and un-soft and uun-flowing hair. Oh, and she got a good yelling-at by mom.

Sally and a good friend named Suzie who had gotten herself into quite a similar predicament. Suzie had the same two choices. Suzie chose the first option. She did get a good talking-to for getting into the situation (clean hair is easier to brush, etc.), but mom had a few methods Suzie had been unaware of, to get stuck hair, unstuck, without losing too many precious strands.

Each mom expressed her displeasure with each girl. Sally is bald. Suzie is not.

Which little girl do you think my daughter was in this story?

New Egg Record

Okay, you've seen the large egg(s) of the past. Now, for the small egg record. This one was laid yesterday. I put it next to a normal-sized egg (also laid yesterday). Looks like a pidgeon got into our chicken coop, doesn't it?

In The News

They finally put my community service pictures in the local paper.

New Family Photos

Our new family pictures are now posted at Andy and Vicki's Place.

Community Service

Some of us homeschoolers got together yesterday for a small community service project, cleaning up some flower beds, planting some Fall/Winter ornamental plants, and spreading mulch at the Chesapeake Exploration Center. The kids, especially the older ones, actually did do some of the work. Five of mine are in that picture, somewhere.

Champions!

Kenzie's new travel softball team played in a tournament over the weekend. They took first place in a field of ten very good teams. In five games, they won by the slaugher rule three times, including the championship game.

Kenzie, who's a rookie on this team (she just joined in August), batted .429 with an on-base-percentage of .556. She had at least two or three rbi's and scored every time she got on base, including the 15^th run that ended the final game (15-0).

Bad Daddy!

But with an explanation. No posts for a month?! Bad, bad, bad. The avalanche called our schedule has been overwhelming again, as usual. There are way too many things going on right now to post them all, so how about some bullet points.

--High school (and not the easy public school version) has hit full force.

--JV soccer, at a school 25 miles away. Ugh, we travel just to go to practices.

--Fall sports (soccer, mostly, but also flag football) for everyone else.

--New nephew was born, a month early, on 10/1.

--Gall stones (me, including a midnight trip to ER), laproscopic surgery scheduled for next week.

--Homeschool, for the middle four kids.

--Piano lessons.

--Kenzie. She has several entries to herself since she causes more than the usual conflicts.

--Kenzie travel softball: four-hour practices (30 minutes from home) and weekend tournaments, year-round.

--Kenzie travel soccer: three nights a week, plus weekend games (sometimes 2 hours away).

--Connor travel soccer: not really on the team, but he practices with them twice a week.

--Birthdays. Our family (including in-laws) has 6 to celebrate in October.

I gotta stop now because Alex's ride just picked him up to get him to the bus stop and that's my cue to get everyone else rolling. Here's some quick shots of Bekah's birthday. She just recently discovered Barney.

Chicken Update

It's been a long, long time since I've thought of posting a chicken update, so here's a quick one (I hope).

We now have twenty hens laying full force, giving us between a dozen and eighteen eggs every day. Most of the pullet-sized eggs have moved on to mediums or larges, with some jumbos and a rare egg so big that I wouldn't know how to classify it (too big to fit in any egg carton we have).

Needless to say, we have plenty of eggs for personal consumption (I usually keep about three dozen in the upstair's fridge for us), with up to 9 (or more) dozen a week that we can sell off. Whenever we get about 8 or 9 extra dozen, Kenzie loads her wagon with eggs and goes door-to-door, selling eggs, with a big brother in tow as bodyguard. Today she had over 9 dozen eggs when she left, and had 15 eggs (and $22) when she got home. She gave one dozen away to a customer that overpaid last week because nobody had change. She's stilling them for $3 a dozen, but told everyone today that next time, the price will $3.50, unless they return an empty egg carton, in which case she'll keep the price at $3. We used up all our saved up cartons and had to buy more, and they cost between a quarter and a half-dollar each, so she just added the higher price to the eggs.

It seems that every time she goes a-sellin', she finds new customers. If they all ever decide they want eggs at the same time, we'll never be able to supply them all.

I always get a little worried when I see the supply of eggs piling up in the fridge, because I wouldn't know what to do with a gross of eggs, but somehow she always sells them all. We haven't had to give any free ones away to our close neighbors for months. I really don't want to go "commercial" because I don't want to get the government involved in our little backyard lesson in economics, entrepreneurship, and free enterprise. I figure, when Kenzie's ready to go that step, she'll be asking if she can call the county and get herself incorporated, regulated, and overtaxed, like any other business.

Cooking With Heart

I made biscuits for dinner. I rolled the dough out, and just as I was about to cut it, I noticed that, quite unintentionally on my part, it had formed a heart shape. I couldn't resist taking a picture of it. Believe it or not, I really, really did NOT do this on purpose.

School's Out Due to Gall Stones

Ugh. In all my 42 years, I've never called 9-1-1. So, when I call for myself in the middle of night, it must be bad. The pain in my mid-section started about 7 pm and got steadily worse throughout the evening until finally, at midnight, I had to call for help. Poor Vicki; she was sound asleep and had to get up to wait for the ambulance with me. I didn't even have shoes on. I didn't car at that point. Off to the ER I went, where they gave me pain killers and some tests. Ultra sound showed gall stones. The tacos for dinner did me in, I guess. First time we had tacos in about 2 years, too. Kenzie's fault, she asked for them. Back to the story: At about 4:30 am, this am, I called Vicki to come pick me up. She had to wake up Alex to let him know he was in charge while she was gone.

I go to a specialist on the 18th for a follow-up, and to see if I keep my gall bladder, or not. If they take it out, I hope they let me keep it in a jar. That would be a great homeschool teaching tool. Several lessons: anatomy, organ preservation, nutrition (eat less fat, etc.). Not to mention the 'ick' factor. I'll put it next to my fetal cat-in-a-jar that I got from a college anatomy class where we dissected dead cats (mine died while preganant). I know, TMI, TMI, TMI as Connor would be saying right now. Don't worry, all the cats we used were either euthanized at a shelter, or were road kill.

Anyway, that's how my Second Day of School ended, and my Third Day of School began. I'm still debating whether to actually do school today, or not. Again, we'll have to wait and see.

First Day of School...ok, I'm serious this time.

God gave us a fantastic first day of school today. We did have that one dress rehearsal day last week, but that was kind of shaky and it was still August, so I didn't really count it. Today, Alex left bright and early, at 7 am to catch the county bus to his school. The rest of us headed to the classroom to start our school day at 8 am.

I didn't really stress getting every little thing done, but it all got done regardless. Kenzie and Connor went their own ways to work out their schedules on their own. Kenzie had a few issues, like not spending sufficient time on some subjects and not reading instructions carefully enough, but I addressed that with her, and we'll see what happens tomorrow. I still haven't checked her work for the day, which will tell me if she devoted enough time and effort to the job. Connor took longer to do all his work, and he's always been pretty conscientious about his work (we won't discuss the cheating episode of last year; I think he's felt enough guilt over that to last a while; especially after confessing it all Father Jennings, our pastor) but, again, I haven't checked today's work yet. Both Connor and Kenzie have been eager to start school this year, for some reason, so i don't expect too many problems, at least for a little while.

Tay and ty are usually my most daunting projects. They are SO different, not only from each other, but from all the other students I've taught. I have begun by splitting them up this year. I am going to try teaching them Religion, History, and Science together, because they take turns doing a lot of out-loud reading and I want them to get good at reading and following while somebody else (not me) is reading. Then they split up for Math and Language Arts, which is where they differ so much. They either do different things in the same room, or I send one away while I teach the other; depends on the moods we all experience at any given time. Tay clams up, Ty turns on the waterworks. Today, I dealt with both scenarios much better than I have in the past. This is evidence that my prayers for calm, patience, wisdom, etc. may be reaching God's ears. Taylor even practiced piano after he finished his classwork.

Bekah also started some preschool stuff, even though she doesn't even turn 3 until October. Kenzie took that job from me. She had more fun helping Bekah cut and paste and learn some letters and numbers than Bekah did, I think. (It also keeps Kenzie busy until I get time to help with her stuff)

Alex's high school soccer team had their first official game today. They lost, 3-2, but Alex wound up being a starter at Halfback, which I am very proud of. He has worked very hard at the practices, and it seems to have paid off. I credit today's loss with his team's bus sitting in traffic for three hours because of a school bus accident (not his bus) en route to the game, which started over an hour late. Because the team had to leave school a couple hours early, he missed a couple classes for which he had to get today's work last week. Well, he worked very hard over the weekend to get all his work done, without complaint. I have to say that I am very proud of him. I'm going to have to stop grumbling so much about all the upheavals this new school thing has caused us. Alex is dealing with it all very well so far (much better than I).

Well, tomorrow is the Next Day Of School. We'll have to see how it goes.

Happy Labor Day

Hope your weekend is/was as fun as ours was today. We had another shore party to end the Summer vacation. Here's most, not all, of the family members that showed up today. If you're ever on the road and see the red beast with the kayaks on top, wave to us.

Happy Labor Day, everybody.

First Day of School...for real, this time..

Here's Alex in his uniform for the first time. Handsome, ain't he?

First Day of School...yeah, right.

After some initial bus confusion (Alex has to catch a public transit bus to get to his school which is about 30 miles, or 75 minutes away, by bus), he experienced his first day of (institutional) school in about four years. It was ninth grade orientation at Sts. Peter and Paul High School, just a half day of introduction for the incoming class of 2011. Since he had orientation, I figured we'd have one for homeschool, too. We spent half an hour looking at our new books and putting on the mindset that we gotta get to work some time soon. Other than that, this is our first day of school went; the camera tells the story...

Salesgirl

A couple weeks ago we had a few dozen backed up in our fridge. For some reason, our normal customers didn't buy their normal amount. Well, Kenzie decided to take her eggs on the road, hawking her wares, door to door, through the neighborhood. She had no luck that day, only selling some eggs to one of our usual customers.

Undeterred, she tried again yesterday. Our hens must be in full summer-production mode because we again had eggs to spare. This time she hit some of the same houses (I told her skip the houses from the last attempt where she received a less than welcome reception). She not only had greater success in her sales business (3.5 dozen sold), but she also found three new friends who have moved in, temporarily (they're only here until they sell their house and move away), down the street.

It's nice to see her efforts rewarded.





And, here's her card:






UPDATE: Kenzie and her new friends sold the rest of the eggs today (she even had to dig into our personal supply), to several new customers (a total of 8 dozen in two days). There's another dozen on order for tomorrow so the chickens need to get a-layin'. One of her new friends is holding a dozen for her neighbor and will get Kenzie the money this afternoon. I guess that means that Kenzie now has her first "employee". Look out world, there is no stopping this girl!

Cool Shades

Bekah did this to her little sister. Thankfully the camera was close at hand.

More Kayaking

Last night I told the kids that whoever got up at 6 o'clock with me on Sunday morning could go fishing and kayaking at (or about) sunrise. I was kind of hoping for a solo trip up the creek, but Kenzie and Alex made it out of bed in time. After we made a quick trip to the bait shop for worms, we headed to the creek. I let them have the first turn. It was an absolutely perfect morning. I got to relax with my fishing rod while they paddled around the creek.

When it was my turn on the kayak, I just drifted around and fished. I must have been pretty quiet because I drifted right up to a family of ducks and neither they, nor I, were aware of each other until they eventually got spooked and decided to leave the area. Momma was definitely keeping an eye on me as she kept herself between her babies and my boat.

I am really going to miss Summer when we have to put these boats away due to cold weather.

A Field Trip to Fort McHenry

I love visiting historical sites and I must admit, growing up in the Baltimore area, I am a bit biased toward Fort McHenry. I love how it was one of the first big defeats of a world superpower by a little upstart country called the United States of America. Despite some of things that are going on today, which we may or may not agree on, American history is a fascinating story about the struggle for freedom and democracy in a world that had really never heard of such things before. This country may have done (and still does) some things wrong, but it has also done a whole heck-uv-a lot of things right, too.

The short video above is of a replica of the flag known as The Star Bangled Banner. It is 41 feet long and flew over the fort as the British retreated from the battle at Fort McHenry near the end of the War of 1812. We actually helped to raise it in a ceremony they do at the fort every day. First, the park ranger, with the help of the visitors, lowers the Storm Flag replica (it is only only 17 feet by 24 feet) which flew during the actual 25-hour long British bombardment of the fort.

Then, with further help from the visitors, he raises this bigger flag.

I wish I had more time to add pictures, but here's a few: the whole crew in front of the fort; Tyler with a big cannon, and some of the fort itself.

Happy Anniversary!

Eighteen years ago, today:

And now:

HAPPY ANNIVERSARY, SWEETHEART!

Now for some reminiscing...

I Won Something

Today ended a week of VBXtreme (sponsored by a local church called The Bridge). It's a VBS where, instead of a lot of singing and Bible study activities (which are great, don't me wrong, the kids attend those whenever possible, they love these things), they get to play soccer or basketball for three hours in the hot sun, sweating and getting exhausted, which I think is exactly what kids should do in the summer. They do take time for Bible study, memory verses, etc. during breaks in their playing. Since I only had two eligible kids home with me this week, Tay and Ty got to attend. Another VBS that we try to attend every year conflicted with this one, but that's the way things go sometimes. That church is Safe Harbor Presbyterian, the same church where the older boys attend their youth group. Our church, St. Christopher's, had their VBS back in June. Last year I ran the games portion of our VBS, but this year I begged to be excused. I was, however, recruited on the last day to play a small part of a father in a skit the kids acted out.

Anyway, Tyler chose to play basketball this year; Tay picked soccer. They had a great time, especially, I think, since they each chose different things to do and met their own new friends. Lately, I've noticed the twins choosing to do things separately, which I think is great. They each need to develop as individuals, not as half a twin. I think they are sorry it's over. The week ended with 'The Biridge Bash', a carnival-like celebration with free games, food, moonbounces, pony rides, live music, and prizes (thought I'd never get there, didn't you?). This is where I won something. I got a $10 gift card to coffee house. I was standing next a friend of mine whose eyes lit up when I got my gift card. She said she wanted to try that place (I had never heard of it) but hadn't gotten around to it yet. So I gave it her. When am I, with seven kids in tow, ever going to get a chance to visit a coffee house? And if I did, $10 would be a drop in the bucket when I got the final bill. Besides, my friend owns and runs a mini-golf course and they've given my kids free snowballs in the past. I was glad to be able to return the favor in a small way.

The older three kids are due back from NC tomorrow. I miss them. I hope they get home early, but they probably won't. McKenzie has a letter here from the softball team she wants to try out for. It's probably an invitation to their tryouts. I emailed the coach a while back and he said he'd send her something as soon as they set a date for tryouts. Kenzie's going to be very excited.

Puzzles

I took some time over the winter to do some puzzles, something I rarely do nowadays, but I wanted something to hang on some of our bare walls. The finished puzzles have been sitting around for months because I had no way of mounting them on the walls due to their weird shapes. I finally got time to cut out some pieces of plywood to match the odd shape of the puzzles, glued the puzzles to the wood, and hung them on some walls. The Noah's Ark was for Vicki, of course, who wanted to hang it in Kearsyn's room. The Last Supper was just cool-looking so I hung in the TV room. It's right next to the TV so maybe something of it will sink in as the kids watch Spongebob :o)

Carnival '07

Our annual pilgrimage to the volunteer fireman's carnival. Last year, Kenzie had a broken collar bone, so she couldn't ride the rides. Alex broke his, too, around the same time, but I don't remember if he missed the rides or not. Bekah was too little to ride, and Kearsyn wasn't here, yet. And, the funnel cake preparer was not very good at the job. This year, all those things were much improved, including the most important one: the funnel cake preparer. I was going to take a picture of the very tasty, much improved funnel cakes, but they disappeared too quickly.

I have to say the most fun for us grown-ups was watching Bekah experience her first carnival. She was all smiles, very excited, and didn't want to leave after two hours of rides. She rode every ride she could, at least once, and wanted to move to the big kid rides but she would have fallen out, she's so small, so we didn't think that was a good idea. Fortunately, Taylor has not quite graduated to the bigger rides, so Bekah had a partner, even though I don't think she needed one. Tyler moved up to the bigger rides, and even rode on some of them by himself. That kid has no fear of anything and does NOT want to be left out of anything his older sibs do. Vicki and I had to split up; she took Bekah and Tay to the kiddie rides, I took the Ty, Connor, and Kenzie (and Keary in the stroller) to the big rides. Alex worked the goldfish game.

For working so hard Sunday afternoon and Monday night, the firemen gave Alex a shirt. It's an older logo, featuring a Chesapeake Bay Blue Crab that I always thought looked goofy. I think the fire dept. thought so, too, since they changed it to a better one.

Fire!

Can I yell, "Fire!", in a crowded blog? I guess it doesn't apply in my case. It's not so crowded around here.

Alex spent most of yesterday helping out at the volunteer fire station, getting ready for, and then working at, the annual Fireman's Carnival. The other kids and I got stopped by roadblocks, coming home yesterday afternoon, due to the parade that kicks off the carnival. I think every fire truck within 50 miles was in that parade. Alex could've ridden on a truck, but he decided to come home for dinner before returning for his evening shift. It's pretty scary thinking he's become so acclimated to his new role that the thrill of riding on the firetruck has become old hat.

He told me he was mostly a go-fer all day, which suits him just fine since it lets him do a variety of things. At then end of the evening he was working the Gold Fish Game. He said they gave away a lot of goldfish. That's fine as long as he doesn't bring any leftover fish home. About 10 PM he called, all excited, to tell me one of the fireworks they were setting off caught something on fire. How convenient that they were at the Foreman's Carnival! He wasn't even calling for a ride home; just to tell about the fire. He called when the fire was out for a ride home.

I think he found his Calling. Everything about working at the firehouse excites him, from an actual fire to emptying trash cans for the firemen. He even sacrificed a day at The Shore! It's so nice to see him enjoy something that is not a video game. Even though it worries Vicki a little, there are worse fields to get into than firefighting.

A Day at The Shore, Part 2

We spent another day at The Shore, with my parents, minus Vicki (she needed a rest), Kearsyn (so much for Vicki's rest), and Alex (volunteer firedude obligations). But we added my sister and her family and an uncle of mine and his wife.

We managed to get our kayaks on the roof of the van (should've taken a picture, but didn't), despite the 7 foot elevation, plus the height of the rack on top of the van. We actually arrived at our destination after over an hour of driving, with the kayaks still with us. So, with our two kayaks, my dad's kayak and rowboat, and my uncle's canoe, we had quite a flotilla on the creek today. Happily for me, my nephew drove my mom crazy so I didn't have to, and she had someone else to be grumpy with; not me. I called her a little while ago to tell her how much my kids love to visit their Grandma and Pop at The Shore. Mom works hard setting things up, providing food, and worrying about everyone having fun, and I just hope she realizes how much it means to everyone. Although the kids are probably going to mostly remember the kayaking, fishing, swimming, hot dog roasting, and smores; she's the one that makes the day happen, and the kids probably don't appreciate it, at least not until they get a little older.

My uncle took an incredible picture of Bekah on his digital camera. I hope he remembers to send me a copy; I really want it for my 2008 calendar. I, of course, had my camera, but it never left the case. I have become notorious for neglecting my camera duties lately.

Oh, and before I go, there's this. Kenzie finally had her Altar Server class last Wed. Well, since there was only one Server last night, at church, she volunteered, and got her first opportunity to serve at Mass. Connor volunteered to serve with her. She was all smiles. She's been waiting for this moment for over a year. I could tell she's spent that year watching the older servers. She was flawless (of course I have to say that, I'm her dad). And, as usual, I forgot my camera.

School Notes

The check is in the mail. Really, it is. Alex's tuition check, that is. Ugh. Almost four times what we usually pay for homeschool books for all the kids for a whole school year. Plus, I had to buy his books, which have been trickling in from various sources. I went on a scavenger hunt for his books on the web. Overall, compared to publisher's prices, I saved about half by buying books (mostly used; some only available new, but I still got them cheaper than list price) from Amazon, half.com, and ecampus.com. Next comes the bill for $500 in "fees", whatever that means; then the uniform expenses. Luckily, Alex is small and we have some hand-me-downs from friends. He has plenty of shirts, but we'll have to buy pants, shoes, etc. We'll just have to start selling more eggs.

Once again, I flipped (or is that flopped; I feel like John Kerry) on the public school vs home school issue for the twins. With Alex going off to private school, and the baby hopefully not being SO needy (yeah, right) this coming school year, and Bekah's old enough to start doing some pre-pre-K stuff (maybe keep her a little busier with crayons, etc), I've decided to try it again with Tay and Ty. This time, I'm going to try to teach them completely separate from each other; one in the a.m., one in the p.m. And I'll try not to get so uptight when one surpasses the other in a particular subject and vice versa. I started ordering my homeschool books, and they've begun arriving as well. We're going to use a combination of curricula, mostly from Seton and A Beka with a smattering of Apologia, Sonlight, Alpha Omega, and Horizon. Seton stuff is on the way. A Beka stuff I'm going to order at a show next month to save on shipping costs. The rest, I have or will order as needed. I'm really going to see the credit card bills when they start coming in. We haven't paid interest on a credit card for a decade, now, and, God willing, we won't have to now.

Annual check-ups start today. All the kids get their physicals in the Summer, despite when their birthdays fall on the calendar. This avoids having to take well people to a sick office in the Winter. Today is Tay and Ty's turn. Next Thursday, Alex and Connor. The following Thursday, the girls. It gets a little hectic, but it's better than trying to schedule all this stuff during the school year.

I'll leave you with a baby picture from this morning. Keary just couldn't keep her eyes open any longer. Serves her right, for getting me up early this morning. Of course, this cat nap only lasted about ten minutes.

Pickles, and Other Stuff

I tried my hand, for the first time, at canning something I grew. Cucumbers are coming in faster than I know what to do with, so I thought I'd try to make pickles. I used a recipe that called for 6 pounds of cucumbers and 3 pounds of onions plus all the usual pickling ingredients like vinegar, etc. I chased the kids out of the house, first with the onion fumes (sliced thin; I cried a lot); then with the boiling vinegar fumes. Whew! that's smelly stuff! Anyway, I wound up with 7 jars. Of course, I had to make a label. If this stuff's any good, I think I'll give them out for Christmas presents. I also have enough cucumbers to make another batch, and enough on the vines for several more. What was I thinking when i planted all those stupid cucumbers? Here's a picture of the garden where they came from. It looks like a jungle, and it looks small because it's in a narrow space, but it is very long. Besides cucumbers, we are growing watermelon, cantaloupe, pumpkins (boy are we ever growin' pumpkins!), tomatoes, zucchini, squash, broccoli (all :o( gone), carrots, radishes (again :o( all gone), lettuce, green peppers, cauliflower (which didn't taste right for some reason), and right now, we are growing lots and lots of weeds that I just haven't had time to get rid of.

Today, the kids were getting a little bored. They decided they wanted to go bowling, so they set up this bowling alley on our deck. They're using bowling pins that various kids have received over the years from birthday/bowling parties. The ball is my MIL's. It's been in our attic for years. The kids found it recently and have been looking for a reason to roll it somewhere. This looks like it was a pretty good shot. Way to go Tay!

The chickens had a record day over the weekend: 14 eggs in one day. They only produced 8 yesterday, but were back up to 11 today, with one smooshed one. We have twenty hens, and we're still waiting for some of them to start laying. The really hot weather isn't helping. Over 90, and they start getting lazy, and it's been well over 90 for several days, now. It's supposed to cool off tomorrow, and that's good, because we are selling eggs faster than we can collect them. We actually had a backorder over the weekend. Kenzie sold 3 dozen to one neighbor on Saturday; another showed up on Sunday, asking for 2 dozen more. We only had 8 decent-sized eggs, so he paid for 2 dozen, took the 8, and Kenzie delivered the rest on Monday afternoon. The neighbor who bought 3 dozen said she'd take as many more as we can spare, up to 6 dozen a week! And this doesn't include some other people at our church who have expressed interest in buying homegrown eggs. We're going to need more hens. Kenzie already said she wants to try hatching some more over the winter. We now have two roosters, so we should be able to get plenty of fertilized eggs.

Finally, for today, it is summer. And that means my kids turn into fish in the backyard pool, so here are some fish pictures. For some reason, I just got the girls this time, so maybe I should say here are some pictures of my mermaids:

Merry Christmas

As you may know, we celebrate Christmas around here, not with huge piles of presents (because with 7 kids, that's a lot of piles - and a lot of presents), but rather with one, large family present, that everyone must agree on. This way we all get something we all can enjoy. One year, it was a drop-down screen/DVD player for the van; one year a pool table; one year, a really nice chess table; etc. Based on the weekend at The Shore, we decided this year, it would be kayaks. Oh, and by the way, we don't always wait for Christmas to get these family presents. This is a good thing because kayaks are no fun on icy creeks. But they are fun in July! SO, we got some. And here they are. Notice the ingenious kayak carrier that I invented on the spur of the moment in order to get them to the river. If the pictures look a little funny (I can't tell because my computer monitor is on it's last leg), that's because the camera was inside it's waterproof case.