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Whatever course you decide upon, there is always someone to tell you that you are wrong. There are always difficulties arising which tempt you to believe your critics are right. To map out a course of action and follow it to an end requires...courage.
-
Ralph Waldo Emerson

Wednesday, June 25, 2008

Playtime-Schooltime-Some time

So the next morning, the kids all woke up to a beautiful day for playing with their cousins. We had breakfast at our (Melissa's) camp table and got reacquainted with our cousins/nephews. My kids enjoyed playing on a trampoline again...ours broke a while back....and no one fell off the entire time we were there! I say that's a major accomplishment, since there could be up to 5 children on it at any given time. They even added sprinklers (underneath) sometimes to enhance their trampoline experience. ;)

The kids also discovered the game of marbles while in California. We never really played that as kids at our house that I can recall, but Melissa apparently did. She had passed on her marbles to her boys...and a new pastime was born! I think they played at least one game a day. We spent the whole 2 weeks there assuring Logan that we would find him some marbles of his own...eventually. Surprisingly, Walmart did not have them, nor did Michael's. We decided to look at Cracker Barrel, and were unsuccessful there as well. Finally, after leaving California on our road trip home, we visited Wall Drug in South Dakota. After asking a clerk, and checking in three of the little 'shops', the third one had a few bags. So, we bought each of my children a bag. Of course, we had dinner at Cracker Barrel in Sioux Falls a day or two later, and they had some tins of marbles. We went ahead and bought some of those too, because each tin contains 2 shooters, plus 48 marbles, and a guide-book. Now the kids are set for a while....I think they're actually playing now.

While we were visiting, the boys still had to go to school, and my kids had about a month's worth of work to finish too. So while they were at school, we spent time doing school too. We sat at the camp table or on the porch and read our books. For the written work, they did the same. It was fairly flexible, as each kid has a clip board and can work pretty much anywhere. Wayland also had a couple weeks left of work, and he would arrive home each day just before the boys did. We sat around and drank coffee, talking, until needing to get ready for an activity. Both Marshall and Dustin are in swimming and baseball, so they often had practice or a game. We went to a couple of their games while out there, and we enjoyed watching a 'real' baseball game. I think Logan loves the idea of a real clay field, the whole uniform, etc. I told him if we're living in the states during the next year, we will practice and he can try out for a city league next year. It is pretty exciting to watch a game; I remember that from when I played...

Well, I'll have to do another update some other time. We have some packing to do, and I need to clean the house. Karl is taking me to NYC tomorrow, since Mom and Dad are here and agreed to keep the kids for a few days. I'm looking forward to the alone time with Karl, as well as the trip, because I've never been to the city. We're going to see Grease on Broadway...Taylor Hicks is in it too, so that's an extra bonus. :) The rest of the time we're just going to try to find some neat restaurants to visit...and walk around and see some interesting places. I'll try to get back on Sunday to post some more about our CA trip.

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