The Library Roll

In Fredericksburg, there's this little community library.  It is operated completely by volunteers and funded by donations.  I just love the thought that a group of people so valued the idea of a library in their community that they really did what it takes to make something like that happen. 

Six years ago, they started a bicycle ride called the "Library Roll" in order to raise funds to help operate the library.  When John saw the flier for this ride, he immediately said that he'd like to do this.  We enjoy supporting something like this and we've always enjoyed bicycling, so it seemed like a great thing to do as a family.

When we checked in for the ride today, we were reminded by the volunteer that we've participated in nearly every ride for the past six years.  I had almost forgotten that we started doing this ride when I was pulling the little girl in a trailer behind my bike.  Wow, time flies.

The ride is completely on the Holmes County trail.  It's a really nice, paved path that's well kept and travels through some really pretty Holmes county areas.  Being Holmes County, you not only share the path with other cyclist and walkers and runners, but you also share the path with Amish buggies.

Instead of alerting each other to "walker ahead" or "bike behind", the call was actually "poop ahead". 

Yeah, the kids got a really big kick out of that one. 

The shortest distance is 18 miles, with a nice little snack stop at the 9 mile point.  They serve homemade cookies, fruit and peanut butter and jelly sandwiches made on homemade bread.  Just the right thing to re-fuel and re-motivate the kids for the 9 mile trek back to the start. 

It's kind of funny, but the conversation during these rides almost always involves books.  What the kids are reading, what have been their favorites and what ones are on the "I really need that book" list.  They usually find themselves trying to recite a favorite Shel Silverstein poem (because so many of those are fun and easy to remember) or Dad's favorite Robert Frost poem (because Dad bribed them with a dollar a few years ago if they would memorize it).  Pretty appropriate for a library ride.

At the end of the ride, there's always fry pies and a new t-shirt to add to the collection.

Oh, and a few sore bums, but also a lot of pride for riding!

3,000 Bouncy Balls

It's not too hard to talk our kids into a trip to the library.  In fact, they get pretty excited about it.  Yes, a trip to the library is sometimes the highlight of their week.  Last night, we offered them a trip to the Medina library, but failed to mention that the purpose of the trip was to watch 3,000 bouncy balls being dropped inside the library from the third floor.

They actually were pretty upset because the library part was closed and they were unable to check out books.

Angry looks and all, is what we received at first.

Fortunately, watching 3,000 bouncy balls hit the ceramic tile kinda made up for that.

Oh, and the pizza afterwards helped too.

Thanks Medina Library!

A few extra acorns?

A few weeks ago we lost a large limb from our old oak tree.  The limb was overloaded with acorns and simply could not bear the weight of those acorns any longer. 

The Dad that lives at this house started thinking about what could be done with all of those acorns.  I'm not quite sure how he came to pull together a couple of bike tubes that had blow outs earlier this year (or why in the world he still had them hanging around), some bungee cords and some leftover duct tape from this project. But, put them together he did.  In the end, the kids ended up with a pretty cool acorn launcher.

Just another way to reuse, re-purpose and recycle, I guess. 

Back to School

It's hard to believe that I now have a fifth-grader and an eight-grader. The years sure do fly by way too quickly. The school year, so far, is off to a good start. One of the fifth-grader's teacher is having a "silly band" year.

"B"ring materials to class
"A"ttend school regularly
"N"otice the details
"D"o the right thing

The kids can earn a silly band for turning in homework timely each week and the teacher gives them out as incentives or rewards for other various things during the week. What a fun and creative way to use a current "trend" to encourage and reward kids!

The eight grader is loving his classes as well, especially science. His teacher used a bunson burner to create a "geyser" this week--any time you do something like that you're gonna get a 13-year-old boys attention!

Of course, we had to take the annual first day of school pictures. I always make the kids hold up the number of fingers to represent what grade they are going in to. They're probably gonna hate me for this someday. 

Once they were home from school, we  celebrated with a special back to school treat.  A great start to what I'm sure will be a great school year.

4-H Project Time

It's almost Medina County Fair time and this week is project judging for the two 4-Hers that live at our house.  Although it seems that we're always down to the wire when it comes time to wrap up those projects, I'm really glad that the kids are involved in 4-H. 

Growing up a "city girl", as my husband calls it, I had never really been to the fair. Well, at least I don't really remember attending the fair as a kid.  All I really knew about the fair I probably learned from "Charlotte's Web".

I still remember when we had our first little garden at our first little house and John decided to enter one of his green tomatoes into the fair. 

"Um, okay.  But, why?"  I thought.

So, he entered his tomato and won his first blue ribbon. 

"Um, okay.  Congratulations there, honey.  Nice tomato."

I really didn't get this whole fair thing.

Now, my kids are involved in 4-H.  Being involved in 4-H has kind of changed the whole fair experience for both me and the kids.  It's made the focus more on the projects and the animals and not so much the rides and the food.  Yes, they'll still get their bucket of greasy fries and cotton candy, but we'll spend most of our time seeing what types of projects were done by all 4-Hers,  checking out how their friends did and finding out if our kids or their dad won any ribbons. 

As we were wrapping up those projects this past weekend, I could see the pride in their faces and excitement about how they might do at judging.  We've been encouraging and reminding both of the kids to be ready to really tell the judges what they've learned. 

"I remember last year, I talked and talked to my judge, said the 10-year old.  My throat was sore for three days afterwards because I talked so much." 

Hmmm, I think we've would've remembered if she had talked that much.  But, sometimes you just don't argue with a ten-year old girl. 

Make that most of the time.

Although both of the kids have had numerous opportunities to speak in front of people, at both church and at school, project judging gives them a sense of nervousness and excitement.  On our way to judging, the ten-year old asked me about a knot in her stomach.  "Mom, is that what being nervous feels like?  Is it okay to be nervous?"  Both good questions.

The kids have now finished their judging.  They did really well, both receiving "A" marks and blue ribbons for the judging portion.  They came away from the experience excited and pleased with themselves for what they had done.  Now, we just have to wait until fair to see how they placed.

Dad isn't planning on entering any green tomatoes this year, but he is planning on entering some of his maple syrup. 

Now that's something that I can appreciate.

The world needs a little more duct tape

Give a girl some duct tape and you'll never know what she might do with it. Seriously.

The ten-year old is in love with duct tape.  Last Christmas, she asked for duct tape.  Her fun-loving and creative Aunt even found her some cool tye-dyed duct tape.  Awesome.  She's made wallets and other small things like that, but a few weeks ago she decided she wanted to make a duffel bag.

"I don't think I can help you with that one, honey."

"That's okay.  I know exactly what I need to do" she told me.

And she did.  She worked quietly up in her room, at her little art desk, for over an hour on her project.  She appeared for dinner and then went straight back to her room to continue working. 

"Mom, do you have any spare binder things from one of those three ring binders?"

It just happened that I did.  Don't ask me why, but I salvaged some binder mechanisims when I sorted through my son's barely staying together school binders.  What luck.

By the end of the evening, she had her project finished.  Her very own duct tape duffel bag.

I bet none of the girls at this week's sleepover will have anything like this.  Good thing the little girl likes to be unique.

How-How Campers!

How-How is the traditional greeting at Camp Wanake -- the church camp where our kids spent a wonderful week learning about God, playing outdoors and having a great time.

They were at camp from Sunday - Friday and three days after coming home, they were still talking about their week at camp.  At camp, the kids pick a camp theme and then they are divided into small groups of about 8 or so kids with two counselors.  I love the small group concept. 

The thirteen year-old picked "Best of Both" for his camp.  I'm not sure what "Best of Both" meant, but he spent the week doing all kinds of different things.  They spent a day at Baylor Beach swimming at the water park there.  They did a challenge course,  a rock climbing wall and the rock tower, which he said he actually enjoyed.  He loves mountain boarding -- this involved a snowboard-on-wheels type contraption, helmet, knee pads, and as you can guess, taking the board down the hill.  He loves it.  It frightens me.

The ten-year picked "No Party Poopers Allowed".  During the week, they had a pool party, a pajama party and a Barn Bash/Dance party.  In addition to the parties she had a great time doing all the normal camp activities.  She enjoyed Boji Ball, canoeing, swimming and more swimming. Near as I can understand it, Boji ball is similar to dodge ball, but involves a lot more balls. As in everyone has a ball. If you want to know more about it, you'll have to ask the kids. They've tried countless time to explain it to me, but I'm hopeless.

Each morning, the campers have time set aside for "morning reflection," a quiet devotional time.  They cook out at least one meal a day at their campfire at their "home in the woods," a special spot that is just for their small group that week.  The thirteen year-old went on and on and on about this chicken dish that they made one night for dinner.  "It was just SO good, mom.  You have to get the recipe."  He told me the ingredients, (chicken, onion, apple jelly -- to name a few).  Had I made that at home, I bet I would've gotten the look that said 'I'll try it, but I'm not going to like it".  The ten year-old went on about the bacon and french toast that she made on the buddy burner.  "It was SO good.  My bacon was just perfectly crisp and the french toast was yummy!"  She doesn't like french toast at home.  Guess we'll have to make a buddy burner if we want her to eat french toast.

Each day the also have bible study time during the day and throughout the week they have "Pow Wows" in the evenings.  Pow-wows are small group time, around the campfire.  They might ask questions that each of the campers get to share about.  Questions such as "where is your favorite place in the world" or "if your heart was made of food, what food would it be made of".  The boy answered "butter".  I'm not surprised.  I'm sure that there is a deeper meaning that was shared in the pow-wow.  But, butter doesn't surprise me.

The campers have a Bible verse to memorize for each day.  The verse it set to a familiar tune which makes it so much easier to memorize.  At the Friday parent program, we get to hear the kids sing all of the verses/songs that they learned throughout the week.  The kids so enjoyed these songs that they sang them for the entire way home.  One of their favorites was a song set to the tune of YMCA.  I wonder if the Village People ever thought about how versatile their song would become.  Bet they would've never imagined that it would be used to memorize Bible verses!  Here's the verse:

Jesus answered, "I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.  If you really knew me, you would know my Father as well.  From now on, you do know him and have seen him." John chapter 14 verses 6 through 7.

The kids also enjoy getting mail while they are at camp.  It's rare that we receive a letter in return.  "We were just so busy" is usually the excuse.  The ten year-old even received a letter from our cat Ike.  Please excuse the poor spelling, but he is a cat, you know.  Some of it might be hard to understand, but if you're a ten-year old living at our house, it all makes sense.

The kids are already looking forward to returning to camp next year. 

 "How-How Campers"!