I've been asked lately what we have been up to this summer and for
some reason it always catches me off guard. I end up with a dumb look on
my face and spout off a couple responses, usually to the effect of, "Oh,
some swimming lessons," and "Just trying to stay cool."
Don't get me wrong, they are both accurate, especially the staying cool
part as there is at least one point in my day where I sit on the couch with a
glass of ice water under the fan and try to come back to a reasonable level of comfort.
So, let's see,
about the summer. Shortly after school let out we accepted a placement
for a 15 year old girl that was supposed to last about 20 days.
Unfortunately, even out "in the country" we were still a little
too close to her friends. She decided she would sneak out at night, walk
along the highway, across the bridge and into town to meet up with them.
One night I spied her coming in the back door on one of my frequent night
time trips to the bathroom. I thought it was odd, but in my constant
attempt to give her the benefit of a doubt, I just told myself she was getting
some air. I tried to go back to sleep and couldn't, because I knew
something was up. About 20 minutes later I got a call from the police
that she had been spotted with her 19 year old boyfriend and I would need to
bring her in to the police station since she was in violation of two court
orders that were set before she went into foster care. She is currently
spending this lovely summer in a juvenile detention facility. Yeah, that
one didn't tug on my heart strings at all, though I will admit the love notes I
found in her room were highly entertaining and I kept them as payment for my
night without sleep :)
Shortly after all
this I packed my bags yet again and flew to Arizona for my Let's Play Music 3rd
year training and Symposium. I traveled with my friend, Becky, who
teaches LPM in Kansas City (she took over for me when I moved to Wamego and has
a beautiful studio with over 40 students! We had a grand time staying in
a hotel room together and going out a couple times with my cousin's wife,
Tatianna. The first night there we did kareoke at Applebee's. It
wasn't my best performance, but that's not really the point of it, right?
I thought I could handle Toni Braxton's low range, but it was just too
much. Next time I'll stick with something more upbeat and entertaining
for everyone else/less torture for my voice. That was Thursday.
Friday I attended two workshops in the morning. The first was about
body language and it was fascinating! The second was about teaching
children how to compose, since one of the major accomplishments of the third
year of LPM is that the children will come up with their own compositions.
That afternoon was my training, which went well, though they always seem
to go by too fast! Friday night we had a mixer where we played
"minute to win it." Oh, my goodness, was that hilarious!
I could go on and on about all the random silliness that happened in that
hour. Just imagine a bunch of moms away from their families letting
loose. Saturday was the symposium. I think there were about 120
teachers in attendance out of 200 total. Though the presentations were
good, I'm not going to lie, my favorite part was the door prizes. LPM has
added new classes for younger children called "Sound Beginnings," so
we were given the cd's for two semesters of that program and the girls are in
love. I have thought about getting trained for it, but I really just want
to focus on LPM and getting accomplished at those classes before adding
anything else. Not to mention learning how to manage three children!
Aside from the noisy people upstairs (the Marriott had free earplugs,
thank goodness--my pregnant tired self was not something the staff wanted to leash
on the rest of the hotel at midnight) I really had a great time.
A few weeks after
I returned from AZ Piper began swimming lessons. Last year she did the
preschool lessons, so this year she started Level 1. Although she didn't
pass all the skills yet, she gained an amazing amount of confidence in the
water. She can go under for a few seconds at a time, blow water out her
nose, and actually get herself where she wants to be in the pool, especially if
she has a ring to wear. About every other lesson they take the kids to
the short diving board in an attempt to boost their confidence by trying to get
them to jump off (into a swim instructor's arms of course). Piper always
walks out and back about three times before deciding it's not for her.
Once they let her sit on the end, picked her up by the armpits, and
dropped her in. She was so excited that she "jumped" off the
board. Yeah, they haven't let her do that since. We are trying
level one again in a couple weeks, though I know I am crazy dragging myself out
in the heat four days a week for two weeks. At least the lessons are at
10:00 am this time as opposed to 11:00.
The week of the 4th of July was quite eventful. On July 3rd I was paid a special
visit by the Hansen family. Paul Hansen,
who is 77, lived in our house from when he was a small child up until the 1960’s. He came by with his two sisters, Martha and
Mary, and several of their children and grandchildren. He toured us around the property for two
hours telling stories about what life was like for his family. Many of his stories centered around the flood
of ’51. I could post for years about all
the stories he told, but I think I will wait and do a separate post on
that. Actually, he made an audio
recording of his visit, so I should probably listen to it again to get my facts
straight. It was a fascinating visit and
I felt so blessed to be a part of it and to live in this special home. I invited the family to attend the community
band performance on the 4th at the Columbian theater and they came! It was one of our best performances. We even had two high schoolers perform solos
with the band. One performed “Xylophonia,”
which was beyond amazing, a professional quality performance. The other, a member of our church, performed “Nessun
Dorma,” a solo made famous by Pavarotti, which Nathan performed beautifully on the
baritone. I was so excited Peter was
able to meet the Hansens at the performance.
Once we finished up there we headed to a branch party at our friend’s
house, ate crazy amounts of food, went and bought some fireworks, headed home,
spent about an hour on the couch drinking ice water and then took the kids outside
to light the fireworks. We put them to
bed early and watched Wamego’s fireworks display from the upstairs of the barn…a
pretty good view!
On July 7th we
celebrated Piper's birthday with a crazy water party in the backyard, complete
with water balloons, a baby pool, buckets of water, squirt guns, and a
slip-in-slide. We let the kids get good and worn out outdoors and then
brought everyone inside for a delicious burrito bar. Here are some of the
items that were available: Ground taco meat, homemade guacamole, cilantro
lime rice, the usual toppings (tomatoes, salsa, sour cream, olives, cheese), homemade
beans (I pureed my favorite ham and bean soup recipe), and of course we had
chips and processed cheese dip. Piper had a blast with her friends, for
which I was very grateful. I can't say having all her Kindergarten shots
the day before was the best move I have ever made as a mom, but she was over
her slump after about 24 hours and ready to party. We had such a
wonderful time with family and friends. I think the babies stole the show
a little. Our niece, Camilla, and my friend's baby, Austin, are both about 7
months old and were just so precious playing together. We are so excited
to have another baby in the house! Our evening culminated with the
opening of presents and devouring of several princess cupcakes. Piper loved every present and I am not
exaggerating!
At this point in the summer, we are just trying to stay busy,
cool, and accomplish as much as possible before the baby arrives. Peter has been especially busy at work. After passing his traffic test, he became the
official traffic engineer for the City of Manhattan. About a year or so ago, a microburst took out
the roof of the old traffic shop. Plans
had been discussed off and on to build a new shop anyway, but this incident sealed
the deal and Peter began planning the new building. The city owned a lot where an old gas station
was located. Because of the toxicity of
what is underground there, the city had basically acquired the land for
free. This did make designing the
building a little tricky since digging much deeper than five feet or so was not
an option. Anyway, I am pleased to
announce the building is finally completed, Peter has his own office he gets to
manage, and he is really pleased with the results of the construction. I am pleased with the nice big break room we
can make a mess in when we come to visit for lunch!
I’ve been keeping busy in my own ways, namely organizing and
reorganizing our house and trying out new recipes. So far homemade yogurt and granola are the
new favorites around here. I canned
bread and butter pickles and have enough cucumbers to do a couple more
batches. We also have tomatoes both from
our garden and from a friend’s we are going to be canning. I will be glad when it’s all cleaned up and
done. My new favorite snack is a
triscuit with homemade greek yogurt spread on it and a bread and butter pickle
on top. It’s delicious!
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