Going Home, part 3

TN continued...

 One of the first activities we did upon arriving in TN was paint these cute little birdhouses that my mom had bought for the kids.  She always has really fun activities planned for them.  She's a brave woman to take us on.  My kids love to paint.  They were pumped.  It was fun to see how each house turned out.  One.

 Two.

 One, Two, and Gma Shari.  I actually think that Three, Four, and BoyTwo were all napping.

 Three

 Four. 

 BoyTwo.  Don't you just love the heart?!

 After Pinkerton Park (previous post), we took the kids to downtown Franklin where it's very quaint and darling.  There's this awesome frozen yogurt shop there (even T. Swift herself has been there:)) that we love to visit.  The kids get to pick out the flavor of yogurt they want (usually about ten to choose from) and any toppings.  My mom and I were on yogurt patrol trying to make sure they didn't overload themselves as they usually do (which ends in them not eating a single bite because there's way too much crap on their yogurt to be considered edible).  On our way into the shop, we had to pass this statue.  Shocking that the kids were completely sidetracked by this lady of stone.  We spent about ten minutes with her.  Four and Three.

 Then Three randomly decided to pick her nose, as in the statues nose.

 Which meant BoyTwo had to do it, too.

 Which led to One pretending to kiss her.

 Which led to Four having the statue bite her finger.

 Which led to Two dramatically hugging her and proclaiming her love for her.

Which led to BoyOne walking far away from us:)

 After we got our yogurts, we walked across the street to this grassy area with a cannon to eat.  I tried really hard to get the kids to all smile and pose by the cannon but this was as good as it got.

 There was this very cool memorial for the veteran's of the wars from Williamson County.  Each of the squares in the cement was for a soldier.

 Then, while I was having a really important lesson on how grateful we should be for our freedom, yada, yada, yada, the kids totally agreed with me and said, 'yeah, if they hadn't gone to war we wouldn't have this awesome rock to climb on.'

Totally lost on them.  sigh.

 And then it got dark really fast and we headed for home.

 A firefly.  One of my favorite things about TN.  Love those little bugs!!  BoyTwo wanted to keep it as a pet and in loving it so, so much, killed it (within five minutes of catching it).  He just can't not do it.

 This trip a crowd favorite was making collages.  My mom has a ton of magazines that she let the kids cut pictures out of, along with a ton of construction paper that they glued these pictures to.  They then hung the finished products all. over. her. house.  She wanted to send them all to me when we got home but I told her they were for her to keep to remember us by, thank you no!  Seriously though, it kept them busy for hours and hours.  And hours.  All of them.

 Another scenic picture.  How can you not love this place?!

 BoyOne with one of many of his collages.  He did do a bird house but at a different time than the other kids.  And I guess I forgot to take a picture of him:(  Or maybe it's on the other memory card that I haven't loaded onto the computer yet.  Who knows.

 One collage-ing.

 One, Two, and 'K', One's TN BFF.

 'K' lives just a couple of doors down from my parents and these two hit it off about four years ago and have remained friends ever since.  I can't believe how big they are!!!

 Their clubhouse that they started four years ago.  The entrance, from the inside.

 Inside the girls only club, boys with permission only.

 The price they paid for playing outdoors with the fireflies that one night.  We have never even seen mosquitos here before this trip so we were totally caught off guard.  Each kid had over 100 bites.  When I went to the pharmacy to buy caladryl and benedryl, I mentioned to the pharmacist their bites and asked if there was something better to give them (they were dying).  She asked me if I was sure they hadn't been eaten by chiggers and I said what in the world is a chigger?  So she had me bring them in to look at their bites as she had never heard of anyone ever having that many mosquito bites.  However, once she saw their little legs she said they were definitely mosquitos and not chiggers and I still don't know what a chigger is!!  I'll have to google it when I'm done.  The poor kids were miserable.  But just maybe it was nice to have some benedryl in them...  Maybe.

These pictures don't do it justice.  I've never seen anything like it before.  One had over 100 on each leg.  It was really bad.

Going Home, part 2

More of our trip to TN

 One of our all time favorite places to visit while we are in TN is  Pinkerton Park.  It's awesome!!

There are fields for running and soccer, swings, three different playgrounds, a green belt walking/running trail, and our very favorite Tinkerbell Playground!

 Love all the pretty flowers and bushes and trees that don't grow out in the west.

 Two crossing the monkey bars.  Look at all that proprioceptive input she's getting!  You can see from the smile on her face that she is one happy little girl!!

 BoyOne in a rare moment with a real smile:)

 Synchronized monkey bars.  The first of many synchronized events to take place during this trip.

 One standing on top of something not very safe, I'm sure.

 Three crossing the bars.

 BoyTwo watching the chaos.

 Isn't that such a great picture?!  I was lucky to catch the cool view with my camera.

 Four.  She is big into showing us how she can do the splits on everything from picnic tables (here) to the stairs to the pews at church...

 One and Four.  This was super entertaining to watch.

 And then began the great game of tag!!  Run Three, run!!  This is a favorite pastime of the kids because it involves running and climbing.  They play this elaborate tag game where they are not allowed to touch the ground.  They even have a specific 'fair' way of deciding who has to be 'it' first.  It starts out all fun and games but there are two kids (Three and BoyTwo) who don't like to be 'it' ever.  And then the big kids get a little too serious about it and then the game ends, but for now it was fun.  It was fabulous to watch the rest of the kids who came to the part watch this craziness and then ask to play.  At one point there were our six kids and six others playing, too.

 Love the look of surprise on her face.  She must have either seen someone get tagged or was about to be tagged herself:)

 When it started to get ugly, we decided (I insisted) that the little kids be allowed to step off the structure and onto a nearby 'boat' where they could claim 'base' (btw I just had to step outside to ask my kids what it was called as I couldn't remember the word.  space?  place?  I was close) and have a little rest for a minute.  Or two.  Or three.  One kid asked my kids if they were all friends and they told him they were siblings and the kid said something along the lines of 'holy crap!'  hahaha

 The left side of the Tinkerbell Playground where tag was played.

 The right side of the playground.  It's huge and there was tons of room to run and be off the ground.  Perfect for their game.

 The fence is blocking it, but this is a set of drums.  Shocking, I know, that BoyTwo was drawn to this:)

See how his head is?  That is how it is all the time.  He can't hold it up.  We're working on it though.  He just doesn't have any muscles.

 Three and BoyTwo.  

 My kids call my dad Papa John and my mom Grandma Shari.  My dad bought KF.C and brought it to the park for us to have for dinner when he got off of work.  The kids were pretty pumped as they were starving and needed to be refueled.

Four asked that I take this picture of her being a bunny.  She pretended to be a rabbit for quite a long time, complete with the wiggly nose and teeth.  Kept her very busy after tag fell apart.

District Testing Update

I received a phone call this morning from the school saying that the head of the ESL department for our school district had called to let them know that she could give BoyTwo a non-verbal IQ test to place his ability level.  

I believe this to be a good thing as it will show us, roughly, where he is at.  I should receive paperwork for this testing this week and will obviously return it the next day.  Testing is then required to take place within 30 days.

My principal also suggested that we appeal for a 504 for BoyTwo as he has a diagnosed learning disability (ADHD) which should not be relevant to his ESL status.  A 504 does not provide extra academic help but it does set in stone different accommodations that must be provided such as verbal testing vs. written testing, tracking of progress (my two big requests).  

Good start, yeah?

Going Home, part 1

Going home.  

These two words have so many different meanings and so many different feelings attached to them.  For me, going home refers to when I go to visit my parents at their home in TN.  I have never lived in that home; they moved there shortly after One was born.  I don't have a bedroom there or people whom I have grown up with who know stories about me from way back when.  Good grief they don't have hardly any furniture there that was around when I was living with them.  Yet I feel like I'm going home when I visit there.  This is because of who I am going home to, my parents.

This summer I was lucky enough to travel to TN with my six kiddos for 10 days to visit my parents.  Hello tree lined streets, fireflies, humidity, stone walls, southern drawls, ma'ams and sirs, and pure summer fun.  It is here that I actually feel like it's summer as I remember it.  Probably because I'm thousands of miles away from responsibilities to anyone and anything other than my family.  The physical distance from things makes life seem less overwhelming and further away time wise.  Sort of like I can push pause and just forget it all.

Because there are seven of us traveling now, (Huz doesn't come, too much time away from work... or so he says:)) and the fact that we could fly to Hawaii for less than it would cost us to get to TN, the original plan was for me to drive out there by myself with the kids.  However at the last minute (seriously, 2 a.m. two days before I was to leave) Huz found a great flight out of Denver.  We bought plane tickets for the seven of us roundtrip to TN and Huz roundtrip tickets from Denver to SLC, drove to Denver, stayed the night with Huz's aunt and uncle, we flew to TN the next day, Huz flew back home to his vacation, and met back at the airport 10 days later for the drive home.  All for less money than it would have cost to make the drive out there.  Sweet.  Honestly though, I was looking forward to the drive, but I'd probably have been singing a different tune about 1/2 hour into it.

I love love love TN.  My parents will retire soon-ish and have plans to move back to the west to be closer to the rest of the family.  It will be so great to have them back here with us all, but oh, how I will miss TN.  It's beauty and the peace that the distance from my 'real' life offers.  

Here is the beginning of an overview of our final fling before returning to life and school.

 BoyTwo.  This is early on in the ride when everyone is still fresh.

Notice he is no longer in a five point harness!  We still have the child safety lock on (notice where his hands rest...)

 Four

She was in the middle of the middle bench.  Boy trapped, as they call it, by her brothers.

 BoyOne.  He was way into the movie.

 One.  This is her fake smile that says 'I'm not happy right now take the picture.'  One had created a 'suite' for herself in the back side.  But, being the good big sister that she is, and to appease her pleading mother, she agreed to sit in between her two sisters who both wanted to sit by her.  Who, by the way, cannot sit by each other.  One of them (Three) is sort of the x factor and can only sit in a very few locations without there being serious drama.

 Three.  Happy as a lark to be by her big sis.

 Two.  She is such an easy child.  Makes up for her not being an easy baby:)

 Group shot.  

 Driver Huz

Have you ever driven through Wyoming?  Bo-ring.  Like way.  

 When we finally got to CO it was past dinner time.  Huz's Aunt Polly had a delicious dinner of chicken noodle soup and cinnamon rolls waiting for us.  It had been a long time since we last had visited Mark and Polly in CO, over 12 years!!  We usually see them when they are here visiting, so it was fun to be there with them for a change.  Also, obviously none of our kids had ever been to visit them.  They have this fun park right by their house that we took the kids to in order to run them.  They needed some serious sensory input after that car ride!!

 BoyTwo, spinning

 One and BoyOne, climbing.  

Looks like I accidentally left one off of Two and Three.  I'll tack it on at the end.  ok. never mind.  I just finished and it seems to out of place to put a random picture of the two girls at the end of all the TN pics, so just pretend you can see them in basically the same position as One and BoyOne.  thx:)

And now, 

TN

 This is the side of the highway.  I think it is so pretty!  I love that there is vegetation growing right out of the rock.  It amazes me that there is virtually no soil on top for vegetation to grow in.  

 So beautiful.  I'll bet God had fun creating this!

 I live in the desert.  When I come to TN I just cannot get enough of all the trees and green!  I love all the rolling hills and pastures.

 This is in town on the street near my parents home.  I love the little rock wall.  There are walls like that all over that date back to the civil war.

 Tree lined street.  Love them!

 More tree lined streets.

 And again, more tree lined streets.  There are a lot of 'tree tunnels' that we drive through where the trees on either side of the road meet way up at the top and create a sort of tunnel or canopy that you drive beneath.

 I love love love these black fences!  They are so plain and simple but so beautiful!  

I love how they contrast against the green.

 A field near my parents home.  I love farms.  Somehow Huz and I failed to have this talk prior to our marriage.  I remember discussing with him one time after we were married about where we wanted to live when we retired.  I wanted to live on a farm with a corn field and wheat field and some animals and an apple orchard and a white house with a big front porch.  He planned on living near a golf course.  We both thought the other was crazy.  I guess we're sort of at a compromise right now, leaning a little more heavily in his direction.  We are not anywhere near retirement, where we live is fairly rural, some days it feels like we live on a farm between the two dogs, cat, rabbit, salamander and kids, and we are near a golf course.  I'll take it!

 I love barns!

 Sorry about the tree.  This is my favorite house in TN.  Well, at least in the parts of TN that I've seen:)  We were driving and I had a big lense on my my camera so I couldn't zoom out any more than this, but friends, this is my dream.  A white house with a big front porch.  They have a barn, the black fence, some fruit trees and a field.  Love. It.

 A pretty field.  I love how the fields here are lined with trees to mark the property lines.  Sort of like in Ukraine...

more to come