{Summer}

Summer is in full swing around our house.  As I type this the kids are on the trampoline with the sprinkler underneath.  That is a sure sign of summer.  I do have a few things though to post to catch up from the end of school year.  I kinda like doing these posts where I play catch up and share little snippets of our life.  I recently got a new phone that has a much better camera in it than my last one.  I can capture better pictures on the go which adds more tidbits!!  So here we go...

Meysa and Lauryn had their Spring piano recital on the last day of school.  Meysa has come so far in one year of piano.  She is a natural and she loves it.  Lauryn did really well too.  She has only been taking lessons since January.  We are waiting for her to catch the bug and take it a bit more seriously but in typical Lauryn fashion, it has to be her idea.  We are taking a month off this summer and hopefully when we get back at it she will be ready.

Now talk about natural.  Lauryn is Gumby in girl form and everything gymnastics comes really easy.  She had her show week last week where she got to show us the routines that she has been working on since January.  She did awesome and had a great time!!

Ryan was promoted a few weeks ago to Major!  So proud of him!!

The boys practiced some pitching drills at the school one night.  Ayden is a lefty, so in baseball that limits the positions he will likely play.  But, one position he can play is pitcher and that is right up his Dad's alley.  He is signed up for a baseball camp next month, should be fun!!

We have been having some funky weather as of late.  Lots of thunderstorms and severe weather.  On this particular afternoon, there were tornadoes a few miles north of us and we had severe thunderstorms.  So we huddled in our basement.  The kids could tell it was a whopper of a storm so we tried to take their mind off the wind and rain by watching a movie.  It seemed to work.
 

Wyatt is reading.  Not just a few words, but whole books.  He can read Green Eggs and Ham, Ten Apples up on Top, and Biscuit.  He is pretty proud of himself.

The two youngest kids had a really weird rash that the Dr's thought were hives but they were liquid filled.  They had them in between their fingers, arms and on their faces.  I didn't know hives could be liquid filled but whatever.  It is pretty much gone and now we have peeling fingers from the dried out "hives".   Lots of fun!!

We have been thoroughly enjoying our pool pass so far this summer.  These two have taken off with their swimming.

Putting my kids to work.  They love pizza poppers so I had them help fix dinner the other night!!

Ayden had his gear check last Friday for scout camp.  He had to get pretty strategic in his packing to make sure he could get everything he needed into his pack.

When you play hard you sleep hard.

It was too early for humans to be up, but alas I was up and sending the Men off to scout camp.  From the texts I have been getting from Ryan, they are having fun!!

The girls are attending an art camp a few days a week.  Today, Wyatt and I hung out at Chick-Fil-A enjoying some ice cream!!

My little shadow!!  Such a little man child!!

There you have it.  A little catch up on the tidbits of life around these parts!!

{Last Day of School}

It is here!  The last day of school.  Phew, I think we barely made it.  Although yesterday evening after I broke up the 50th fight between the kids I began to question my excitement for summer to be here.  Do I really want them home ALL day, EVERY day?  I think we have enough going on this summer that we won't be sitting around staring at each other all day.  We have summer school, baseball camp, scout camp, art camp, the pool.  I think we will be fine.  The kids are excited for summer to begin so they can sleep in (me too).  We have planned to have Friday night movie nights, lots of library trips and a few days spent at the beach.  

Here is a wrap up of the kids' school year....

Ayden finished his first year of middle school with flying colors.  He excelled in his classes and was a great student.  He is looking forward to 7th grade, and not being the youngest at the school anymore.  His plans this summer are to enjoy his first scout camp, learn a ton at baseball camp and get a good tan at the pool.

Meysa had a great 3rd grade year.  She is a great kid, who loves school and it shows in her work.  She is excelling in her studies and the staff at school love her.  She got several end of the year awards, including one  for music, academics and citizenship!!  This chicka is preparing for her National Youth Scholars Program camp in July, and tearing up the library this summer.

Lauryn had a great year again this year.  Next year she will be the oldest at her school, which is hard to believe.  She loved her teacher this year and met every milestone plus some this year in her academics.  She again showed she has some artistic talents in her art class and is a great writer!!  She plans on working on her swimming skills at the pool and enjoying some fun summer school.  She gets to show Wyatt around school so he is ready for Kindergarten in the Fall.

This little man rocked Preschool!!  We did it at home and about a month in I realized the curriculum that I had purchased wasn't going to be enough for him.  We still had fun with it and we supplemented with other things to keep him engaged.  Not only does he know his letters and their sounds, he is reading.  He knows his numbers 1-100 and all the other essentials for starting Kindergarten.  He too will be enjoying Summer School, a free program the district puts on for the month of July.  I think it will be a good transition from home to public school.  Lauryn will be with him and he gets to ride a bus and eat lunch at school.  All really cool things!! :)  He too will be working on his swimming skills and reading a lot this summer.

This was my last year with any kids at home.  I am officially moving in to the next phase of motherhood.  I am sad but excited too.  Here is to a great summer filled with fun, reading and sleeping in!! :)

{Twelve}

This crazy kid turned 12 just a few days ago.  I am pretty much in denial about it all.  It really does seem like yesterday that I gave birth to him, or at least just sent him off to Kindergarten.  He is at this age, so much fun and yet so frustrating at the same time.  I am sure it is only a precursor for the upcoming teen years.  

We sure do love him, more than even he thinks we do (we are the strictest and meanest parents ya know)!!  He is talented, creative and smart!  He is helpful, kind and funny!!  What my life would be like without him, I don't want to know.  We are so thankful for him and what he brings to our family!!  

Happy Birthday Ayden, we love you!!

{The Battleground}

If you ever get to go see Gettysburg, I would recommend buying the audio vehicle tour to tour the battlefield.  It is dramatized and I thought a good rendition of what those three days at Gettysburg were like.  After we spent some time at the Spangler farm we headed out to drive around the battlefield.  The tape originally said it would take us 90 minutes to do the whole tour.  Well double that and it was pretty accurate.  There are over 1300 monuments on the battlefield itself.  No I didn't take pictures of each and everyone but we stopped at a good many of them.  I did get a few pictures of the battlefield areas, some of the more important parts such as Devil's Cave, Little Roundtop, the Peach Orchard, ect.  There were over 100,000 soldiers fighting at Gettysburg between the North and the South.  After the three day battle there were 57,225 that were casualties.  So imagine as you look out over the fields the chaos and death that would have been witnessed there.  I am always amazed at the feelings I have as I walk around these places.  I am so thankful that my children get the chance to learn about sacrifice for freedom and to learn to respect those that serve today.  It is always a sacred experience for me.

We stopped at the Gettysburg National Military Cemetery on Memorial Day.  Seemed fitting.  As we walked through the gates a feeling seemed to wash over us and we became quieter, more reverent.  Just like when we visited Arlington, those feelings of gratitude to those that gave all for our freedom was present.  As we neared the end of the loop that you walk through the cemetery, Ryan said he was done. I think it hits a little close to home for him, being a soldier.  I know I am grateful for him and his willingness to serve our country.
It was a wonderful weekend and we talk about going back to see more.  It is definitely a must see if you are ever on the East coast.

{Spangler Farm}

We got the unique opportunity to visit the Spangler Farm while we were in Gettysburg.  Memorial Day weekend was the first time this farm was open to the public.  This particular farm is historically important because it was turned into a field hospital for mostly Union and a few Confederate soldiers.  It is also believed to be where Confederate General Lewis A. Armistead died from the injuries he received on the third and final day of the Battle of Gettysburg.  The little building in the foreground (the rock one) is the summer kitchen where the General was taken and where he died.  We got to see inside the barn (below) which was turned into the actual hospital and we tried to imagine the conditions for those poor men.  There were hundreds of men treated inside the building at a time.  Those that were waiting to be treated or had been seen but were waiting to go to the actual hospital, waited outside under the eaves if there was room.  If not they waited outside in the heat and the elements.

These fields were most certainly filled with injured and dying men.  The history books say that at least 1800 Union and 100 Confederate soldiers were treated at the Spangler farm during the three day battle and even after it was over.  There were only 7 surgeons stationed at the farm to take care of that many men.  The fighting was happening not a mile away, on the other side of that tree line.

One of the Spangler boys wrote his name on the rail of this wall in the barn well after the war.

  

My little history buff was asking questions left and right.  He loves himself some history!!

This is the smoke house that was there in 1863.  Everything but the tin roof is original.

 This is the field that they buried the men in that died at the field hospital.  Most of the Union soldiers that were buried there were later retrieved and reburied after family came to claim their bodies.  The soldiers that are still buried there today are Confederate.  Their families didn't have the means to travel and retrieve their bodies.  So they remain there to this day.  The goal of the Gettysburg Foundation is to put a name and a face to all those still buried here.

The kids got a real in depth lesson on battlefield medicine circa 1863.  This gentlemen had them standing in rapt attention as he went through each and every step that would be taken in the event of an amputation or a bullet wound.  He gave us survival rates depending on injuries.  It made me so happy to be living today.

It was such a neat opportunity to see the battlefield in an up close/personal way.  After leaving the Spangler farm we headed out to do a audio driving tour of the battlefields.  It took us through all three days of the battle and all over the country side.  Be prepared for a "few" pictures!!