HAPPY BIRTHDAY MADDY!!!! Ten years today - how did that happen?????









Ok - here are the promised forgotten vacation photos.... We usually spend time hiking, biking, canoeing, and having fun in nature. But there always seems to be one memorable moment/activity that always makes the vacation memorable for the kids.... Who can forget the begging last year for the gem mine? And it was fun wasn't it Uncle Wally????

Here is this year's memorable moment:
















How many of you have had the opportunity to ride a walleye???




And the trivia question for the vacation.... Can you name Paul Bunyan's home town???? The answer is in this picture.

As summer is winding down for you northerners, we are just getting ready to be able to enjoy the outside again! :) Here is a picture of our latest project - the outdoor kitchen. Aren't we trendy?????

Because our gas line is by the back door, we had to put the grill there....








And because it is right by the door, there was no room for a counter to eat at, so we had to build a counter seating area on the other side of the lanai (for you northerners - that's the Florida way of saying back patio...)








This is the grill area up close.... Betcha Walter is just dying to get down here to grill something!





This is the counter where Craig will be mixing all the fruity/slushy drinks for Amy and me..... Anyone else care to join????





Also, just for GpaZ (who happened to be chatting with me when I found out I forgot to turn off the hose while filling the pool this morning and it is now 4pm.....) Look at the picture with the pool and you will see it is full to the brim. I am now draining my pool. Let's hope I don't forget to turn off the drain because I understand that is worse than overfilling - with the water table so high, your pool can pop out of the ground! Anyone want to play guess what my water bill will be this month????


Tune in to my next post for some forgotten vacation pictures that some may wish remained in the forgotten pile!

Look at Lucy! Hasn't she grown since our last photo? And check out her stick - the bigger, the better!

More camping tales....



This is a picture of us biking. Maddy & Nick completed a 17 mile bike ride - yes, I said 17 miles! They rode around Lake Itasca with Walter and me. They are troopers! (And just because there always has to be a Walter story....) And Maddy even got right back on her bike after Walter ran her off the bike path..... :)






On the biking adventure, we stopped to climb a fire tower. I asked them to look like they were about to jump for this silly picture. I'm not sure if it is pretend or real fear on Nick's face.... You can see from the next picture how high the tower is. When you climb up, it is all metal grating so you can see all the way down through the stairs and to add to the fear, it shakes in the wind a good amount. Both the kids and I were a bit squeamish going all the way to the top, but the view was awesome.

Ahhhh.... vacation..... A time of relaxation, rejuvination - being able to enjoy the slow life with family you love....

Unless you happen to have the misfortune of having to vacation with Walter! :) You know there has to be some adventure and new lessons learned in every camping trip....

So here we were entering the Boundary Waters in Upper Minnesota. A beautiful area of gorgeous lakes and great wildlife. Looks like we are having a great time eh????















Do you notice in that last picture how the waves seem to be bigger???? For those of you that don't get out to enjoy nature much, that means that the wind is picking up. Doesn't look that bad some of you may say, but when you mix strong gusty winds coming at you, waves on a large open lake and (the killer) small children in the front of the canoe (meaning all the weight and rowing strength is in the back of the canoe), it spells disaster! :)

So after enjoying lunch on an island, we headed back to the dock. Walter had Joe and Katie (and the map) and I had Nick and Maddy. The kids and I take off to the other side of the lake going across the wind. With Nick and Maddy's awesome paddling we make it. Shortly after Walter makes it as well. I then verify where we are going and take off. Walter (who can paddle harder than I can) gets ahead of us and then proceeds to head back across the lake we just paddled across. Without the map and cursing him because I have no idea where he is going we start to follow. When we got close enough to shout where on earth is he going (that is the edited version...) I find out that the wind just carried him over there and we needed to keep heading into the wind.

Do you have any idea what happens to a canoe that is lighter in the front and doesn't have any paddling strength up front when heading into a wind??? It spins backwards - over and over and over again - and then when you paddle to turn it the right way again, you find yourself further from your destination since the wind carried you backwards during the whole fiasco... I finally realized the only way we were getting back to the dock was for me to become a drill sergeant and push Maddy and Nick to row their little hearts out. (I won't mention the part about almost tipping the canoe....) They performed admirably! Walter on the other hand went into the reeds of the shore and basically pushed his canoe home.

Ahhhh another enjoyable, relaxing day of vacation with Walter..... I will let Amy tell the rest of the vacation story since she is so good at doing the vacation summaries!

Diving Camp was a success! The girls went for an entire week, staying at the University of Florida dorms. (Mom did stay in Gainesville in case there was a melt down...) They had lots of fun and learned a lot. They were a bit surprised by the "conditions" of dorm rooms - I think they thought it would be like a hotel... :)







But the favorite part by far was getting to eat in the cafeteria - with no Mom telling them what to eat! Maddy was on the all "white food" diet... White bread, turkey, pasta with no sauce, english muffins.... Katie was on the all pizza diet and every now and then had some cereal for breakfast if no pizza was available! :)












No actual diving pictures.... have you ever tried to take a diving picture with a digital camera with a delay???? Not pretty. But Katie is doing well on her inward and even surprised the coach by doing it off the 3-meter board. Maddy is really getting more height on her back dive - working towards the back flip and they both are almost doing a front flip. Both also went off the 5 meter board and I understand that Katie walked up to the 10 meter, but decided against going off! I can't blame her - I don't think I could even go up and look over!

Lucy sure has gotten big! She's almost as big as Duke now. She gets to run in the backyard and she loves to chew sticks (& the occasional 2x4).

Congratulations, Lucy - you graduated from puppy school!

CRUISE PHOTOS!!!

Here's the front of Tante Laura's new house in Jacksonville, FL. Walter is standing next to our car that didn't start the morning of the cruise. So we took Uncle Craig's car, which is the red one in the picture!


Can you say TITANTIC?

This was Uncle Wally's first, FIRST, cruise. We sailed from Port Canaveral to the Bahamas for a 3 night cruise over Memorial Day weekend. We had a lot of fun, and Uncle Wally survived even the turbulent waters we encountered. Did you know he was a closet karaoke wannabe? We went to each adult karaoke show but alas, the slots were always filled before Walter could add his name! hee hee The dueling pianos were a big hit with us - it was how we'd close out each evening. The snorkeling in Nassau was great although the water was really cold; we didn't get to stop at Coco Cay Beach because the winds were too high so we just sailed around the Atlantic until it was time to come home. We're looking forward to our next cruise, whenever that may be!










Here we are at dinner - we were at a table for 6 but we were the only ones who showed up for dinner each night. Oh, well - we were fascinating conversationalists on our own! ha ha



And just to prove that we really were in the Bahamas...

We celebrated Katie's 8th birthday at Disney - she must be pretty lucky... We called on Friday to get any reservation still available, thinking we might just end up eating a big Disney turkey leg in honor of her birthday. But what luck, they had 9am reservations at Cinderella's Castle for the princess! :) A good time was had by all, but I really think that Snow White was working Katie for a piece of cake!

































These haven't changed in about 30 years - but they are ALWAYS a good time!





















Here they are enjoying some of the rides and everyone's favorite Disney pastime - standing in line...














































They were so exhausted after the big trip, they couldn't even stay awake to eat dinner - notice the half eaten chicken nugget in Nick's hand...

















We visited Animal Kingdom and the Magic Kingdom. Plus Craig took all the kids to Blizard Beach on Friday by himself! :) Sorry there are no pictures of the water park - I had the camera in my purse. I don't think anyone wants to see pictures of the homeschool conference I attended....

Unfortunately, I also have no pictures of (drum roll please.... and you may want to sit down....) All FOUR, yes I said all four children on the first real roller coaster ride! Joey, Nick and Katie did Mt Everest in Animal Kingdom and Maddy, Nick, Joey and Katie did Big Thunder Mountain and Space Mountain twice at the Magic Kingdom. They may need years of therapy (especially Joey) to get over it, but bribery is a magical parenting tool! :) Don't ask Uncle Craig how much it set him back....

Now we just have to pester Amy about posting cruise pictures.....

Happy Birthday Walter!


Such a hands-on Dad and Uncle - always willing to use top-notch problem solving skills with the children such as "Didn't I tell you to get your butt out of (insert current location of said child ) and get moving???" Here is an example of the magic he has with children!




Always an ACTIVE and devoted puppy parent! Ready to step right in a take on the responsibility of a frisky young pup!




And who could forget this memorable day when he ate nothing but lobster for the entire day!!!!





And of course my favorite hiking buddy!




But now that you are 40, I might have to consider replacing you with someone who can keep up the pace! :)



Hope you have a great birthday! We love you! (And love poking fun at you!)

Our first snake encounter...



So Scooter was outside in the yard and just HAD to walk through my garden, when I saw him start jumping around like he was walking on hot coals.... By his feet, I see this 4 foot long slithering black snake who was clearly not happy to be disturbed. EWWWWW! Lucky for us, the pest control guy was here pumping gallons of toxic chemicals around our house to eliminate any pesky termites that might think my humble abode was lunch. He quickly called his "snake guy" and they scientifically identified it as a black racer back, since it turned away from the ringing phone (rather than attacking the phone and thus identifying it as a moccasin, which I understand would be very bad for Scooter.)

Perhaps this will teach Scooter to stay out of the garden - of course it may also teach me to stay away as well.... He is now sound asleep after his frightening encounter - I keep checking his breathing just in case.... Between this and the pesky neighbor cat who stalks the dogs at night, my dogs may be so frightened of the outdoors that I will need to toilet train them...

We are officially in our house. The girls are enjoying getting to know the neighborhood kids and we are up to our eyeballs in boxes. The Kreilings will be down for Memorial Day weekend (a big birthday and anniversary....) and then we are up for any visitors! The accomodations include a nice guest bedroom in a quiet part of the house, access to the pretty pool and the beach is a mere 20 minutes away.

We also would love to see more Lucy pictures! Hint.... Hint...

To homeschool or not to homeschool....

We never set out to homeschool our children, it just happened. We bought the house in suburbia with the "excellent" school district, got the dog for the yard, and sent our oldest off to her first day of kindergarden with the prerequisite pictures, backpack and Mom's tears... Little did we know that she would be in a class with 29 of her closest companions and being a quiet, fairly well-behaved kid would not serve her well in that environment. She did fine academically, but emotionally it was a roller coaster. She would often be in tears at the end of the day because she would raise her hand with a question and never get the teacher's attention (because the teacher was busy with the 15 kids who would fuss and tug at her...) and then it would be time to go home and she wouldn't be done with whatever project was assigned. Should she just keep working or get her coat on? To a 5 year old, who is very tuned into doing "the right thing" it was torture... The teacher was always very apologetic and I know she tried her best, but what can you do.... The quiet well-behaved kid gets what is left over.

So fast-forward to today and that same child of mine would head into 4th grade next year. We have moved to Florida and although the schools in general are not stellar, we did move into one of the best districts in the state and now have two dogs in the yard.... She would like to try school.

But somewhere along the way, we really started to enjoy the freedom of homeschooling. I enjoy picking the curriculum that I think matches best with their learning styles. Neither of the girls will be the next Einstein, but we can go as quickly or slowly through a topic as is necessary. Public schools don't offer that freedom - we did the school tour and another homeschool Mom was touring and was asked if the school offered "levels" of math and reading - the answer was no. In 4th grade, you do 4th grade math - no working above or below level.... (And we wonder why American Schools are lagging behind other nations...)

We also enjoy the freedom to travel when we want to or have a more relaxed schedule when we have visitors. The attendance policy is very strict and does not allow for absences for anything other than illness. If you take your children out of school, they are penalized by not being allowed to make up the work.... and they only get a week at Christmas and one week for spring break at the end of April. With family in Chicago, Savanna, NC and SC, we would have to limit visits to family to maybe once a year. I'm not sure when we as a society decided that public schools should have that type of control in our children's lives, but that is another blog post.

So why are we considering it? Maybe it is time for the girls to meet the real world. They have led a very sheltered life and maybe it is time to introduce them to dealing with other kids good or bad.... I also think a bit of competition (besides your sister) might be a good thing. And if I didn't have the girls all day, maybe I could run that marathon Walter keeps pushing me towards....

Feel free to leave comments - it might give me some insight I haven't thought about....

The Kreiling family headed south for Easter - down to Jacksonville to check out Craig & Laura's new digs. As with most of the country, it was the coldest Easter on record but we managed to have a great time AND visit the beach with Lucy. As a matter of fact, the kids actually went into the ocean in their swimming suits! I've posted some pictures of Lucy at the beach, her cousins playing fetch in the ocean, and the kids posing with Lucy. She's getting big, isn't she?

So, who has this luck???? The beach house and the golf course house both had good potential. But both went under contract - grrrrr! It is a down market and both had been on the market for at least 4 months if not more. We could have slipped in and written a better contract in both instances because we can close so fast, but just can't see the sense in a bidding war in a down market.... So we walked from both...

Back to the drawing board! :) Every time we have lost a house in our past, we have always found something better. Let's hope the real estate gods are with us on this one!

We have finally landed in Jacksonville! Here we are enjoying an afternoon at the beach - not sure who enjoys it the most - dogs or girls..... The water is still too cold for me, but the girls say it is fine. I would never rely on the dog's opinion since they went into the water at Cape May in November and I think the water temperature was about 50 degrees..... So I guess that makes the girls more reliable.




You can weigh in on the current house/location choices:

1st home is in an area called San Marco. Close to the river, but not the beach. Old home with lots of character, which is what we usually pick. In Duval County - schools not so good, but this area is a highly desirable area of Jacksonville with cute shops and walk to lots of stuff and real neighborhoods. Homes are smaller. I don't believe they have ever filmed an episode of "Cops" in this area which seems to be a good indicator....

2nd home is in a golf club community and is newer construction. Very family oriented - community pool, playground, activities director that does kids/family activities. One of the best school districts in FL from what we have heard (although I'm not sure better than really bad is so good....) Might be fun to live in a house where the projects are to paint and pretty rather than fix the leaks and squeaks...

3rd home is at the beach. You can walk to the beach. It is an older home, but still rather recent, I think around 80's. Same good school district. Many added expenses to the area namely insurance, but did I say you can walk to the beach???? Walter can even run on the beach and it is very important to us to consider that as well! :) Life would just be one big vacation. Can you move to the beach and not live at the beach????

All homes have a pool which is at the top of the list for the girls. So I guess with the beach house, the girls could come home from the beach and hop into the pool! :)

Disclaimer - Each and every opinion will be read, but we may or may not consider it if it is too practical! :)