Love (in pictures)

My Mother's Day plum tree

Roasting hot dogs on the patio

Sunset from porch

Boy and his work boots

Tired boy

Learning to cast

The lake

First "swim" of the year

Learning to fish

Some help from Dad

Skipping stones

Taking Memere's golf cart for a test drive

Boston.

We left school almost two weeks ago on a Wednesday morning.  A teacher, a mom, 2 minivans, and 10 students.  We arrived at Plimoth Plantation in Plymouth, Massachusetts after a fairly uneventful five hour drive (fairly because of intense fog in central Vermont and crazy traffic through Boston as buckets of rain fell from the sky).  We visited Plimoth and the Mayflower II.  It rained off and on most of the day, but the weather didn't appear to dampen anyone's spirit.

We then randomly drove until we found a public beach.  A couple of the students had never been to the ocean before.  70% of the students were soaked before we left. 

We spent the night at the church that a friend attends.  Our class has been praying for her daughter, Kayla, since her birth two years ago.  Kayla has CHARGE Syndrome and has had an uphill battle her entire life. It was great to see Sarah and meet her daughters.  The students were enamored by both girls, especially little Kayla as she signed for us.

In the morning, we headed to Boston in the midst of rush hour traffic.  We took the T (another first for many of the kids) to Park Street and then walked most of the Freedom Trail, focusing on Paul Revere's home, Old North Church, and the Bunker Hill Monument.

Next on the agenda was the Museum of Science.  We arrived there a little before 5 p.m., participated in scheduled activities until lights were out at midnight, and then had a full schedule in the morning until about 11.

We departed Boston with 10 tired kids and 2 exhausted chaperones.  

Everyone enjoyed the trip and I'll probably be ready to do it again in another 2 years :)

Green Smoothies

I finally tried a "green smoothie" and I liked it.

I had found some recipes for them, and they all called for things that I had never bought (almond milk???).  Then my friend Julia made me one with no very little weird stuff in it, and I enjoyed it quite a bit.  Now I make my own, almost daily, and I'm a huge fan.  I recommend staying away from scary "green smoothie" recipes and following something simple like this one:

A handful of fresh baby spinach leaves
A bunch of fruit (fresh and/or frozen)
A little water
Blend it up!

That's it, super easy.  I've also added protein powder ('cause Julia gave me some and says it's good for me) but haven't actually purchased any.  She also adds ground flax which sounds like a good idea but I haven't bought any of that either.

I've tried them with a variety of fruits (banana, strawberries, apples, mangos, pineapples, raspberries, blueberries, grapes) and they've been good every time.  The consistency depends on how much water you add and if there is anything with seeds in it.  My favorite so far was spinach, banana, frozen strawberries, and frozen pineapple.  Yum!

One of my hang ups was getting the blender out and dealing with cleaning it.  Now it just sits on my counter and if I clean it up immediately after I use it, it's no big deal.

By the way, my smoothies are rarely green.

A 5k and a Tear-jerker

I was nervous about running a 5k on Saturday for several reasons.

-It was only my second ever
-I hadn't prepared as well as I should have
-My calves were incredibly sore from my little jaunt up Bunker Hill Monument two days prior
-The course was described as very hilly

On the positive side:

-I woke up feeling rested after being able to sleep in a bed following two nights on a floor in a sleeping bag
-The weather was pretty much perfect
-There would be walkers that I would blend in with if I couldn't run the whole thing
-Several of my friends were there which was sure to make everything more enjoyable.

Becky, Carie, Christa, me, Melissa, Sarah, Julia

I still don't have any idea what my time was, and I don't have a fancy Garmin to track my pace and all of that, but none of that really matters to me at this point.  I was able to run/jog the whole thing (which was actually 3.4 miles, not 3.1), including the hills, and felt really good afterwards.  I did cramp up during the second mile but was able to breathe it away. 

Unlike the 5k I did in March of 2011, I didn't quit running immediately following the race.  I've run another several miles on my own since Saturday.  Hopefully I keep it up this time!

Now, for the tear-jerker.  This video is an iMovie that my little sister made for an education class final.  She just completed her freshman year in college and has made more than a few folks cry with this video.  Enjoy.  (I can't get it embedded into Blogger, but the link above will take you to her Facebook page.  Hopefully you don't have to be friends with her to see it!)

Finally, an FPU update

I haven't been posting updates because I didn't have anything new to report.  We're just keeping on with what we're doing.  Oh, and I felt bad horrible about not having done a May budget yet.  Somehow, in the midst of the craziness of life the past couple of weeks, we didn't take the time to just do it.  We also haven't taken the time to deal with the insurance stuff that we need to.

We are using the same cash envelopes as last month and did reload them, so technically, we have budgeted for groceries, clothing, babysitting, and "blow" money even though it's not down on paper.  We met with an estate planner tonight which will lead to us having written information to bring to a lawyer for a legal will.

We've continued to watch our spending closely while still allowing ourselves to live.  We went out for a friend's birthday and took the kids to a carnival for an evening.  It's all a balancing act, and we feel pretty good about how we're doing.  We got our tax assessment in the mail (turns out finishing your second floor and adding a garage makes the value of your house skyrocket!) and were able to estimate what our tax bill will be.  Thanks to JD's overtime pay and the items that we sold, we were able to put about 40% of the tax money away in April.  Not bad!  (We're used to plowing money paying for property taxes, so this is the first time we've had to save for them in quite a few years.) 

Next week should be might be a little less crazy, which will lead to more progress, which will lead to more to report.  Maybe.

Crazy Busy

I've felt a little overloaded this week, not enough to stress me out, but just enough to make each day the whole week feel really full.

We had late evenings of baseball/softball this week.  Zeke had his first game Tuesday and had a nice hit off of the first pitch during his first at bat.  The players behind him also got hits, so he was able to score a run.  He was extremely happy.  I was a bad mom and forgot the camera.  He had his second game tonight and got hits both times he was up.  I remembered the camera, but forgot to take any pictures.  That may have been a result of chasing an energetic 1.5 year old around for 2.5 hours.  Ryley has her first three games next week.  I've accepted that between 5 weeks of sports teams and 5 weeks of trying to finish the school year, not to mention the beginning of summer-y weather and late nights for JD, I'm going to be in survival mode for a little while.

I'm taking my students to Boston very soon and have been working quite a bit on getting all of the little details figured out.  This is the first time I've done this, and I'm already looking forward to the next time which will be so much easier since I will have done it before!  I've also been thinking about who will need to do what to help out with the kiddos while I'm gone.  I think I have most of that part figured out, but still need to make sure I'm set with organizing stuff like all of their uniforms for school and sports in order to make things a little easier for JD.

Over the course of the week, I managed to get a few nice walks in.  No runs though.  I had shin splints after a run late last week and used that as an excuse for a few days.  The 5k that I signed up for is just a week and a half away and I'm not going to be as ready as I'd like to be.

I'm off to read the last chapter of Johnny Tremain so that we can discuss it at school tomorrow.  Good night.