Beachin' It

Wednesday, the first official day of summer, and temperatures in the 90's, led to us hitting the beach.  We went to a VT state park, Branbury Beach, on the shore of Lake Dunmore.

Zeke and Dick are out on the kayak.

This little dude loved the beach.

Scuba Zeke

Dick trying to get Zeke soaked.

Thursday, temps in the 90s again, another beach?  Why not.  This time we headed to Lake George to a free town beach.  The kids didn't enjoy it as much as Dunmore, so we probably won't make the effort to get back to this one too often.  The sand was extremely hot and we had to remove several dead fish from the water :(  

"Hey Buddy."

We hit another VT state park on Friday, this one a little closer to home on the shores of Lake Champlain.  The temps weren't as high and the kids weren't as inclined to get in the water.  This park also lacked a beach so Quin wasn't a huge fan.  The grown ups liked it though.

I'm planning on visiting a state park that I've never been to later this week if the weather is decent; kind of excited about this one!

Camping Trip Numero Uno

On Monday night (last week) I hauled a van load of important camping stuff crap to our favorite campground.  We met JD's dad and step-mom there as they let us borrow their fabulous camper for the week.  And then we went home for a nice peaceful night of sleep.  On Tuesday, I loaded up van load number two and headed back to the campground in the afternoon.  It was raining.  Not a great start, but after setting up the awning, we were able to get ourselves situated and enjoy deal with the rain.  Julia and her family had scored big time by borrowing a ginormous fifth wheel from friends of theirs.  It was set up on the same site as ours and we used our second site for a play area for the kids and for cooking/fires as our campers were too close to the pit on our site.  Only 4 sites were even in use in our area of the campground for the first couple of nights, but by Friday night the place was packed.

Julia #2 (and 2 kids) joined Julia #1 (and 5 kids) and I for our last two nights.

We had four fabulous days of camping despite crying kids, scraped knees, bug bites, sunburn, etc.

Breakfast=Cold cereal

Hopefully at least one of these kids will no longer be in diapers next summer.

This playground was right next to our site and kept the little ones busy. 

Our setup.

A little boccee.

Youngest camper.

There you have it.

Start of Summer

I know that summer doesn't technically start until later this month, but for teachers and students and parents of students, summer begins the day that school lets out.  That was last Monday for this crew.  I wasn't quite done as a teacher; I had report cards to do, a classroom to clean, and school events for three evenings.  I'm done now, and it feels great!

Summer is off to a great start.  I took the kids hiking up Mount Philo on Thursday.  I carried Quin in the Ergo, and the big kids and their friend Ian walked.  The little man was quite content until we headed down the mountain.  He started fussing, Ryley fell and scraped her elbow, he started screaming, she was crying, I had used up all of the wipes when changing a diaper at the top, she was bleeding, I let him walk a bit, he fell, he started crying...  He cried the whole way down the mountain and then the whole ride home.  Usually he's great in the car, but he was so exhausted he just cried.  When we got home I put him in his crib and he closed his eyes before I was out of his room.  I'm not the kind of mom that plans my entire day around nap time, but in some cases, maybe I should.

Our next adventure is a camping trip.  Stay tuned!

FPU- Still going strong

I haven't updated how we're doing with FPU lately.  In this case, no news is good news.  With the busy-ness of life the past month or so, we haven't watched any more DVD lessons and we never did write out a budget for May.  That makes it sound like we're not doing too well, but on the other hand, we were ahead of the game for the month of May and able to put a decent sum towards property taxes.  I had a garage sale with a friend and we each made $300- not bad for getting rid of stuff we didn't need!  We plan to do another one later this summer.

I'm looking forward to the summer months:
-Not working = not paying for daycare
-I get paid through the summer
-JD gets 3 paychecks in the month of July (I'm paid 2x a month, he's paid biweekly)
-I'm going to be kid-sitting a friend's boys at least one day a week

All of this should help us completely fund our property tax fund and allow us attack our loans in order to pay them off earlier than originally planned.

The envelope system is going really well.  We simply don't spend more than what we have available in cash.  We do let ourselves "cheat" a little.  For example, if we have "babysitting" money left over, but no "clothes" money, we borrow, but if there is no money in any envelope, we're done.  Or, we would be done as this hasn't actually happened.

We're looking for low/no cost summer fun ideas if anyone has them!

Sunday Seven

1.  We planted our garden (four 4x8 raised beds) last weekend.  We've had just the right amount of sunshine and rain and everything has come up!

2.  JD's sister and her boys, our Nantucket nephews, were up for a week.  We saw them a couple of times, and Zeke especially had fun playing with his cousin Max.

3.  The Memorial Day parade in Vergennes was a family affair.  JD drove the tractor that pulled our school float.  I walked and the kids rode.

Waiting for the parade to start

Tired of waiting...

Quin spent most of the parade on Ryley's lap

4.  Baseball/softball is still going on.  I'll be happy to have a less busy evening schedule in another week or so.

5.  We are working on building a chicken coop.  We turned half of our shed into a coop last weekend.  We built the nesting boxes this weekend.  Next up are roosts and a penned in area outside.  I'm excited about the fresh eggs, and I'm enjoying the building, but I have vowed that I WILL NOT DEAL WITH THE CHICKENS.  That means no egg collecting, feeding, etc.  Not only do I think birds are gross, I'm afraid of getting pecked.

6.  Our laundry room got a makeover this week.  Dick painted it for us, JD and I put new baseboards down, stained the window, painted the shelf, made a bulletin board out of a Goodwill cork board and some burlap, and built a second shelf.  I love it!

Before.  Imagine the washer and dryer in the picture below and the shelf above them au natural.

After.  Paint!  The shelf/rack to the right is for the kids' school uniforms

7.  I have a half day of school tomorrow.  At 11:30 a.m. on Monday, June 4, Summer will have officially arrived for this teacher and her kiddos!