Swimming at Thorndon

Two years ago when we moved to Syracuse we were pretty excited that Syracuse had public pools that you could swim in for free but when I got on the website to check hours I realized that there could only be 3 kids under a certain height limit per adult. I had 4 kids under that limit and Glenn was taking anatomy therefore we couldn't go swimming that summer.

Last summer we signed the kids up to take swimming lessons at Thorndon Park. They all made quite a bit of progress in their swimming ability and getting over fears in the water. Lessons through the city program are cheap ($10 for 2 weeks - 10 half hour sessions) for city residents so how could we resist.

We've had a busy summer this summer but I really wanted the kids to take lessons again. I signed them up when we got home from camping but since it was so late they had to put them in a bunch of different sessions. They started lessons last Monday. Caleb is in Blue Whales at 9:30, Hannah is in Blue Whales at 10 then we have an hour break before Lydia and Abigail's Goldfish lessons at 11:30. It has been fun but tiring to spend our mornings at Thorndon Park. During our break we play in the spray park or play on the playground and have a snack. We have made some new friends and played with some old friends as well.

We had a busy week last week with something every afternoon but we stopped by the pool entrance as we were leaving one day last week and found out that Caleb is tall enough to not need an adult for free swim. It has been a hot week this week and so yesterday we decided to stick around after Lydia and Abigail's lesson for free swim (which starts at noon). We stayed for a little over an hour. It was nice to cool off after hanging around the pool watching the kids swim all morning. We enjoyed it so much that we decided to do it again today. With temps going to be around 100 tomorrow I think that it is likely that we will do free swim again tomorrow.

At first I was annoyed two years ago when I couldn't go to free swim with my kids but after swimming at the pool yesterday I realized that I am thankful. Because of the swim lessons that the kids have taken last year and this year Caleb and Hannah were able to pass swim tests that enabled them to go into the deeper section of the pool without me and I didn't have to worry about them. Lydia and Abigail have confidence in the water so that they can swim around without clinging to me. Had I been able to take my kids to the pool 2 years ago I would have been worried about their ability and I would have had 2-3 little girls clinging to me, afraid of the water. They may have enjoyed it but it would have been very stressful for me. Now we can just go and have fun. It's another thing I love about this stage of parenting. My kids are learning so much independence. It is great. So now I am thankful that we couldn't swim in Thorndon Pool 2 years ago. I am also very thankful that we can swim in it now.

Five Minute Friday: Loss

I recently found a blog that was referenced in another blog called The Gypsy Mama. I really appreciated her post from today. She does something called Five Minute Fridays that I would like to start doing. She suggests a topic and you are supposed to blog about it for 5 minutes, no editing, post and link-up. Today is my first (and maybe only) Five Minute Friday and the topic for today is "Loss."

I have experienced some loss in my life. From kittens and dogs lost to 5&20 as a kid to the loss of my parents to the loss of places where I've lived and people that I've loved because of moving. They have all struck me differently and none of them have been easy.

I was struck deeply by my loss yesterday as I watched Olivia's DVD. She had lots of pictures of multiple generations of her family. Her parents, grandparents and great grandparents are living. My kids don't have that (on my side). They have us and my dad's parents but they will not really ever intimately know my parents, only through stories I will tell and have told. They knew my dad somewhat but in his last years he wasn't the same man that he was when I was growing up. In order for a video like that to take place in our family on my side I will be the great grandparent, my kids will be the grandparents and their grandkids will be the ones making the DVD (I doubt that it will be DVDs by then but whatever we will have years down the road.)

OK, 5 minutes are up. That was tough. Maybe next topic will be easier....

Evening of Tears

Evening of Tears

Today, after swim lessons we headed to Grandma and Grandpa Nelson's
house for our monthly visit. I thought I could kill two birds with one
stone - get in a visit with them and pick up Kyle and have him spend
the night for Caleb's birthday. All was going according to plan until
AmyJo left and then Kyle started crying because his stomach started to
hurt and grandma decided that she should take him home and not have
him spend the night. That started Caleb crying. He cried for a while
as we were packing up (and, of course seeing them cry made Grandma
tear up) then they came up with a plan to have Caleb spend the night
and then they both come out to Syracuse in the morning. We called and
talked to AmyJo and it was decided that that would be ok. Then I had
two happy boys I was leaving behind but I got in the car and found a
sobbing Lydia, so sad because she was going to miss her brother so
much. She was crying again just a few minutes ago as she was going to
bed, missing her brother.

I got some tears in today too while we were watching a neat DVD that
my cousin's daughter Olivia made called, "Because Two People Fell in
Love" that traces her family through 4 generations starting with my
Grandparents.

It will be weird waking up with no cinnamon rolls and no birthday boy
tomorrow but I'm sure he'll have fun with Kyle. I'm looking forward to
seeing my 11 year old tomorrow! Happy birthday Caleb!!

Thanks God for sensitive hearts, for joy and sorrow and the grace You
give us in each.

Celebration and Deals

Today was Glenn's first day of his internal medicine rotation. I picked him up after he was done and we decided to head to Texas Roadhouse to celebrate his first day of in the hospital and (since we had a coupon for a free kids meal for Caleb's birthday) to celebrate Caleb's birthday (he turns 11 on Friday). We had wanted to go out to dinner for a while to celebrate Glenn finishing his tests but it just hadn't worked out. We decided that Grandma Hansen would treat us to our dinner out. We had sold a couple of dressers that we had gotten from her house that were too small for us on craigslist this spring and decided that she would have liked us to use the money to go out to dinner so, after tithe, we put the money in an envelope for this momentous day ;) (After we were done eating Caleb said that she probably would have taken us to McDonald's instead of Texas Roadhouse - I'm glad we got to pick the restaurant!) We love going to Texas Roadhouse. We went during the 4-6 early special time and with Caleb's meal for free our bill came to less than $35. For all 6 of us! And we were all full and brought home leftovers from every meal. And it was delicious!

Caleb (with his mouth way too full of steak!) on the saddle after being told Happy Birthday by the waitresses :)

 After Texas Roadhouse we decided we needed to go to Staples to pick up the penny and quarter deals. On the way we stopped at the Thrifty Shopper. We found a new with manual/ recipe book Whirley-Pop popcorn popper. We have been using a regular pot but it is dying and making popcorn in it isn't helping so we thought we'd get it. We also found a 2 pack of US map puzzles. (the map on the back you can color on your own). Our total was $2.62.

Whirley-Pop and US map puzzles

We then made our way to Staples and spent the rest of our $3. We got 2 reams of paper, 2 things of glue, 2 packs of pencil top erasers, 2 packs of pens, 2 packs of stickie flag things, a graph paper notebook, and a 3 pack of mini legal pads. My grand total was 37 cents! (I had Staples rewards from a couple of months ago for $15.20 that I used). I am going to get almost $12 back in rebates as well. I love back to school sales :)

My Staples loot that I spent 37 cents for :)

Staples shares the same parking lot with BJs and since Glenn's phone died this morning (and he decided not to get a pager yesterday saying that they could just use his cell phone, hard to do when your phone is dead!) we decided to go over and bother the Verizon salesperson there. We love the Verizon sales people in BJs. They are so much nicer than the Verizon sales people anywhere else. I think that it is because they are so thrilled to have someone to talk to :). Anyway, the guy showed Glenn the cheaper phones (they would still need a $10/mo data package) and he could tell that we really didn't want to buy anything today and knew we were only there because Glenn's phone died. He asked us if we had any old phones laying around or if any friends did. We do have 2 old LG clam shell phones that were our original cell phones. One was ours one was my dad's. We got them when we lived at the Christensen's. When we upgraded and added my phone onto our joint plan in October of 2006 he gave us his old phone as a toy for the kids. When our phones were stolen in August of 2008 we took both phones back from the kids and were going to start using them but it was going to cost $20 each line to change phones. We were going to get phones for free for re-upping so we just re-upped. We've been dragging our feet not wanting to sign another contract with Verizon and praying that our phones would last us. My Env2 turns off randomly and Glenn's Palm Centro has been giving him problems for a while. He also has had to charge his through his computer for the last year since he left his charger in St. Louis last summer. He's trying to charge it on his computer right now hoping that it will work but we are also charging our old LG. There was nothing wrong with it when we stopped using it (that I can remember). I think that we just wanted cool new phones because we were eligible for them and we wanted to get a phone for me. Anyway, the Verizon guy at BJs told us that we could just change phones ourselves online with our MyVerizon account at no charge. That is a change from 3 years ago. So, this may be Glenn's phone for a while and we may have to make the cell phone decision that we've been putting off for a while sooner rather than later. I am grateful that we aren't going to have to make the decision this instant and that this phone can be a little buffer zone. (When our phones were stolen we were phone-less for about 2 1/2 weeks making a decision about what to do. With Glenn needing his phone for pages that is not an option this time!)

Glenn's "new" cell phone

Another praise- we found out earlier today that our bank intercepted a $300+ groupon purchase that someone had made with Glenn's credit card. We have to pay $5 for them to send him a new credit card but that is a lot better than someone else spending all our money!

Thanks God for yummy, inexpensive, fun family food and fun at Texas Roadhouse; fun, cheap geography tools; a yummy snack maker; school supplies on the cheap; and another friendly, helpful BJs Verizon person. Thanks also for a bank that looks out for us. You are so faithful, generous, and good! Thank you for a good first day for Glenn. Please continue to be his strength and help him to learn a lot in this time of training. Thanks God also for neat conversations he was able to have today!

All Good Things Must Come to an End

Well, it's been about 3 weeks since I blogged. Three weeks of wonderful break. We had lots of adventures that I will blog about over the next few days but the best part has been being together as a family. Who knows when we'll get 3 weeks off in a row again!

Tomorrow Glenn has orientation and he starts his 12 week Internal Medicine rotation on Tuesday. We got the schedule a couple days ago. I am going to miss him. While he was taking classes he would go to class and then usually come home to study so we would see him a lot. Starting tomorrow he doesn't really get much of a choice when he'll be home. We knew this signing up but it is going to be a change. He does have one day off a week guaranteed so that will be nice. We will have to make the most of the time and not take it for granted like we have so often the past couple of years :)

Today we ventured out after a relaxing afternoon and found Glenn a few more pairs of pants, shirts and ties for use at the schospital. It will be different seeing him in a shirt and tie most every day. We are thankful for the deals we were able to find. We still need to find shoes for him. His feet are going to be hurting if he wears any of the shoes that he currently owns.

Thanks Lord for a relaxing, fun break. Thank You that You are all we need and will provide all we need in the days, weeks and months to come. Thank You again, so much, for allowing Glenn entrance to medical school. You are so gracious. Thank You for all that he is going to learn as he enters his clinical years and how You are going to prepare him to be the man of God and the doctor that You desire him to be!

A Fun Brithday/ Father's Day

I was born 16 minutes too late for Father's Day but I suppose I was a good, better late than never, gift for my dad all those years ago. Every once in a while my birthday does happen to fall on Father's Day as it did this year. The last time I can remember it happening was when we were living in Houghton and it did not go well. We were both very self-centered and selfish and thought the day should be all about ME!! Both of us ended up very disappointed because our expectations were not met. (Boy did I need Jaye R. preaching in my ear that day "My soul, wait silently for God alone, For my expectation is from Him." from Psalm 62 back then!)

Since then both of us have matured a lot and remembering how that awful day went I resolved NOT to let our experiences of that day happen again. I went into today with low expectations wanting to bless Glenn and knowing that, just coming off his Step 1 yesterday, he wasn't going to have much planned. We had a great day and this is how it went:

This morning we got to church and I was talking with Elizabeth at kids check-in as Glenn took the girls upstairs. He quickly came down announcing that there was no teacher for the K-2 class but that we'd be glad to stay with them until the teacher got there and teach the class if necessary. The teacher never showed up so we got to be Lydia's and Abigail's teacher this morning unexpectedly. Glenn did the teaching and he did such a great job. He is great with kids and I just love watching him work his magic :)

After church we decided to go home and get our bikes then head to Wegmans to pick up subs (since we still had 2 $1 off coupons) and some sushi (we had a $1 off coupon for that too!) then headed to the Ryder Park in Dewitt for a picnic then took our kids out on a bike ride along the Erie Canal Trail. We ended up riding about 5 miles. It is amazing how much faster and farther we can go now that Abigail is riding a 2 wheeler, not her little bike with training wheels. She still is the only one without gears though so when she moves up to Lydia's bike we'll be able to go even farther, most likely. She was still the slowest but since we were just on the canal trail for most of the ride home Glenn and I rode side by side and chatted while we took up the rear behind her which was nice. We stopped frequently in the shade of trees here and there but since we drank the last of the water we brought with us at our turn around point we tried to pretty much push it to get back to the van for more water on the return trip. I love the independence our kids have now. It was so much fun to go on a family bike ride with everyone on their own bikes and everyone being able to keep up.

We only had one brief "uh oh" moment when something happened with Glenn's bike when we were about 2.4 miles out when he was shifting and the chain came off. We were afraid that he was going to have to carry his bike the 2.4 miles back to the van but thankfully he was able to fix it and we were soon riding again. The only pictures that I took were of when Glenn's bike was upside down and he was trying to fix it. He brought his camera but I don't think that he took any pictures. So here is a picture of the bike being checked out.

Hannah being Glenn's bike fixing assistant

After our bike ride we were kind of hot so Glenn suggested that we stop in a store for some air conditioning. We stopped at a pet store (that didn't have any kitties :(  ) and Ollies. It is fun just to wander around Ollies and look at the books and talk ourselves out of buying any of the "good stuff" that they are selling "cheap."

We then went home and finished our subs and ate popcorn (our normal Sunday night supper) and watched Finding Nemo. It was a nice, relaxing, fun birthday (and Father's Day). I am so thankful for my family and especially for Glenn. He is so good to me.

Thanks God for a fun day. Thanks that Glenn's test is over and we get 3 weeks to spend together before he starts his clerkships. Thanks so much for my family. You are so good to me, I could never thank You enough!

"Just Plant a Watermelon..."

Growing up my mom would often (though I know not as often as she would like, probably as often as I used to get out my flute before I started flute choir) get out her guitar and sing songs and complain that she needed to build back up her callouses. She would sing songs that she used to play for her students when she first started teaching and songs that she would sing at camp or church events when she was younger. She would sing, "How much is that doggy in the window," "If I had a hammer," "It only takes a spark," and others. I don't know the name of one of my favorites or where it came from but legend has it (I came up with the legend thing while talking to my brother about it today. There are so many things that we just don't know about our parents and our childhood that we just kind of get to make things up and say, "legend has it...") that mom would sing it at Camp Ladore (Labrodore, I don't know...) and every year the staff would add a new goofy ending to it.

Anyway, the song goes like this:

"Just plant a watermelon right on my grave and let the juice *loud slurping noise* slurp through,
Just plant a watermelon right on my grave that's all I ask of you.
Now Southern fried chicken might taste mighty fine but what could taste better than a watermelon rind?
Just plant a watermelon right on my grave and let the juice slurp through,
Let the juuuuuice sluuuuuurp through
Come on baby let the juice slurp through, uh huh sock it to me let it all hang out all right up tight everything is out of sight far out."

OK, the last line is just the goofy endings. It is such a fun song. Last summer we started watermelon plants and looking at them I thought, "OH!!! I NEED to plant one of these on my mom's grave!!!" But in the process of moving and transplanting and such they all died. We visited Grandma and Grandpa many times last summer but never made it up to mom's grave with a seed so it didn't happen last year.

Today we went to spend the day at Grandma and Grandpa's to visit them and to get out of Glenn's hair for his last day of studying. We had watermelon for a snack and we set aside a few seeds grinning and telling Grandma and later Grandpa of our plan and singing them the song.

On our way home I finally planted a watermelon on my mom's grave. I think that it would have made her laugh so hard :). The kids and I *quietly* sang the watermelon song as we each planted a seed (we didn't want to offend anyone at the cemetery by singing such a song at the top of our lungs - though I was tempted!)

Thanks God for a legacy of silliness I get to pass down as well! :)