Throwing Marshmallows

My surfer boy

Can you tell I am finally getting around to editing my pictures?

I love photographing old houses. The boys and I are in Ocean City this weekend (they are spending the night at Jack’s for his birthday) and I finally got a chance to stop and take pictures of an old house that had caught my eye all summer.

Old house have great texture and natural beauty. I got some great shots today and have been having fun editing them.

I almost did not take them because I was worried that someone might say something about me being on the property (which was right off Route 50). And believe it or not, someone did stop and ask me what I was doing! Turns out that she was the great-granddaughter of the man who built the house and happened to be driving by. She was wondering what I was doing, but was OK with me taking the pictures once I told her they were for my own personal use and I was not planning on selling them.

Her uncle was the last family member to live there and it had fallen into disrepair when his family moved out. While the property is still in their family, if they ever decided to fix it up, they would have a lot of county regulations to deal with about the land (a lot of development has since gone up around it) and it is just too expensive. She was really nice and we talked a bit about how so many of these old houses and farms are disappearing (this house is just down the road from the Walmart). One of the reasons that I really wanted to take a picture of it was because another old farm on Rt. 50 had just been knocked down this summer to make room for commercial or restaurant space. I had taken some great pictures of it a couple of years ago and had hoped to go back with my good camera and get more. Sigh.

She asked if I would be willing to send her copies of the pictures which I gladly told her that I would. So it actually turned out to be a good thing to be caught…so neat to learn a little bit about the history of the house.

Made it back today, a little later thanks to not being able to find Lapis (one of our cats) when we were ready to leave. But we are home nonetheless.

It is nice to be home, although we will definitely miss the beach. But we will be back on the weekends this fall and have next summer to look forward to! Now all I have to do is unpack…

Is deciding when to come home! (I know, I know…life is rough!)

While I absolutely love the time after Labor Day at the beach (no tourists!), I also start feeling the pull to head home. Usually I let the weather be our guide…if it is still warm and August-like weather, we will stay and eek out some more time at the beach. If things start cooling down, then it is more likely that I will feel the pull of home.

My favorite time of year is fall…the weather gets cooler, football season starts (Go Hokies!)…I start feeling a need to change things up. One of the nice things about “going home” is that we get to start from scratch. New things to do, new rhythms to develop…we get to rediscover old friends and activities and places that seem new again because we have been away almost 3 months.

Maybe it is the years of being on a school schedule, but then I have always been someone who wants to shake things up periodically…I used to enjoy rearranging my bedroom for a change of pace and always loved when we would switch between “summer” clothes and “winter” clothes. I woud hate to live in a part of the country without seasons.

There will be a lot of things that I will miss from here. But there are things that I have been missing at home as well. Plus we will be back! We always come down in October for the boys’ friend Jack’s birthday and try to come down other times during the off season as well.

Still no decision when…but I think that probably within the next week or so. I think there are a few things that we still want to do (like eating at Shenanigans and maybe a kayak trip or two.) There are also things that I meant to do this summer that won’t get done (like picking new curtains and figuring out what pictures I want to frame and hang. But I can do those at home as well. The nice thing is that we can play it by ear and leave whenever we want. Of course that also means that we need to start packing and closing up the place…ahhh…decisions…decisions….

Well, Andrea assures me that adding video is as simple as clicking on the button marked V (duh!) so let’s give it a shot…again!

Update: Well, what do you know, it is that simple! I guess that I need to figure out what all those other little buttons do too…

So now you get to see a really short clip of the boys in the waves. Be sure to look out for Jason being clobbered but not missing a beat and coming up yelling back at the wave! The boy is fearless and a complete water rat.

Hmmm…this opens up a whole new world…I will have to think about what else I can tape…

I will admit up front, I am not a video person. I hate carrying a video camera around and much prefer still photos. However, I have this worry that I will regret not taking more video when the boys are grown and gone. I have lots of video from when they were younger, but probably have not taken video in the past 2 years or so (mainly because I lost the video camera for about a year and a half, but it is back now, so that is not an excuse).

I think that I may have found my solution…my old Canon point and shoot camera also allows me to take video. I tend to carry it around with me anyways and it is not as big and bulky as the video camera. It seems to record very decently. So I think that I will try playing around with it a bit.

Here is some test video that I shot of the boys in the ocean…nothing too exciting, but I’ll give it a shot…

Keep your fingers crossed that it works!

Update: Well, obviously it did not work! I cut and pasted the embed code from YouTube, but each time I save the post the code disappears. Hmmm…help anyone?

A while back I promised Not June that I would post pictures of the boys annual henna tattoos. Not wanting to be someone who goes back on her word, here they are!

Can you tell that Kyle is in that wonderful 7 year old phase where he loves to make goofy faces at the camera and Jason is in that 10 year old phase where he just tries to be so nonchalant about the whole thing.

And in case you would like a better view (so you can actually tell they are dragons):

I just realized that I forgot to take a picture of mine…a flower on my ankle. Mine never seem to last as long at the boys’ tattoos do for some reason.

Good news on the weather front! Summer has returned. Spent a glorious day at the beach today. The waves were really rough and were the tallest I have seen them all summer. The life guards pulled everyone out of the water a couple of times to warn us about rip currents. Made for very good boogie boarding and I managed not to get bent over backwards this time. The boys had fun playing with Grandpa Elms in the waves.

I got some video on my point and shoot camera. Now I just need to figure out how to upload it. I guess that means that I will actually have to make the move into figuring out YouTube.

As promised, here is a picture of Kyle sans 3 teeth (missing 2 on the top, one on the bottom right).

Still a cutie though!

Weather seems to be finally coming around today…yesterday was actually cold and overcast. We did get down to the beach though, because after being home for a couple of days, the boys really needed a place to run off a little energy. I packed my book and a sweatshirt and we met Joanna and Jack. The boys had fun playing in the sand and I had a nice afternoon actually being able to read a book (something that I don’t usually do when they are in the water). Until it got too cold.

Jack spent the night last night and the boys had a good time. I am a bit tired as they kept me up a bit later than I would have preferred. But all in good fun. Trying to clean a bit as my in-laws are coming down today. Let’s hope that it is a nice weekend for them, and for us!

It has finally gotten above 70 and tomorrow it is supposed to be in the high 80s, so hopefully we can get a bit more summer weather in before we go home.

that it is too early to leave? I still have a few weeks left and it is not time for summer to be over. The weather here has been gorgeous…crisp, clear, cool…mid-70s. My favorite kind of weather…if it is fall! But not if it is still mid-August and if I am not ready for summer to be over. This is still beach time and I need beach weather, not football weather!
I keep reading on homeschool lists how folks are starting to think about the next year. Some local schools are getting ready to start in the next week. I keep getting Land’s End and LL Bean emails that have fall clothes and all the stores seem to be full into “Back-to-School” mode.

But summer is not over! I won’t let it be. We still have not decided when to come home (we usually come home sometime in early September). I guess it depends on if summer decides to show her face again. Which I hope that she will. I am not ready to come home. I don’t want to get into our “fall schedule”.

So please, if you happen to see summer, let her know that she does not have to leave. And, yeah, I hear ya. People who get to spend the summer at the beach have no right to complain…

Thanks for letting me whine…

Today was still hot and humid, but not nearly as bad as yesterday. The wind shifted again and, instead of being hot like yesterday, was a bit more cooling. We went kayaking in the late morning. The boys got to try out their new paddles (which worked much better). I was good and let Jason deal with his frustration in the beginning (instead of trying to help him fix it which makes him even more frustrated!) and by the end he was doing really well. Kyle likes being able to help me paddle.

We then went to the beach a bit later in the afternoon (around 2:30 or so) and stayed until after 5pm. The waves were a bit rough. Now that the water is warm enough for me to go in, I have started boogie boarding with the boys which is a lot of fun. Unfortunately I got bent over backwards by a wave in a way that a nearly 40 year old body should never be bent and had to take a breather. I thought for sure that I would be paying for it this evening, but luckily my back seems fine.

A front seems to be coming through and we are getting some much needed rain. It has cooled off nicely…in the mid 70s as opposed to the upper 80s it was last night around this time.

Ah well, I know that I can’t complain…there are much worse things than being hot and humid while at the beach!

…it is the humidity. Or so they say. Well, today it was both! We have been having a relatively mild summer so far. It was actually chilly to where I was still bringing a light sweatshirt to the beach if we were staying later even as late as the end of July. Last week it was down right gorgeous. Beautifully clear, mid-80s. Perfect.

Now this week it has been incredibly hot…yet when I check the temps, it is still mid-80s. But the humidity! Yikes! And then today it did hit the 90s and was like a sauna outside. The wind was hot. The boys had spent the night at their friend Jack’s house and they were having so much fun playing, that Joanna kept them over there for the day. Inside. Which was a good thing, I think.

We will have to see what we do tomorrow. Probably will head out the the beach. I know that the boys will want to try out their new kayak paddles. We got inflatable kayaks this past weekend (a double for me and Kyle and a single for Jason) but they only had adult sized paddles. I ordered kid sized paddles online and they came in yesterday. The boys wanted to try them out when they got home this afternoon, but it really was too hot (yes, I am a wimp). The kayaks are a blast though and perfect for the use on the canals (which you can see in the picture in the header of this blog). I think that I may be enjoying them more than the boys. Jason loves it, although he gets frustrated sometimes at not being able to go as fast as he wants, but with practice he will get it.

Hope to get around to posting more pictures soon!

So I tried to figure out how to post this wonderful 4th of July photo by Steve Wall, but could not figure out how to do it without uploading it to my account, which did not seem right. So you will just have to click over to see it. Not quite the same effect, but it is a really neat picture. Beautiful work.

We had a nice 4th. Had fun on the beach. Fireworks were postponed until tomorrow due to high winds (we are guessing). Except that it is supposed to rain tomorrow. Let’s hope that they go off!

If you had asked me yesterday morning at 10am what I wanted to do, I would not have said “go for a swim in the canal behind our house”. But that is exactly what I ended up doing. Why, you ask? Let me explain…

I think that I have mentioned that we had a doggie ramp put in out back in the hopes that Ellie might like the water. Well, up until Thursday evening, she had only sniffed around it a bit. She definitely showed interest, but had not ventured down it.

Thursday evening, she got brave and went about half way down before coming back up, much to the enjoyment of the boys. She seemed to want to take it slow. So Monday morning, Kyle and I were out with Ellie in the backyard and she suddenly got brave…going down to the bottom and sniffing the water and then backing back up. Kyle ran to get Jason so that he could watch in case she went in.

Next, Ellie went down and put her paws in the water, getting really brave! However, as she backed up the ramp, she slipped and fell in! We quickly learned that she could indeed swim (we had been told by the previous owners that she could). However, she decided to swim away from the doggie ramp and under the dock! We tried for about a minute to call her back, but it became obvious that she was not going to come. So telling the boys to keep an eye on her, I ran inside stripping as fast as I could to get into my bathing suit (if I thought that she was in dire trouble, I would have jumped in clothes and all, but as it was she was doing a mean doggie paddle, albeit in the wrong direction, and I was sure that she could survive).

Came back out and found that she had made it a fair way down the bulkhead. Realized that I was indeed going to have to go in (despite the fact that it was cold!) So I went down the doggie ramp (too far for me to jump off the dock) and luckily found it fairly shallow and that the bottom was not as gross as I had expected. Swam a ways over to grab her (while our neighbor across the canal looked on from where he had been fishing) and carried/swam with her back to the doggie ramp where I showed her how to go up.

The boys, needless to say, were jumping up and down the whole time and found it all great fun. Jason found it funny (once he realized that she could swim). Kyle found it “scary and funny”. And I think that they both got a kick out of me jumping in.

By the time I got Ellie out, she was running on pure adrenalin and went into major psycho puppy mode…running round and round the yard, back and forth, stopping here and there to give herself a good shake. I really wish that I had my camera there to catch her drowned puppy look after she got out, but I did not think to grab it in all the excitement.

So far, she has not ventured back out on the doggie ramp, however she still shows a lot of interest in the water and I have a feeling that it is only time before she tries again (she saw a dog across the canal today and I was sure she was going to make a leap for it!) Now I just need to figure out how to teach her how to get back out. Luckily she is a smart dog and hopefully she will figure it out quickly.

At least I hope so! I really do not have any desire for more early morning dips in the canal. In any case, now that I know that the canal is not that deep, I may just send one of the boys!

Well we have been down here for about a week now and I think that we are settling in quite nicely. Most things are unpacked. We have hit the beach 3 times and the waterpark once. I still need to hang pictures and shelves back on the walls but will probably wait until Jeff gets down here this weekend.

We had a lot of nice little things done during the off-season…we now have ceiling fans that work in the main two living areas downstairs. Amazing the difference that having a little bit of air movement can make. We replaced the single lighting fixture over the island with a nicer two fixture light that ties in better with the kitchen. Had recessed lighting installed in the main living area so we can now dim the overhead lights and had additional outside lighting installed.

We also had the closets and the pantry redone. Which I have to say is the nicest thing! The old closets basically just had a bar and that was it. Lots of wasted space. I put mostly shelves in the downstairs closets as we use the guest bedroom closet as an overflow pantry. The kitchen pantry is so much better! The old shelves were warped and badly painted. I also replaced the bi-fold dooor with two doors that swing out so now you can see everything in the pantry and the door does not block the back hallway the way it used to. It feels so good to have a place for most of everything now.

One thing that is really nice about being down here is that we really have less “stuff” and there are no major “house projects” hanging over us. No garage or basement to clean out, not as many piles of clutter to decide what to do with. I need to remember this when we go home so I can be inspired to get rid of more of the junk there! I also love how we really have no commitments down here, yet we stay very busy. No classes, no doctor’s appointments, no reason to have to get up and out of the house other then getting to the beach. Not to mention that things on the whole are just more relaxed around here…things just operate on a different “beach” time. Which is fine as long as you are not waiting for a dinner reservation on a weekend! Which is why we tend to try to go out during the week and stay home on the weekends! Being able to walk to many places is nice too.

We are having to rethink some things…such as how to keep Ellie out of the cat’s box. At home, the box is in the unfinished basement and Ellie is too scared of the wooden stairs to go down. Here it is in the small downstairs bedroom and Ellie has decided that it is fun to bring cat poop into the other rooms! Jeff should be bringing down a baby gate to put in the doorway so hopefully that will solve things.

One thing I was worried about was leaving Ellie during the day (we obviously are out and about more down here on a daily basis) but that has been working out really well. No accidents and she has been fine being out in the house (at home she would scratch at the doors…here the door is mostly glass, but I have noticed that she is not scratching as much).

The boys are funny…they want to do everything all at once. They have already had two sleepovers with Jack (one here a couple of nights ago and one at Jack’s last night) and are begging for more. They want to go to Layton’s for breakfast every morning and Fish Tales for dinner nearly every night (not gonna happen) and want ice cream and lemonades every day at the beach. Think that we might just do a Layton’s breakfast once a week (kind of like how we have pizza night) and will have to think about giving the kids a “treat allowance” so they do not bug me all the time. Still need to get their annual henna tattoos…maybe this weekend when it is supposed to be cooler and possibly rain.

Well, gotta head off to the waterpark!

~Stephanie

Well, we made it. I am sure that I have forgotten lots of stuff (and have already started my list for Jeff).

It is so nice to be down here again. The weather was beautiful. I relaxed just driving over the bridge. Still getting unpacked and trying to put the place back together again (we had the main room painted and had some other work done so everything has been moved around).

The trip itself was fun. Hit the Dunkin Donuts drive-through on the way so that the boys can get their double chocolate donuts and I can get my caramel latte. We are listening to Physik (the third in the Septimus Heap series) and really enjoying it. I will have to post a review soon.

All the animals survived (Ellie (the dog), Lapis and Sammie (the cats) and the 4 guinea pigs). Makes for interesting travel though. The cats really do not like the car, so they are in their carriers meowing off and on again. Luckily Ellie is a great traveler. She hung out between the boys just happy that she is going with us and not being left behind.

The last hour or so she decided that Kyle’s lap would be more comfortable. Kyle loved it and they looked so cute.

It actually looks like it will be cool this weekend, so we will have to play it by ear. One of the things that I love about summer is that we have no real schedule. Other then go the beach. I know, life is rough. It is homeschool day at the Jolly Roger Waterpark on Monday so we will probably hit that. And the boys can’t wait to get together with Jack.

Gotta go unpack some more. Or actually I really should head to bed…so I think that I will take Ellie out real quick and then hit the hay. I have to say that I enjoy our late night outings now that it is summer…much nicer now that it is warm. And especially down here overlooking the water.

Have I mentioned that I love summer?

~Stephanie

OK, so we have been home for about a month already, but I never posted about our last day at the beach. So better late then never!

We ended up having an absolutely beautiful day. It had been cold and rainy for the last week or so (after Ernesto came through). But the weather broke a bit for us and we wound up getting one more day in the water. And the boys got one more afternoon hanging out with Jack.

Turns out that Ernesto left us a little gift. Hard to explain but there was a sand bar out a ways…now sand bars are not really unusual, but this one was in that it was not out very far, but it got very deep right before the sand bar. Which meant that the boys could basically swim out to it and then do cannon balls off the sand bar into the deep water. Talk about fun!

It was a wonderful way to end the summer…and when it was over, I got two signs that summer was really over…when we got back to the house, the handle on my beach bag broke and then my camera stopped working (probably because I had to stand waist deep in the ocean trying to get these pictures!). Pretty clear that our summer was complete.

~Stephanie

We decided to not go to Baltimore on Friday before heading home and that was probably a good choice. It took me way longer to finish packing up everything then I thought (isn’t that always the case?). As it was, we did not get out of Ocean City until around 3pm…after a stop at the Candy Kitchen and Conners (their penny machine is finally back in order!) we were off. It seemed as if everything that morning was trying to make it harder for us to go and taking f.o.r.e.v.e.r. And of course it was a beautiful day which made it even harder!

But we did make it out finally and did make it home (amazingly with no traffic!). We got home around 6:30pm, right in the middle of Jeff’s Delta Solutions and Technologies Crab Fest which had started around 4pm at our house (it is all catered and held mostly outside so we did not really have to do much). Luckily I made it in time for crabs! The kids ran off for the moon bounce they had rented and proceeded to eat who knows how much ice cream.

Quite a homecoming indeed. But the party was fun and everyone had a good time. And I got to have several good conversations about homeschooling (it really is not my fault…it just always comes up! Honestly!). A few people were surprised to find out that we homeschool but everyone I talked with was very positive about it (although it was obvious they had no idea what it actually involves).

Spent today cleaning and unpacking and trying to remember where everything is!

Ah well…back to reality!

~Stephanie

Good Bye Lazy Days of Summer

Well, I have been going back and forth on when we would be coming home from the beach for the fall. And have decided that Friday will be the day! Our OC friends Joanna and Spirit are planning a trip up to the Baltimore Aquarium and Port Discovery (it is free to homeschoolers 1-3 on Fridays in September), so we will go with them and then head home to Virginia after we are done.

Jeff took the cats and the guinea pigs this weekend so that we don’t have to worry about getting them home. For which I am very greatful as I know that it took some sacrifice on his part. (Have I mentioned that he is not a big pet person?). What he won’t do for his family!

So I am packing up things this week and hoping that the weather gets better for a day or two at least before we go (it is raining now!). Would have preferred a beautiful week that made it hard to leave…but maybe this is better.

Feeling sad over Steve Irwin’s death. Jason was such a huge fan for awhile. I know that some people feel that we should not be surprised, that he tempted death with his stunts. However, I feel that he genuinely enjoyed and loved what he did. We all should be so lucky.

~Stephanie

I talked a little bit about how Ernesto decided to pay us a unexpected visit and that we were not sure what was going to happen overnight. Luckily we woke to find that the bay had decided to stay in its canals.

The rain gradually tapered off and we decided to venture out and see how everything was. I had talked to my Dad in the morning (and my In-laws (who had weathered the storm fine in Va Beach) and my Mom the day before). He said that they had seen news footage of the ocean waves hitting the boardwalk. I figured that he must have been exaggerating a bit as I really could not picture that. We headed out and walked down to Anthony’s for breakfast. Did not see too much other then a gutter that had been torn off the church on the corner and a couple of palm trees toppled over at the miniature golf place.

Then we decided to head on down to the beach to check it out (the boys rode their scooters). When we were about a block away, we noticed that there was tons of sand all over. When we finally reached the boardwalk, it became incredibly obvious that my Dad had been right. The ocean had come up over the wall and onto the boardwalk. The ocean was still much closer to the boardwalk then usual…it looked like there was less then half of the beach left!

There was sand piled on both sides of the walls…normally when the boys stand next to the walls on the beach, it is over their heads. Now the sand was piled up so there was barely a foot drop.

I can only imagine what it must have been like out here yesterday…to have this much sand moved.

Even today, the ocean was incredible…the waves were huge and you could just feel the power.

On the way back home, the boys had such a blast…the wind was still so strong that it was pushing them on their scooters…they did not even have to push themselves.

Jeff finally made it down today. Luckily it seems as if there is not too much damage…our mail box and a rose tree were knocked down. A few branches from some trees are down. The water is still high, but no where near as high as last night. We went to dinner and the pier at Fager’s Island was still partially underwater.

All in all, I have to say that this is how I like to experience my “natural events”. Strong enough to appreciate nature’s power but not so strong as to being afraid of being hurt or having things damaged. I will say that being on the water made this whole experience even more amazing…the strength of the wind, watching the water rise, seeing the power (from the safety of my family room!) was incredible.

Now we just need to figure out when we are coming home for the fall…I had hoped to get a few more beach days in but it has been really chilly here and I am not sure what shape the beach will be in. Not to mention that the ocean is going to be really rough for a little while I am sure.

I guess that we will play it by ear (one of the benefits of homeschooling!) and see what the week holds. Part of me is more then ready to get home and get things going for the fall. But the other part of me wants to hold onto summer and eek out a few more memories. We have had a great time down here this summer…I definitely did not think it would end this way!

I guess either way will work. And it is not like we won’t be down here for weekends over the rest of the year. I’ll let you know what we decide!

I love the beach!

~Stephanie