A Reddy Zoo Summer 2011

A whole lot happened this summer so I will just give you a little summary. One of the first things we did was go to Texas to visit with family down there on Mom’s side. We had fun visiting with cousins and going to a really cool lake. It had waterslides and diving boards. It was a lot of fun!

  Also in May we had a music recital.

 And to end the month of May C.B. made his First Communion with his cousin El! 

To start off June Grandma and Grandpa Reddy celebrated their 50th Wedding Anniversary! There was a very special mass and a really fun party afterwards.

Big D’s baseball team started pitching this year. Big D and two of his cousins got to pitch.

 I also had a good season with softball. We did really well. We only lost two games! We went to City County for the third year in a row!!! It was really fun!

Now moving right along to July! We all took a little trip to St. Francis state park to float down the river. We went with some cousins and friends. We had a lot of fun jumping off cliffs, swinging on rope swings, and sliding down a mud slide!

Big D. took a camping trip with cub scouts and had a lot of fun. He brought home so many stories and songs.

   

This month we did a lot of stuff as well. We spent a whole week at the country house in Warrenton. We had so much fun visiting with both sets of Grandparents and cousins! We also started school Monday the 22nd!

 Big D. and Dad went to a Ram’s practice! They said it was cool! Our cousin even caught a field goal. They were kicking them right into the crowd!

    

There’s a little bit of our summer! I hope you had a good one!


Miss M :)

Adventure Time Girl Scout Camp!

Hey everybody it’s Miss M! It’s my summer project this year to take over the blog for awhile. I just got back from Girl Scout Camp. It was a lot of fun! I went with my two cousins and one of my friends. It was nothing like we expected, though. It was a very go, go, go camp.

We were on the Ropes Courses almost the whole day! The first courses that we did were the easier ones. Like the one where all seventeen of us had to stand with at least one foot on a 3 foot by 3 foot square box for the time it took us to sing the ABC’s. Then there was a log across to large trees about 7 feet in the air that we had to climb over with the help of the rest of the girls. After that we went to the more advanced courses. First we had to get helmets on and get harnessed up, then walked out to the course. The first thing we did was climb up a pirate’s mast rope ladder, then walked on a tight rope, climbed up a little higher, walked on another rope ladder between two trees, climbed up a little more and then zip-lined down to the ground. All while being almost 30 feet in the air!

 My friends and I were not used to this type of camping. They called it the backpacking style because we learned how to survive in the woods with as little as possible.  For instance, we didn’t use our water bottles out on the courses. They gave us fold-over sandwich bags and showed us how to drink from them.  We cooked all of our own food and we didn’t really use our mess kits. They let us use our cup and spoon but nothing else, not even our forks! They gave us a bowl but we still had to eat salad with a SPOON! Some of the food looked pretty gross while we were cooking it though, especially the bag of eggs that we put in boiling water and squished with tongs. EWW!

Here are some pictures from our Adventure Time! We had a lot of fun!



Me at Adventure Time!





This was our camp site





The Bowl I was talking about and my cup





My Bed for two nights





From left to right-  My Cousin MiMi, My Friend  Ria and My Cousin KK





The first night it rained really hard so we all had to sleep in the shelter





Me on the log course





KK on the log course





MiMi was the last one so she only got help from the people already on the log!





Blindfolded pool games





More Blindfolded pool games





KK on the Tire course





Ria on Tire course





MiMi on Tire course





Me on the Tire course





Everybody!



Halloween Pics

As requested

Things are Going Swimmingly

Our first year of homeschooling came to an end last week with shouts of joy and raucous celebrating. OK, so we gave each other high fives and went to America’s Incredible Pizza Company. But it was all good. Actually, it really was all good. I am still surprised at how well this inaugural year went. And, despite my lack of attention to the blog, I wasn’t buried in books and work like I thought I would be. Things were manageable. The kids were cooperative. That wasn’t to say there weren’t complaints. There are always complaints. But we were never “behind on work” as I have often heard other homeschooling families say. Maybe I wasn’t giving them enough to do. Hmmmmmm.

Immediately after we finished school, we took a “Staycation” for a few days. On Thursday night we went to a Rascals Game. They won!! We spent the bulk of Friday at the City Museum, and we stayed at a hotel downtown where the kids could swim. We had dessert at Ted Drewes that evening, and ordered a midnight snack from Imo’s before turning in at the hotel. On Saturday morning we went up in the Arch, we visited the Brewery, and had a snack at Gus’s Pretzels before heading to the country house for a quick stay. We finished up our staycation on Monday with lunch from White Castles. It was a fun trip!

This is the only week of June where there is not something planned for every single day of the week. Next week Big D will attend Cub Scout day camp and Miss M will go to vocal camp. The following week is Girl Scout day camp and the big boys will go to basketball camp. The two weeks following will be VBS for the three oldest. Banana is also starting ballet classes, something she’s wanted to do for a while, but I couldn’t manage it during the school year. And don’t forget that three kids are playing ball and those same three kids are playing instruments with lessons once a week. We’ll be taking a road trip to visit my grandma the first week in July, and the hopefully it will start to feel like summer vacation after all that. My calendar barely has any more room on it, but I’m trying not to freak out. I take it one day (sometimes one hour) at a time. As Dory says in Finding Nemo, “Just keep swimming, just keep swimming…”

Happy Homeschooling

I realize that my kids’ Halloween pictures were the last thing I posted. On the one hand I feel badly about that. But on the other hand I accept that homeschooling comes with certain sacrifices. This blog happens to be one of those sacrifices – along with afternoon naps.

But the sacrifices are well worth it. I am very happy homeschooling.

Today is an ugly, soggy day. I am extremely thankful that my children and I are warm and dry inside our house. Most of us are still in our pajamas. My morning coffee is perfectly complemented by the Ludwig Van Beethoven Station we created on Pandora. I feel happy.

Banana is in the other room trying to build a house for her dollies out of dominos. She lets out a frustrated shriek every time they fall down. David takes a break from his schoolwork to help her, announcing, “I am a domino expert!” Any other time I would probably ask David to get back to his work, but he was actually being helpful to his sister. I am happy about that and wouldn’t want to interfere with it.

Miss M is working on spelling. Today’s lesson calls for dictionary work – NOT her favorite. She has the dictionary and her papers spread out in front of her, writing each word in a different shade using her 4-color pen. She is doing all of this with a feverish toddler on her lap. I am happy to see him smiling at his big sister, even though he’s not feeling so well this morning.

C.B. and I are sounding out long U words to fill in a story about Sue and her pet mule that eats fruit. We are enjoying the story and it’s making us laugh. I am happy about this because only moments ago he was complaining about having to work on this story.

Today is definitely a good day. My days aren’t all like this one, believe me. That’s why it’s important for me to record days like this one. I tend to focus on the negative instead of on the positive. Writing this post will highlight this day in my memory. I can also go back and read about it when I’m having a different sort of day.

Have a happy day!