birthday, camping con't

Our Birthday girl got sang to at the chapel. This was hard to get a picture of as the sun was so bright in the windows. But as this is apparently a special memory of hers from camp I had to share. This is her and Pastor David.

I7 went crab hunting. When he came back he was telling me how his group caught four crabs but only one had pincher's. When I asked how come only one had claws he explained how well they all did but only one was big. So I guess he wasn't worried about getting pinched from the smaller ones as much!
James only stayed for one session on Saturday and then he headed back for town. He had a softball game that afternoon. I suppose it's a good thing he went because as it was the team was one man short, but they managed to overcome the odds and win the game. This is the first game he's been able to make as he has worked most Saturdays of the last month.
I'm always amazed how the kids seem drawn to male figures when daddy is away. I wonder if it's the same when I'm away. I am glad we have some good male role models that they can go too when they feel the need. I spotted I7 playing scrabble several times with different men of the church. Which makes me think we need to start using this game to work on our spelling words! Grammy Mary dig out that game for when we visit! I7 informed me that Mr. Tim won the game but that it didn't upset him. Can you tell we've been working on good sportsmanship LOL!
James picked us up at lunch time and we decided to go to the beach some more. The kids had fun finding rocks.


Now what I didn't get a picture of was I6 floating around. She amazed me. She has never been one to want to get splashed or our head wet. She was out there just floating on top the water, looking for rocks underneath like it was nothing. Has she ever come a long way!

Here's a wacky picture of the trio of rock collectors.




The little guy was sleeping during our beach adventure. But he woke up in time for snack.



ok, back up a minute. Something I forgot to mention. The camp was across from a small airfield where people tended to jump from planes. So we watch a lot of people land like this...
Here are some more random pictures from the weekend.






We did have a fun week of school last week. I have some blurry pictures of the canoes and modeling dough the kids made. I must pull out the camera manual sometime soon and study it! This week we are talking about Ben Franklin, How Jesus is Our Rock and Rocks and Minerals. We are starting to learn about Tchaikovsky. Although we all stumble over his name We do recognize some of his music!

camping, birthdays, recovering-oh my!

We went camping with church Saturday and Sunday. We had a great time although as I'm still finishing up the laundry that this one over night created I'm not so sure I'll be quite as enthusiastic about the idea next time. As I unloaded the bags I realized that we brought a lot of sand home with us,joy more laundry than I thought!
But on the plus side of things we were right on the water. My room was to the left in the photo and the kids were right next to me although their room jetted out to the ocean a little more.


This is from my room Sunday morning. We woke up to a beautiful sunrise.



As per birthday tradition, the little boys and I blew up some balloons to go surprise the birthday girl. Well, they tried anyway;)

Here is our birthday girl! She was so funny, she came to me Saturday night saying mom the ocean is too loud I can't sleep. Then she ran in the room Sunday and said "mom, I forgot that the ocean was right here!"
Just a little side note, the room the bigger kids used was also the nursery during camp so all those toys stacked behind are not ours, no I didn't over pack like that!

part 2 will come later.

Beach life

I wanted to let you know of our beach experience yesterday. The kids wanted to go to the rough/wavy beach. I dislike going here because it's not as tranquil as the lagoon we generally go to but I decided we hadn't gone in a while so we'd go let them play in the waves. The kids had a blast as expected. We had the beach to ourselves, so nice to feel like it's your beach! Our own private oasis. Now I had my contacts in and the water managed to misplace one. So keeping that in mind, as I was looking in the water I kept thinking I saw something so I'd stare and not see anything so just assumed it was the contact issue and a wild imagination(ok looking back I know I should have said something to James at this point in case it was something serious) I get out of the water to go play with the little kids in the sand. A few minutes later James and the big kids follow. Turns out he thinks he saw something in the water too. So we are staring out to sea to try to figure out what it is.....thoughts going through my mind: log, shark, dead body(hey told you I had a wild imagination) James thought a seal. Then we get a good look at it, it had come in close now, it is sea turtles! So we sat and watch them body surf right around where we had been. I was excited to see them so close although wished they'd come up on shore so I could get a good picture of them, maybe next time!

Child Services

To say I'm disappointed in Child Services would be an understatement. This is a group of people that are suppose to be there to help children that are in bad situations. Yes there are going to be people in any job that make mistakes but when this is your job and you make a mistake it can cause a lot of heartache. Take my friend Sara for example. She had her kids taken away, her oldest, who is the same age as my oldest still worries that they'll come back for him. Sara won her case against DFC which is Great! I'm so happy but the thing is a. they took the children away BEFORE they asked questions and b. it cost them a TON of money to win this case. Now since they were innocent to begin with both these facts are absurd! Of Course DFC doesn't agree with the judges ruling and have said they will keep fighting this. So my question is how much money will they receive back to cover their legal fees and when will DFC admit they made a huge mistake?
Now because we live in the age of the Internet and the military moves us around alot we know alot of people. Unfortunately that's not the only person I know that has/is dealing with child services. Another friend Stacey is going through it too. Different reasoning's behind it, another innocent mom accused.
I'm not sure what needs to be done. I do know not all workers are so careless in accusations, I do have a great friend that children are lucky to have when she takes on a case. Workers do need to follow up on leads. It seems not everyone truly has the families best interest in the mind. Then too you hear of stories where children who truly needed out of the family situations were left with them and something tragic has happened. A serious overhaul needs to be addressed in our country for these services.
Knowing we live in a place where we are sue happy and the fingers are often pointed was a big reason we joined HSLDA. Now none of the above families are homeschoolers, yet when you do something 'different' it seems the finger may point to you. So staying up to date on legal matters and having a legal team on our side if the need should ever arise seems like a smart decision for us.


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In other news, Happy Birthday to my wonderful husband!!!!

We made butter over the weekend. I did take pictures but the camera was in the black and white setting so nothing really exciting about a black and white picture of butter! The kids had fun, each of the older three took turns shaking the container until, voila butter!
Sunday is a blurr, I remember picking James up from work and trying to make biscuits and gravy before church. Didn't quite have enough time to get the gravy just right but I think we will try to eat this a little more often because a. its yummy! and b. I'll be able to remember how to do it easier!
The kids made clay in science this week. J shaped his into a race car(which requires a lot of imagination!) and the I's made smile faces. J has painted his the others will paint today and then I will take pictures to share their creations.
I5 is turning 6 soon. She and I went out shopping yesterday. I think we have has started a tradition of doing birthday shopping with her every year. We have a lot of fun with it. The thing she really wanted was fingernail polish and she got a kit with nail polish and lip gloss. She is currently painting the younger brother's toes......hmm How do you think they'll look in pink and purple?

The older three just completed their first night of Awana's club . They all seemed to enjoy it and were all tired afterward. It'll make for a long Friday for them. I know I enjoyed talking to other christian mom's while they were in class and hope they are getting as much out of it as well. One mom was talking and I just had to stare at her for a minute because I was thinking of what she said. I was thinking of how different it was, now it wasn't anything totally off the wall but it was just the difference of someone committed to Christ and what someone of the world might say. I was realizing how use I am to comments of the world and how I need to guard myself against becoming use to them. Anyway just a little insight for me tonight and maybe you need to guard against outside influences as well.
The kids did learn one thing today. They have to wear close toed shoes and long pants. This is not something we normally do in Hawaii so we were not prepared and they didn't get to play the games. They were understandably a upset but still had a good time and now we know how to dress for club night.
It's been a busy week here and we haven't got to do alot of the extra activities that are studies have suggested. I'm hoping to play a little catch-up this weekend. Kids have been really interested in stars and directions(compass) this week. Also today they pulled out some craft books from Usborne that I have. They were making pirate hats, mice, crowns, lots of things. I was so impressed how well they could follow directions and just be creative without any input from me.

Pool time

My friend Michelle was showing us pictures of her boys swimming. So keeping her in mind and her great shots(She is very handy with the camera!) I decided to take the camera to the pool for a change.
Now you must know it took many outtakes to get them to jump at the same time. They kept trying to beat each other in the water!


She takes after me with the holding of the nose under water drill. Later on she put her goggles on which cover the eyes and nose.


This is classic. It seemed every time he jumped in the mouth was wide open, it's a wonder he didn't drink the whole pool!

It's dangerous to be the holder of the baby. He loves that splashing so the water is constantly in your face:)

A day at the pool is not complete without trying to push daddy into the pool. Yes, success!