Beach Day

 

We are at the beach on a week day because we are homeschoolers and we can.  I'm no James Dean but, I love any chance I get to be countercultural, even if it is a small and perfectly legal thing to do. 

 

 

The water is starting to get cold and it took Spark awhile to get use to it.

 

 

Right away he found an agate.  He has an eye for agates but, I was still amazed he found on one the beach that had had hoards of people at it all summer.

 

 

He also found this Sponge Bob silly band, perhaps we were at Bikini Bottom.

Lake Yoga

 When we pulled up to the beach tonight this is what we saw.  Upon getting closer, we realized that they were out there doing yoga on paddle boards.  Not that any of us are limber enough to do yoga but, even if we were, we wouldn't be bending all over in the middle of the lake for the whole world to watch.  This is one of their more modest poses.  They were even entertaining us with the "happy baby" Willie did on an episode of Duck Dynasty (which he did while wearing leggings thankfully).  Crazy, I may now have seen it all, and with these ladies we almost did.

This is more my beach style, floating around lazily with a noodle.

Daycare Reunion

When Dancer was born I decided that I just couldn't leave her at a daycare and let someone else have fun with her all day while I was working.  I also worked a job that had a lot of evening obligations and I was out of town 90% of my work time which didn't work the best with a baby and nursing.  Since I needed to have an income, I opened an in-home daycare and had fun with other peoples kids while they were at work. 

I liked to have kids in sets of two that were the same age, so I would have two four year olds, two three year olds, etc.  That way they had a playmate that was at the same development level as they were.  This is the girl that was the same age as Dancer.  She came to us when she was just about two and stayed until she went to kindergarten.  I actually had three kids Dancer's age because I started a boy, Alex, when they were a babies.  He and Dancer were inseparable, even spending a lot time outside of daycare hours playing but, I wanted a girl for her to play with too.

Alex, was a shy little thing and Dancer was a bossy little thing and she had no trouble bossing Alex.  She use to tell him, "Alex, I am going to marry you." and in his tiny voice he would say "okay."  

When we moved we lost touch with Alex but a few years ago we found that this girl also moved out to our town.  Today we finally had schedules that worked and we got together at the beach.  She's not so little anymore, she's taller than I am but, she is still as cute and sweet as ever.  They did live on the road behind us and so once in a while she would still come over and play until we moved but we didn't see her very often.

Spark was only two when she started kindergarten so he doesn't remember her from daycare, just from stories and now when we see her around town.

The noodles were no sooner set down on the sand and they started playing Ninja warrior with them.

You would never know they hadn't played together for over seven years.

They lounged in the lake.

Built a sand castle for princesses.

Played in the lake some more.

Worked on their suntans.  This is what suntanning looks like when it is 65 degrees and cloudy.  It was a fun day, hope we can do it again.

As we were leaving we checked out this sign.  The beach was just totally redone and the town took donations to help pay for it.  To thank everyone they put up a big sign with the donors names on it.  We had to wonder if the anonymous donors wanted to be so anonymous that they didn't even spell anonymous right.  That is the problem with signs, no spell check.

Morning Beach

Spark, the lone swimmer

We had the entire beach to ourselves.

No one even on the lake.

Dancer didn't swim but, it is in the a.m. so she thinks it is early.  In fact, she was only up a few minutes before we herded her in the car.

The water was bathtub warm.

The fish were there so we weren't totally alone.

Fishy shadows.

More and more kept swimming over the longer I stood there

putting visions of -

a fish pedicure in my head.  The thought of that sent me back to relax by Dancer.  By 11:00 the beach was filling up and we headed home. 

A Day At The Beach

Dancer went to a beach birthday party so Spark and I moved further down the beach and had our own party. 

It was a perfect day, the water was warm and the breeze was cool.

Our home away from home.



Our ceiling.



Last time swimming outside this year

While the kids were swimming in the heated pool at Grandma's I was huddled under a towel.  The kids didn't want to get out because it was too cold so we let them swim three hours.  It was the last time of the year after all and the plan is to drain the pool on Tuesday.  The time we can swim outdoors is so short here that we need to take advantage of it while we can.  I went to Atlanta one year for a conference in October where it was still really nice out.  We asked why the pools were all drained when it was still so nice and the lady looked at us and said "your from up north aren't you?"  Apparently they think temps in the 70's is too cold.  If we didn't swim when it was in the 70's we would have about two weeks out of the year to swim.

Dancer rescued this damsel fly from the pool.  Were were able to ooh and aah over him and take a couple pictures while his wings were drying.  Once they were dry he was off like a shot.

Houston, we have a rhythmic breather

Last year at swimming lesson during homeschool gym at the YMCA, Spark was unable to pass his level because of rhythmic breathing.  We decided to pull him out of swim lessons because there is no where to practice rhythmic breathing in the winter.  Our thought was we could work on it this summer and he could try again in the fall.  Well, fall is fast approaching and we hadn't done any work this area, so the last couple of days we have been hitting the beach for him to get some practice in.

We went early this morning, 9:30 a.m. but that's early enough, and this was the beautiful scene we saw when we pulled up in the car.   It was so humid the sun hadn't burned through the fog from the night yet.  We were the only ones there so it was like our own private beach.  A lot of times if we go before noon we have the place to ourselves.

As we were swimming this loon came about 20 feet from us and put on a little show flexing his wings and just being graciously stunning and beautiful.  Of course, by the time I tried to inconspicuously wade back to shore the get the camera with the hopes of getting some close up shots of him, he dove back down under the water.  Dad was able to get this one from shore to show how close he was to us.

And then the real reason we were there, Spark made some serious progress on learning how to rhythmic breath!    A few more times and he should be good to go for lessons this fall.

4-H Beach Party

Our 4-H year end party was this afternoon.  We were at a lake cabin thankfully since the temps were in the 90's and the humidity was in the 80's.  This is a picture of the kids having their meeting.  It was taken with the camera right after it was taken out of the camera bag which must have been much cooler than the outside temp because the lens fogged up instantly.  The blurriness isn't from the camera not focused, it is dew.  We were sitting outside in the shade doing nothing and sweating.  I hate hot weather, my Scandinavian blood is much too thick for these temps.

The kids did play a few games.  This game is musical clothes.  There is a bag of clothes that gets passed around and when the music stops if you are holding the bag you have to pick out a piece of clothing and put it on.  Spark got caught with the bag twice.  He had quite the outfit!

Tossed eggs at each other.  When the parents played my partner and I were the winners!  It is amazing the abuse an egg can take before it breaks. 

They dug for buried treasures. 

 

There was kayaking, Dancer is in the kayak on the right.

And paddle boating. 

4-H day camp counselor!

Dancer had her first day as a 4-H day camp counselor.  Two of her best friends are also camp counselors so she is really excited about it.  The two years between being a camper and being old enough to be a counselor were sad for her.  She loves to sing the songs, do the crafts, and play the games.  Now she gets to do all that and be a leader. 

The counselors also get to do skits for the kids and she really enjoyed that too.  The skits will be so good for her.  She is one of the shyest kids on the plant.  We use to practice what she could say if someone she knew said hi to her.  She does better now because she has her list of responses down pat when she needs them and it come much easier for her.  She has trouble calling someone on the phone too, even friends.  Can you imagine a teenager that doesn't like to talk on the the phone?  Young kids can be shy and get away with it but older kids come off as a snob if someone says hi and they don't say anything back.  She can get up and dance in front of 100's of people at a time but to have to say a word sends her into tears.  Perhaps it is because she always thought the counselors were so cool and now she gets to do it that she didn't think about acting out a skit and just went ahead and jumped in.  Either way, I am so excited about it.  Of course, I won't tell her that because I don't want to draw attention to the fact that she is doing it.  Maybe I will after the last camp and all the skits are done. 

 I didn't want her to tell to much about camp because Spark hasn't gone to his day camp yet, he is going to the very last one, and I don't want to ruin it for him by knowing everything they are going to do. 

One of the girls is staying over tonight as they have another camp tomorrow morning in another town.  We took them swimming tonight and had the beach to ourselves.  Because of our cold rainy June so far the water is still really cold.  It took them a long time to even get wet. 

There is a list of rules that need to be followed with "zero tolerance" in capital letters at the bottom of the sign posted at the beach.  One of the rules is that there is no swimming outside the buoys.  If you are swimming outside the buoys you really aren't at the beach anymore and then the rule wouldn't apply to you.  I said the kids, what do you think they do if you swim outside the buoys?  Does someone come and take your towel?  Another rule is that there is no life guard on duty.  Does that mean there is zero tolerance on saving someone?  Hmmm, I hate stupid rules, save rules for the big stuff.  I wonder who thinks these things up, they must have sounded good at the time or did they need enough things to fill up the sign.

This momma duck must have read the sign and took it seriously because she took her little brood all the way across the beach and never went outside the buoys. 

A Loon

We took the kids into town tonight to swim at the beach.  There were probably about 15-20 people in the water splashing around and being really noisy when right in the middle of them a loon pops up out of the water.  He would then dive down and pop up on the other side of the swimming area, dive down and pop up on the other side again.  Dad wondered if the swimmers were stirring up fish that he could easily catch.

Summer at it's finest

At Grandma's there is a pool that the kids took full advantage of.  Both of our kids float like corks.  Spark can even put his hands behind his head and cross his ankles.  Dad stood on the roof of the pool house to take the picture, it kind of has a deck on top so it wasn't like he was balancing on the peak.

After this we went home and both kids got a math lesson in.  All the schools around here are done for the year today and we are sort of getting back into the swing of school again.  The beginning of April found us burnt out on school so we pretty much stopped everything except for a math and Latin lesson here and there.  More there than here.  Now that we have had a couple of months basically off they are settled down and able to concentrate again.  I want the kids to be doing something constructive most of the day, hours and hours of video games or fluff fiction reading doesn't not count as constructive.  If it is hot and humid in the afternoons we get a little learning in at least a few days a week around the rest of our schedule.  That will vary week to week but we keep on through the summer for the most part.  I would guess that September and October will have us looking for a break again. 

First swim of the year

All weekend the kids begged to go swimming....at the beach.  It defies common sense to go swimming yet, the ice has barely been off the lake, or so it seems.  But they keep on asking and so last night Dad said to take them in and they can see it is still too cold.  We pull into the beach parking lot and it was full of people with no common sense. 

Spark ran down to the water and jumped right in.  Dancer was a little more hesitant but she too submerged.  She only swam for about half an hour, all the while telling us how cold it was on the bottom.  Spark was in there for over a hour and sure didn't look cold.  Perhaps he is part polar bear.  We should go in and take the temp of the water and see just how cold it was.