Big Girls and Summer

Madeleine, Sarah, Samantha, Emily, Kaitlin and Drea on the Elmo ride

The "big girls" reference is not to ourselves, but rather some 9th graders who came to visit. One of my good friends, Sarah, teaches junior high. This summer she bravely embarked on an east coast trip with three of her students. Their final stop was the "Historic Triangle" of Williamsburg, Jamestown and Yorktown before they flew out of Richmond. We got to spend time with them and Madeleine and Emily are in awe of the "big girls". My Little Ponies received braided manes and tails, the big girls came to our house for dinner and they even rode with Emily and Madeleine on some of the Busch Garden rides!!

In non-big girl news. It was with more than a bit of trepidation I was looking ahead to this summer. I have been completely spoiled by preschool and the luxury of being able to predictably and reliably run to the grocery store alone! However, it has been a great summer so far.

Madeleine and Emily participated in "Tuesday Turtles" through the county park and rec department. Each Tuesday, for four weeks, the girls would join other children at a park, make crafts, go on a nature hike and eat a snack. It seemed the program was a success as we would like to do it again next year.

Emily and Madeleine also did a week of "day camp" (Mo-Th 8:30-11:30) and will do another later in the summer. Again crafts seemed to be key, which is great as we love them.

The early part of the summer was spent with our friend Emerson at Busch Gardens, Water Country and her neighborhood pool. One day she and her mom Amy came to our house and taught us how to make strawberry mice!

Emily in pink and Madeleine in green making strawberry mice.

Madeleine, Emily, Emerson.

Madeleine, Emerson and Emily with Lincoln who decided to camp out in the bathroom sink - I have no idea why, but it amused the girls.

And...we managed to catch a movie. Regal is once again doing free kids movies and we managed to sit through an entire feature-length film. Our debut was with Horton Hears A Who. Honestly, it looked pretty touch-and-go at the beginning as the movie starts with a close-up, as in a bug's perspective, of water drops on a leaf and a rolling seed pod. This was enough to make Emily burst into tears and Madeleine whimper. I put Emily in my lap and tried to calm her down, when that did not work I began hissing loving maternal things like "Emily you are fine!", "Emily suck it up", "Emily it can't get you", "For crying out loud Emily it is a kids' movie!!"...we were not through the opening credits. However, we found the movie was about a friendly elephant and his "speck", so we survived. Madeleine burst into tears and shook at the point a character has to go the dentist and they show a close up of the numbing shot - granted it is Dr. Seuss and a bit dramatic, but the needle was not pointed at her! Anyhow, we went back and saw it again 24 hours later and managed to power through the "scary parts" - there was still whimpering.

On the Fourth we went to Busch Gardens in the morning and assumed it would be crowded. It wasn't at first! We got the characters all to ourselves!!