A Week at the Condo

At the end of August, the kids and I headed down to Orlando to spend a week with my mom at a condo just off of 192. We had a few small activities planned during the week, but we also spent lots of time relaxing and swimming.

Monday

Our first full day there, we spent the morning at IKEA, enjoying their free Monday morning breakfast and 90 minutes of playtime for Rosemary and Ben. Charlotte spent the time snoozing in her stroller while Mom and I shopped. We came home with a trunkful.

Monday night I went to visit Janey and her new baby, Camille. I was pretty excited that it worked out timing-wise to visit them. I didn’t take pics, but she was a beautiful little baby.

Tuesday

On Tuesday, we headed to International Drive to see visit The Titanic Experience. We’d gotten a coupon back in April for homeschool families and we were finally able to use it. As the little Titanic buffs that they are, Rosemary and Ben were both so excited about this. Ben kept asking how many days were left until we went to the Titanic exhibit. I was a little unsure as to what it would actually be like, but since we had a coupon, figured it was worth it to see.

It ended up being a really interesting exhibit. There were at least 100 actual artifacts from the Titanic itself including a deck chair, a still-corked Champaign bottle, and a fairly large piece of the hull. There were several reconstructed rooms to view or walk through. We were all given names of actual passengers and towards the end of the tour we found out whether we survived. All four of the girls survived, Ben’s passenger was the only one to perish in the disaster. And while having Charlotte on the tour made things somewhat more difficult, I think everyone really enjoyed our time there.

We couldn’t take photos once the tour started, but we snapped a few outside and in the lobby.

They really wanted this photo in front of the grand staircase. We couldn’t take pics in front of the reconstructed one inside.

She looks happy enough here, but once that tour started with the ship’s baker, not so much. :-)

There was a mock-up of a ship’s bow in front of a green wall. The kids went crazy with that.

She has not seen the 1997 Titanic movie.

Chillin’

Wednesday

The next day we visited some of the outlet malls for some shopping. Since we had the kids with us, Mom and I didn’t do too much shopping, but we hit the stores we wanted to before heading back to the condo.

Thursday

We spent Thursday at the condo and enjoyed the pools. We’d been swimming most every day, as long as it wasn’t raining.

There were two very fun slides for the kids.

Even though Ben didn’t technically meet the height requirement, he enjoyed the slides too.

The living room of our condo

Mom walking with Charlotte and Ben to the ice cream party

The ice cream party consisted of just us. :-) But it worked and the kids enjoyed looking through the pamphlets.

That night, Jonathan and my dad arrived to spend the long weekend with us.

Friday

We visited SeaWorld on Friday. It was a hot day, but we still hit our favorite shows before leaving in the mid-afternoon. And Ben got to ride Shamu the rollercoaster (as we call it) for the first time that day. He and I were seated in the second to the last row and he did not make a sound the entire ride. He talked about doing it again so he must have enjoyed it.

After our barbeque lunch, we got a few family photos.

This was supposed to be our silly pic.

The matching girls

Non-matching boys

We checked out the stingrays too.

I think both of the kids got to touch them this time. I did too. So slippery.

Saturday

On our last full day, mom and I went to Winter Garden Village to shop while the kids swam with my dad and Jonathan. That night, Jonathan and I went out on a date to Houlihan’s for dinner.

The next morning we loaded up and headed home. We had a few days to recover before heading out for another trip on Thursday. Even though we had started school, it still felt like summer and it was a great way to end the season.

Ben’s First Soccer Team

This fall, Ben is participating in Upward soccer. It’s his first extracurricular activity and he was very excited to start. (Rosemary wanted to play too, but when we told her that she’d have to drop something else, she decided she was content to watch her little brother play).

The first day of soccer fell on the last day as Rosemary’s gymnastics class. The time overlapped too so Jonathan and I had to do some switching of kids to get everyone where they needed to be.

This little boy was VERY excited to be a soccer player.

A bit hot, but still practicing.

Out with his daddy.

Ben’s team, the Red Raiders, originally didn’t have a coach. They do now, but it’s been fun watching the parents pitch in to coordinate the kids. I’m just happy that Ben is having a good time playing and looks forward to the practices and the games so much.

The Full Chip Jar–Bowling

Over a year ago, a friend of mine mentioned a reward system that they used in their home involving poker chips and an empty icing tub. In an effort to encourage good behavior, we decided to try something similar. Last fall was our first try and it was a tremendous success. We originally had two jars, one for Rosemary and one for Ben, but that just created competition so we condensed to one. Our kids get poker chips added to the jar for various things…obeying right away, having a great attitude when it’s easy to have a bad one, helping a sibling…really any kind of behavior that we want to see repeated. The only rules are that they don’t get a chip if they ask for it and that they can’t lose chips. Chips are only rewards, we don’t take them out as a consequence for bad behavior. Well, in the fall when their jars were full, we took them to Chuck E. Cheese. This time, they decided that they wanted to go bowling as their reward.

Amazingly, it ended up that we chose to go bowling on National Bowling Day. The kids were already going to get to bowl for free, and Jonathan and I ended up bowling one game for free as well, we just had to pay for the second game and our shoes.

Even Charlotte bowled. Her little bowling shoes were super cute.

Rosemary threw the ball on her own. She did really well. We had the bumpers up, but for a first timer she threw pretty straight.

Ben got a little help with the ramp too. Originally he was throwing his ball, but it took SO long to reach the pins.

We were there a while so we had dinner at the bowling alley. The kids had a blast and so did we.

They tell us that they want to go rollerskating for their next trip. I’ll take pictures. Jonathan can handle that trip. :-) I would end up in the emergency room.

The YMCA

I feel it would be remiss to go through the entire summer without any mention of our local YMCA. We spent so much time there this summer. We watched our kids blossom in their swimming skills and all just thoroughly enjoyed the membership. We swam in the day, at night, took advantage of the gym (and the childcare), and Rosemary did a gymnastics class. Some weeks we swam almost every day. And it’s just a few minutes from the house.

As Rosemary and Ben’s swimming skills improved, so did my confidence in taking the three kids swimming on my own. Earlier in the summer I would drop Charlotte off in childcare, but when Rosemary was big enough to take her swim test I decided to see if I could handle all three. And it worked out! It was also nice that there were two lifeguards on duty so I really was never alone.

Relaxing a bit before heading home.

And a few pics from Rosemary’s last gymnastics class.

I could see an improvement in her gymnastic skills over the summer. And it was fun to take them during a summer Olympic year.

Rosemary’s First Day of First Grade & First Swim Test

While it does seem a bit early, we officially kicked off our school year on Monday, August 6. Starting now helps us to build some cushion into the year and take off planned (or unplanned) days without feeling like we’re behind where we should be.

Rosemary’s First Day of First Grade

There was a pretty big contrast between prep for last year and prep for this year. I don’t know if it was that I had a better idea of what to do or if I just was less neurotic, but it seemed much less complex.

I ran out the day before school started (in a torrential downpour) to pick up some first day of school gifts for Ben and Rosemary. I hadn’t planned on getting them anything this year, but they remembered their little gifts from last year, so we decided to get a couple of books for each. Ben is really into the Titanic so he got a Titanic reference book and a Magic Treehouse Titanic story (which we finished on Tuesday). Rosemary really wanted the McKenna book when we went to pick out her Barnes and Noble free book from their summer reading program. She ended up picking out a National Geographic Kids Titanic book as her free book, but since I knew she wanted the other too, it made it easy to know what to get. The paper doll book was also a hit.

Here’s all of our stuff ready for the first day. I had some activities ready for Ben too.

And our first grade curriculum is:

• Saxon Math 2
• First Language Lessons Level 1
• Writing with Ease Level 1
• Zaner Bloser Handwriting 1
• Explode the Code 3 and 4
• First Grade Spelling Lists and Dictation Sentences found online
• Ordinary Parent’s Guide to Teaching Reading
• Story of the World, Ancients
• Leading Little Ones to God
• Artistic Pursuits, Book 1
• Family Time Fitness
• Elemental Science, Biology for the Grammar Stage (modified through our co-op)

That list seems overwhelming, but since a number of the subjects aren’t everyday subjects, it makes our mornings full, but not crazy. Math takes the longest, but some of the other subjects are not at all lengthy. I got a little panicky before I sat down and made out our schedule, thinking it would be overwhelming, but seeing it planned out made it much less daunting to me.

Also, I’m trying to be more intentional about our memory work so I am hoping to have our memory work all in one place to make it easier to refer to throughout the week…like Classical Conversations, but with our own information that is relevant to what we are working on at the time. For the first two weeks, here’s what I have, all pulled directly from our various curricula:

I just need to keep it up. Knowing me, this is where I will struggle when things get busy during the year. So maybe by mentioning this here, I will feel more responsible to continue doing it.

Both Rosemary and Ben were excited about their new books.

I never cook breakfasts on weekdays, we’re a cereal and granola bar kind of family, but on Monday we had pancakes. Rosemary and I enjoyed them with chocolate chips, Ben requested blueberries. Charlotte’s were plain…because they’d be less messy.

At breakfast everyone wanted to make funny faces.

Charlotte can be such a ham!

After breakfast, Rosemary got dressed and immediately started getting her paper dolls and accessories punched out. We’re going to Williamsburg later in the year so I’m hoping that we can do some fun stuff with the Felicity dolls to get ready for our trip.

Our first grader!

I am so thankful that these two are such good friends. Yes, there are times when you couldn’t tell that, but every so often I hear them tell each other, “I love you,” and it just brings me so much joy.

Best pic I got of the four of us. Poor Ben is covered in my hair, but little Charlotte is even looking at the camera!

Rosemary and I stepped outside for a couple pics at the door. Ben wanted to be in them too. :-)

Pretty first grader

Once inside, it was time to ring the school bell to start the day. All of the kids actually ring the bell. And it is SO loud.

Pledge to the American flag

Pledge to the Bible

Getting to work

My plan is to start the day off with all three kids at the table. Rosemary will work on Math, Ben on some pre-writing things or puzzles, and Charlotte will color then have a snack. Since Charlotte isn’t napping in the morning anymore and is at a stage where she is in to EVERYTHING, I think we’ll be doing more work at the table than at Rosemary’s desk since one of Charlotte’s favorite things to do is pull items out or off of things. We’ve finished four days so far and this has been working. Sure, Charlotte makes it exciting when she’s down, but it’s not been too bad as long as I keep the bathroom doors shut. :-) We’ve just got to get the routine going again. Ben has really enjoyed his ‘school work’ too. It’s really been a great first week so far!

Rosemary worked so well Monday morning and Charlotte and Ben did such a great job too, that we decided to take a break and head over to the Y to swim a bit and then wrap up our reading in the afternoon. Rosemary has been contemplating taking the swim test so that she can swim in the deep part of the pool on her own. At first, she planned to take it later in the week, but after practicing treading water a couple times with me in the shallow end, she decided she was ready. So Ben and I (Charlotte was in childcare) went over to watch Rosemary take her swim test. And SHE DID IT! She was so proud. Ben said that Rosemary was swimming like she was in the Olympics. She kept her green wristband on the rest of the day so she could show her daddy. This is a girl who wouldn’t swim without me holding her when we started going to the pool in May. What a difference!

Rosemary with her first deep end swim band

That afternoon we wrapped up our school day. One of Jonathan’s former co-workers was going to be in Gainesville that night so we met up with Jeremy, Wendy, and Joshua at Mi Apa for dinner then headed over to Sweet Dreams for ice cream.

She still had the band on

Ben wanted a pic too

It’s been a full but not hectic week. The transition back to schoolwork has been fairly smooth. Thankfully the curriculum eases us back in, which I think we needed, and it’s giving Rosemary confidence as much has been review this week. And I am really trying to be more intentional about commitments that I make to help keep our family more in balance this year. Last year was rough at times and I don’t want that to happen again. Next week, soccer for Ben and ballet for Rosemary kick back off, then in September Ben heads back to preschool and Rosemary should start Daisies again, so we’ve got some more things to look forward to starting!