Has It Been 35 Years?

Bob and I celebrated our 35th wedding anniversary in June.  It really does not seem possible that it could be that long.  If I could do the math I would figure out what percent of our lives we've been together.  More than half for sure, and getting close to 75% I think.  We have been blessed in so many ways, and are thankful for each and every day.

We took a Mediterranean Cruise for our 30th, and decided to take another cruise for this one.

Can you guess where we are?

I try to take a picture of each countries' flags ~ but I confess that I didn't know them either.

But I do now:-)

This is not the Red Cross, this is the Danish flag.

Norway

Germany

Estonia

Russia

Sweden

and I've searched my photos over and over, but I can't find the flag of Finland.   We did go there too, so just imagine a white flag with a blue cross. 

As you probably can guess, we went on a Baltic cruise.  It was pretty terrific ~ but kind of hard to describe.  When you go to England or France or Italy, it is easy to tell everyone what sights you've seen.  They are all so familiar to everyone.

These places were not as familiar to me so visiting on a cruise ship was a great way to get a little taste of each country.  But hard to tell just what you saw to the folks back home.  No "name brand" monuments to tell about. {well, the Berlin wall is kinda famous as are a few of the palaces in St. Petersburg}

We went on the Emerald Princess, and I didn't take one picture of the ship.  Luckily for you, we took the very same ship on it's inaugural year to the Mediterranean.  Here is a fuzzy picture of the ship docked in Ephesus, Turkey.

It's big.

~ Really big ~

But the rooms are small.

{flowers are from my 30th trip too ~ no flowers for 35 ~ hmmm}

Just in case you want to see a cruise ship potty ~ it's this small.

For the next few days I will be posting about our trip.  Mostly for my memory.  Please come back if you would like to see some random shots taken from buses and boats.  This was a trip that did not produce stellar photos ~ but we have some stellar memories.

And that's what it's all about.

Happy Birthday!

Today our girls turn 33!  How can that be?

We returned last night from our 35th anniversary trip, just in time to celebrate with our girls today. 

Jessica and her boys~ 

Laura and her kids~

Jackson is enjoying his ice cream.  He ate every bite of dinner and the huge bowl of ice cream and then I saw him raise the bowl.  Do you see the melted ice cream running out of the bowl?  What a sweet mess that boy is!

We missed these little monkeys while we were gone.  I'll be blogging about our trip as I sort through the photos and try to figure out my pictures.  

We had a marvelous time but we are so glad to be home and sleeping in our own bed.  There is nothing like HOME! 

 Today it was wonderful to spend time with our girls and their families ~ we are so proud of them and the families they are raising.  We love you Laura and Jessica!

{ and lest I forget, my brother and sister, also twins, were born on this day 46 years ago ~ Happy Birthday Ross and Amy! }

Red, White, and BOOM!

I am a little late to all of the parties ~ July 8, instead of the 4th.  But as a grandma I have to share my grands, and  our daughter Jessica spent the week in Kansas and just returned yesterday.

So we celebrated as a family today with a little red, white and BOOM!  

{if I knew how to edit, I would remove the pile of "real life" from the high chair.  That is where I pile stuff in anticipation of my girls coming over.  Little things they have forgotten or things I am trying to unload give them.}

A setting for a "big" kid.

And one for  a little.

Yummy

Greeting our cousins we haven't seen in awhile.

Aren't these the cutest little nut cups?  I am so happy I found red white and blue gummies.  Because I really am not interested in gummy candy they keep really well at my house.  My grands love them and so do my son in laws.

You've got to have red, white and blue drinks too!

We were going to grill, but I forgot I had bought red, white, and blue pasta {no picture ~ but CUTE from Costco} so, the menu was changed to pasta and meatballs.

We still had to eat our chips and cheese.  Those are cute little chip holders from World Market.

I was going to make the fruit skewers that were all over Pinterest, but I only had the short skewers.  This is called improvise, but I think it turned out cute.

And for our art project, the kids stamped white stars on blue paper and Elizabeth cut out all of the steamers and we just stapled the whole thing together to make our patriotic windsocks.

I did not have one patriotic book to read.  Gasp!  I had given the book The Star Spangled Banner and a book about George Washington that I purchased at Mount Vernon to the kids earlier this summer.  Hopefully the moms will read them to them. 

The kids have all reached the 100 book mark, so we will celebrate this week with lunch out and a trip to the TOY store.  Fun for all I'm sure.

Here is my list thus far ...

1. The Very Hungry Caterpillar

2.  Corduroy

3.  The Story of Ferdinand

4.  The Runaway Bunny

5.  Make Way for Ducklings

6.  Chicka Chicka Boom Boom

7.  If You Give A Mouse A Cookie

8.  Doctor De Soto

9.  Mike Mulligan and His Steam Shovel

10.  Goodnight Moon

11.  Alpha Oops! The Day Z Went First

12.  Pretty Salma, A Little Red Riding Hood Story from Africa

13.  Madeline

14.  Thunder Cake

15.  On A Summer Day

16.  Swimmy

17.  Caps For Sale

18.  Tikki Tikki Tembo

                          19. Zomo The Rabbit, A Trickster Tale from West Africa

 20.  The Snowy Day

  21.  Chicken Little

22.  The Three Bears

look here, here, and here for Grandma's Camp Read A Lot posts.

I have got to get reading to the kids to even come close to their records.  I was hoping for 50 books, but I guess we'll see.

We are kind of in the midst of a whole house overhaul ~ it's kind of like "If you give a mouse a cookie" style of decorating.  The new floors required new baseboards in some rooms, and a whole house cleaning of some serious dust.  Then perhaps some new accessories and on and on.  You get the picture.  I hope to start to post some pictures of the spic and span spaces soon.  I'd like to get back into regular posting.  

For now, I'm off to enjoy the rest of my day, and I hope you all will have a great week!  

Fish Tales

Today we met for our Camp Read A Lot and I think my campers are up around the 60 book mark!  I'm so thrilled to see them excited about books!

Today my theme was Swimmy, a book about a courageous little fish who solves his problem and gains some new friends in the process.  This is a sweet story with beautiful illustrations.

For lunch I served blue jello with some red swedish fish.  Yum {not so much, but the kids liked it}

Here is Grandma's bookworm:

1. The Very Hungry Caterpillar

2.  Corduroy

3.  The Story of Ferdinand

4.  The Runaway Bunny

5.  Make Way for Ducklings

6.  Chicka Chicka Boom Boom

7.  If You Give A Mouse A Cookie

8.  Doctor De Soto

9.  Mike Mulligan and His Steam Shovel

10.  Goodnight Moon

11.  Alpha Oops! The Day Z Went First

12.  Pretty Salma, A Little Red Riding Hood Story from Africa

13.  Madeline

14.  Thunder Cake

15.  On A Summer Day

16.  Swimmy

17.  Caps For Sale

And here are our campers with their red fish.  If you are not familiar with the book Swimmy, all of the fish that are his size are red, he is black.  They band together and swim together to make a giant red fish to outsmart the other big fish and not get eaten.  Swimmy is the eye.

You can see our red fish with our black Swimmy eye.

Our camping snack today was mini s'mores.  These are good.  You need the new mini graham crackers and mini marshmallows and chocolate chips.  Just place the marshmallows on the cracker and broil them for a minute or two.  It goes fast so keep your eye on them.  Then remove them from the oven and put a chocolate chip on top.  These ARE yummy.  I will make lots more next time.

We gobbled these right up.

After a treat from the treasure chest, they went home and now I have to get busy and think of some more fun activities and some more prizes!

Stay tuned.

Here are the other 2 posts about camp read a lot ~ here and here.

Reading A Lot!

Welcome back to Camp Read A Lot.

{To see the first post ~ go here.}

The campers all came to Grandma's on Sunday to celebrate Grandpa's birthday and I thought we had better get a picture in their cute shirts before they got all messy.

I made the banner with my girls' cricuts and just love it.

Here is the list of books that we have read at Grandma's so far.

1. The Very Hungry Caterpillar

2.  Corduroy

3.  The Story of Ferdinand

4.  The Runaway Bunny

5.  Make Way for Ducklings

6.  Chicka Chicka Boom Boom

7.  If You Give A Mouse A Cookie

8.  Doctor De Soto

9.  Mike Mulligan and His Steam Shovel

10.  Goodnight Moon

11.  Alpha Oops! The Day Z Went First

12.  Pretty Salma, A Little Red Riding Hood Story from Africa

My little campers get so silly posing for pictures.  

Today we finally painted our caterpillars.  The kids are suited up and have their sunscreen on so you will see some ghostly faces.

Clean up is a snap with shaving cream.   We did a little practicing of correct letter formation while we were at it.

Such a cute picture of Ben.

Our finished caterpillars don't have eyes because we ran out of time, but we did get some legs on them. They are just pipe cleaners cut in half.

At lunch we made caterpillars with our grapes and strawberries.  

And with that, I think we are done with caterpillars.  

The bookworms are up in the family room.  Every book read to the 3 little ones gets written on a circle. Elizabeth had to read her own books ~ although we have modified that so some of the ones her mom reads she writes down too.   

Here is a peek at Jackson's bookworm.  You can see the kids have been reading up a storm.  This should look quite interesting come August.

And here is a little visual of our treats for me to remember.

I am taking the 3 big kids, one at a time, after VBS this week, out to lunch and to the bookstore to pick out a book.  They filled out the Barnes and Noble reading club so the free book is from there.

The "treasure chest" sits in our living room and is filled with all sorts of junk.  The kids know about it of course, but they aren't allowed to ask for something from it.  It's something I just offer up now and then.  The boys especially love to get a treasure.  I'm actually getting kind of desperate for some cheap treasures to put in there too.  I always scour dollar bins looking for stuff because my stuff is getting kind of tired.

  

I had to laugh last time we had the box out, Cooper saw a robot in there and he said "Hey that's mine."  Sure enough there was a letter  C on the bottom.  I always put a C and B and J on things as the boys get the same cars and action figures often.  So I'm sure I found the thing on the floor and just popped it in the treasure box.  I think a few other things in there are forgotten toys of theirs!

So, there you have our Camp update.  We only do the camping activities when all 4 are here together, and I am busy planning our next few visits.  I have to get busy and think of a few fun treats too.    We have received prizes through 30 books, but I know the next time they come they will be over 45.  

My 3" circle punch is getting a great workout!  

I love to see my grands so excited about reading!

Grandma's Camp Read A Lot

Once upon a time, when my girls were in college, I got a "real" job at an agency that had a grant to do after school tutoring to "at risk" youth and it had an emphasis on literacy.

It was a dream job for me, totally God planned for my exact circumstances.  I loved it and I worked at it for 8 years, until my granddaughter was born.

For several summers I ran an 8 week small summer camp for grades K-6 called Camp Read A Lot.  Their parents were at our agency for parenting classes, or GED, or budgeting etc.  

I had to plan activities that spanned those grades and they were all focused on children's books.

Now, reading is my absolute favorite thing, and both of my daughters are avid readers too, and we are determined to make readers of the next generation.  So...

Welcome to Camp Read A Lot

Of course every camp has to have a T shirt!

These were made by a friend of Laura's.  Aren't they darling?

This whole idea kind of started with the 30 minutes it takes for  sunscreen to soak in.  You see, when the grands come to swim their mothers lather them in sunscreen, as they should, but then the poor kids just sit and look at the pool and it is a loooong 30 minutes.  So I decided this year we would read as we usually do, but I would dig through my old work stuff for some simple crafts to do to go along with the books.

And as the story goes, if you give a mouse a cookie...

I got a little carried away with the fun stuff.

I wanted clip boards for them to write on, because we are outside and all of my outdoor tables are "holey."

These are great because we can keep the papers in them and they are pretty cute too!  Of course I ordered these first and I didn't know what our shirts were going to look like.  I wish the bookworms were the same, but I'll get over it.

First day of camp.

Excited campers!

The campers are hard at work.  Our first book was The Very Hungry Caterpillar {you saw that coming didn't you?}

I found some printables here.  They were great too, had some color matching for our almost 3 year old, some printing copying for our kindergartners, and some writing for our 2nd grader.  She's looking up the words in the book.

These were the totes for each camper.  Things were a little hectic and I didn't get a picture of all four of them.  I just put a toy, a bubble thing and 3 books for each child to start them out on a summer of reading.

My daughter's cricut and vinyl made Target dollar bins pretty cute.

Our camping snack was a different kind of s'more.  I used alpha-bits cereal, mini m & m's, and mini mini marshmallows. 

I got these cute bags here on Etsy and the stickers here.

I have decided that prizes and treats will be awarded for every 5 books read.  These are the bookmarks that will accompany the book for the prize for 5 books.  The treat for 10 books will be Movie Morning.

That was an easy decision as I have to watch all 4 kids on Wednesday morning.

I gave each child a baggie of 3" circles.  We are making bookworms to decorate our family room.

I am reading books from this list.

So far we've read:

1. The Very Hungry Caterpillar

2.  Corduroy

3.  The Story of Ferdinand

4.  The Runaway Bunny

5.  Make Way for Ducklings

6.  Chicka Chicka Boom Boom

Follow along on our reading adventure.

Any guesses on how many books we read?

*updated here

Sharing at Richella's Grace at Home party.