At Harris Lake

I know the picture doesn't show it, but we're surrounded by 5-6 story-high pines. It smelled so good!

Week of April 21-27

I'm doing a fundraiser on behalf of a deprived little boy. He's 3 years old and quite active and healthy. The problem is that he doesn't have his own scooter. He must use the hand-me-down princess scooter that once belonged to his sisters. I've attached a picture so you can see the problem. Isn't it upsetting to see such a cute youngster, as himself, riding a pink girl's scooter? To make matters worse, his safety helmet no longer fits. Since getting it last Fall, his head has grown too much.
This situation has just gotten out of hand and we must do something to help! I think it's affecting his ability to identify himself. Look at the next set of pictures... can you say crisis?? He doesn't know if he's acting out Superman or Batman. The poor child :)No, really, he attended a birthday party and I suppose the face painter didn't know how to enhance Superman. And he has asked for a Spiderman scooter for his birthday because an unknown boy in our neighborhood pointed at him and yelled, "Look, that little boy is riding a girl's scooter!". So, he has begun to realize the stereotype of a princess scooter. To finish up my weekly report on Preston, I'll end with the quote he gave me after he cleaned up a mess in the bathroom and I complimented his job: "Yeah, I'm good... so good I scare myself sometimes."

Other news this week: We found out that a little boy will be joining my brother and his wife at the end of August. We're so excited for them! We're on the lookout for Snoopy nursery items.

Other than that excitement, it was a gently flowing, easy week until Saturday. That was one exhausting day. We attended our church picnic on Saturday morning at a lake we've never been before, and it's just minutes away. Very nice- can't wait to go back and hike some of the trails. That's one of the nice things about living here is all of the outdoor things to enjoy just miles from our home. The above picture was added. So after filling our tummies with all the fixins of the cookout, we played in the beautiful 80 degree weather. Preston cried because "It's too hot!", but he must not remember what summer feels like!

The Hallmark store's Webkinz Extravanganza was next on our list. (Spend $10 in the store and you get a free Webkinz.) If you know what Webkinz are, then you'll understand what a powerful motivator it was for 3 young kids to know they might get some more of these little stuffed animals. The girls got their piano recital songs memorized in order to earn a Webkinz that I would buy, and then they'd get to pick one of the selected freebies, too. They also did extra chores to save up their tickets, which they redeemed for money to buy another one. We actually went Friday right after school because the free ones were limited quanitites, but went back on Saturday because the store had games from 2-6, like spinning a wheel for prizes and digging for a gold stone. Haylee found the gold stone and won ANOTHER free Webkinz! We walked out of there buying a total of 6 and receiving 9 free. Yes, ridiculous, I know. But all of the free ones went into the closet and will be brought down one at a time as I see fit and some used as birthday gifts for their friends. I'm just relieved that the girls are ready for the upcoming recital:)

Then after all that excitement, we spent the rest of the day working: We planted a garden! The soil in our yard is terrible and we don't have a huge amount of good space in but we got some free plants and decided to go for it. Darrin spent about $100 at Lowe's getting all the soil and wood to make a raised area (plus I bought some herbs as I LOVE to cook with fresh herbs). We worked all Saturday afternoon with no complaining from the kids. They helped me with yard work while Darrin built the garden. They had fun putting the plants in the ground. We have yellow squash, cucumber, cantalope, zuchinni, tomato, basil, rosemary, oregano and some flowers. I'll keep you posted on how it grows, I mean goes!

We were so tired and dirty on Saturday night. We quickly took baths and crashed on the couch to watch Raiders of the Lost Ark. It's important to educate our kids on Indiana Jones, ya know. We're excited about the new movie coming out.

Our sore bodies are recovering and we're receiving some needed rain today. Grow garden, grow!

Guitar Hero- finally!

Update for the week: The Smith's now have Guitar Hero! You would think we are the last on the planet to get it. We had fun playing this video game at our friend's house in Virginia so we came home and rented it from Blockbuster for a week. The girls couldn't get enough, so when Darrin received $50 from Best Buy (an incentive to keep customers, who bought an HD DVD player from them, happy since the guy there told us HD would beat out BluRay in the end) he applied it to the Guitar Hero game. I think the kids are going to fight him for play time because he loves it, too! Now, we're going to ask Santa for Rock Band and get the whole family playing at once.


Other news of the week, Haylee advanced to gold belt with green tip in karate. YEA! That means she can carpool with some friends to the advanced class and make my life easier:) After watching the 44-year-old black belt recipient at the graduation ceremony, Darrin has decided that his back is healed and the break is over. He's signing up for karate classes again in May.

Also, I signed the girls up for the Olive Chapel Otters Swim Team. This is a big deal around here and our neighborhood pool is a host pool for the local team so it will be very convenient. $165 (total for both girls) pays for 5 one-hour swim lessons per week for 2 months (you attend as often as you can) and participation in 6 swim meets. Everyone who has done it says it's the best way for your child to learn the 4 different strokes, build their endurance and get the most training for the money. After I looked up the cost of swim lessons, there was no question about that last one! I'd pay the same amount for eight 30-minute classes! Now I have to figure out my summer teaching schedule so that we can fit in this much time at the pool.

We enjoyed watching Darrin play softball on Thursday night. It was a beautiful day (77ish) and the fields are next to a playground. The kids like to go back and forth between watching Daddy at bat and going down the slides. Hannah nearly broke her arm as she travelled to the park side and tripped on a tree root. Thank goodness a friend on the team is a physical therapist and he told us that she didn't show any signs that it was broken so we were saved a trip to the ER. It was still sore and bruised on Friday, but seems to be fine now.

Hannah, Preston and I spent much of the week with colds and are finally recuperating- just in time for a busy weekend. Saturday was filled with 2 birthday parties and our school's carnival - Artapalooza! On top of that, I made dinner for a family of 8 whose daughter is undergoing chemotherapy. Needless to say, I'm ready to crawl into bed and prepare for whatever this next week brings!

Colonial Williamsburg

Preston Yells FIRE!

What is so significant about Yorktown? On October 19, 1781, the American Revolution culminated with the British surrender to the combined American and French forces under the command of George Washington. The Siege of Yorktown effectively ended the six-year struggle of the Revolutionary War and set the stage for a new government and new nation. You can visit http://www.historyisfun.org/Yorktown-Victory-Center.htm for more info on what we did.

On our visit to Yorktown Victory Center, we watched a demonstration of the process of igniting a cannon. Preston got to yell "fire!" Watch the cute video!

Other pictures are on the slide show. They have an army encampment with a doctor to explain how he tried to keep the soldiers alive. It was interesting to find out that they were more likely to survive a gunshot wound than a cold virus!

Yorktown, Virginia

Jamestown EST 1607

Washington D.C.- March '08

Spring Break in DC and VA!

We recently returned from a trip to Washington DC and Williamsburg, VA. One of the great things about living on this side of the country is the quick access to all of the historical sites you read about concerning the beginnings of America in Colonial times to the Civil War. We want to take advantage of showing as much of these places as possible to our kids and bring history ALIVE!

We also want to include as many spiritual experiences as possible, and this trip started with a visit to the temple in D.C. where you can view Joseph Smith, The Prophet of the Restoration movie at the visitor's center. The movie was very powerful and I know the girls could follow its message. (Preston didn't get a lot out of the entire trip, but 'twas expected!) We took a few pictures there, including some of a model of the Nauvoo temple made out of Legos- Darrin's highlight of the day:)

Then we headed into DC to see the Library of Congress before it closed. This building had been my favorite as a teen tourist, full of Greek-influenced architecture and artwork. It's not just a library of books, but also of some amazing things, like one of the oldest Bibles known to exist - the Gutenburg Bible, and some of the first maps of the round earth. The kids thought it was neat that they had just seen National Treasure 2 that has scenes from The Library of Congress.

Next, we checked into our hotel- nice place for the price and being so convenient to the Mall. A horrible front blew in and made it too cold to continue our sight seeing that evening, so we turned in early hoping for a better tomorrow. Well, didn't happen. The wind chill was 19 degrees as we ventured out to the Washington Monument. You have to get tickets in advance, so I didn't want those to go to waste. We bundled into 4 layers of clothing, hats, scarves, gloves, the works, but the wind was stinging any place it could touch. We suffered through the monument, which had awesome views, and got ourselves into the Air and Space Museum to stay warm for a while. By lunchtime, we could handle the temperature better and saw the Lincoln Memorial (Hannah's favorite), the Vietnam Memorial and the Korean Memorial. We drove by the newer WWII Memorial- it's very impressive. We wanted to get close to the White House for pictures, but the security around there is so tight that the walking seemed impossible to add on. There's still plenty for us to see on a return trip, and next time it will be in guaranteed warmer weather!
Then we headed to Suffolk, VA to stay with my high school pal, Angela, and her family. They are moving to Maine this summer to finish his tour with the Navy and we wanted to make sure to see them before they left. Since living in NC, we've had the opportunity to visit several times and enjoy their hospitality. They live within an hour of Colonial Williamsburg, Jamestown and Yorktown, so we spent a day at each place and then spent the evenings with them. All of these places are living museums of what life was like back then and the kids liked Jamestown best with the Indian village and ships to walk on. They also loved a tunnel that we had to cross each day that went UNDER the ocean! We learned a lot and got a small taste of the many historical places to visit just hours from our home. Hope you enjoy the slide show!

Car Wrecks and Rendering Aid

Many of you know of my car accident on December 27th coming home from Charleston, SC, with my sister, Amy. We experienced a tire blow out while travelling 65-70 mph on a highway totally lined with large pines. I've never been so terrified in all my life. As I struggled to maintain control on the highway, and avoid the trees, I felt certain that if I survived, life would never be the same. (In a way it isn't because I'm much more cautious in my driving and I don't take each day for granted, well, maybe some days!) After spinning around, hitting a few trees and landing in some brush, we were so lucky to walk away without serious injury. (Here's some pictures of the poor Avalon.) Amy and I were so grateful for those who stopped to help, especially an off-duty policeman who stayed with us for 45 minutes until the highway patrol finally arrived!

Now for the rendering aid: We enjoyed a recent trip to Washington D.C. and Williamsburg, VA., but before getting into the fun events in my next blog, I have to fill you in on our drive to DC. We were the first to arrive upon a single car wreck. It was raining and a couple's car hydroplaned into the trees. Darrin saw the woman waving in the rain and pulled over. She said many cars had passed her, but to Darrin, it was obvious that she needed help and he could see their car down in the trees. We were so glad to be able to stop and render aid to this couple who were on their honeymoon!!! The car was very smashed up and the wife, Katy, had to kick to windshield out to climb out of the car and climv the embankment for help. The husband, Robert, was pinned in between the console and his door that was pushing in on him with a tree! He was having a difficult time breathing and Darrin did a great job of talking to him and keeping him focused while I talked to emergency workers who were trying to find our location. We stayed with them for about an hour in the rain, holding their dog and watching the jaws of life cut Robert out. It brought back a flood of memories of my wreck in December. I was so lucky, but had pictured the jaws of life having to rescue me as I was hurling into trees. It felt wonderful to be of service to these people as we were the only ones to stop. They have since called to offer their thanks. Robert spent a week in the hospital with a colapsed lung, several broken ribs, a smashed left arm now held together with titanium and a broken pelvis. We could tell that they were Christian people and relied upon the Lord for their strength and healing. We also felt such a love for these strangers and know that the Lord smiled upon our efforts to help them in their time of need.

Hannah Banana

Yes, we still call her that, but she'd prefer Hannah Montana, or basketball star, or spy kid. Hannah is the kind of girl to cover the entire spectrum of what it means to be 7 years old. As you can see from the many pictures how photogenic she is with her beautiful coloring, but isn't concerned with her beauty yet. She has a few girly preferences: music choices, Webkinz and PetShop toys, but really loves "boyish" stuff, too.

Upon my insistence, she is learning piano and has made some great strides recently. Also, she has discovered the popular sounds of High School Musical and Hannah Montana. She and Haylee love to crank up their CD player already! She owns about 10 or so Webkinz and loves stuffed animals almost as much as her big sister. Fortunately, they play really well together and Hannah tolerates sharing a room with Not-So-Tidy-Haylee! Hannah is a bit of a neat-freak, which mom likes but siblings don't!

In addition, she LOVES sports. She recently completed her first basketball season and can't wait for next year to start up. She definitely has the heighth advantage over others her age and practices frequently at the neighbor's goal (our driveway is too angled for one). I've included a photo of her medal. She also saves her money to buy spy gadgets and we get a laugh out of seeing her wear it all. In fact, she proudly presents herself as a tomboy and refuses to wear anything with flower patterns or hair bows (with the exception of Sundays). It's a little sad for me, but at least Haylee enjoys the "cute" stuff.

The big event for Hannah this year will be her baptism in the Fall. She is excited about this big step and that she'll get to join her sister at Wednesday night activities! Hannah is such a wonderful example in our family and makes the job of raising her an easy one. She always wants to do the right thing and is very mature and organized for her age. Her last report card was AWESOME, receiving all 3* and 4's, which places her a grade level above in Math and Reading! Darrin and I take very little credit for this... she has the drive and self-discipline to get her studies done as soon as she walks in the door. What a burden off our shoulders to have such a great kid!