Julie’s Journal

It’s been crazy around here the past two weeks.  Here’s a recap of our life lately.

We pulled Karson out of Young Fives and moved him to Kindergarten at Max and Savannah’s school.  Now we have both the boys in Kindergarten right next door to each other.  Anyway, he’s happy and we are happy and it solved our day care issue with him, since it’s all day K.  Now we only have to pay for Jasmin…it cuts our childcare costs in half.

Kindergarten is going better.  The first day was awful, but each day it gets easier.  I’m figuring stuff out and enjoying it more.  The afternoon goes by so fast, it’s crazy.  One thing about half day kindergarten…I don’t know how you are supposed to fit everything in!  I really like my class.  They are a good group of kids.  We have fun, and I think maybe most of them love me.  One little boy gives me a hug and tells me he loves me everyday.  So cute!

Here’s a picture of my class and their flags that they made last week.

Our camper is still sitting in our driveway after four weeks!  I have barely touched it except to get things we needed out.  Though tonight, I did clean out the refrigerator because we unplugged it for a while this afternoon.

I totally forgot until Thursday that today is Karson’s birthday.  What kind of mom forgets to plan a party for their kid’s 5th birthday!?  I feel terrible.  It is going to be very hard to have a party now anytime close to his birthday because our family has so much going on this week.  Luckily he doesn’t really care that much.  I was going to plan a party at Fun For all Kids.  We did Max’s party there and it was so easy.  But he just wants it at home.  Last year we had a big party with an army theme, so I guess this year would be his year for just a family party anyway.  I think we are kind of planning for Thursday night.

Tuesday is Penny’s memorial service.  I am kind of looking forward to it, but then kind of anxious to get past it.  It’s been kind of strange having so much time pass between her death and her memorial service.  Sam has been working on putting together a slideshow of her, but we wish we had more pictures of her…we don’t even have enough for a whole song.  That was the thing about Penny.  She was always helping behind the scenes, serving people and ministering to them…it seems that she avoided the camera at most of our family celebrations because of that.

This weekend we took Pirate Island out to flavor fruit farms.  My nephew Josiah wanted it for his birthday and so we had the party out there.  Because we came out there for free, Meckley’s gave us all the perks of a party…free hayride, doughnuts and cider, walk through the corn maze and free tickets for the inflatable.  The kids had a blast and our shows were really fun.  It was a beautiful day and the kids were all great.  We were tired though and Sam is sick this weekend, so it was a lot more work for me tearing down.  We pulled out right as Laura the elephant was pulling in to our spot.  Perfect timing.

I’m writing this at 2 in the morning.  When we got home I took the kids upstairs and gave them all baths/showers…but trying to get them in bed was challenging. You know how kids love to stall…and I just had no patience…so I came down and asked Sam to finish putting them to bed and Jaz and I layed on the couch with a bottle and fell asleep for a few hours.  So now I am wide awake.  I put the roast in the crockpot and got it cooking for lunch and did some laundry, wrote some emails and updated my school’s website.  Now I think I am ready to go back to sleep.  I don’t know if we’ll go to church tomorrow…it’s always weird going without Sam.  He’s staying home and hoping to get some extra rest.

I thought I would post a few of the drawings I have done during camp this week.  Nothing spetacular…but I know it’s been a while since you’ve seen any of my drawings.  So here you go.

You might think it’s pretty bad that I draw during church…but I really am still listening when I am drawing.  Sometimes it actually helps me focus.  I figure it’s an hour that I am just sitting there not really doing anything so I pick up my pen and draw.  This drawing (above) kind of got some water dripped on it later after I drew it…oh well.  Cary suggested that I make a collage of people’s backs.  I don’t think so…it would take a while to get enough to do that.  But here is another one I did.

This drawing I really liked, but the service ended just before I got the hand drawn…shoot!  I also did this drawing last night…and didn’t get it quite done.  I just love that I can take off my shoes during church and I love the feel of the cool grass when the rest of me is so stinkin’ hot!  These are my sandals I got this summer.  Funny thing is two of my friends ended up with the same exact sandals later on!  They are super comfy…from payless.

I also did this drawing at the beach…but i don’t really like it.

We go home tomorrow…it will be nice to be home…but I’ll have a lot to do when we get back.

I have to get the show finished by Friday. Jasmin can only watch the kids for me during the day today…the rest of the week she is hoping to spend finishing painting the outside of her house. But I told her if the weather is bad, call me and she can come over and work while I go paint. I really don’t have much more to do. The biggest challenge ahead of me is the lettering. It’s really important that it looks professional for something like this.

Today I painted in the scroll…I think it looks pretty sweet (check it out in my flickr pictures)…exactly how I imagined it would. Then I put another coat of paint in the sky on the marquee and painted the clouds and then high-lighted them with white. They look pretty cool. I spilled paint on the floor 3 times today. I don’t know what was wrong with me, but seriously it seemed like every time I turned around I was knocking over a cup of paint. See, I mix a lot of colors. The colors I have to use a large amount of get their own paint can…the others just sit in a cup, and usually by the time I get done using that color, it’s dried up or gone anyway. I also use the cups because they are easy to hold on to…I can even hold two at a time if I need to. And when I am doing stuff like the clouds and the scroll that has a lot of blending…I have one cup of the main color and usually white and a darker shade. It’s maybe not the way the professional painters do things…but it works for me, unless I have an accident prone day like today! I got it all cleaned up, though, it just was a pain…and I think my toenails are still golden-yellow.

Anyway…I felt like I got a lot accomplished today. After painting I went to Economy to pick up some One Shot (sign paint). I decided I will use it to outline because I know it works and it will cover the paint…I will not have the issue I have been having with the latex enamel. But when I got there, they were out of black. But I found some in my old paint stash that might work. I am not sure if it will be enough, but I can use it till it’s gone anyway. So I will work on that tomorrow and hopefully the fact that the paint was sitting in my garage for a couple of years will not have affected the way the paint works. It looks fine to me…but I will have to test it out.

I have to finish by Friday because Saturday I am taking the kids and our (new) camper out to Somerset Beach for a week of Family Camp. (Sam has to work, but it’s close by and he will be able to join us some of the evenings). We are all so looking forward to it. It is really a lot of fun. We have gone for 4 or 5 years. We don’t have that great of a spot. It’s way in the back and no shade…but it’s not that big of a deal. And they have tram rides before and after the services. The kids have a program like VBS in the morning and they also get to go to the kid’s church during the evening services. We spend the afternoons at the beach…though I am not very excited about getting in a swimsuit these days. My friend Cary camps with us with her two kids, Jake and Abby. I love it because Cary is really organized…and it works out good for us. I am really excited this year about the camper. There is so much more room in it, and I think the kids will really enjoy it. Last year we were pretty crowded with our other camper…but it was our own so I didn’t really mind it. The biggest challenge is probably going to be baby Jasmin. She still cries when she goes to sleep, so I am hoping that she doesn’t keep the kids awake and stuff. She is almost ready to crawl…but I am kind of hoping that she holds off on that till summer is over, because having her crawling around and putting everything in her mouth could be difficult to patrol in a camping setting. Right now we basically clear out a 3 foot circle around her and then set her down…and she never leaves that spot. I plan to take the pack-n-play and the super saucer and a booster seat with a tray for feeding her…and I think I should be good with that.

Tonight after dinner, we all went out to the camper. It was really the first time we had spent any time in there. Sam turned on the air. We played with the slide. We checked out all the storage areas and cupboards and we cleaned some stuff. After the kids went to bed, I ran up to Walmart and picked up a few things…some groceries we needed and some 3M hooks, and a couple of other things for the camper. I am thinking I still need to get one of these though. There isn’t a lot of storage area for food in there. I will also miss my tall closet. We have a shorter one in the wardrobe in the kid’s room. I remember that Sandy & BJ (our friends who camped in it last year) said that she would probably have bought a drawer unit like that if they were going to keep it. I can see why, because as I was spending time in there, I could see there just wasn’t many places for storing food. Our old camper had storage all around the ceiling in the whole kitchen and dinette area, plus above the refrigerator. That was one thing I really loved about that camper. This one has more storage underneath though, so that could be a good thing if I can figure out how to best utilize it.

Anyway, it was a good bonding time for me. It sounds weird to you probably, but I just need to spend some time out there getting to know it and love it. I miss the old camper, only because I knew everything about it and we spent like 6 weeks in it or more last summer…and made a lot of great memories. This one I am sure I will love too…it is just going to take some time to get to know it. (Sounds like I am talking about a person…