June Recap - VBS

One of the kids favorite summer activities is attending Vacation Bible School.  With Covid, VBS was online so Rylee and Jace did the lessons and activities at home.  They asked everyone to take pictures to share on their website so that's why I have so many.  :)

Day 1

Each day there was a video lesson...

an origami project...

a game (like this water balloon toss)...

and a coloring page.

Day 2 had several games

like this cracker stacker...

this wiggle worm activity 

(Gypsy wanted to get in on the action!)...

and this water sponge game.

This wasn't part of the activity, but who can 

resist squeezing a sponge over your brother's head!

Day 3

Just a couple of pics from the last day.

We didn't have the right kind of shaving cream for this game, 

but we made it work (sort of).

It was fun all in all.

A few random pics from more nostalgic playtime.

Playing in the rocket ship...

Pulling out all the Polly Pockets...

and snuggling with Gypsy!

June Recap - Slip-n-Slide

Another nostalgic activity was to bring out the slip-n-slide.  The kids tried laying on a float to make it less painful...

They had fun...

...but they still said it was rough on the body!

June Recap - Outdoor Fun

We've pretty much been quarantining since we came to MN, but we've been enjoying the outdoors.  The kids have a summer bucket list of favorite activities. 

First up, running through the sprinkler.

To my kids, it's not just a sprinkler, but a portal...

Or something to be controlled by magic...

Tada!

We've had a few social distancing get togethers with Grandpa Chip and Connie, Sara, and a couple of campfires with our Cedar Crest crew.  Love these Erickson kids!  Meg just finished her first year of college at St. Thomas and Max has a full time job this summer at Ruttgers cleaning cabins.  

One day, we decided to do a throw back activity and pulled out the kid's bounce house.  Clearly they've outgrown it!  Lol.  

Gypsy wasn't a fan so she was happy we decided to give it to Greg and Sharon's grandson, Cash.  Hopefully he'll enjoy it as much as the kids did when they were young.  :)

Actually the first activity when we arrived was putting up the slack line.

The kids use that daily!

Sporting her new St Thomas sweatshirt!

This year, Rylee graduated to driving the golf cart by herself.  No adult supervision required.

Even Bear (the dog) liked riding with her.  

Speaking of Bear, the dog my Uncle Howard was babysitting and brought to the cabin, we almost killed him with rat poison!  He ate a stick of poison in the garage.  Luckily, I happened to see him eat it, otherwise he would have bleed to death three days later and no one would have known anything until it was too late.  Instead, after phone calls to our local vet (me) and the poison control number  (Howard) and running into town to buy hydrogen peroxide (me), we were able to make him throw all of it up.  (Bear didn't mind the hydrogen peroxide, or the rat poison for that matter, clearly he doesn't have a discerning palate.)  Howard and I still took Bear to our vet the next day so he could go on a vitamin regimen just in case he had ingested anything.  I'm happy to report that Bear is doing fine and his owners were very cool about the whole thing!  :)

June Recap

Jace missed out on some fun things this Spring as well.  We were most disappointed about his missing the 2nd grade flea market.  Each kid makes a product (25 items usually), creates a business name, an advertisement etc.  Then one day at school is dedicated to the flea market.  You are a seller for half the day and then a buyer for the other half of the day (with fake money you earned in school for good behavior).  It is always a hit with all the students!

Jace's teacher had each kid make one example of their product.  Jace was planning to make perler bead creations - video game inspired designs.  He likes to create the patterns himself - which impresses me!  His example was a Nintendo Switch with a Mario on the screen.  Brutus can play the Switch with Jace now.  :)

Throwback picture from their Kindergarten swimming field trip.

Look at Rylee and Emily in the middle!

The kids got out of school on June 2nd.  My last day was June 3rd.  We drove to MN with Gaga and Papa June 4th!  Per usual, we looked like gypsies, tramps and thieves - or tramps, theives and Gypsy!  Not that you could blame us!  We had five people and a dog in the car plus luggage, overnight bags, backpacks, snacks, and all of mom's cushions and pads to keep her knee as comfortable as possible.

The kids were rock stars on the trip.  They played games, watched movies, etc.  You never heard a peep out of them unless it was giggling.  Papa joked that we must have left Jace back at the rest stop he was so quiet and focused on his video game at one point!  

We all agreed Day 1 was good because we were excited to be on the road.  We made it to Montgomery, Alabama before we stopped.   Day 2 dragged the most, we all needed an ice cream pick me up in the afternoon, but even that wasn't too bad.  We stopped in Rockford, Illinois that night.  Day 3 was the best because we knew we were going to be home!

All in all, it was a fun road trip... just glad we're not doing it again until August!  :)

May Recap - Grad Photo Shoot

During quarantine, Rylee and her group of gal pals had a weekly Zoom.  They talked and played games for over 2 hours each Saturday.  One of the girls, Alani, wasn't able to be there during the drive thru celebration so we all got together at the park for some photos one day.

We stopped and took a few photos of Rylee at the school first.

Alani's mom picked up some balloons and 

these cute graduation teddy bears for the girls:

Jada, Maria, Alani, Emily and Rylee.

We decided to ditch the masks so we could get some actual photos!

The jumping pics!

Throwing their bears in lieu of hats.  :)

As of right now, all of these girls are going to different middle schools.  It's possible that Emily might end up at Rylee's school, but she is still waiting to see if she was selected in the lottery.  They are the best group of girls - it makes me so sad that they will be going their separate ways.  I hope they can always stay in touch!

May Recap - Rylee

Covid-19 spoiled a few things for Rylee this year.  She was supposed to be Donkey in her school play of Shrek.  That was cancelled.  Too bad - that was a funny role!  Luckily, they decided to do the city play over Zoom.  She was the Evil Queen/Old Peddler Woman in their version of Snow White.

It actually went amazingly well!  The kids practiced on Zoom for a couple of weeks.  They all created their own costumes and props.  There were some funny Zoom moments - like when a phone rang, or when someone's Dad walked by etc, but for the most part it was great! 

Family pose before the play...

Her sophisticated set up - a sheet and 

some board games for height!  Lol!

Luckily her Halloween costume this year

was perfect for the Evil Queen.  She threw a gray blanket 

over herself the Old Peddler Woman look.

Unfortunately, she also missed her 5th grade trip to Universal Studios and her 5th grade graduation.  The school did do a drive through celebration for the kids which was nice.  We decorated the car with this sign we had made using her VPK graduation photo!

After we drove through the car loop, 

we parked and took some pics with her friends.

Social distance hug with her bestie Emily.

Hugs with Jada, Emily and Maria.

Her only real guy friend, Nico, is popping out of the sun roof.

All the kids got these adorable shirts.

Group shot with Nico this time.

We have a joke right now based on the kids height: Rylee is my mustache and Jace is Rylee's beard.

We were all laughing because we kept smiling for the pictures even though you couldn't see them underneath the masks!

Congratulations Rylee!  Good luck in middle school next year.  

Jace and I will miss not going to school with you anymore.  :(