Summer Wind Down

Somehow, in the blink of an eye, we find ourselves in our final breaths of summer vacation.  I feel like we've been going non stop all summer long.  In some ways, we've had one of our best summers yet, with lots of time to be together and do things as a family.  But I do feel as though I need bit of a breather to come down off of the last few weeks.  Here's the iPhone recap.  Because my camera is in the car...which is in the shop.  But that's a whole different story.

 

Mid-August is the infamous Turbotville yard sale day, and had been marked on my planner as the official "Dugan Family Going Out of Baby Business Sale" for the entire year.  The fact that you couldn't walk a clear path through the basement was my first clue that it was time for a purge.  For days leading up to the Friday/Saturday yard sale, the name of the game was "carry things up from the basement".  I wish I counted the number of trips, but before long, I had a garage full of baby clothes (all of Joshua's baby clothes, and girls things up to size 24 months and some 2T's that Mara has outgrown).  I was partially appalled at the sheer quantity of stuff we had, but mostly excited to think about getting rid of it and making some sense out of the basement again.  I won't lie and say that I didn't have a few sentimental moments while going through baby things.  There were a few things I found as I was sorting through tubs of clothes that made their way to a pile that went back inside the house--- things that were just full of too many memories for me to let go of for $1.  I felt really badly, but at one point, an Amish woman came up to purchase a pile of little pink baby clothes and I saw the sleeper that Lauren had worn when she came home from the hospital.  I had searched for it and couldn't find it, but when I saw it in her pile, I nearly cried.  I apologized profusely, but explained that it was a special outfit, and would she mind horribly if I put it back out of the things that were for sale.  She smiled and nodded as if she understood.  God bless her. 

Friday of Yard Sale weekend was nuts-- with people in our garage literally from 6 am until 5 pm.  And then Saturday started up bright and early again with people coming around 7 am.  We finally closed up shop out of sheer exhaustion somewhere around 3:00.  I am so grateful for my Mom and Jason's Mom's help with the kids during the sale.  We couldn't have done it without their assistance, and the kids loved the special play time!

The kids had a lemonade stand, and I believe drank more than they sold.  But it was an awfully chilly morning on Saturday, and I think that hurt their sales efforts.  But, it did serve the purpose of giving them something to do to keep them from "shopping" in their own old toys.

For being good sports and good helpers with the sale, we let each of them pick out one new toy at the toy store to replace the 400 that we sold.  In my book, this was still a win.  Joshua picked out some spy gear (the latest object of his obsessions).  Lauren picked a new Ariel doll that she adores.  And Mara picked a "new baby doll with a bink and a bottle".  Thankfully for her, we were able to find all of their items for their wish list.

Last week appears to be a complete blur with no pictures to show of anything we did.  Huh.

But we capped off the weekend with a special celebration for our favorite 3 year old!!  The kids were so excited to get a chance to go to Kinley's birthday party to celebrate with her.  I think my heart grew about 10 sizes bigger just watching Mara and Kinley playing together during the party.  They seemed to be having a great time, even holding hands from time to time as they changed activities.  It just flashed me back to when Emily and I were both pregnant, and I found out that Mara was going to be a girl.  I remember that phone call when I told her that I was pleased to announce that Kinley was going to have a little girl to play with.  And I dreamed of times just like this.  The big kids all enjoyed celebrating with Kinley too, and had a great time playing together.  If only our calendars were open enough to schedule time like this on a weekly basis (with or without Elsa cake and all the yummy food that Emily worked so hard on)...because I certainly left filled up, and I'm not talking about our stomachs.  We are blessed by their friendship, and I hope our kids always know that same blessing with each other.

Last night was orientation night at school.  It took a basic committee meeting of a corporate logistics department to get the transportation schedule straight, but we managed.  Lauren's classroom time was first at 5:00, so I took her to the school for that.  During this trip is when I apparently managed to drive through wet YELLOW line paint that had just been put down, which explains the fact that the Suburban is getting a little work done today to (hopefully) remove it.  Lauren had a chance to check out her K4 classroom, see some of her friends from Nursery School last year, and meet Mrs. Deitrick again.  I had to laugh as I looked around, because I was one of very few "repeat" Moms who have had older children go through K4.  Most of the parents looked absolutely terrified of the school process--- probably exactly as I did a few years ago when it was Joshua's turn to transition to 5 day/week school.  I met several of them and tried to give them some peace of mind.  K4 was definitely a highlight for Joshua, and I'm sure everyone will have a great year this year as well.

Our time in 2nd grade was just as positive.  Joshua was thrilled to see all of his friends again.  In between all of our travelling and camping and obligations this summer, I apparently did a horrible job of planning times for Josh to get together with his friends to play.  I'll put that on next year's list.  In my defense, there were to be some group outings organized by last year's Room Mom, and apparently she had similar problems to me because there weren't any that actually got off the ground.  Joshua's new teacher and I had spent a good while on the phone last week brainstorming about allergy plans for his classroom, and she was wonderful about communicating the "peanut free" environment with the class and parents last night.  I think we left with two excited kids, ready to start the new school year.  And Mara, who was just sick of being at the school and wanted to go home.  But hey-- two out of three isn't too bad!

Excitement

 

 

Two exciting tidbits from yesterday.  One awesome, and one not so good.

 

As I was entering Turbotville yesterday, sailing along while listening to the newly released Selah album (oh my goodness-- if you love hymns, you have to get it!), I saw Jason passing me in the truck going the opposite direction.  Right about then the phone rang, and it was Jason, telling me that he was on the way to the ER with Joshua.  My heart nearly stopped.  Apparently Josh had been playing in the neighbor's yard when something bit him on his finger, and by the time Jason saw it, the finger had swollen to twice the size it should have been.  With any other child, we'd have probably put ice on it and kept an eye on him.  But with an anaphylactic reaction history, Jason did what he thought was best, which was to get him in the direction of care as quickly as possible in case things got worse.  I told him I would gather up the girls and be right behind him.  I thought I would call our pediatirician just for some advice, though.  They recommended, since he was having no other issues with breathing or other systems being impacted, to give him a good dose of Benadryl and to watch him for a while to see if the swelling got worse or better.  Since Jason was closer to Turbotville than to Lewisburg, he turned around and brought Josh back to the house for Benadryl.  Thankfully, nothing new developed, and with some ice the swelling in his fnger went down as the evening progressed.  I will admit to getting up to check on him about 19 million times through the night, but you have to do what you have to do.  We have no idea what bit him- a spider, a bee- no clue.  But we could have done without the excitement.

 

I had told him that if he was feeling strange at all after the Benadryl that he needed to tell me.  God bless his heart, Joshua is about as analytical as they come, so all we were doing while I was making supper was analyzing everything he was feeling in his body.  "Mommy, I can feel my heart beating.  I don't think it's going faster than it should, but do you?"  "Mommy, my throat feels a little dry.  Do you think that's the bite or do you just think I'm thirsty?"  After about a half hour of this, all through our supper, I decided we needed a distraction.  So out into the yard we went.

 

My goal for the summer was to help Joshua learn to ride a bike without training wheels on it.  I don't know whether we are behind or ahead of the curve on this, but it just seemed to me like it was time.  Josh seemed to be most comfortable working on it on his own, so he has been, for the past few days, working at getting going on his own without any help from us.  He was so proud to show me that he has mastered it, and made several trips around our neighborhood last evening without any wrecks.  I was so proud of him, but even better, he was so proud of himself!

 

I still owe everyone a great big post with a million and twelve pictures from our weekend in Poe Valley.  We'll see what tomorrow brings.  But given my recent track record, I'm not so sure I'd hold your breath.  I try.  I really do.

Interesting News...

There's something about August.  I feel like every year I find myself chasing a long to-do list of thinsg that need to be done before the kids get ready for school.  And since I'm saying "kidS" (plural) my list is seemingly longer this year than it was last year since Lauren will start going to school daily instead of her 3 day nursery school schedule. 

We've had a shopping trip, and I've filled in with some online purchases.  We still have our school supply lists to fill and label.  Our backpacks survived last year, so I'm going to make an attempt at getting another hard year out of them before we repurchase.

The most intense back to school preparations absolutely revolve around Joshua and his allergy issues.  Each year I have a new teacher to work with in order to prepare them for what needs to be done.  We also update our Auvi-Q prescriptions and update the anaphylaxis care plan that is on file with the school.  I've learned to coordinate this back-to-school checklist with a trip to the allergist at the same time- they can help fill out forms and everything will be up to date for the beginning of the year.  I've not been happy with Joshua's allergist for all the years that we've seen them-- but they were the only show in town, unfortunately.  Most of what I've learned about managing his allergy has been learned on my own- as the doctor's office had been little to no help.  When asked for suggestions at the very beginning of this road for us, the doctor's office advised us that we needed to avoid peanuts at all costs.  And that was all they could offer.  Clearly, it hasn't been that simple.

I was excited about this year's visit because the old doctor had since retired, and a new doctor had come to take over the practice.  I went with a list of questions, and he answered them all with great care.  What bowled me over, though, was his news about Joshua's lab work.  He asked me if we had had labs drawn before we came for our appointment.  I told him that the former doctor had suggested we not bother with them because the labs were showing no change.  He looked at me strangely and said, "Really?"

Apparently Joshua's levels on his initial blood work were 40.  40 what I don't know.  It could be 40 lollipops.  But he said that last year when we had lab work done, his levels dropped dramatically to 10.  He said that with a decreasing trend like that, he'd really like to see the labs this year to see if they moved again.  He said not to get our hopes up, but that with a trend like that, there may be some hope that Joshua could be one of the small number of kids who outgrow their peanut allergies.  I thought I might get up and do cartwheels.  I restrained myself to just giving Joshua a squeeze and a high five, although he had no clue what any of it meant until we discussed it on the ride home.

We haven't yet been to the lab to have his blood drawn.  As you can imagine, it isn't one of Josh's favorite things to do.  But I'm more than a little anxious to see how things are going with his levels.  The doctor said that anything under a 2 would mean that they would try a skin challenge.  And anything under a 1 would indicate that an oral challenge might be a possibility.  I didn't even know what to do!

Regardless of what happens and where the levels are this year, we'll proceed very cautiously.  All school preparations will remain the same.  All safety measures that we live with will continue.  But there is some reassurance that perhaps, one of the 15 million prayers that I've said on behalf of this sweet little boy might have been answered in the way I have hoped.  We'll take whatever the news is with faith and gratitude, but we sure are hoping that things are continuing to trend in the right direction.

Walking our Babies

Last night, while the guys were doing something tough and masculine (like playing football on the PS3), my babies and I took their babies for a walk around the neighborhood.  You would have thought I offered them an ice cream cone with sprinkles with how excited they were about this little adventure.

 

Of course, Mara's beloved Purple Baby came along for the ride, but she had a few extra friends piled into that pink polka dotted stroller as well.  Lauren found a baby she thought needed some fresh air and pushed the smaller stroller, kindly sharing her big stroller with her baby obsessed little sister.  God bless her heart, Mara is the most baby-crazed of all three of the kids.  And real life or pretend doesn't seem to matter.

I was extra proud of Mara for making the double loop around our neighborhood in big girl underpants.  She has been trained during the day since earlier this summer after a trip to the Mowry's and a little (unplanned) peer pressure from Kinley inspired her to pee in the potty like Kinley was doing.  But I haven't trusted her to go too many places quite yet without a pull-up.  My potty training philosophy has always been really relaxed.  I let them tell me when they're ready and it usually takes a day or two to get them pretty well set.  My goal has always been day time training before they turned three, and not much sooner than that, but each one has been different in the timing when they were ready.  She is waking up dry now at naptime and in the mornings as well most days, so our diaper buying days may be coming to a close.  Although I have lamented the end of many things since Mara is the Dugan family caboose, diaper purchasing is not one of them.

We played outside for about an hour after our walk and did some bike riding and chalk drawing.  Mara excused herself once for a potty run inside the house, but she did it without prompting from me, so I was excited about that.  She's turning into such a big girl.

Richard Reunion

This past Saturday was the annual Richard Reunion. When we were kids, these annual picnics were always spent in Poe Valley or at another family camp in the mountains.  I always remember them as being great play times with my cousins. Our kids certainly followed true to form this year.  I can honestly say that this was one of the first times that I could just sit and watch them all play together without fearing for anyone's safety or needing to be right on top of them making sure they were OK.  It was nice!

We arrived in Lewistown around 10:30 and other family members began to arrive around 11:30.  Mom had worked so hard to prepare the house and the garage for the onslaught of people.  But I think a great time was had by all!

All of the kids ran around the house and played in the driveway until we forced them to come in to eat.  They put probably 10 miles on Mom and Dad's little gator, with even Mara taking a turn behind the wheel.  (OK...maybe THAT part was a little frightening, particularly when she would line up, aim for a group of adults standing in conversation with each other, and gun it.)  But there were no injuries reported and only one collision with a picnic table that left no marks on the gator, the table or Mara.  Success.

A highlight for all of us was the churning of homemade ice cream in the afternoon.  My Dad worked so hard and worked his magic like he always does.  People make fun of his methods (mixing with a particular metal spoon in a particular glass bowl, in a particular order), but we certainly can not argue with the results.  Perfection every single time.  This is one of those things that is soul touching for me, and made the trip absolutely worth every second.

The kids enjoyed it too.

There were lots of great conversations, lots of memory sharing and lots of laughing.  We all missed Pap dearly, and honestly we were all doing pretty well with it until Mike insisted that we sing "Blest Be The Tie that Binds"... the song that Pap always had us sing together at the end of every reunion.  As much as I loved hearing that Richard family harmony, it was still tough to be missing that booming bass voice.  But I know Pap would have loved that we were continuing the tradition of singing together.

We have a tough milestone ahead of us this weekend as we mark 1 year since Pap's passing.  I'll have a special post next week from our Poe Valley trip this weekend for Cousins Day.  I think it's the only place I'll want to be, with the people I'll most want to be spending that day with.

All out of whack.

This is what I get for having a month's worth of blog posts all done within a few days.  The order of the posts is all goofed up.  So read down for at least 4 new posts- all with pictures.

Together--- I guess it doesn't really matter where.

This wasn't exactly the campsite we had in mind.  But the campsite at Harvest Drive certainly had great amenities.  Especially considering we stayed IN MY PARENTS' HOUSE instead of in the camper as we had planned. 

We got the call from Poe Valley that, although they were going to open the campground later Friday afternoon, the site that we had reserved was still considered "hazardous" so we could not use it.  Quite honestly, this was a relief for Jason and me.  We had already cleared all of the cold food out of the camper and unloaded things into the truck.  The kids were happy playing at my parents' house, and we were quite OK with not attempting another run into the mountains.

So we set up our 4th of July picnic at Mom and Dad's.  We cooked all of the food we had planned to make at the campsite and advised Lib and Zig to come hungry and plan to stay a while!

There was lots of water play, lots of giggling and lots of good food.

So I guess, even though we weren't at Poe Valley, we were still together.  And that's all that matters.

Our UNcamping Trip

Although nearly a month has gone by since this event actually happened, I still feel like it is worthy of a blog post so that we can look back on it and remember our July 4th weekend.

 

Let's just suffice it to say that it was NOTHING....NOTHING at all like we had planned.

 

Ever since we decided to get the camper, I have been excited to go to Poe Valley for a weekend with it.  Somehow all of my camping memories as a kid are wrapped up inside that little park, and I just knew my Pap would be smiling from Heaven knowing we were there.  So, we decided July 4th was the time to go.  We booked our site, packed up the camper and were so excited to get there.

 

There was a storm that was predicted for that afternoon, but we opted to leave around 1:00 (the plan had been for 12:00) to go in, get set up and hopefully not be doing all of the hooking up/setting up in the midst of a storm.  As we travelled, we could see very ominous clouds all around us, and we drove through heavy rain for a period of 10 minutes or less, but it never stormed where we were.  No signs that we ought to turn back and reconsider.  So, as we were coming down the mountain about 100 yards from Dick Cramer's camp on the black top road, traffic stopped.  And we sat.  For about an hour and a half, we waited for someone who could come and remove a tree that had fallen in the roadway.

 

Once we were finally moving again, we told the kids how proud of them we were for their patience and got them all excited because we were only 2 miles away from the park.  Big mistake.  We got about a mile down the road (a skinny road, might I add) and traffic stopped suddenly again.  This time, it was a big tree.  With power lines tangled in it.  In other words, we were going nowhere.

There was no way to turn ourselves and the camper around.  One person in front of us tried to do it, and ended up scraping the bottom of his camper horribly.  So it appeared we would be here for a while.  To complicate matters we were low on gas and were concerned that we needed to really save the battery power of the camper, not knowing how long we might need to run off of battery/propane to keep our food cold, etc.  So, we opened up the camper (not the slideouts) and let the kids and I get in to find some activities to occupy us.  We were hopeful that we might get moving--- that was until the electric workers came through to tell us that this was a bad one, and we needed to wait for the big trucks to come through to handle it.  We were supposed to get comfortable.

In the meantime, traffic was piling up behind us.  It was a holiday weekend after all.  And so the lineup just kept lining up.

Before too long, Jason and I were standing outside talking and he said that he thought he saw Zig coming down the road.  I was sure he was hallucinating because Lib and Zig had said they wouldn't be coming in to see us until the next day.  But sure enough, there he was.  And with Libby and the girls with him.  Although I wasn't glad that they were now also stuck with us, at least we had company!  Believe me when I tell you that our kids really needed a distraction.  They were tiring quickly of all the things I had for them to do in our squished, hot tin can.

After about 3.5 hours and a whole lot of trucks/workers, they were able to clear the tree from the roadway and we started moving again.  We had already been warned, though, that there were additional trees down, so this movement was going to be short lived.  But we were trapped, truly.  All we could do was to ride this whole thing out and hope for the best.  We made the turn into the park and just barely cleared a tree that was down diagonally between two others.  This one was later cleared because it wasn't very stable.  We know that because we sat in our new spot for another 3.5 hours waiting for someone to clear another tree with power lines from across the bridge.  We had been told that the park was a disaster area- trees down everywhere, no electricity, no working sewer, etc. 

Around 10:30, the park rangers came around to tell us that they were going to have to close the park for the night, and were suggesting that we just camp along side the road for the night.  Jason opted to ask for an opportunity to turn around, and they obliged us by clearing some barracades and trees so that we could make it to the one safe spot to turn around.  The challenge, though, was squeezing our camper back up through the lineup of holiday weekend campers.  I swear, if there was 3 inches between our camper and the sides of the other ones we passed, we were lucky.

We called my parents when we hit the top of the mountain and asked if we could crash there for the night.  Exhausted and frustrated, we pulled in there around 11:30.  We were so grateful that it worked out the way that it did, although everyone was upset that our weekend wasn't working out the way we had planned for it to go.

This will be one we'll remember for quite some time!

VBS

It was a busy, hectic week for VBS just like always.  But the kids had a blast.  I got the opportunity to work with the preschool group (24 of them between ages 2-5) each night, and we had a blast.

One of the highlights for our kids was the kick off event that was held prior to the beginning of the VBS week where they had a huge slip and slide for them to go down.  Needless to say, the Dugan 3 were quite serious about their slipping and sliding!  Perhaps Mom was not quite as jazzed because I had to put their soapy slippery selves back into the car to take them home.  Suffice it to say that they went directly to the bath tub when we walked in the door.

So much time and effort goes into making VBS week a very special one for the kids.  I will always say that VBS is not designed for people who have jobs--- the running every night really wears me out.  But to see what the kids are learning, and the way the music and stories touch their hearts makes it so worth it to me.  I did a better job of not grumbling this year-- perhaps that had something to do with the fact that I wasn't carrying Mara around the whole week or figuring out how to nurse her in between groups.  Progress.  We'll call this progress.

5 of them!

I've been looking forward to this weekend all summer!  Libby and Zig have been planning for a weekend away at the beach for the past few months, and we were so excited to be on babysitter duty.  Mostly the kids were thrilled to have two days to play together with Brooke and Hayden.  I was perhaps a bit apprehensive about the prospect of there being 5 of them (ages 7, 5, 4, 2 and 1)...but I ate my Wheaties on Friday morning and was excited for the challenge.  I may or may not have threatened my own three within an inch of their lives that they had best behave while we were there.  But whatever works.

 

On Friday night we had a pizza party (Thanks to Nana and Pap!) and the kids were thrilled.  They were just so happy to be together.  We got tubs and set up our air mattress city in the living room.  Everyone settled in to watch Frozen and eat some popcorn.  Mara proved the greatest sleeping challenge on Friday night, and it wasn't long before we both ended up in Libby and Zig's bedroom so that I could keep her from waking up the two bigger girls.

 

 

 

Saturday morning we all got right into playing.  I had brought some new activities with me and the girls and I got into building Legos together and doing some art projects.  I felt super accomplished because I managed a shower and even makeup on my face while the kids were playing.  I totally employed Dora and a few crackers as a distraction with Hayden and Mara, and was feeling pretty good!  My mom came by in the afternoon just as we were finishing lunch and getting Hayden down for her nap, and suggested that she would stay at the house while Hayden napped if I wanted to take the big kids out to blow off some steam.  So that's what we did!

 

 

 

This crew and I headed to the playground where we ran and climbed and played and SWEATED!  

 

So we made our next stop the only one that I could think of to cool off our clan.  McDonalds wasn't too far away, and their cones are safe for Joshua, so that's where we went.  They were so happy.

 

Saturday night we made a spaghetti feast with Nana and Pap, broke out the little pool for the kids to splash in, took a walk (and since I was pulling the two little girls UPHILL in a wagon I considered it my exercise for the day), and then tubbed again because they were all filthy.  Everyone crashed hard and I even had a little time for a tv show and some reading before I went to sleep.  Mara slept much better the second night, but Hayden had a little trouble around 2:30 am.  After we walked a bit, I got her settled back to sleep before 3.  We were all up, raring to go again, before 7 am on Sunday.

Lib and Zig pulled in around 11:30.  The girls were thrilled to see them!  (Me too!)  We were glad to have survived, but so grateful for the chance to spend that kind of time together.