Camp with Cousins

We enjoyed our modified camp season this summer, and were grateful we still got to have our cousins stay with us for a week!

Soccer

Our local community center has been hosting free soccer clinics this summer. 

Eleonora (and Evelyn!) and Caleb have enjoyed participating in them. 

Nice and toasty!

This is how I found Eleonora early one morning, ready to get out there!

Tender!


Caleb is hoping to play on a team this fall, and Eleonora says she would rather do tumbling. We shall see!

I take it all back!

So I read two more books since I posted my June and July books and I’m here to say that I take back everything I said about Jane Austen. I finished Pride and Prejudice last night at 1 a.m. (just when I had been trying to get back into the habit of a sensible bedtime) and it was fantastic. Couldn’t put it down. Good times. 
Also, I’ve been checking out biographies for my boys to read from the library when we visit to go along with their picks (because how many times does a person need to read Diary of a Wimpy Kid, etc.).  Pretty sure there’s a good chance they’re the same copies my mom used to check out for me!  Ha!  Anyways, I read one of those, just for fun. 

Back to Ballet

The girls got to go back to ballet today to finish the spring semester. They’re still not sure if they’ll get to do the recital. Not seeming promising. 

The cousins had a great time anyways!

Eleo and I tried our first sock bun. 

(There’s a real sock in there - Ha!) 

Happy Monday to you!

(My spring-break-that-has-no-end ends on Friday!)

June and July Books

Greetings!  

Long time, no see. 

Well, camp is over for the summer and I go back to school this Friday. What have I been reading?  Nothing terribly wonderful, but I’ll share for posterity. (My normal method of keeping track of the books I read is to take a picture of the cover of the book with my phone as I finish it, and then record it in my paper planner at the end of the month. I didn’t do so hot at that this summer, and I feel like I’m missing some, but here we go anyways.)

The boys and I listened to Pollyanna, and it’s on DisneyPlus right now, so we got to watch the movie as well. Have to say that I didn’t love it as much as when I read it as a kid, but it was all right. Pretty sweet. 

Historical fiction is my fav, and I enjoyed this one. 

Oh, I just love Foxfire books as well. A little difficult to read every word so that I allow myself to write it down here, but so much fun to flip around in!  I also checked out Foxfire 1, but I’d read it before so I just skimmed it.  Try one today!

This cookbook was a lot of fun. (Our local library reopened, can you tell?)  If you like The Great British Baking Show, this would be a treat for you. And it happened to sort of go along with The Bay of Angels that I was reading at the same time. If you were curious, I did not make any of the dishes in this book!  Oh, and I also got to go to the Biltmore and see lots of Downton Abbey costumes in July, so this book just came at the perfect time. 

Louisa May Alcott was one of my very, very favorite authors of childhood (Little Women/Men, etc.), but you simply must avoid this book unless you like to read dull and depressing things to pass the time. 

The boys and I took turns reading this mouse tale aloud at nights. If you enjoy stories of anthropomorphic rodents, this is the book for you (I’m looking at you, Heather.).

I often feel that people who like L.M. Montgomery and Louisa May Alcott are supposed to also enjoy Jane Austen. Well I have read the literal covers off my LM books and hardly cracked an Austen, so I thought it was time. It was such a struggle to get through it!  I thought, if this is how it feels for some people to get through a book, no wonder they don’t read!  Ugh. Gag. Not a fan. Maybe I should have tried it earlier. 

I have a funny picture of Josiah pretending to read this book as a toddler. Pretty sure I read it then, and I read it again this weekend. Got a couple good ideas to implement. I was telling them to Jennifer over lunch and the boys overheard. Caleb was excited and Josiah was chagrined. Ha!

I read this one back on vacation and it was pretty good.   My main problem with the book is that I’m not quite sure there is ever an actual ‘victory garden’ in the story, and the title is what made me pick the book, so there’s that. 

Ooh, least favorite of the three Rhys Bowen books I read. Avoid. 

The boys and I listened to this one. Only took a couple nights. Another one that I loved when I read it as a kid, but it was only okay this time. 

So there you have it - my summertime reads!  Not a page-turner in the bunch!  Maybe it was me, not them!  Dunno!

May Books

I’m sure you all have been waiting with bated breath for my list of May reads, so here they are!  I read Go Set a Watchman, sequel to To Kill a Mockingbird in one day. It was excellent!  Better than TKM, dare I say. I could say much more, but I won’t!

The boys and I listened to Little Men in the evenings. Josiah mostly fell asleep, but Caleb really seemed to enjoy it. (I remember him taking this book to 3rd grade to read himself, but I don’t know that he ever made it through.)

This book was fun and a little different from my usual. Watch out for bad words. 

I picked this audiobook to listen to with the boys based on the cute title and cover (and it was available, unlike most books I look for on my library app!), but unfortunately it was horrible. 95% depressing and 5% happy.  It’s not even very interesting, it’s quite dull. And it’s not even based on a true story?  Who makes up a story like that for children?  Why did we listen to the whole thing?  That is my biggest question. Bizarre. Avoid. 

Heather let me borrow this one, and it was painfully beautiful (borrowed that from the cover).  Oh-so-good. Read it today. 


I read these to the kids while we played school each day. I was surprised how much I remembered from reading them as a kid. Caleb took the AR tests on these and more American Girl books that he read himself this month, but Josiah was too embarrassed. Haha. I’ll take this moment to let you know that Caleb was the top AR reader at our school this year with almost 7 million words read, and Josiah was the first in our school to join the millionaires’ club back in August and he finished the year with almost 4 million words. 

I read The Glass Castle by Jeannette Walls back in April and it was so very sad, but I loved it!  And I loved these next two by her as well!  The Glass Castle is based on the author’s life, and Half Broke Horses is based on her grandmother’s.  The two that I read in May might have been slightly less sad, but we are still not talking jolly here. Great books, nonetheless. 



Eleonora and I listened to Pippi Longstocking (oops, I see I have the wrong cover) and enjoyed it very much. It was published in 1945 and it is very amusing to me how very much children’s literature has changed over time especially the humor. 

The boys and I also listened to this James Herriot book. An earlier book from the series would have been better for them, but what do you know, this is the one that was available. 

I will also record for posterity, that Chris finished reading Little House in the Big Woods to Eleonora this month. It was the first time for both of them - what a treat!  

Now what to read for June?  That is the question!  I am simultaneously reading a bit of The Count of Monte Cristo, A Passage to India, The Boys in the Boat, Uncommon Type, and Corrie ten Boom’s Prison Letters, and I’m sorry to say, none of them are really pulling me in. (Not that someone’s prison letters are supposed to be written for my personal amusement, don’t worry, I’ll finish that one.)  So send your suggestions in a stamped envelope to Zoom, Z, double O, M, Box 3-5-O, Boston, Mass. O-2-1-3-4.

Home-y

On Saturday we made hobo stew and cooked it in our freshly cleaned-our firecircle. Delicious as always!

Also, Caleb spent a very long time patching up the Habs’ last-year’s inflatable pool. Don’t think it’s gonna hold air too well, but it sure kept him busy!