Project 365: July 31

Dances With Waves

Tuesday in Emerald Isle

Years ago, when I was younger and I'd go with my family to Bethany Beach, we'd all get up early and be on the beach by 8:30. I'm not sure how that happened, but I remember that we were all out there without any dawdling or fussing, and then we'd stay out until a late lunchtime, have a rest until 3, and then head back out for the late afternoon.

Now, it seems like it's all we can do to get everyone out of bed by 8 and be on the beach by 10. I know how that happens...we stay up too late, sleep in too long, nurse our coffee too long, and spend a very long time making sure everyone gets enough sunscreen applied. Today we must have gotten out there sooner since 2 of our offspring now sport pink faces!



The kids all enjoyed the water again today. Katherine was out there jumping waves all by herself, and Will joined her in David's arms. Caroline and Morgan are old pros in the ocean and kept close to Katherine. Later Will dug holes and chased the birds, wondering all the while why he couldn't catch them and take them home.

Morgan's reading Angela's Ashes for school - already doing assignments. Caroline has been catching up on 26 weeks of Sunday comics, Katherine has been playing checkers with her Grandmama off and on for 7 hours, and Will has been alternating between figuring out the shark puzzle and putting the Uno cards in numerical order.

David and I made dinner tonight - a delicious and super easy shrimp recipe (see below), plus fruit salad (note: balls not chunks), fettuccine alfredo for the kids, and green beans. For dessert, the oft desired root beer and orange crush floats.

Shrimp with Lemon and Garlic:

1 1/2 pounds shrimp, peeled
1 T grapeseed or olive oil
2 T fresh lemon juice
3 T butter
2 T scallions, green part only
1 T chopped garlic
1/4 teaspoon soy sauce
freshly milled black pepper

Preheat oven to 400 degrees.

Toss shrimp with oil and lemon juice. Melt the butter in a baking pan in the oven and add the shrimp, scallions, garlic, and soy sauce. Bake for 3 - 5 minutes, or until just firm. Baste and season with black pepper. Serve immediately.

from The New Legal Sea Foods Cookbook by Roger Berkowitz and Jane Doerfer


After dinner, we went for a walk on the beach collecting shells and watching the kids play in the surf. We cut our walk short as a result of the pesky mosquitoes biting our legs.


Katherine and Granddaddy took his computer apart several times tonight. I think they finally got it working, but couldn't get it hooked up to the Internet. It's a pretty scary sight to see a 9-year-old and her Granddaddy taking a screwdriver to the back of the laptop! At least Will didn't see them. Then nothing would be safe. I remember my older brother taking radios (and other much larger things) apart when we were young and not always getting them back together. What's a screw or two?

Big News at our house tonight! Katherine is no longer Snaggletooth! She finally lost that tooth - it had only been loose for 6 months!

Now for Scrabble! David and I played and boy was it a torturous game. He challenged just about every word I put down. Geez. Can you say lack of trust?! I beat him, and it's really all his fault since his second word was FIG, using an I already on the board. He kind of stunted the game with that one!

Tomorrow. Another day and another game!

Project 365: July 30

Monday in Emerald Isle

Today, after a leisurely breakfast, David and the kids walked down the driveway and up the walkway to the beach. They went out in the morning and again in the afternoon. They had a blast playing in the sand and swimming and jumping waves. Morgan has always loved the ocean and Caroline too, once she got over her hyperventilating at the sight of it stage when she was three! Will and Katherine are just loving the water more than we could have hoped!

Later in the day Katherine and I went shopping for necessities - things like birthday presents, a new pirate book for Will, eggos, ice cream and rootbeer!

Caroline met a new friend on the beach - her name is Camille and she's staying in the house just across the street from ours. They are having a wonderful time together playing games. Caroline is warming up her chess game with Camille's help - she's hoping to beat her father soon!


We had a yummy dinner (always do) with an appetizer made by Katherine, and then we celebrated Granddaddy and Grandmama's birthday with huge chocolate chip cookies and ice cream! Yum. Grandmama even had gifts for everyone!

Project 365: July 29

Thanks to VCEO we had a very quiet trip down to Emerald Isle. He had prepared checklists of all the possible North American license plates for each of the girls. They spent the entire trip watching for the various plates, even spotting Nova Scotia! Will spent the first four hours playing with his Leap Pad - what a lifesaver!

We didn't leave home until after 3 which meant we didn't get to the beach until around 10. Did that stop anyone from eating as soon as we got there?! Not my crew.

Once we got unpacked and assigned rooms, we had to do some clearing out. Morgan's room was decorated with a very large fish replica which gave her the heeby jeebies. Grandmama gladly removed the offending fish and put it in her own bedroom! You can see why it might have freaked Morgan out!

Project 365: July 28

Out of this chaos comes incredibly efficient order.

Can you find Caroline?

Just Keep Swimming

The kids and I left home just before 7 this morning to spend the day at the aquatic center for the second day in a row. Today it was Katherine and Caroline's turn to swim. Morgan had the luxury of watching and relaxing all day, except when she was watching her brother. You can tell from the number of pictures I have of her that she wasn't around much!

This guy didn't even know he was swimming in Champs. When he saw his name in the heat sheets he hustled on up and swam a great race! Good job, Joe!

Soon after we got there I was pressed into service as the False Start Rope Assistant. WoW! Tough assignment. I sat poolside and watched every race without having to elbow my way to a a view! I saw K swim her event. What a thrill! She swam all the way across the pool without stopping once and even beat several other swimmers. Unfortunately she couldn't get to me and I couldn't leave my post, but we met up later.


Later, Caroline had her turn at her events. Stopping mid-run, David made it to the pool in time to see her swim backstroke and breaststroke. She swam well and had fun, also getting her best time ever! Will slept through the noise of an hour's worth of events and woke up happy. What a great day!

One of the really cool things about Champs is that we get to see all kinds of people that we know from other places... we see kids from our current and former preschools and elementary schools, from ballet, soccer and lacrosse...we know people on just about every team in town!












Once Caroline's events were finished we packed up and headed home to pack to yet another week at the beach! The kids fell into bed while David prepared his Bible Study lesson and I attempted to get the laundry finished and pack our bags. In the end we decided to pack the van after church and went to bed!

Project 365: July 27

Morgan and her friend KG swam tonight at Champs. Both girls swam well and shaved time off their events. Way to go!

These girls have known each other since they were itty bitty babies in the church nursery. They go to different schools and swim for different teams, but they always have a good time together!

Bonus Picture: KG's team's theme for Champs was Christmas in July, hence the red and green. Check out her toe socks! Most of her team wore Santa hats and they all had Christmas themed swim caps to wear while swimming! Very festive!

Project 365: July 26

Today was the last swim team practice. Tomorrow and Saturday is the JSL Championship Meet. Counting down!

I'm hoping Caroline can find her team suit before events! Stay tuned for pictures!

Youth Party

These are only some of the youth that came for swimming and food tonight. The pictures of the whole group won't be posted due to blogger discretion. They all had a good time, and the compliment of the evening was when the youth worker told me that David and I did a great job staying out of the way!

Project 365: July 25

In the four years that we've had this pool, I've never had to do more than run water into it or skim the top for spiders and beetles. With David gone this week and a Youth party here tomorrow night, I really needed to add chlorine.

My dear husband was kind enough to send "Adding Chlorine for DUMMIES" so that I could accomplish the task without any trouble. As it turned out I still had Caroline and Morgan right there by my side helping me. With his directions and their assistance there was no way I could do this wrong!

Playing Catch Up

July 27th UPDATE: Done. Finished. Fini! Enjoy!

July 26th UPDATE: Okay, I've managed to post through last Thursday so far. I took over 1100 pictures while we were away so it's taking a little bit of time to go through them all. Morgan suggested I just post all of them - not going to happen. It's a shame really because there are some really cute ones that will never be viewed for the sheer lack of room...alas, alack, oh woe, oy vay!

We're back. I'm desperately trying to get it all done here! Get the laundry done, work on the bathroom, think about school assignments and light fires under young tushes, gear up for the last swim event (!), and pack for the beach! Oh yes, and write interesting, informative, yet non-embarrassing, posts!

Project 365: July 24

She's finished reading this, so now it's my turn.

I tried and tried not to pick it up. I knew from past experience that if I did I'd never get all of the things accomplished that are on my list for the week. Unfortunately we had time to kill at piano lessons and at XC practice. It was the perfect time to read a book.

As I suspected, once I started reading I could not put it down.

Project 365: July 23

Because we were away and had our mail held our HP#7 didn't come on Saturday, but arrived around noon today.

Caroline immediately opened it and began reading. She read non-stop and finished it before the day was through. Periodically she'd tell me insignificant happenings like, only two people have died so far. Thanks Caroline!

Project 365: July 22

Sunday at Lunch

Eleven kids and The BB!

Some lady at McDonald's asked MUV if all of these children were his! Pretty funny. I think it was when GarbageMan and VCEO were taking the cars for a fill-up, so maybe she was asking if all the women were his too!

So Long, Farewell...

Poor Will. I had to strip the sheets out from underneath him. He so did not want to wake up, but when he was promised pop tarts he made a bee-line for the kitchen. Poor Will, the pop tarts were all gone, but he decided that a doughnut would suffice. Thank goodness for powdered doughnuts!

The kids all watched TV while we finished cleaning and carrying everything out of the house. Most everything was packed up last night so there shouldn't have been too much more this morning. Somehow there was. We had to count the 20 beach towels and 8 sets of bath towels that we'd rented, and then gather all of the towels that came with the house. Luckily they were different colors!

I've always felt like my family's belongings explode when we arrive someplace. Now I know it's not just us! While we tried to keep things orderly, there's just no way to bring 18 people to the beach and not have utter chaos when it's time to leave!

Will spent most of his time this morning trying to keep the front door shut. I admire his persistence but it really made going in and out a bit difficult!

Good-bye house.

Project 365: July 21

Feeding Turtles

All those little black dots in the water are turtle heads. These guys were hungry when we got there but not when we left. They have a taste for garlic bread and hamburger rolls.

At the Tomato Patch

Dinner out is always a good way to end a vacation, especially when all you have left is garlic bread and hamburger rolls!






The BB just bought a t-shirt for Dan, Dan, the Soda Can!

Project 365: July 20

He who wields the spoon thought that Snaggletooth needed a milk bath! or maybe it was an Oreo Blizzard bath! Either way he didn't give up easily and earned the new nickname "The Tormentor"!

Waiting For Harry

Early this week ScrabbleQueen called to confirm that the local bookstore would be holding an HP party tonight and reserved 2 copies of the new HP book. In anticipation of the event I took a nap so I would be bright and sunshiny for the midnight unveiling!

Most of us went - sans 2 dads and 4 sleepy boys and Boo. On the way we stopped for DQ which as usual was yummy, and blog fodder. Maybe another time. Not.





We got to the bookstore around 10:30 and right away all of the kids were sorted into their houses. We had some in each house, which came as no surprise to any of the parents! The kids played Quidditch, sampled Snape's potions, raced broomsticks, and participated in the TriWizard Trivia Tournament while waiting patiently for 12:01 to come.

At 12:06 ScrabbleQueen had her books and we headed home! Caroline got to touch CallyBob's book before he made her hand it over. Good thinking on his part! She was going to have to wait!

We all went to bed, but ScrabbleQueen and CallyBob read into the 1st chapter before hitting the hay.