This Is How Our June Was Spent: Drawing, Exercising, And Swimming

Well, June is speeding fast to its close, and our family is about to leave town and (finally!) take a trip to Colorado. We're going for a Nash family reunion, and we are pretty darn excited about it. But first, maybe I should churn out a quick blog post or two to let everyone know what we've been doing for summer thus far.

We may have had a nicer-than-normal spring, but unfortunately, Mother Nature seems to have remembered that we live in Arizona, and it's supposed to be HOT down here. For most of June, it's been pretty miserable. We've spent most of the last three weeks well north of 100 degrees, and some days we've wanted nothing more than to stay indoors, trying not to sweat too much.

So, of course, I enrolled my kids in a bunch of activities to ensure that we all spent lots of time outdoors! That's logical.

I actually managed to keep the kids pretty busy during June. Reasoning that idle hands are the devil's playthings, I enrolled each girl in multiple activities. Much of our time was spent driving to and fro, dropping people off at one event or the other. Luckily, nothing ended up being too expensive, and the kids all enjoyed themselves.

First of all, I got all the girls to participate in the free fitness and wellness camps offered at our local clubhouse. My two older girls participated in these camps last year and loved them, so we wanted to give them another shot. This year, Aurora participated in the first week of camp (for the 4-6 age group), and Celeste and Lorelai participated the following week (for the 7-12 age group). Even though many of the activities took place outside, it started fairly early in the morning, so the kids wouldn't roast. The kids took nature walks, played soccer, dodge-ball, Red Rover, and volleyball; they also did some kid-friendly aerobics, ate some healthy snacks, and played hard at the community pool. All three girls had a blast. We love that our clubhouse offers these camps; it is an easy way to get kids out and moving a bit more in the summertime.

But that's not all! This year, each girl got to try their hand at a new activity as well. Lorelai and Celeste, for example, both took a weekly two-hour drawing class, taught by the art teacher of their charter school! A friend of mine approached "Ms. Sophie" and asked her if she wouldn't mind teaching an extra class over the summer, and my girls were eager to try it out. As a bonus, Ms. Sophie only lives a short bike ride away from our home, so both Lorelai and Celeste were able to get themselves to and from the class without any problems.

 

Confession time: I have almost no artistic ability whatsoever. I still draw stick figures to this day! I fear I have passed along my anti-art genes to my girls; I definitely saw improvement in their sketches from week to week, but something tells me their paintings will never be hanging in any major galleries.

But that doesn't matter, because they had a lot of fun chatting with the other students at the class, and trying out something new! It was a  good chance for the girls to get a little outside their comfort zone and have fun doing it.

Speaking of "getting outside a comfort zone"...

 

...Aurora had her first-ever swim lessons in June as well! She was overdue for these lessons; earlier this year, she was still wearing her life jacket and was terrified of swimming. I knew it was time for her to get more confident and independent in the water.

We signed up for private lessons with one of the clubhouse's lifeguards. Aurora's teacher was a cute girl named Marissa, and she was a wonderful teacher. I was impressed every day at how quickly Aurora progressed. She went from tentative to confident to fearless, all in a two-week span! Plus, since I wasn't supposed to be interfering with the lessons, I often spent the time poolside, getting caught up on my huge summer reading list:

I still have a ways to go!

But back to Aurora: on her last day of lessons, Marissa congratulated her on her progress, and invited her to test out her new skills by taking a trip down one of the clubhouse's water slides. This surprised me a little, and made me a little nervous. She still looked too tiny to be going down the water slides! But Marissa's encouragement was all she needed; she barely hesitated and went down the slide almost immediately! I was so impressed. In fact, after her lesson was done, she went down the slide over and over again, without any problems.

In just two weeks, my little girl suddenly looked so much bigger! But that was a good thing; I am so happy that she is getting better able to take care of herself. She was super excited to get her "certificate" (a free pizza from Papa Murphy's!) and a celebratory popsicle. Just a few days later, she tried out another one of the clubhouse's water slides, and handled it without difficulty. It's like a new door has been opened for her, and she' taking full advantage of the opportunity.

Mainly because of the swim lessons, our whole family spent a lot of extra time at the pool for the middle weeks of June. It wore us out pretty well! However, it was worth it to see all the progress Aurora made. So far, all three girls have had some great opportunities to exercise, play, and learn.

Blogging For Five Years!

Grinnin' Barretts has been up and running for five years!

It was actually Nathan's idea to start a blog in the first place, and it was he who helped me overcome my nervousness about blogging. He started the whole ball rolling back on June 12, 2010, with a short but sweet description of his experience juggling coconuts in our backyard. He even posted pictures! That simple beginning helped convince me that maybe, writing about our family on the Internet wouldn't be such an intimidating task.

Not long after that, I decided to blog about my annual salsa canning, a blog which has ended up inspiring several of my friends, including those in other countries! I just hope they're able to find the right kind of ingredients overseas. (Speaking of which, I should probably update that post sometime...I have tweaked the salsa recipe quite a bit since then.)

That salsa post, which friends have been linking to for years, was the post that opened my eyes to personal blogging. I realized that people around the world could see our blog, and comment on it. I realized it could be a good way to keep in touch with friends and family who may not live close by. I realized that blogging could scratch my writer's itch (I've always fantasized about being a novelist, or a notorious journalist...heck, any kind of famous writer is okay by me). And as someone who has not been very good at keeping a regular journal, the blog proved an opportunity (and a challenge) to document more of our family's history than has hitherto been done. This is a challenge that I rose to meet gladly.

This is not to say that our family's little blog has anything of earth-shattering import on its pages. The blog was originally intended as a grab-bag of all kinds of things: politics, movies, family news, humor, books...you name it. Over time, our ambitions have been modified, and now the blog mostly consists of family news, with my occasional shallow detours into entertainment news & analysis (that's how the English major inside me gets her kicks).

Nathan hasn't contributed as regularly to the blog as he likes...this is for a number of reasons, but mostly because  I have more time to write in it than he does. However, he's always been very supportive of my blogging, even when it takes away from his valuable night-time computer activities. I am so grateful to him for letting me work on the blog and encouraging me to record our family's history here. He's also chimed in on a few important occasions: he's been transcribing our "toddler journals" that we kept for Lorelai and Aurora when they were little. It's great to have that information recorded in a more permanent place, not just jotted down in a notebook. And when Nathan visited Washington, D.C. a couple of years ago, he was able to write at length about his adventures in our nation's capital.

The blog has not been perfect by any means, and I've learned a lot in my time using it. It's made me learn how to write better, how to write meaningfully, and how to navigate the Internet and its many wonders and dangers. I am grateful to live in this era, in which technology can aid us in so many ways, including record-keeping. I hope that the few thoughts I leave in this account will help my family and my descendants get some sense of what our lives were like, and what sorts of things matter to us. True, I tend to focus more on the "special events" in our lives, but I hope it will still be illuminating as to what makes our family tick. Someday, maybe I'll even convert this blog to a series of books, and then--BAM! Instant family history, with a hard copy to be held and enjoyed by grand-kids. Who knows?

So, here's to many more years with the blog! I don't know if it will always be in its current format. I don't know if I'll be able to update it with the same frequency in later years; life keeps getting busier and busier. But I do know that I'll do my best to keep it going. Five years is the longest I've ever maintained a regular journal; that's a good sign to me. I hope it will always be a place where I can share my thoughts and our family news. Thanks to everyone who reads and comments; I hope you enjoy your time here, and hope you continue to do so.

Our First Family Fun Friday Of Summer 2015

As I've mentioned in years past, I like to plan fun outings for the girls and myself on Fridays during the summertime. I usually don't have any piano lessons scheduled on Fridays, and most of the girl's extracurricular activities are on the other days of the week as well. Sometimes, life gets in the way and our schedules get complicated. Sometimes, we need to plan our outings for other days of the week. This year, however, we were able to start the summer off with a Friday-morning trip to the Tucson Botanical Gardens.

We haven't been to the Botanical Gardens for a few years now. In fact, the last time we went, Lorelai wasn't even there...it was for a field trip with Celeste's preschool group. So, I figured it was time to give it another try. I also wanted to go there before the end of May, so that we could see the Gardens' cool Butterfly Magic pavilion before it closed for the summer.

 

Overall, the girls had a nice time, but the trip did have its ups and downs. Some parts of the gardens were closed off or incomplete, due to construction for a new visitor's center on the opposite end of the parking lot. There was some construction noise and dust that filtered throughout the gardens during our trip, and that got a little distracting.

But things started off well enough. I am not much of a botanist, but I did my best to call the girls' attention to the different varieties of plants (as well as their names) wherever we went. They really liked the grounds, and all the decorations.

Probably our favorite part of the trip was our detour into the Butterfly Magic pavilion. It was the last weekend the pavilion was open, before it closed until October. I suspect that the summer heat makes it difficult to maintain the proper temperature & humidity inside the pavilion. If we'd come at a cooler time of year, we may have seen more butterflies inside.

However, we still saw plenty! Every few seconds, another one would fly overhead, or just past our ear. They were all very beautiful and cool to look at. It took a while before I could get good pictures of any of them.

 

 

The girls had a lot of fun butterfly watching, and they were also able to spot a few of the dart frogs that also call the pavilion home (they were not poisonous, but were colored just like the dangerous tropical varieties). Even though the humidity, combined with the excessive heat, made the pavilion a sweaty affair, it was still a great experience.

There were a few other bright spots the girls enjoyed: the miniature village, complete with miniature running train...

...the fun photo ops...

...and the children's garden, complete with sandbox and water wall (where the kids washed their faces to cool off, ick).

But because it was the end of May, in Tucson, it was inevitable that the weather would start working against us. After being outside for an hour or two, we were all starting to feel pretty hot...and many of us were getting cranky too!

Aurora, in particular, is particularly sensitive to the oppressive summer heat; about an hour into our trip, she started to complain about her exhaustion. As time wore on, her complaining grew steadily louder and whinier, and she was weeping for the whole world to hear before too long. As you can see, her "enthusiasm" (or lack of same) was starting to rub off on her big sisters.

But at least the girls all got to see this velociraptor, standing amidst a forest of petrified wood!

Wait, what? Oh, Botanical Gardens...you so random!

Anyway, it was a nice trip when all was said and done. We made it home before the heat became unbearable...and then we chased it away with our first summer trip to the clubhouse pool.

As you can see, everyone was very refreshed after that!

Since that Friday, one more Friday has come and gone. It was a "fun" Friday, but mostly consisted of a bunch of "checklist" events...a summer movie matinee, clothes shopping, a trip to CostCo, a dinner with Grandma Barrett at the country club. A nice day, but not necessarily photograph-worthy. But we are hoping for more fun outings in the next few Fridays...including our annual Phoenix trip in just under two weeks! Not long after that, we head to Colorado for our family reunion. Summer just keeps on keeping on.

Saying Goodbye To Girl Scouts (For Now?)

This year, Girl Scouts has been a pleasant surprise for me and for Celeste. I have no real history with the organization, and I'm wary of some of the political ideologies espoused by some of the general Girl Scout leadership. But none of that mattered when it came time to choose an extracurricular activity for Celeste last fall. What mattered was: Would Celeste enjoy Girl Scouts? Would she have fun participating in those kinds of activities? What sorts of things would she learn while in Girl Scouts? Would this activity be a sufficient replacement for dance class for this year?

Most of these questions were answered satisfactorily for us over the course of the last school year. One of the main reasons I agreed to put Celeste in Girl Scouts was its cheapness; the initial registration fee was very low, and after the cookie sales in the winter were done, many of her activities came at no cost (unless you count all the boxes of cookies we bought and gobbled up).

Beyond that, however, there were several other fun, creative activities Celeste was able to participate in, and she was able to have fun with a sweet bunch of girls and kind, enthusiastic leaders. I truly feel that Celeste learned a lot and had fun with everyone there. The variety of all the activities was also quite impressive. Besides the cookie sales, Celeste was able to attend a fancy tea party and learn about etiquette; make care packages for homeless shelters; attend a Halloween party; watch a University of Arizona basketball game; make homemade ice cream; jump around at a trampoline gym; attend a movie as a group; participate in an Easter-egg hunt and Easter luncheon; and have a mother-daughter painting date, among other things. And this list is just what Celeste was able to attend; there were several other activities we couldn't even make it to, due to our busy family schedule.

So was Girl Scouts worth it, even for a full school year? I'd venture a "yes": even if the meeting times were somewhat inconvenient (Friday nights, ugh), it was time well spent by my enthusiastic girl.

As the school year wound down, Celeste's Girl Scout troop tried to put together a handful of early-summer activities, so that the troop could get some more things done before people started leaving on vacations. During the week of Memorial Day, the troop planned no less than three different activities, all on different days and all in different parts of Pima County. Here are the two we managed to attend:

1. Celeste got to build another bear at Build-A-Bear.

This activity was not as novel as it might otherwise have been, due to our family's trip to Build-A-Bear at the New Year.  But no matter! Celeste was going to get the opportunity to build another bear! Best yet (for cheapskate Mom, anyway)--Celeste had a credit balance at the store , thanks to her Girl Scout cookie sales! It was actually a larger sum than we had given the girls at our Christmas trip; this enabled Celeste to be a bit more flexible in her purchase.

I thought that Celeste would certainly pick out a licensed character to stuff (they had My Little Pony and Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle toys available, as well as the Minions from Despicable Me). However, in the end, Celeste settled on another bear...and this bear was adorned with the Girl Scout logo, and had a Girl Scout cookie pattern on her paws!

I wa

s surprised at the choice; every girl got to pick their own style of stuffed animal. No one was "forced" to pick anything. I suspect Celeste chose the Girl Scout-themed bear to remind her of how she got to the activity in the first place. It was a thoughtful choice.

Since she had some credit left over afterwards, she was able to get her bear some beautiful clothes!

Behold..."Beary Scout"! (This was Celeste's name for her bear. We'll see if it sticks!)

After everyone had stuffed their animals, the whole troop posed outside the store:

It was a fun activity and I'm grateful to the Girl Scout troop for so kindly providing the funds!

2. The great Girl Scout "Bridging" ceremony.

In a nutshell, this was Girl Scout "graduation." Each Girl Scout present was given a small bag of prizes and a diploma, and was then instructed to walk underneath the "bridge" of balloons. This action officially "promoted" all the girls into the next Scouting level. This meant that Celeste officially finished her time as a Daisy, and became a Brownie!

She was very proud of her accomplishment, and so was I. She was very enthusiastic and willing to help everyone all year; she was truly a Daisy with a good heart. We spent the rest of that evening eating (there was a lot of good food at this celebration) and spending time with friends.

Now it remained to be seen whether Celeste will advance into the Brownie role next year. Celeste was torn between doing Girl Scouts again and rejoining the Sahuarita Dance Center.

Ultimately, I talked her into passing on Girl Scouts for next year, for a few reasons. The biggest reason was time;  our family was getting tired of the Friday night activities. Call me selfish, but I want my weekend evenings to myself! Perhaps in the future, we can join a troop that will let us hold activities on another night.

Another factor to consider is the larger number of exracurricular activities Celeste may be signing up for this fall. She wants a part in next year's school play (if those parts will be available for 2nd graders, which I have been told might be the case. She will also be doing Sahuarita Dance next fall, and I suspect those two activities combined might be somewhat difficult to balance. Last of all, Celeste will be turning eight at the end of the year (eek!), and will start attending Activity Days through our church. Activity Days will likely feature many activities similar to those at the Girl Scout troop meetings. In short, it may help feed that desire for interaction that Celeste has become accustomed to as a Girl Scout.

So, Girl Scouts will be put on the back-burner...for now. There may be a troop activity or two that Celeste will be able to participate in this summer, but when school starts, it will be time to say goodbye. However, I told Celeste to be patient, and perhaps she will be able to do it again eventually. One of the older Girl Scout girls at the bridging ceremony (an older teenager) said in her farewell speech that "it's never too old to start Girl Scouts." And it's true! Even though we may not be getting back to girl Scouts for a while, it's entirely possible Celeste will be able to rejoin a troop at some point in the future.

However, that knowledge that Celeste is done with Girl Scouts (for now) has made me more wistful than I thought I would be. Celeste really did enjoy Girl Scouts, and I hope she will have the opportunity to have experiences like it again soon in the future! It has been a good year, and both of us have had lots of fun. Hooray for Girl Scouts!

School's Out AND Daddy Had A Birthday!

One more school year has come and gone. First, Aurora (my baby!) graduated preschool. Then, a week later, Lorelai and Celeste celebrated their last day of school at their charter school, Great Expectations Academy.

This year, I wasn't able to volunteer in my kids' classes nearly as much as I wanted; I was able to manage one field trip with each girl, and that was about it. Lorelai's teacher said she didn't need any help in the classroom, and Celeste's teacher was either absent (which was a lot...she had a new baby in the fall, and it took up a lot of her time), or needed volunteers at a time when I couldn't make it. Oh well...the girls seemed to survive without me, at any rate! However, not being there most of the time made it more difficult to understand what my girls were going through on a daily basis. I'm hoping that next year, with all three girls in school, I'll be able to have a more consistent presence in their classes, or otherwise helping out at the school.

Look at these cuties!

There were some ups and downs this school year (some loneliness/"mean girl" issues for Lorelai, some difficult/disobedient children for Celeste), but overall I think both girls ended the year on a positive note. Celeste's grades stayed fairly consistent, and Lorelai got mostly strong but fluctuating grades. She would get all A's, and then one B or C in one subject. Finally, in the fourth quarter, Lorelai got straight A's! We were very proud of her for this achievement, and hope that will boost her confidence going into the fifth grade next year (yikes! That sounds very grown-up to me).

There weren't any assemblies on the last day of school; the students all celebrated in their classrooms. It was mostly low-key, but all the kids had fun. Best of all, it was a half-day of school, so I showed up early to help the kids clean out their desks and say their final goodbyes to their teachers. But their excitement at being free overwhelmed their nostalgia, so their goodbyes felt pretty perfunctory. They were also excited to go out to lunch, which has become our last-day-of-school tradition!

This year, we decided to go to Chili's for lunch, which was up in southern Tucson. The girls really love the food there, but they also loved being crazy and making lots of silly faces.

 

So many silly faces that I was compelled to join in as well...

 

 

After our lunch, we crashed pretty hard at home and savored our new-found freedom for the summer. But our weekend wasn't all laying about doing nothing; there was something else to celebrate...

Nathan's 38th birthday! It is both Nathan's blessing and curse that his birthday falls in late May. Blessing, in that he often gets to take four-day weekends for his birthday, since Memorial is so often right after his birthday. Curse, in that with school ending and a holiday imminent, Nathan's birthday celebrations often get a little rushed and overlooked. But I think things worked out pretty well this year.

Nathan started out the fun by going out to breakfast on the girls' last day of school. Aurora and I accompanied him (if you're keeping track, this means I went out to eat for both breakfast and lunch that day; I felt very overstuffed by the late afternoon!). The next day, we had a lazy morning but a fun afternoon. The girls stayed with Grandma for a couple of hours, helping her cook Nathan's favorite dinner (his mom's famous chicken enchiladas). In the meantime, Nathan and I went on our "date"...

...we golfed nine holes at the Country Club of Green Valley! Even though this was to celebrate Nathan's birthday, I have to point out the significance of this event. This day (Saturday, May 23rd, 2015) was the first time I've ever played any holes of golf. And I was pretty terrible, if I do say so myself!

Since I'm a lefty, we borrowed a friend's left-handed set of clubs. Even though we started at the closest tee-box for each hole, I still had to hit the ball like a dozen times on each hole, in order to get the ball to the green.

I am so glad we went late in the afternoon, so there weren't many people behind us! I was constantly afraid that some other golfers would catch up to us and sit there, impatiently tapping their feet, waiting for me to get my incompetent butt in gear. Thankfully, that never happened...but I was still going pretty slowly.

Nathan's golf game has improved significantly since he started playing regularly last fall. He has also learned all the terminology and phrasing, and he likes to go on about his swing and par and club types and other things that mean almost nothing to me. I am trying to learn about golf, but it's not a sport I'm really interested in, so I'd be lying if I said I always listened intently to everything golf-related that Nathan has said. I hope I was a good enough sport on this outing to not totally drive my beloved husband crazy! He says he's going to take me golfing again in the future, but I don't plan on encouraging him. At this point in my life, I still prefer to exercise by myself. Time will tell as to whether golf ever becomes one of my passions.

But it is always fun to ride around in the golf cart, especially with a studly man like Nathan as my chaperone! Plus, Nathan tells me I got a triple bogey on one of the holes, which is good for a first-timer...I guess? From here, I have nowhere to go but up.

After golfing, we sat down to an absolutely delicious dinner, courtesy of Grandma Barrett and her little helpers.

After dinner was done, we had dessert. Usually, Nathan likes me to make pies for his birthday. This year, however, he decided to break with tradition and requested angel-food cake and strawberries (his father's favorite dessert).

There was one more family activity to wrap up the day. The week before, our family took a short trip to a local BevMo to buy some botique/independently bottled sodas. We have been doing this activity every few months for a year or two now. It is great fun! Here are our selections from this trip...

This time, we got pretty lucky...most of the sodas were quite tasty! The exception was (as expected) the corn soda...ick! You definitely do not want to burp after drinking that one. My favorite ended up being the blueberry lemonade, with the huckleberry soda coming in as a close second. Our opinions were somewhat divergent, though...there were many different favorites among our family!

After a relatively quiet Sunday, we had a few friends over for a rib barbecue on Monday (Memorial Day). It was very enjoyable, but wouldn't you know it...I forgot to take pictures! Probably because the weekend wore me right out. At least I was worn out in a good cause...entertaining others and making new friends (one of our guests was a family that had recently moved into the ward). Everyone involved brought a lot of yummy food, the kids played well together, and everyone had a lot of fun visiting with one another.

I am so grateful for my family, and all the milestones they experienced at the end of May. I can't wait for a relaxing, fun summer with the girls, and I am so happy Nathan had a good birthday as well. I can't wait to spend more time with my loved ones this summer!