Surviving VBS

Well, VBS week is over at the Grantham Church and I'm proud to say we've survived another year in the Craft Corner! This year's theme was VeggieTales' The Pirates Who Don't Do Anything. And let me tell you, there were morning when we REALLY wanted to be those pirates who don't do anything!! Our crafts were all of the pirate or treasure related theme (treasure bags, treasure boxes, messages in bottles, passports). Pretty cool. My co-leader and I didn't get to pick the crafts this year, so we had a hard time getting engaged right away. And some days the craft really had NOTHING to do with the Bible story, but Captain Bisbee managed to tie it all together somehow anyway! Arg, me mateys! DD had fun as well. DS spent the week in the nursery - next year he can be a VBS'er. It was fun, but I sure am tired! I hope to catch up on some sleep this weekend. But I'm not holding my breath! Not with two little kids with endless amounts of energy! :-)

Pictures from the trip

I am in the process of uploading all my pictures (250 of them) to snapfish. I have about half of them there. Then things go screwy. I dunno. And I don't know how to get you to snapfish without sending you an email. But they're there. If you want to see them. www.snapfish.com; my username is my email address. Let me know if you can find them

The laundry pile

Have any of you ever watched Jon & Kate, plus 8 - the show that features a family in PA (somewhere) that have 7 year old twins and 3 year old sextuplets (that would be 6 kids)?? Kate is a little crazy and commanding and terribly organized. She does laundry several times a week, but get this - all she does it WASH IT. She has someone come over on Thursdays that FOLDS it all; and someone comes on Friday and PUTS IT ALL AWAY! Are you kidding me?! Those are the hardest parts.

Our adventures in Harvey resulted in about 5 loads of laundry. Not only were there the dirty clothes, there were also sheets and towels (lots of towels). I just put the last load into the washer. I have folded, but not put away) two loads. There is another one waiting. And the fourth is in the dryer. Ugh. Then I get to start on the laundry that is in the "regular" laundry bins. I feel like I'm in laundry hell.

Home Sweet Home

Here we are, home again. And I am busy doing laundry and putting away "stuff". Our travels on Thursday were quite fine. Wouldn't you know - this was the one day the kids decided to sleep in!!! We were finally on the road around 8:15am. We left Maine in chilly weather, but it soon warmed up as we traveled south. We stopped in Freeport, ME to visit the LL Bean campus and shop a little. Found nothing that needed to be purchased. Made a quick stop in Starbucks (ah, civilization!) and then piled back into Harvey for a few more hours. We ate lunch on the road and arrived in Amsterdam, NY a little before 7pm. We had pizza and wings and antipasto salad for dinner. Then the kids took a little swim and headed to bed. DH stayed in the camper with them, I hung out in the house until about 10. Then it was off to bed for us.

Friday morning, the kids slept "late" again (7am). We were pulling out of the driveway around 8am. We stopped once for gas and once for lunch and arrived at the RV rental place around 1pm. We emptied Harvey into our waiting (and stifflingly hot) vehicles and were home to Dillsburg just before 3pm.

DH and I had a Big 33 mixer to attend that evening, so we spent a little time unpacking, but mostly relaxing before the babysitter arrived at 6pm. We were back hom and in our own bed by 10:30pm. Ah, it was a good night's sleep!!!!

Today the kids and I went to the doggie hotel and retrieved the dog. They've played outdoors a little (it's really quite hot), but have settled back into the home routine, "Mommy when can I use the computer?", "Can we please watch a show?" I guess they need to make up for that week without tv!

Last Night in Maine

Our final afternoon in Maine was spent riding bikes and playing at the playground. DH took each kid for a bike ride. I joined for one and then DH and I took a ride by ourselves while Nana took the kids to the playground. DH and I played there, too, for a bit, then decided to head back and get things ready for dinner. He had some tinkering to do with the grill before cooking. Nana took the kids for a walk to the lighthouses at the entrance of the KOA and to the store to "warm up". When they came back we started cooking and enjoyed a fine meal of steaks, fried potatoes and salad. Yum-o!

After dinner we packed some more. The more we can get done tonight, the less we need to do tomorrow. We want to roll out of here early tomorrow and we know that we will need to stop and empty the holding tank and fill the gas tank. DH had built a nice camp fire for us to enjoy, and we were all busy packing. He called us out to enjoy the fire, and aren't we glad we did!! We sat around the fire talking with our neighbors while the fire burned down to good s'more making coals. I toasted marshmallows for the kids' s'mores and for DH's and mine. While I was toasting Nana's marshmallow, a nasty wind started blowing. It looked pretty fierce, so I quickly burned up Nana's marshmallow (she likes them quite burned) and we started chucking everything into the RV. Then we had to clean it up, again, once we got in! The wind kept blowing and there were some rain drops as well. We abandoned the idea of going back outside. The kids and Nana read some books; DH worked on his pictures; and I read my book. Now it's time for the kids to go to bed. I guess we'll sit inside quietly until they are asleep, then we'll have our mojitos and chips and guacamole. Not a bad way to end a vacation!

Oh, our newest neighbor has a towing camper like we thought we might like to have and offered to give us a tour. It was bigger inside than we expected, but still a little smaller than we'd like. I think we'll rent for a while (AJ's has a towing camper that we could actually pull with the 4-Runner).

Good night for now!