It's Time for Driver's Ed!

What?!  Ashley started driver's education this month!  In Illinois you can take driver's ed in high school when you are 15 1/2 or at age 15 if you take it privately.  Originally, we planned to have Ashley take it in school beginning in January.  However, she could not fit driver's ed into her schedule so she had to take it privately.  It costs a little more to do it privately, but this was really the best option for us.  We decided to do the class during the summer so she wouldn't have to go to school all day and spend 2 hours each night in a class.

After a month of classes 4 days a week, she has officially finished the "classwork" portion of the program.  As soon as she turned 15 she went and took the written portion of the driver's test at the DMV so she could get her learner's permit.  By law, in addition to being 16, she has to hold her permit for at least 9 months and have 50 hours of driving with a parent before she can get her driver's license.

taking the test

she passed!

Now she has to do go out driving with an instructor.  Before she starts doing that, Dave and I want to spend a little time practicing with her first, so she can get more comfortable behind the wheel of a car.  It will basically be a whole year before she can have her actual license, but it's good to get the class finished now and leave her with lots of time to practice.  Hopefully when she turns 16, she will be ready to get her license.  I'm eagerly anticipating it, because I definitely want her to be able to drive herself to Seminary every day!

Summer Activities Round Up

As summer comes to an end, here is round up of some random things we did for fun:

First up, church youth activities:
An awesome woman from our stake came and gave a "Color Me Beautiful" presentation to the YW.  It was pretty fun and great to learn about what colors look best on us.

Paddleboats

Geo-caching and Bonfire

The girls and I also enjoyed a lot of Sonic runs - especially on $1 Slushie Day

Also look who took first place in their bowling league?  Paige's team got 1st place trophies.  Paige also won the Most Improved Bowler Award and got a trophy for the 2nd Best score.

Ashley fell into a slump at the end of the season as it became clear that she needed a new and heavier bowling ball.  It's a good sign that she was improving enough to need better equipment, but it takes time to adjust and make sure you buy the right ball.  She had to suffer through the last few weeks of the season as she worked with a pro to determine what kind of ball she needed to buy.  It was frustrating for her but you can't just go out and buy a $150 ball on whim and then find out it wasn't the right one.  Anyway, she now has a new ball (called THE HAMMER) and will probably end up needing a second ball for spares---wow, it's getting expensive!  Paige is excited because we are going to give her Ashley's old ball.  We will have the holes plugged and re-drilled to fit Paige's hand.

Summer is not complete unless you take at least one trip to the waterpark.  Ashley and Paige both went with friends.  I didn't get any pics of Ashley but here is Paige with her friend Hailey.

Andy's Frozen Custard.  We also tried a (new to us) frozen custard place.  It was yummy!  I got a raspberry Italian ice with vanilla custard.  

 Paige got something called the "Jack Hammer"  It is basically custard and brownies with core of hot fudge down the middle.  Have Mercy!

How about some unflattering pictures from our Parable of the Popcorn family home evening?  Paige taught the lesson which included a lot of trying to throw and catch popcorn in our mouths.

Go Karts!

So Un-FUN

I thought I should take a break from my day to share with you how much fun it's been around the house.

Paige has a friend over and I told her instead of playing Minecraft they should do some real crafts or something.  We have a ton of half-used and even unopened craft kits.  Of course, I should have known the reason they were unused is because without a doubt Paige is NOT a craft person.  She doesn't have the patience for it, PERIOD.  She gets easily frustrated and bored.  Basically, after practically throwing a tantrum in front of her friend (who happens to like crafts) craft time was over.  Of course it didn't help that of the 25 project options, she picks the hardest one to do.  Oh well, glad that's over!  GRRR.  Anyone wants some craft kits?

That fun has been followed by Ashley reading and annotating Beowulf all day.  It's a summer reading assignment for her upcoming English class and since school starts in 5 days, it's time to get that baby finished.  English and literature are not Ashley's favorite subjects and honestly, I'm not a fan of Beowulf either but, "PUH-LEASE!" I'm sick of hearing about how much you dislike this ridiculous book.  What's worse than reading Beowulf?  Listening to your kid complain about reading Beowulf.

Well, that's my complaining for the day.  I will now go find some chocolate to eat.

18 Years

Dave and I celebrated our 18th anniversary this year.  Dave forgot.  I reminded him the night before.  Our anniversary was on Sunday and I had to speak in Sacrament meeting.  We spent the whole day before at the Dunes.  Basically the days before were pretty busy and so we just let it go.

On Monday, Dave came home a little early from work and took me and the girls out to dinner.  We went to Sharko's BBQ.

We didn't get gifts or anything, but I made a big purchase earlier that I'm going to consider our anniversary present.  We have a nice theater near our home that every year runs a Broadway series.  This year there are four shows---Cats, Mary Poppins, Tommy and Les Miserables.  I've seen Mary Poppins and Les Mis, but I really do want to see all the shows.  I'd been thinking about buying seasons tickets for months.  I mentioned it to a friend and she'd been thinking the same thing.  So she got the ball rolling and a bunch of couples bought season tickets together.  So now we have four upcoming date nights with friends---that should make up for a forgotten anniversary.

Warren Dunes

We followed up one beach day with another one.  This time instead of going to beach on the Illinois side of Lake Michigan we drove around (through Indiana) to the Michigan side.  Every year our ward holds an informal beach day activity.  Basically, anyone who wants to drives to the Warren Dunes State   Park and spends a family day at the beach.

It seems like every year we have something else going on so we haven't ever gone with the ward.  When we lived at Notre Dame, we went to the Warren Dunes a bunch of times.  It's a great beach.  The water is cleaner than on the Chicago side (they aren't down stream from Milwaukee!)  There are also hiking trails, clay pits, and a huge sand dune the kids can play on.  It really is a very fun place.

The Dunes are only about a 90 minute drive from us.  Unfortunately, on this particular day, Indiana was doing a lot of road construction so lanes were closed and the drive was definitely long and unfun.  Fortunately, we survived (Dave just barely) and we made it to the beach.

The weather was perfect, it was a fun day and the kids had a good time with friends.

 After a day at the beach, I talked Dave into stopping in New Buffalo, MI for some dinner.  Particularly, I wanted to try two famous places.  One was Redamak's, home of the hamburger "Legend"  By the time we got there, it was later in the evening.  Michigan is an hour ahead of us so it was almost 8pm.  We still had an hour wait and the line was outside and all around the building.

The Patty Melt "legend"

It was a good burger, tasted yummy, but not the best burger I've ever eaten.  We stuffed ourselves silly, but we couldn't leave town yet.  We had to have some ice cream at Oink's.  Another famous local hot spot.  And again that place was hopping, but we did get some ice cream.  The ice cream was so thick it was crazy, but very good.

Overall, a very fun family outing.  A good way to spend a summer day.

Bangs!

So Paige decided she wanted a "new look" and asked to cut some bangs.  She has never, ever had bangs.  When she was little I grew her hair out and she has always had straight hair parted to the side.

I didn't mind and figured she was old enough to make decisions about her hair and appearance.

It turned out pretty cute, but definitely gave her a different look.

In retrospect, I didn't anticipate the downside of her wearing bangs.  Basically, the bangs were cut and the perfectionist monster came out.  For a while Paige was pretty obsessed about having her bangs look perfect and lay perfectly.  She would talk about it non-stop, cry and throw mini-fits in the morning if her hair didn't look just so.  There were some pretty contentious moments as she started to drive me insane.  It was impossible to reason with her.  I couldn't convince her that her bangs needed time to train themselves not to part to the side or that no one's hair can be perfect all the time.  At one point, I had to send her to her room and forbid her from talking to anyone (mostly me) about her bangs.  She was lucky I didn't shave them off while she was sleeping.

Fortunately, it finally died down and she is more normal about those bangs and doesn't have a mental breakdown if they aren't "perfect."  Whew!  Who knew what a parenting nightmare that would be!

It's So Hard to Say Goodbye

So a major event in our lives this summer was that Paige's friend, Riley, moved.  They moved closer to the city and her mom's work.  It was the right thing for their family, but it was hard to see them go.  Riley has been a constant fixture in our home for the past year.  She has been like another member of our family.  She and Paige pretty much did everything together.  Riley's mom, Jane, has also been a very good friend to me.  We have both seen each other through some tough times in our lives.

We miss them a lot, but fortunately they didn't move far away only about 90 minutes.  It is however, far enough to preclude the daily visits we were used to.  Paige hasn't outwardly seemed too upset about the change, but she has been a lot more difficult recently which makes me wonder if Riley's move is part of  it somehow.  Nowadays, it's a lot easier to keep in touch with social media, technology and FaceTime, but there is definitely the reality that we probably won't be as close anymore.

Not long after the official move, Paige went and spent the night with Riley at her new house.  The next day, Ashley and I went to pick Paige up, get a tour of the new place, and then go over to nearby Lake Michigan for a day of fun at Gilson Beach.  We had a great time and hopefully we will be able to keep in touch.  School starts for us pretty soon, so it will definitely be more of a challenge to find the time to visit, but I'm sure we will make it work.

Ashley and Paige

Riley and her cousin

Little did we know that Ashley would bring home an earful of bacteria after her day at the beach.  She developed Swimmer's Ear/outer ear infection.  I called the doctor right away and they gave her some antibiotic drops.  Unfortunately after 4 days on the drops she was not improving, so we had to go in for a visit.  We left with the medications you see above.  This was all about getting tough on the infection and fortunately it did the trick and she finally got better.

And finally, here is one of my all-time favorite pictures of Paige and Riley.  It's a few years old but just looking at it makes me teary.  Friendships like this are rare.