Bigun Up!

Ella may be having the best month ever. I'm going to go ahead and photo dump it now before all of the Halloween stuff gets in the way. Evil Genius insisted on getting in on the action too.

Carrots from the garden. I like the cape and the puffy shirt

She was excited about growing carrots in the garden this year. We ended up with a pitiful garden this year. I never got any plants from Mom so all we planted was seeds. We planted some beans that came up pretty good, but once it got really hot they stopped producing. It looked like our muscadine crop was going to be huge, but the birds ended up getting them all before they got ripe. So these tiny carrots really are the best produce.

a milk mustache?

In gymnastics, on the high balance beam!

She insisted I take this one while shopping.

She is loving gymnastics, but it's starting to get into some of the harder stuff now. Actually growing in her sport is really fun for me to watch. Fears are overcome, confidence is being built! That's what it's all about.

Ella is the Cheshire Cat

EG is a Greek Goddess

they are having too much fun

At Trunk or Treat at the church!

Ella lost a tooth in a sticky piece of candy!

Of course the Cheshire Cat smile glows in the dark

Ok, I know I said no Halloween stuff yet. But it's already started! Kelley worked like a mad woman to finish off those costumes. We may put on another coat of the glow in the dark paint for the cat smile, but they turned out amazing. My mom made Lena's Goddess costume and Kelley came up with the gold parts. My part of making their costumes consisted solely of wearing Ella's shirt so it would be stretched tight enough to add the duct tape stripes. I am still totally in awe of the creative execution it takes to pull these things together every year.

Trunk or Treat is an annual event that our church puts on, where cars put out a theme with candy. It attracts a lot of the local community and the members dress up, so it's always a ton of fun. It was great to see so many kids dressed up!

Ruby

Quite the fuzzy rabbit. I'm sure she'll be delish in a stew or something.

 Ruby is the newest addition to our household. It's a Red Something (bolt, i want to say?) rabbit. They bought Ruby while at the State Fair. This was a bit of an impulse purchase, I certainly didn't agree to it beforehand. But I guess there could be worse options. as long as it doesn't chew stuff, it is kind of cute.

Ella's swimming!

On a team! It's her first team swim practice!

Nailed it

This is the really cool part. After the Olympics this year EG wanted to start gymnastics, and she was able to go ahead and get into a class. Bigun had to wait until Monday to start her olympic dreams, but now she is finally swimming on the Pullen Pirates kids swim team! It was her first team practice ever.

I am absolutely thrilled about this. She loved it. They did about half a mile in 45 minutes including drills on all 4 strokes and worked the turns a bit at the end. Coach wants them to start showing up 15 minutes early for some dryland and stretching before hitting the water next week. She looked really comfortable in the water, and I've never seen her move like that. She wasn't the fastest kid out there, but wasn't the slowest either. And she had fun.

As a parent, seeing your kid get into something that you are into is an amazing feeling. I've been swimming on a Masters team for 5 years now and absolutely love it. I get in the water as often as possible every week and race open water swimming events all summer long from 1 mile to a 12 miler last year. Watching the next generation enjoy picking up the torch is absolutely amazing. Ella is pretty adventurous too, I might even be able to get her into an open water event next summer. For now, she's got practice on a regular basis and a couple of meets coming up. I AM SO EXCITED!!

The Graduate

Dadlife - it happened. My eldest has now finished 5th grade and will start middle school in just a few weeks. I have a middle schooler. Just typing that is terrifying. I remember how I was as a middle schooler, and what happened to me during those years. That torture is about to befall my sweet little Ella. I may just hold my breath for the next 3 years.

too sweet. First day of kindergarten and the last day of 5th grade

The graduation ceremony was really sweet. The kids all sang songs and danced, they got their picture taken with the principal and teacher. Then we all went to the library for cake. It was really a special event.

Singing and playing

Ready to dance

With the teacher and principal

Dancing again

Kelley's dad came as well. Afterwards, Mickey took us out to lunch at the NC State golf course clubhouse. It was delicious and appropriate.

that's a middle school dessert

she wouldn't share

So for now, if you need me in the near future, I'll just be in the corner crying and mumbling "what happened?" and "it's not possible", but it is happening and is possible. She's about to start 6th grade.

EG got old

Well my youngest kid is now another year older. This kid continues to amaze me. She keeps growing and learning and being the smartest kid in her class. Some things she does are amazing and some are so frustrating, but that's what makes her special. Happy birthday kiddo.

Her birthday dinner at Golden Corral

Excited about opening birthday presents

Ella playing her dog

She wanted hard shell luggage

and loved it!

the luggage was filled with other presents

including this dress and new shoes

and a pink sparkly canopy for her bed

No toys. Our 9 year old didn't want any new toys to play with. Perfume, a dress and shoes, these are not baby toy wishes. Our little girl is growing up! Daddy is still adjusting.

We had some other fun while we were visiting my parents a couple of weeks ago. She got to show off a new dress that Mom made for her, and had a great cake!

Modeling the new dress

My little girl isn't so little anymore!

Another Seafarer Done

This past weekend I took Evil Genius back to the Indian Princess camp, this year we got Camp Seafarer instead of Seagull like we got last year. It was a rousing good time! EG always has her challenges but we got through them all and had quite the successful weekend.

Friday I took off from work and packed up. We hit the road around lunchtime and made it down to Tony's house on the river (about a mile from camp) for a little pre-camp pizza. The girls really loved getting to play together down there, and the dads all had a blast hanging out too. After dinner we headed into camp.

We did eventually make our way into camp and get setup in the bunks. Then friday night was an ice cream social! After that we eventually got the kids down and settled in to the (slightly less than comfy) bunk beds.

Camp Seafarer entrance

With her magic card

Settled into the top bunk

With BFF K

Quite a large crowd!

Finally happy and ready for bed

Saturday we had to get down to business. She had some activities to go do. EG had already decided which ones she wanted to try out, and we should do as many of those activities as possible with K. Naturally, she didn't want to do any of the activities that I always enjoy like the water stuff (zipline, water slide) or archery or BB guns. We started out sifting for sharks teeth and she found a couple of small ones. Then it was on to the more physical activities. Canoeing is always a favorite of mine because I like to get a couple of specific pictures.

Shark tooth sifting with K

Ready to hit the canoes with K and her dad

Always have a blast in the boats

My one great hope for EG to actually eat something that they serve in the cafeteria was the scrambled eggs they serve for breakfast. After 2 bites, she declared that they were made from a powder and were inedible. GAAAAAHHH!! So on Saturday, breakfast was 2 bites of eggs, lunch was a slice of cheese and 2 sugar cookies, and dinner was 2 pieces of cake. That was all that she would eat from the entire buffet setup they put out there. I know you can't feed 800 people cracking one egg at a time. but I even had to force her to put the cheese on her plate. This was amazingly frustrating for me.

lunch

It rained some on Saturday afternoon, and by 2:30 she was done with her list of activities and ready to go home. Unfortunately we still had another 24 hours or so to hang out at camp.

With her punched out activity list

There is supposed to be a child next to this rabbit

There they are!

the fish

We ended up looking for some of these concrete statues they had hidden around camp and hanging out with some friends. The rabbit was the only statue we found, and we ended up doing some of the activities again.

The funniest thing (to her) was when we did the obstacle course. She had to go through this thing, then tag me and I ran it backwards. One of the obstacles was bunny hopping through some hula hoops, and of course I wanted to do it very fast. That means I ended up losing my balance and falling flat on my face! Total faceplant in the middle of the field. oops! it was really hilarious.

After dinner K's dad wanted to go fishing, and he had an extra pole so we got to throw some line. EG, of course, was terrified of the water and the turtles in the water. I had to bait the hook with a worm and cast it out for her, and eventually she got a bite! About halfway through reeling it in, she panic'd and handed the pole to me to finish the job. I got the fish off of the hook and this was as close as she would come to the fish. I thought the picture turned out hilarious though.

Saturday night at Camp Seafarer is capped off with a campfire and fireworks show. The ghost story they tell at the campfire is pretty scary, but I was able to convince her that the guy was only collecting heads at Camp Seagull, and wouldn't come over to Seafarer. (seriously). The fireworks were great. there's a reason stuff is called "campy", and they established the stereotype. it was so much fun!

At the fireworks show

Playing on a truck bed while we're packing up.

Such a beautiful location right on the Neuse River

Lady of the trees

Overall we did have a great weekend at camp. Sunday all we did was pack up and get out of there by about 10:30. Breakfast was good, she had 2 more bites of eggs, then we got on the road.

It's worth noting that I also brought an entire duffel bag of snacks for her, she didn't go hungry. I know this picky eating thing is the bane of my existence as a parent, and cannot wait for the day when she grows out of it. It makes it very difficult to go into places where we can't control our own food supply like this. I also don't like not having control over my own food. Mass produced like what it takes to feed 800 campers has to be produced well in advance, and is usually loaded with fat and salt. There is no vegetarian option, there is no healthy choice because there is no choice at all. Maybe I could have brought 20 lbs of bananas for me, but rather than stand out I just took what I was given. Deal with it and clean it out later.

By the time we got home I unpacked and took a nap. The next day I had a great swim practice over lunch, then took in a hot yoga class that evening. That successfully purged everything from my system. All of the sweat carried out the camp toxins and frustrations; it was perfect.

It's hard to believe that I only have to take EG to this camp one more time! Ella is done, and next year is it for this one. They really do grow up so fast!