Gold Medal Gymnast

Morgan has wanted to do gymnastics since she was about 5 years old. Finally, we live close to an awesome gym with great coaches! So, we decided to try it out this summer.

She had some friends in Nebraska who had shown her a few things on recess so she was able to jump right in and do a cartwheel. A month later she is learning how to do a round-off back handspring. She's landed on her head a few times but absolutely loves her class.

We also discovered that her lower leg muscles are extremely tight. She struggles to point her toes and has to do lots of extra stretches to loosen up the muscles. 

And what does Zane do during gymnastics?

  He hangs out with me in the loft.

Morgan has a new goal - gold medal gymnast.

Joy of Learning

My approach to Summer School is different this year. Instead of “let’s see how much learning we can do while having fun” I’m trying “let’s see how much fun we can have while learning.” Instead of announcing it’s time to do school activities I simply pull out a game and they don’t even know they are learning to count money. 

Our first project was an autobiography. We learned the difference between a biography and an autobiography by looking at two books about Helen Keller. (Morgan loved Helen's example of determination and perseverance.) Then the kids worked on writing their own. It amazes me how different my two learners are.

 Morgan worked carefully. She thought about what to write and wrote slow and cautious. She drew her pictures with great detail. Zane quickly wrote a few sentences and wanted to draw his hand for every picture. He had two pages done and Morgan was still working on her first.

We've done a few "boring" worksheets as well but tried to focus more on reading. Fortunately, both of my kids LOVE to read. We've had some great conversations about the books we've read!

I saw this cute idea for an "I am" poster. I can't find the website now but it's somewhere out there.

Morgan helped me create a list of words that describe her and then I printed them in different fonts. Then we created a face that looks like her, with a flower in her hair.
 

 
We cut everything out and glued it all on pink cardstock to create her own "I am" poster so she can remember how amazingly wonderful she is.

The best part about Summer School... learning in your swimsuit. Yes!

How do you stay cool?

It's been hot! Not quite Nebraska hot, but still HOT. We're thankful that it does at least cool down in the evening but during the day...

 

We find ways to stay cool!

The kids have had so much fun on the Slippin' Slide!

One day we made sponge balls and had a great water fight!

Morgan discovered that if she sprayed blocks of wood with water and then drew on them with wet chalk, it's kind of like paint. And it looks so pretty! Zane helped out by spraying water.

 

This summer, we have eaten our weight in popsicles and spent a few hours laying under the ceiling fan. Sometimes, we turn on Christmas movies and pretend it's cold.

How do you stay cool?

4th of July

Our little town put on a great 4th of July celebration! Scott went to work early so he could be home by 10am. Then, we went to the church park where they had LOTS of booths set up. We walked around for 20 minutes trying to decide what to eat for lunch. 

And then there were games to play and faces to get painted. 

Morgan wanted a butterfly...

and Zane wanted a bat.

Zane even won a bottle of soda in the ring toss game!

Then there were scones to eat and snow cones for the ride home.

We had a few friends over for a barbeque dinner of shish kabobs and patriotic fruit pizza. Yummy!
Brittany and Levi showed up just in time for sparklers.

It was hard to stay up until 10:00 for the big fireworks but we did it. We were so glad we were able to walk down the driveway and watch them from home.


We skipped the 4th of July parade because it was in the afternoon. Who does a parade in the afternoon?! A couple of weeks earlier, we went to the Rigby Rodeo. We watched the parade in the morning and went back for the rodeo action that night. The kids thought that was the best day ever.

It's much better to watch a parade wearing jackets!

When I asked the kids what they liked best about the parade, other than the candy, they both agreed that the fireman band was cool. Zane said he liked them because they played "manpipes"... Ummm... Do you mean bagpipes? Yep! That's it.

Morgan loved all the horses and especially the Rodeo Queens. It is now her goal to someday be a Rodeo Queen, and wear a hat with a tiara on it, and a sparkly shirt. A girl can dream!