Waking Up Full of Awesome - My Ode to Abby

I've had an idea to write this post for several years now, and just never got around to it. But suddenly tonight, I knew it was the right time.

Melissa Atkins wrote a blog in 2011 starting, "There was a time when you were five years old, and you woke up full of awesome" and I knew exactly who she was talking about.

Because I know someone who wakes up full of awesome. Every single day.

Abby, December 2010. Full of Awesome-ness

Eight years ago today, I got to meet this amazing gal.

 

 

 

 

 

  

 Little did I know that this sweet angelic baby (who could easily projectile puke 6 feet - what a talent!) was going to grow up into one of the spunkiest, sweetest, most loving and most energetic people I have ever met. Seriously - she has more feisty squeezed into her little body than should be physically possible. And she wakes with an amazing smile on her face every single gosh darn morning. Usually even before the sun has come up.

When she was about 4 1/2, I bought her an alarm clock to keep her IN bed, not to get her out! 

Sometimes I feel like I spend my days trying to figure out how to expend all that energy before she spontaneously combusts. Actually, I do spend my days like that. Partly in hopes that she will sleep (so I can), and partly in total amazement. Where in the world does it all come from?

  

This chick is one cool kid. Her exuberance and zest for life draw people to her like moths to a flame. She can walk up to a total stranger and make best friend in SECONDS. Effortlessly. Joel and I even have look for each other that says, Yup, here she goes again.

 

 

 

She has her own fashion sense. I definitely had nothing to do with that!

Life for Abby is an adventure just waiting to happen and she dying to dive into the deep end and revel in all of it. I have honestly never met someone so just full of JOY. She speaks in exclamation points and means it.  

 

Her imagination is a deep ocean of amazing ideas and FUN for all involved. She has this insatiable thirst for knowing - knowing anything and everything. She can ask you more questions than you knew EXISTED. 

Really. She can make your ears hurt.  

 

Abby has this massive heart and capacity for caring. She loves to the point where you just can't help but smile and love back, just by being in her presence.   

 

Abby is just so full of awesome, it can't help but fall out on anyone who is around her. 

 

I pray she never ever loses it .

Mendezes on the Move

So, for some reason, there are still some of you out there that have missed the big announcement.

We're moving. (I know, shocker.)

We're moving this summer to the Philadelphia, PA area, and plan to be there 2-3 years.

Yes, Joel got lucky with a state-side tour this time, and we are very excited and happy. Not quite as happy as we might be on the beach in Tahiti, but oh well!

(To answer a couple of questions - yes, we're quite happy about the move. As much as we love our friends here, and have enjoyed homeschooling in this area, it's just time for us to go. The cost of living, the traffic, the stressful pace of life, and the ALLERGIES are all telling us DC is not the place for us like we thought. And no, we have no idea what will happen or where we will be after this assignment. We learned last time to not assume God's plans.)

We went up this past week for a "neighborhood-hunting" trip - as it's still a bit too early to actually find a house available to rent, even though we looked at a few. (The results weren't very promising right now.) We did meet up with a promising realtor, and hope to go back and see more next month.

We have essentially narrowed it down to the Bucks County area of PA, and are hoping to stick close to Doylestown or one of the surrounding townships. (No, I have not yet figured out what a township is vs. just a regular town.) We also wanted to do some research on the area - homeschool groups, churches, American Heritage Girls troops, etc.

We made quite a bit of progress during the week, even though it didn't really feel like it with all the driving around involved. Besides looking at a ton of random houses and driving around looking at neighborhoods and spending excessive amounts of time in the car, we visited a homeschool group "park day" (basically a big kid play date at a park), a homeschool co-op, a church that also does Upward Sports, and a local American Heritage Girls troop that really isn't that local. We have a possible church home - we visited twice and really got a good "vibe" from the church and the people there. Joel visited his office and met the gal he's replacing. I made notes of grocery stores, Costco, Sams, Target, and Walmart in the area. So, quite a bit of progress, really.

Finally toward the end of the week, we did some sight-seeing and touristy stuff. We ended up doing a double-decker tour bus thing.

That would be Independence Hall and the building with the Liberty Bell in the background.

Lunch Stop - We ate some pretty fabulous New Orleans cajun food. Served by Amish.

A shot of the inside of the market. This was the least crowded spot I saw the entire time we were there.

The Zoo - where we promptly turned around and got back on the tour bus - it was almost $100 for our family to enter! Gotta look up a Groupon deal for that one.

The Rocky Steps. Of course.

But before we could get started with any of that, I got stopped by a newsperson to be interviewed for a segment on the local news. Who ELSE in the entire world would they want to interview on allergies? They didn't even use my best quips. The camerawoman said - "You are the perfect allergy sufferer." Ummm, thanks??

 

And here is the actual video, if I can get this to work.

Our upcoming schedule for the next few months is insane. We plan to go back in May for a few weeks, me doing another round of house hunting while Joel does some work-stuff there before our big move in July. And in between all of that, is the girls' birthday parties (I'm already planning them), homeschool convention weekend, VBS, Math Camp, our packout and hopefully a bit of homeschool and work for me as well. We can sleep come August, I guess.

So, that's the biggest Mendez news.

Catching Up – What We’ve Been Up to This Fall!

I wanted to share with you some pictures of what we've been doing this fall!

This year, we're focusing on American History.

One of our first activities was to create boats and "float" them across "the ocean." I didn't really have time for that, so instead, the girls and I made paper boats. And then the girls decided that we MUST have Christopher Columbus on the boat. They refused to believe me that Queen Isabella didn't join him on the boat (seriously, Abby and Lily are going to come up with a princess- theme in everything). 

Queen Isabella and Christopher Columbus

When studying colonial America, we made our own Tri-Corner Hats . . .

Our Tri-Corner Tri-Color Hats!

Then we used our own Qwill Pens to practice signing our names for the Declaration of Independence!

  

We also made Hasty Pudding, and decided it's absolutely revolting.

When we have time, we add in music lessons with Mommy. We don't get to do this as much as I and the girls would like. But here are the girls playing a concert for Daddy on their new recorders. By the way - recorders are not as easy to play as I thought! How many instruments I've played, and I think I might have to give myself a few lessons before we attack those again.

A Recorder Concert for Daddy Before Bedtime

We also joined American Heritage Girls! We are having a blast with that - the girls are really getting into it.

We've also done quite a few field trips this fall, in addition to our Colonial Williamsburg/Jamestown trip. More on those very soon.

And that's it so far!

Jamestown Trip

While we were visiting Williamsburg, we set aside a day to enjoy Jamestown, which is just down the road. It ended up being one of the highlights of our trip - we absolutely loved it.

 

During the Homeschool Days, our tickets got us a full family tour of both the settlement, boats, and Powhatan village that was filled with reenactors. 

   

For part of the tour, we were able to go down into replicas of the ships, and had a "sailor" tell us about the voyage.

I have to say our favorite part was the Powhatan village and learning about the Native American tribe. Because Abby and Lily are into all things "princess," I jumped on the Pocahontas story. Yes, they watched the Disney movie - but we also watched "The Making Of" part, which talked about the fact that much of story wasn't accurate. I also found a biography of Pocahontas in the thrift store, of all places, and we read the "real" story as well.

  

We took classes about the Powhatan tribe - how they lived, what they ate, etc. Here is Abby dressing up like Pocahontas. You'll be so pleased to know that they wore very little clothes - in fact the ONLY thing they wore was this "apron." (This is an adult size apron on a seven year old.) The girls spent weeks afterwards trying to be exhibitionists - after all, if Pocahontas didn't have to wear clothes, why did they? Sigh. Not exactly the lesson I was hoping for them to take home from this! 

Making rope

 

Scraping a deer hide

Scraping out a tree log to make a canoe. Lily really got into this!

  
 The entire family had a fabulous time, and no one wanted to leave! In fact, after dropping me off at the hotel so I could work that afternoon, Joel took the girls back to enjoy more time there, and check out their museum. We really could have spent more time there. If you get a chance to go, be sure to take advantage of the tours and classes offered. The volunteers there are wonderful!

Historic Jamestowne
Jamestown Settlement and Yorktown Victory Center Homeschool Days

Our Trip to Colonial Williamsburg

I wanted to share with you some pictures from our trip to Colonial Williamsburg! We loved Colonial Williamsburg. We went during September during their "Homeschool Days, which I totally recommend by the way."The prices are SOOO much better, and there are lots of events,activities, and "classes" to participate in. I would say the weather is better in September  - except we arrived during a heat wave - it was 90+ degrees the week we were there. So much for that.



 




 

Forget the doghouse, we'll just put hubby here!

the auctioneer

I apparently was the only one enjoying the auction.

We loved this because we had just finished reading "Farmer Boy", about Almanzo Wilder and his oxen.

We ended up having to buy little hats as souvenirs to help protect our fair skin from the sun. 

The Wigmaker

One of the "extra" activities we did (for just $5 more) was a "Be a Soldier" session. They learned to march, throw a hatchet, and pitch a tent. Joel had even more fun than our girls did. (Lily was being stubborn and refused to participate. They were going to make her take off her pretty hat.)

Abby as a "Soldier"

March, 2, 3, 4

To keep it very affordable, we packed lunches, snacks, and water bottles every day in a backpack. We joked how how you could pick out all the homeschoolers, because they brought their own food. The trick that week was to find a shady place to eat it. This was in the gardens of the Governor's home and it was one of my favorite spots.

The Williamsburg Bathroom. Chamber pot anyone?

What ended up being some of our favorite activities were the free classes at the Museum! First of all, it was AIR CONDITIONED. I loved it for that alone. But they also offered two free classes each day, and we did quite a few of them. And the ladies who led the classes were so sweet and patient with all the kids.I would HIGHLY recommend taking anything offered at the Museum.

 

Creating Our Own Self- Portraits

I found a fabulous deal at a resort we had stayed at once before. It was a condo-type with a kitchen, which meant we could prep our dinners there. This was important to me since I'm gluten-free - which is sometimes to hard to deal with when traveling. So, we brought several prepped and frozen meals with us, along with breakfast food. When we arrived, we stopped at a grocery store and picked up eggs, milk, and bread. Every morning we stopped for coffee on our way.

We didn't do much "official" homeschool work that week. I brought some activity pages and colors to occupy the girls at the hotel/condo, but it wasn't really needed. Beforehand, we had read some of the American Girl Felicity books, which I highly recommend.

So, there ya go. Our trip to Colonial Williamsburg! We spent a week in the area and had a BLAST.

Colonial Williamsburg Educational Site
Colonial Williamsburg Homeschool Days
Colonial Williamsburg Teacher Community