Hurricane Fun - Mendez Style

Being in a new place does not equal hurricane preparedness.

That being said, both Joel and I have lived through plenty of hurricanes, and the girls and I even did one (though it really ended up being a tropical depression by the time it got to us) in our house in Fairhope last year. Heck, we've even done earthquakes. So we know how to get ready. We just weren't.

(I left all of our hurricane supplies at our place in Fairhope when we packed out, thinking our renters would need it much more than we did. HA!)

Which meant a lot of trips to the brand new Target in our neighborhood.

Here is a picture of the girls entertaining themselves while we waited for Joel to come pick us up. Forget toys, just give them a huge concrete ball cemented to the ground for hours of guaranteed amusement.

One day I'm gonna take them back all dressed up and re-pose this picture. I love this shot.

Now the fun part of parenting during a hurricane is how to keep the kiddos occupied if/when the power goes out and while they are stuck inside with all the rain, and while you're trying to get everything ready. Besides the obvious charging up all the gadgets and gizmos and making sure everything that needed batteries had them, I also don't want them to be afraid of the storm.

Last year in Alabama, we created the ultimate tea party experience. We bought all sorts of treats and goodies and the girls dressed themselves up in their favorite costumes, and we did hair and nails, and we did fancy tea party right in the middle of the living room. Of course, we were Daddy-free at the time, which meant no testosterone in the house to mess with.

The girls piling on Daddy in the bunk bed.

This time I knew we needed new activities. I found several new DVDs and games for their Leapsters at the thrift store, and got the girls new coloring books. I figured at the very least - we don't need electricity to do school, so we could keep right on with that, but I did find several craft projects (Halloween and regular school-related) that I had ignored and pulled those out.

We prepped lots of food to use up what was in our fridge, and I made pumpkin muffins for the girls' breakfast for the next week. (The girls love to cook, so that is always a safe activity.)

I also took a trip into Michaels. (I am not allowed to go to Michaels. It's like crack to a crack addict.) I got Abby this kit to make friendship bracelets and started to teach her how to make them. I totally got flashbacks to sitting in classes in highschool making those things!

And we picked up a bunch of decorative iron-on patches so we could decorate the jeans we got at the thrift store. (We haven't actually gotten to that project yet, though.)

And, as a homeschool- related project, we counted up all the change we have been saving in the banks the girls have. The girls had over $15 in change! There was quite a long discussion over which charity to support with that money, but in the end the girls decided to buy a pair of chickens through a organization in India. (Rabbits are next, but we have to save up for them.)

In the end, I am so very grateful that we didn't get the kind of weather in our area that had been predicted all week, and kind of guilty in that others DID get that weather. I watch those pictures of New York and recognize all the places we used to live and go to, and just hurt for the folks up their STILL in such a mess. I can only imagine what that sort of devastation would look like in the DC area.

Halloween in Virginia

Here is our Trick-or-Treating pictures in our new neighborhood!

Neighborhood newsletter picture

Costume Parade

A little chilly that night, but we had a Mulan and a Tinkerbell.
Costumes brand new, courtesy of the thrift store - $3 each.

It didn't take long for the girls to get bored with the walking around (and hungry), so we headed home to eat pizza. Abby and Lily had the job of handing out candy. We went through 2 1/2 huge bags of candy!

The only picture I have without their coats on!

Catching Up - Early Fall Activities

Here are some pictures of our activities so far this fall:

From our church group's fall retreat:


Relay Races



Lily and one of our little friends playing with the ring toss

This my mother's face staring back at me. Throws me EVERY TIME.

At a fall farm festival in Falls Church:

It's all about the U in our house!

Ice cream soothes the savage beasts

Ice cream always gets us a smile.

Daddy field trip day to a museum in DC. (Mommy was working.)

However, running around the Mall was enjoyed a lot more.

We started back with homeschooling once we finished unpacking.

We LOVE Chinese food. But Abby did not learn to eat with chopsticks from us, she did this all on her own!

Love,

Joel, Julie, Abby, and Lily

Raspberry and Apple Picking!

One of our friends invited us to join them for apple and raspberry picking! We met up at a farm in Maryland.

We spent quite a while picking raspberries, but only about 10 minutes picking apples! The lady in charge of the field directed us down to the very end of the field, and we filled our baskets just by going to one our two trees! Amazingly, we picked 40 pounds of apples in those ten minutes.

Once we got home, the real work began. I had to figure out a way to use up and freeze the apples before they could go bad! Thankfully, Joel let me get this apple peeler at the gift shop on the farm. AWESOME INVENTION. I highly recommend it. It peels, slices and cores the apple all at once. Did I mention how awesome it is??

So, here is a picture of the apples once I got done prepping a batch. I froze most of our apples (poured a bit of lemon juice over them first) to save them for later.

Then, we got busy trying a ton of new recipes with our raspberries and apples. Here are our new favorites:

Baked Chicken with Apple Stuffing - This is super easy and very yummy. But we tend to like a little "kick," so I might sneak a couple cranberries into the stuffing mix on the bottom next time.

Honey Baked Apples - The recipe calls for cranberries, but I used raspberries this time. BUT, I bet it would be amazing with cranberries too.

But, I think I overcooked mine. Or, maybe using the muffin tin wasn't the best idea. I thought it would be better to help keep them from tipping over.

This is what they looked like with served up. I definitely need to try this one again to see if I can fix it.

Caramel Apple Pie - If you like caramel apples, then this is the pie for you. I've made this pie twice now, and it is actually pretty easy. I've never made a pie before and was able to do this well. One suggestion I'm gonna try for next time is to put the caramels into a food processor and turn them into shavings. Otherwise you get little gooey caramel pieces stuck in your teeth while enjoying all this yumminess.

It looked a lot better before I attempted to cut it. I haven't mastered that yet.

Here are some other recipes we tried, but I don't have pictures of.

Smoked Sausage and Apple Bake - This one was good, but a little too much sauerkraut for me. Joel liked it more.

Easy Raspberry Chicken - We prepped several of these ahead of time and froze them together in Ziploc bags. Not quite as pretty as the picture, but it is super yummy and easy on our busy days.

Raspberry Chipotle Sauce - Oh my goodness, this stuff is AWESOME. I make this with a pork tenderloin. I made several batches and put them in Ziploc and froze them. Which reminds me, we really need to eat this again very soon!

What we did this Summer

I love this picture I took randomly this summer. The girls were "playing homeschool." Lily was listening to the Addition Fact songs on the iPod (what Abby is dealing with in math right now), and Abby was playing teacher and beauty parlor at the same time. Yup. This is what homeschooling really looks like!  

So, I flaked out this summer from posting. I am so sorry, I feel like I let myself down as much as you guys. But I have a very good reason.

ROACHES.

So that apartment we moved into? Yeah, apparently the entire building is infested with roaches. Of different varieties. By the millions. I couldn't help but see the irony as I was learning more about roaches than I never wanted to know. I can now tell you exactly the life cycle of roaches, what kills them (nothing) and what doesn't (just about everything), and even what their eggs and poop look like. Homeschooling at its finest. IT WAS GROSS AND NASTY.

I really hope ya'll aren't retching right now and still reading.

We did find a new place to live finally, but in the meantime, we went through weekly full extermination sessions - emptying every single cabinet and closet and leaving the house for a full day, come home and put everything back, only to have them come crawling back out of the walls a few hours later. I am not even kidding. It was really that bad. Really.

We finally got into our new (beautiful, clean, safe neighborhood, and most importantly, insect-free) townhouse almost two weeks ago, and we are feverishly unpacking and trying to get re-settled.

Last week I added it up, and as a family, if you count the month long stays with family, hotels, and temporary apartments, we have moved eight times. In the past two years. To say we are all completely sick of it would be an understatement.

What else did we do this summer? We took advantage of the plethora of summer camp programs in our area, and the girls participated in church camp (VBS) for two weeks, Spanish immersion camp for three weeks, and one week of "ballet camp." (The girls really miss ballet.) And right now Abby is finishing up two weeks of "math camp", where they are working on the dreaded addition math facts. We're hoping this will get us over the hump when we get back to homeschool full-time next week. And we also did a joint birthday party for the girls in July.

 

And I have been working on networking and drumming up more coaching business. My website designer is feverishly (I hope) working on the re-design of my website. So far all I have is my new logo to share.

But, mainly, our hobby this summer has been apartment hunting and the murdering of mutant bugs. God, I am so ever thankful we are done with all of that.

Olympics Homeschool Lesson

Joel decided he wanted to do a little homeschool unit lesson with the girls on the Olympics. So I printed some things off the Internet and they went to town. I was very impressed!


The following weekend, he found out that the National Children's Museum was having an "Olympics Event." Well, of COURSE we had to go!

Here are the girls with the torches they made. Ignore the pouting for the camera.

They also had a "track" obstacle course for the kids to do. Abby was "too cool," but Lily loved it and did it over and over. And over and over.

Here is Lily "jumping" the hurdles.

Well, we were a little to prissy to actually jump.

And then we colored some Olympics related coloring sheets.

And even more cool (well, at least to us parents), was that there was a REAL, former Olympic medalist there to sign autographs and take pictures with the kids. Her name is Tiombe Hurd, and she still holds the record for the Triple Jump. Nicest gal.

Abby wanted to know where she kept all of her medals, and she laughed and told her that her Dad had some, and then she kept the rest in a case at home. Abby looked up at me, trying to decide if she would share her future medals with me. I think the jury is still out on that!

And of course, no outing is complete (at least in that heat!) without a visit to get ice cream! Which, of course, the girls say was their favorite part of the day. Little stinkers.