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Tuesday, July 25, 2006

An Awesome Evening

We took the kids to "Plays in the Park" last night. This is an outdoor theater program near us. They put on three shows a summer. It costs five dollars for adults, children are free. You must bring a lawn chair.

Last night the weather was perfect and the park was crowded. And the show was fantastic. We saw Seussical: The Musical. How fun. What a great show for kids. So much music and energy - and of course, it's based on all the Dr. Seuss books, so it's easy to follow the story.

After the show was over, my daughter announced. "I didn't like it, I loved it!"

My son one-upped her. He said. "I awesomed it!"

Me too!

Summer Blogging

I thought that once summer got under way, I'd fall into a routine that would allow me to do even more blogging than during the school year.

Ha!

There is a certain routine to our days. But blogging doesn't seem to get high priority.

Let's see - how do the days go?

After breakfast the children go across the street to the playground. During the summer there are counselors there, so the kids go and play. They come home for lunch. While they are gone, I try to get some things done around the house.

Lunchtime - they come home for an hour to eat. The counselors have a lunch break too and aren't there from 12 to 1.

Of course at 1, the kids go back to the park. They are there until 3. Then, if it's a nice day, after they come home we go to the town pool for an hour.

Twice a week, in the morning, my nine-year-old has tennis lessons.

And of course there are the trips to the library - at least once a week.

Somewhere in there I have to fit the grocery shopping and any other little errands that need to be run.

It's a good summer routine.

Sunday, July 16, 2006

Minuses

I finally got the pictures from my sons disposable camera developed. He was particularly interested in the negatives. "They gave us extra film," he said. So I explained about negatives and how you could use them to make more pictures - provided you didn't get fingerprints all over them.

A couple of days later, while he was putting away some of his things, he says to me. "I want to keep the minuses, okay?"

me: "what?"

Him - holding up negative strip: "the minuses."

Well, sure, he knows from his sisters math homework last year that negative numbers have minuses in front of them.

It all makes perfect sense now.

An Ah-ha Moment

In Madeleine L'Engle's A Wrinkle in Time, there is a point when Meg Murray, in her attempt to understand the tesseract gets it. "I got it! For just a moment I got it! I can't possibly explain it now, but there for a second I saw it!" she says.

I had that kind of experience in Mass today. So often, when I go to Mass, I'm just passing time. I try to concentrate, to really be there, to experience, but there are other things on my mind, the children act up or something else distracts me.

But today, I had an experience like Meg Murray. I got it. I understood God's love for us. I understood why Jesus had to die. I understood what it all meant.

I understood it with the heart, not with the head.

Just for a moment.

And like Meg Murray, I couldn't possibly explain it now.

But for a second there - I got it! And how wonderful it was!

Wednesday, July 05, 2006

Summer Reading

This isn't going to be a post about all the great books there are to read this summer. There are plenty of places to go for that. It's not going to be a post of reviews of books I've read. Or even a treatise on whether or not there should be summer reading assignments for schools.

This is just going to be to say that my children love to read - and since summer vacation started a week and a half ago they've logged many hours of reading time. How do I know this? Because for our library reading program, they get to check off one box for every fifteen minutes they read. Prizes are awarded for every two hours read.

The only problem I have with this is trying to keep track of how much they've read. They don't always tell me when they start and stop (my daughter is getting pretty good at keeping track of her own time). So, it's a constant question of when did you start reading? when did you stop? did you check off the boxes (you can make new boxes as needed, they are often needed.)

We're also taking advantage of the wonderful Barnes and Nobel summer reading program - read eight books, get a book for free (selected titles). The kids each got a free book today.

So, when we're not at the pool, or doing some other fun summer thing, we're reading - me too. But, I don't have to keep track of my time (thank goodness.) More reading I guess means less blogging - but hopefully as we get into some sort of a summer routine here I'll have some time to post a few things.

Happy reading.