Weekly Wrap-Up

No real "school" here this week. The girls enjoyed playing on their own, which is generally my preference anyway.

My parents came up Wed. night. A decided early in the week, that she wanted to set up a "restaurant" for Mama. I'd been meaning to put some strings up under the loft for them to hang playsilks & such from anyway, so I went ahead & did that. We hung playsilks as "doors" along the front edge of the loft & then also hung playsilks down the middle to divide the space into a "kitchen" an "dining room". A made a sign (the girls sounded out the words (not correctly, but still . . . ) all on their own) that said

WUMTORRESR
C(A's name)C(L's name)

Translated: WUM = welcome TO R= Our RESR = Restaurant and the C's in front of the girls' names indicate that they are the cooks.

A also made a "menu" by drawing pictures of waffles, pancakes, eggs, tea (a rather impressive drawing of a teapot if you ask me), juice, milk and water.

They put a stool down for the table, covered it with a playsilk tablecloth, added a smaller playsilk as a napkin, and set the table with their doll dishes. They also put playsilks on the floor for a seat. And used a magnadoodle as an order-taking pad.

They had great fun setting it up & then showing it off to Mama when she got here.

Thursday, after much debating about the weather (weatherunderground said 80% chance of rain all day, weather.com said 40% chance of rain petering out to 20% chance as the day progressed, we had to decide who to believe LOL), we headed to Sesame Place.

The weather ended up being PERFECT!!! No rain, breezy enough to not be miserably hot, warm enough for water rides to be fun! And not too horrible of crowds since the weather reports were iffy.


The girls wanted to climb around on the overhead nets. Papa went up with them, but then left them to continue on their own. They loved it and did great! They've always wanted to do the nets but I refuse (I don't do heights, sorry . . . LOL) and Papa can do it sometimes but it's hard on his back, so they haven't gotten to do them often. Now that we've all determined they can go on their own w/ us just watching from the side, I think they'll enjoy the nets more often.



We also FINALLY talked them into going on the "Rubber Ducky". It's a waterslide where everyone rides together in a big (up to 6 people) innertube w/ a floor it does down some short chutes with waterfalls & such spraying you, and then at the end there's a longer drop. I was pretty sure the girls would LOVE it. It's not as fast or as long a drop as the other water slides they love, and being all together makes it fun. But the fact that the overall ride is SOO tall freaked them out. Finally this time (probably my parents' last time at Sesame Place this summer) Mom & Dad decided they wanted to go on it for sure. So they said they were going, girls could go w/ them or do something else with me. L decided right away that she was willing to try it. A went back & forth for awhile. The lure of being w/ Mama & Papa battling against her not wanting to go on the ride. I told her I'd take her on one of the other water slides or to play in the wave pool or whatever while the rest went on the ride if she wanted, but also reiterated that this slide wasn't as fast or as steep as the other water slide that they LOVE. Finally, A decided she'd try it. I think it helped that as we stood in line we saw LOTS of smaller kids going on the ride (the line goes over the final drop of the ride, so you get to watch everyone else on the ride while you wait) and they weren't acting scared. We talked while we were line about who was sitting next to who and, not suprisingly, the girls wanted Mama between them & A wanted Papa next to her as well, which left me next to L. Ended up that L cuddled closer to Mama and A cuddled closer to Papa. They LOVED it! We got to the bottom and A was leading the pack to go get back in line & go again. So now we have another "new" ride they enjoy.

They also spent probably close to an hour on the "Little Bird Rapids" ride (a small innertube waterslide for children under 7 only (no adults allowed). They'd go down the slide then carry the tube right back up & around to do it again. I have no idea how many times they carried those big tubes up the hill to go again. And I think they'd have done it longer but L slipped and fell while they were in line and decided she was done.

We finished off the day (other then the parade, that always ends the day) by playing in the sand. They found some other kids to play with & had a blast building sand castles and such.
The rest of the pictures, along w/ the fireworks pictures and pictures from our previous trip to Sesame Place are here.

Friday morning Papa got our Reverse Osmosis water system set up. I have to go to the basement to get the water, but I'll take it :) And Mama, the girls & I went berry picking. The girls also helped Papa assemble the table for doing projects in the schoolroom.

Today we went to SS and church and then, after lunch, dh took the girls to his mom's for another sleepover, and I'm hoping to wrap up my "curriculum planning" for this fall while they're gone.