Lauren's Home

As mentioned before, I picked Lauren at Girl Scout camp. She had been there since Sunday. It seems she did really well. There was some complaining about the latrines, but that is always expected. The funny part was she kept saying that she didn't even get homesick. Apparently, some of her friends did. The one more than the other. All in all, the three of them made it through without having to be picked up early. A major step for all three. I was so proud of all of them for sticking it out. One of the cool things that I hadn't expected was that they gave us a sheet with badge work she had done while she was there. Now that she's a Junior, she has a new vest to fill up.

Day Of The Dead

On Friday I took the day off work. There were two reasons really. The first was I needed to pick up Lauren from her camp and the second was much more personal. I decided that since I had to take half a day anyway, I would take the whole day and have some much needed me time. Of course how I spent this time has most of my friend and family shaking their heads. I spent the morning walking through graveyards looking for old stones. I really find the really old stone fascinating. I took about 90 pictures and documented as much as I could off the stones. It really is a shame how some can not even be read anymore. There were so many that were broken or damaged. I hope that what I enter will be helpful to someone that might be looking for them. I hate to think that these people have been truly lost and forgotten by their families.

You're Darn Tootin'

This is the latest installment of "What is Arion Teaching Brandon". There are currently two phases that Arion is working on. Of course they have no real value, except to drive me crazy. They are "You're Darn Tootin'" and "I Recon". The first was not so hard for him to learn. The funny part is Arion is trying to teach him it in slang to sound more like Too'in and Brandon is putting an emphases on both the T's. It really is quite cute. To make matters worst, every time Brandon says it, Jim pops up and says "Toot Toot". The other phase is not going as well. You see most of the time it comes out "You're Darn Reckin" instead of "I Reckin". Maybe that will teach Arion that he needs to stick to one phrase at a time. Don't you think it's nice to know that Brandon isn't missing out on his speech therapy this summer.

Dropping off the Girls

As mentioned in my last post, Lauren was going to overnight girl scout camp. She was going with two friends from her troop. We all decided to drive up together. I really made it fun for all. The girls were a little nervous and in some ways, so were the parents. We had taken them camping with the girl scout, but since the other Mom's always went (being leaders and all) the 3 girls have never really been away without us. It seemed to go great. The counselors seemed really cool and crazy. Just how it should be. I think we had a harder time when it was time to go. They didn't even look back when we walked away. I hope she has a great time.

Just Catching Up

Haven't posted for a while. Very busy. Last week we had to get Lauren ready to go to overnight girl scout camp. On Monday we had the Bridging Ceremony for the Brownie troop. They are all Juniors now. Before that we had Brie and Carl graduation. I finially finished buying her present the day before. Not to mention the kids are out of school now. Brandon started to really mis-behave at the sitters. I am hoping things will slow down next week. I took next Friday off to pick up Lauren, but I think I might spend the morning visiting some old graveyards. I really am having fun with the find a grave web site. I have now entered 54 graves and most of them are my family. There are so many old graveyards in PA that are not listed. I was thinking of trying to enter some of them. We'll see if I get time. Here are the pictures from the last week or so.


Brie is buried in the middle giving me a look.


Here she goes. God she grew up fast.


Here's Carl. Can't miss that red hair.

Here is the Troop at the Ceremony.

Awards for Brando

This morning when I opened Brando's pack to get things ready, I found two awards. It was really great to see him get them. Here they are. They were for "Most Improved Handwriting" and "Most Musical".

Wild Weekend With The Girls

Last weekend was our Camporee with the Girl Scouts. For those of you not familiar with Girl Scouts, this means you stick LOTS of girl scouts together and hope it works. Since I will be a co-leader next year, I was asked to go along to help. With our two troops combined, we had 15 girls. To make matters worst, we on the east coast are having a heat wave. So we were camping in cabins in 95-98 degree weather. To make things even more challenging, the camp was 600 acres and you had to walk over a mile to get to each event or activity. Sometimes I sware we had to walk about 3 miles. On top of this, there was a stomach thing going around. Our troop sort of looked like the walking wounded. The total at the end was 3 stomach bugs, 2 foot rot (from sweat), lots of scraps and bruises and one leader with a pulled muscle in her leg. I swear we spent half time telling the kids to drink more water and soaking them with water to cool them off. Even with all the problems, I think most of the girls had fun. Some of the other leaders really got on my nerves, but your going to get that in the heat with 150 girls. Lauren had a great time, except for the first night when her stomach was hurting. I first thought it was stress until the next morning when I found out she was not the only girl with stomach trouble. Here are some pictures.

See the cabins up on the hill, they were ours. NICE

Lauren in Archery

Lauren learning to use a compass

Craft time.

Our group, minus one

The Kindness of Strangers

Once again my faith in strangers has been renewed. While I was out last weekend taking pictures for people for the "Find a Grave" web site, it seems there were some people out taking pictures for me. I really thought it would take a while for the volunteers in that area to go out and take the pictures but Monday morning I had notes from both that it had been done. It was so exciting to see the pictures of my Great Great Grandparents grave. My interest in taking more pictures has really been peeked and I think I will work on entering more graves for various cemeteries in my area.