Gardening, Swim Lessons and Summer Reading

Well, I have finally gotten around to starting to fix up the garden. I like to go out there in the mornings around 6:30 or 7:00 and work before it gets too hot. The other day the kids and I were out there picking weeds that had taken over while we were not taking good care of it. I found some turnips that Dave had planted. Most of the other stuff died or never grew large since the weeds choked them out. This morning I went out there again and planted some tomatoes and peppers. It is late, but the tomatoes and peppers are barely ready.

We had such a time with out tomatoes and peppers this year. We started them a little later this year since we started them too early last year and they froze and we had to restart them. Well, for some reason, our seedlings didn't ever get more than the two starter leaves and the next set. They just stopped growing and started dying. So, we had to start another tray of tomatoes and peppers. So, they are still a bit smaller than we would like, but they are planted out in the garden and should flourish soon. We like to mulch the ground around them by laying newspaper around the plants and piling the grass clipings on top of that. It really helps keep the weeds down (and there's a big problem with that here) and at the end of the year, we can just till it all into the ground. It's great! So, we will probably do that for FHE tonight as well as plant beans and squash and stuff.

Today was the first day of swimming lessons for the kids. We signed up Jonathan, Matthew, Rachel and Hannah to all have swim lessons. Jonathan and Matthew are in the same class and Rachel and Hannah are in different classes. There was lightning just 15 minutes before lessons, so they didn't go into the pool until 30 mnutes after the lightning stopped. So, the kids all went down the water slide, all but Matthew. Rachel went down without any hesitation, and was caught by one of the instructors. Hannah rode down on the lap of one of the instructors and Jonathan did it by himself (he has managed to teach himself how to dog paddle). Matthew was told he could go down, but started negotiating with his instructor instead. Saying things like, "I will go down after we go over there and. . . . " So, he didn't want to go down, and they didn't force him. Instead, the instructor took him to the more shallow part of the pool and worked with him on floating, finally ending up in the part of the pool that he could lay down on the bottom with his head still above the water saying, "I'm doing it!" They are all excited and I hope they all learn a lot since thy don't know how to swim yet.

This summer we are reading the Chronicles of Narnia books together. So far we have finished the first one and are almost done with the second one. The kids are loving it and keep begging me to keep reading or to "please just finish the book tonight." It makes me happy to see my kids love books. Matthew and Jonathan have taken off with reading this summer. They have both read 16 hours (includin the time I have read to them) in the past two weeks. There is a fun program at the libraries in the area that they have joined. It has been great for them. I let each of the boys get their own library cards as well, so now they feel even more important. They get to check out their own books and be responsible for them. It's been great. They also like checking out the educational videos they have too. Last week they got one about planets, one about rain forest animals and a magic school bus video. It's much better than TV! Which if you didn't know, we don't actually have right now. I love it! I only wish we had a working one for when there are bad storms and it would be nice to watch the news to see if we are in danger or not. But, the radio stations do a pretty good job of it too (though you can't see the graphics since they just air what is being said on the TV channels).