What fun or interesting projects this summer? Trips? Adventures?

[Nan in Mass]

Just for fun : )

Edited August 18, 2011 by Nan in Mass

[Wendi]

We had a fun summer here!

 

We spent a week at the beach in southern California, went snorkeling, went to the San Diego Zoo, etc.

 

My son and I performed in a local production of "The Sound of Music".

 

We also had the opportunity to go on several outings (including a two-day trip to the Grand Canyon and other beautiful spots in northern AZ) with a group of Japanese teens staying with families from our church (and one other church). They are delightful, and we enjoyed every minute of it. These were all kids whose families lost their houses, etc., in the tsunami in March.

 

Wendi

[MyThreeSons]

Just for fun : )

 

My two younger sons worked as extras on the set of the Hunger Games movie. Because they are minors, I had to be "on set" the whole time. They got paid; I got fed.

[1Togo]

nm

Edited August 18, 2011 by 1Togo

[8filltheheart]

I became a grandmother and the mother of a college graduate! :001_smile:

 

And, Nan, what about yours? I'm sure you must have some sailing adventure to share! Where is your story??

Edited August 18, 2011 by 8FillTheHeart

[Sebastian (a lady)]

One of the highlights was a trip to Jamestown last weekend. We saw the NPS site with the actual fort location, plus Jamestown Settlement, which was ten times better than when we were there years ago.

 

My eldest kept turning to me and thanking me for bringing them down there. (not a normal conversation these days.)

[Colleen in NS]

Just for fun : )

 

Nan!!!! Welcome back, I've missed your voice here!!!!!!!

 

Nothing high schoolish related, but we are heading out on a road trip soon!!! My sister in NC just adopted twin newborn babies, so we are going to meet them! Can't wait!

[GailV]

My two younger sons worked as extras on the set of the Hunger Games movie. Because they are minors, I had to be "on set" the whole time. They got paid; I got fed.

 

:w00t:

 

Older dd toured Colorado with a choir -- her first time to visit that state. They did a lot of the tourist stuff while there.

 

Both kids were in a Shakespeare bootcamp -- 2 weeks to put on Comedy of Errors. They were in another camp that put on Wizard of Oz in 3 weeks, including building all the sets (which turned out to be their favorite part).

 

Younger dd learned to ride a horse bareback and spent time making horse blankets for a local shelter.

[regentrude]

We went to Utah for nine days of hiking and backpacking.

Later, we spent a few weeks back home in Germany, saw friends and family, went rock climbing, saw an opera, spent three days in Venice and stuffed ourselves full of culture - basically all the stuff we miss in our small Mid-western town.

[choirfarm]

Well first of all our house has been undergoing a major remodel. We took out everything in the kitchen down to the studs, same with the master bath and utility room and half bath. The study was also repainted and had new floor. So my house has been/is a disaster area. The major things are done and as of yesterday all appliance are working so I can cook in the house again. ( We've been cooking in the travel trailer.)

 

In the midst of that:

 

My daughter and I went to the Annie Moses summer music academy in Nashville for a week. Once again, it was fabulous. I highly recommend this if you have any musical children.

 

My husband and boys went to Ecuador. My husband did medical missions and the boys helped paint ceiling tiles in a house and worked a little bit in an orphanage.

 

My house really didn't get back into some kind of order until last week. My room, the living room and school room had all of the furniture, dishes, etc. from the other rooms. So I haven't really started working on school/fall stuff until this week. Thankfully the only class I'm really preparing for is English for my two older ones.

 

Christine

[mcconnellboys]

My son did a piano camp for the first time this year at the University of Kentucky. He has been playing for years but I haven't been able to talk him into doing this before. It's nice to see him finally following his own interests instead of trying to do what his brother did....

 

He also did an architectural/engineering sort of camp at the University of Louisville one week and enjoyed it. He is more math oriented than his older brother....

 

A new sort of theatre camp for him this year was doing a take on Shakespeare's Midsummer Night's Dream that was absolutely hilarious. What has come out of it is that I think he's going to do Junior Company this year, which is a theatre group that runs through the school year. He's actually a much better actor than his older brother (who adores theatre, but has a rather flat affect), so I hope that this will lead to further acting endeavors....

 

We didn't take any trips over the summer, but we're getting ready to go to Milwaukee at the end of September, then up to the Keweenaw Peninsula to see the fall color, etc., before we come home.... We want to go to Isle Royale, but we don't want to go for a week, and that's the only way the ferries are running from the Keweenaw at that time of year....

[mcconnellboys]

Jamestown's huge museum was new to us since the last time we were there and we thought it was fabulous!

[Lori D.]

In the week between older DS's graduation from high school and heading off to work as a staff member for Worldview for 8 weeks, we took a family vacation to Southern CA. It was absolutely lovely. We were all so relaxed and just enjoyed being together -- maybe our last family vacation all together. We went to Disney, the beach, and Six Flags -- we rode every.single.rollercoaster... Many of them multiple times! I am official a brave mama now! (LOL!)

 

A precious memory: midnight in Disneyland, music is gently playing something that has a waltz beat, and unexpectedly, older DS bows and the next thing we are waltzing at midnight in the middle of Main Street. :)

 

I am so blessed to have such wonderful relationships with the unique, interesting, creative, funny, intelligent, generous young men our DSs have grown to be! :)

Edited August 18, 2011 by Lori D.

[Amy in TX]

My dds (16 and 13) and their cousin (15) and I had the opportunity to go to London for two weeks this summer. We had probably more than the usual amount of travel-related mishaps on this trip, but it was in other ways an intensely wonderful experience.

 

The first five days were, frankly, pretty awful. Our flight out of Chicago was cancelled, but only after we had sat on the runway for seven hours (yes, that's right!) being buffeted by storm winds. We spent what should have been our first day in London at O'Hare airport trying to get on another flight out. We got to London the next day, but our luggage didn't. I racked up $$ in phone charges fighting with two airlines for five days over the luggage. The girls were sick with fever on the day we should have seen RSC's MacBeth (that caused me a couple of private tears). Dd13 got her first-ever migraine (joy, joy)!

 

The second week was much better :). And I still look back on this trip as one of the best we have ever taken. Here's why. Where we live (Houston), we are totally dependent on the car. In this least walkable of US cities, the dc literally can't do anything unless I or someone else drives them. That, along with 100-degree heat more than half the year and roughly an hour's drive to major cultural offerings, and there is often a feeling of confinement, and for the dc, dependence.

 

In London, we stayed in the suburb of Thornton Heath. Although it's by no means an affluent area, and it's fairly far out of the city, there is a night-and-day difference in what can be done on a daily basis there without using a car at all. We were within walking distance of groceries, drugstores, library, bookstore, and train station. We took the train into London each day to do the touristy stuff. The girls learned very quickly how to get wherever they wanted to go using the trains and underground. They were able to spend a fair amount of time without me. They got the chance to be a little independent, a little self-reliant. Dd16, who is fairly stressed these days at home, actually said to me, "Now I know why you like Europe so much. I could be so independent here! I could make plans and do things on my own!"

 

So they learned how to manage in airports when things go wrong (and dd16 used that knowledge when she missed a flight home from Philly two weeks ago traveling on her own). And they got a little taste of a very different lifestyle from the one they know. To me, that was even more gratifying than all the other fun things we did in London.

[SkateLeft]

I became a grandmother and the mother of a college graduate! :001_smile:

 

Congratulations!!! That's so awesome!! :hurray:

 

My oldest daughter spent a week at Christendom College in Virginia, participating in their summer Latin immersion program. She had a phenomenal time, and says it was one of the best weeks of her life.

 

My younger dd and I flew out to Washington DC for a few days to visit her godmother.

 

Other than that, we spent the rest of the summer on our sailboat in Lake Superior, mainly toddling around the Apostle Islands (when my husband wasn't down here sail racing in Lake Minnetonka with his friends). I came back earlier this week, but my husband and oldest are still up there until this weekend.

[Elinor Everywhere]

Just for fun : )

 

Ours is coming up - 3 weeks in France! Can't wait for September to get here! :-)

[Nan in Mass]

So here is something we've always wondered about: do you have to repaint the waterline if you move a sailboat from the great lakes to the ocean or vv? How much deeper do boats sit in the great lakes? Heavy displacement boats with full keels, like our 30 foot classic plastic one?

 

I am jealous of your summer, despite having had a good one travelling on land. The reality of having decided to play the first half of the summer is that we are stuck home in August, something I have only done a few times before. August is yucky in Mass. Youngest has been taking me out on his boat and you wouldn't believe how awful I am as crew. His boat is a miniature of mine. You would think I would be able to take a guess as to how it handles.

 

Was it you who asked, ages ago, about composting heads? Life intervened and I never got back to that person and have always felt badly about it. My clan just put a second one in another family boat (we are as bad as Ratty about boats) and about in Montana, my husband suddenly wondered if he had forgotten to tell his brother-in-law that you have to saw off the bottom half of the on/off ring in the solar-powered vent that they installed through the cabintop or the hose coupling pushes it up and shuts off the vent. A 2 week cruise with a brand new head system with 2 adults and 3 teenagers on a 30 foot boat is challenging enough without adding an unvented composting head LOL. My father says he dealt with it, though, so all should be well. Or at least not drastically unwell. My sister needs that cruise to go well. She is sending her oldest off to college this year, the first to go of a very very close family. : (

 

Nan

[laughing lioness]

In Sept ds 17 will fly to Wash D.C. for TeenPact's Back to DC program. It ends at 10 a.m. and by 1:30 he'll be in GA for the Challenge program. From suit and tie to bdu's, all in 10 days. He is jazzed!

[Elinor Everywhere]

They got the chance to be a little independent, a little self-reliant. Dd16, who is fairly stressed these days at home, actually said to me, "Now I know why you like Europe so much. I could be so independent here! I could make plans and do things on my own!"

 

I completely agree with your daughter! Europe is so wonderful for many reasons, but the "carless" life is something I love, and don't have here in the States. We lived in Hong Kong for a year, and didn't have a car. Heavenly! While there, my kids were quite independent, even at 10yo. Once we got back home, it was hard on them to not have the level of freedom they enjoyed over there. Same with Europe - when we go, they tend to feel much more "grown up" as they wander, which is highly important to them right now, as they go through puberty and begin transitioning to adulthood. And just saying that freaks me out. :eek: :willy_nilly:

[choirfarm]

A precious memory: midnight in Disneyland, music is gently playing something that has a waltz beat, and older unexpectedly DS bows and the next thing we are waltzing at midnight in the middle of Main Street. :)

 

I am so blessed to have such wonderful relationships with the unique, interesting, creative, funny, intelligent, generous young men our DSs have grown to be! :)

 

Oh Lori, how sweet. What a wonderful memory!!!! That made me tear up!

 

Christine

[Beth in SW WA]

Dh took dd & ds to Nicaragua in June for a 2-week missions trip with our church. Amazing experience for all.

[Elinor Everywhere]

 

A 2 week cruise with a brand new head system with 2 adults and 3 teenagers on a 30 foot boat is challenging enough without adding an unvented composting head LOL. My father says he dealt with it, though, so all should be well. Or at least not drastically unwell. My sister needs that cruise to go well. She is sending her oldest off to college this year, the first to go of a very very close family. : (

 

Nan

 

As a fellow sailor, that stresses me out just reading it. I really hope all goes well and that they have a most wonderful time!

[Amy in TX]

they tend to feel much more "grown up" as they wander, which is highly important to them right now, as they go through puberty and begin transitioning to adulthood. And just saying that freaks me out. :eek: :willy_nilly:

 

This was it exactly. And, it freaks me out too!

[Mom22ns]

We leave one week from today :w00t: for 12 days in WY and a few stops between here and there like Mt. Rushmore and the Badlands.

 

Summer fun included my dd's first week long camp (gymnastics), lots of house cleaning, school room re-arranging, swimming and relaxing.

[Gwen in VA]

My younger three kids were all working at really interesting jobs -- even relevant to career interests! Dd1 was re-discovering her passion for sewing -- a good use for that odd summer between college graduation and grad school.

 

My big summer adventure is still to come -- driving out to Chicago to drop dd1 off at grad school, spending a day helping her move in and find some furniture, spending an additional day or two with her exploring Chicago and environs, picking up a friend at O'Hare, and driving back home with the friend. Road trip!

[Nan in Mass]

Yes. My two younger sons transitioned much more easily than my oldest because I made opportunities for them to wander and travel independently. Even staying in a campground and hopping on your bike and going off to explore was something that my children commented on and loved.

[Nan in Mass]

It was such fun reading everyone's posts! I can't believe we don't have posts like this every August. Or maybe you do and I have just missed them.

 

We took a popup camper and drove from Mass to Montana in four long days. We met my parents in their camper van in Glacier, saw Glacier, then went up the Icefield's Parkway, then over to the Cascades, then to Rainier, then to Wind Cave and the Badlands, and then home again. It took all of the month of July and a bit extra. My parents move slowly. We spent most of the time hiking in the snow and going to sleep in sweaters - my idea of July. Then we just about melted in Yakima when we finally came down to summer to head home. Youngest did the extreme caving tour in Wind Cave. He declined to go to Yellowstone, even though we offered several times. He just kept saying, "Why on earth would we want to go there?" On the way home, to pass the long days, we listened to A Short History of Nearly Everything and figured out why lol. On the way home, since we were in such a hurry (having maximized our mountain time), we stayed in cheap hotels. Thanks to the board, I knew to check for bedbugs. Two hotels were fine, but the third... yuk yuk yuk. My husband and son, who had been humouring me about not bringing in anything but pjs and toothbrushes and checking the mattresses, were freaked out. We got our money back and spent the night in the truck, several hours down the road. I managed to make some watercolour entries of our visit in a little sketchbook, not very good but the first time I've managed to do it when we travelled, despite wanting to do so years. The mountains were fabulous. The only problem is that now we are home in August, the month we usually spend sailing. We've taken a few daysails, but it isn't the same. It was worth it to show youngest some of his beautiful country, though.

 

Middle son went to Ireland and got credit for two classes, then babysat the animals and got physics 2 out of the way to ease up his schedule for next year. He says Ireland is beautiful and all have to go visit sometime so he can show us.

 

Oldest is in the Med, on a ship, doing his cadet shipping. He says the Greek islands were amazing and we all have to charter a boat there some time.

 

All in all, quite a summer. Hopefully, everyone will get home and back up to school safely. There have been some tradgedies amongst my sons' friends, making us especially grateful.

 

Nan

[iona]

We took the little ones down to the gulf. It was fun to see their first experience with an ocean. Eating seafood while near the water was a high point too. One morning, before the kids were up, dh and I saw dolphins. We traveled on the 4th of July and missed seeing fire works. A few evenings later they launched some fireworks off of an aircraft carrier just up the beach from us. I guess the fireworks display had been delayed for some reason...we benefited from it nicely though.

 

It is fun to hear about all of your adventures too!

[SkateLeft]

So here is something we've always wondered about: do you have to repaint the waterline if you move a sailboat from the great lakes to the ocean or vv? How much deeper do boats sit in the great lakes? Heavy displacement boats with full keels, like our 30 foot classic plastic one?

 

Nah, there's no reason to repaint. The difference isn't noticeable at all. We got rid of our boat in SF Bay before we moved to MN (though we did trailer our little C15 here..hehe), and bought this one last year.

 

We have a 35.5ft Hunter with a bulb keel, and I'm sure it sits a tiny bit deeper than it would in SF Bay due to water density, but it's fractional, really. Also, there are far fewer growth issues in the Great Lakes than in SF, so it all balances out.

 

The guy in the slip next to us has an Island Packet, which I always think of as super heavy, and it doesn't ride low. It's funny to see him have to put out all his sails though, even in high wind, to keep up with the rest of us when we're reefed, just because of the weight of his boat!

 

When we're in Superior, sometimes I forget that we're in freshwater until a mallard lands on the water next to us, and it weirds me out for a second as I remember.

 

A 2 week cruise with a brand new head system with 2 adults and 3 teenagers on a 30 foot boat is challenging enough without adding an unvented composting head LOL.

 

Yikes!! I can just imagine!

[Joan in GE]

We've been studying most of the summer except for a brief trip to the Italian National Park - Gran Paradiso! It was great!

 

Besides getting to do lots of hard climbing, the animals are not at all shy of people, so we got to see some very easily...

 

Joan

[Jane in NC]

Summer is winding down for my son who was lucky to be a paid intern at an historic museum. He and his pals are in their last phase of gaming before they all return to their respective colleges for a second year--first year for one of the gang. In fact, a group of us (parents and teens) will have pizza on the beach tonight as a last hurrah.

 

For us, though, summer is the time for science. We attend lectures, films, experiential workshops and enjoy the plants and animals of the seashore.

 

My husband had a conference in Phoenix earlier in the summer. I enjoyed accompanying him despite the heat. Living in the land of green, I find desert landscapes to be so visually interesting. When my son was younger, we often accompanied my husband on business trips. But the teen years brought their share of commitments (sports, dual enrollment, testing). The empty nest allows for a return to these adventures--although with one less person along for the ride.

[swimmermom3]

We have been learning a whole new vocabulary, which can be confusing:

 

Hiking is not done standing upright but stretched out horizontally...over water.

 

"Turtle" is not an animal. It is an action you don't want to be a part of unless it is voluntary and you are only practicing.

 

The boy is smiling again. I can't tell you how good this is.

[-M-]

1. My daughters and I began archery lessons in late May. By late July, we knew that this would become a pursuit for us, so the coach helped us select bows, which the girls "test drove" last week. Lessons resume in two weeks.

 

2. My husband and daughters began guitar lessons in late June. The girls have been studying piano four several years now, so it was a good time to move into a second instrument.

 

3. Is summer swim team an adventure? It certainly took up a chunk of our summer. (*wry grin*)

 

4. We went to the Illinois Shakespeare Festival in mid-July, after swim season ended;

 

5. the Bristol Renaissance Faire the following weekend; and

 

6. West Side Story at the Cadillac Palace Theater (Chicago) the week after that.

 

7. We were a little more than halfway to our goal of 500 miles bicycled between Memorial Day and Labor Day when I became ill and then required surgery. Is surgery an adventure? Don't answer that. I assure you, it was. Heh, heh, heh.

[NancyNellen]

We just returned from a 3-week road trip spreading across 6,300 miles and 11 states. We just love road trips here, and this was the best one we have ever taken.

 

We began in L.A. and got on I-40E in Barstow, CA. We traveled along Historic Route 66 in many places. We spent a day at the Grand Canyon, toured the Petrified Forest National Park, drove through the beautiful Painted Desert, spent nights in some great cities and had some wonderful regional food. Our destination was Pigeon Forge, TN where we had a week-long family reunion. We spent time with fantastic friends we hadn't seen in a long time, as well.

 

On the way home we visited New Orleans, ate beignets at Cafe du Monde, took the ferry to Galveston, put our toes in the warm Gulf of Mexico, spent an evening walking along San Antonio's riverwalk, visited the Alamo, spent a day with Grandma in AZ and then came home.

 

Did I mention we ate great food? Oh, yeah, baby.

 

This will be a summer we never forget!

[brandigirl]

Well I did this a little bit before summer but anyway..... I went cross country in a motor home with my family! It was the most amazing thing ever :D.I learned anything from geysers to how to make authentic Indian Jewelry.

[mcconnellboys]

Oh, my goodness! I LOVED Yellowstone and want to go back and spend more time there! It is like a geology laboratory laid out on full display. Just about every kind of geological feature you can imagine is there!

 

Your trip sounds terrific, though, and makes me want to go back out West. I loved the trip I did with my parents out there one year. We went at the beginning of September, so the weather wasn't bad at all....

[brandigirl]

I know the paint pots were my favorite even though they aren't known for their colors they are still fascinating.:001_smile: I can't wait to go back. We spent a week there and it was amazing. I have like 3000 pictures from one part of Yellowstone:lol:

[FrogMom5]

My oldest son worked as a camp counselor for 6 weeks and had a blast. Then, he and his father went to a high adventure Scout camp in New Mexico for hiking, camping, backpacking, rock climbing and repelling. The also got to try blacksmithing. My son climbed Mt. Baldy, 12,000 feet. He's very happy.

 

The little kids and I stayed here and went swimming, to the $1 movies and played with friends. Low key but a lot of fun.

Denise

[Jenny in Florida]

My daughter graduated from college, and we took her to NYC as a celebration/gift. We saw four shows and visited the Cloisters and sent the two kids to the Tony Awards.

 

As soon as we got back, she started auditioning for every show in town and was cast in two.

 

In July, I took her back to NYC to go to an open audition for a Broadway show. It was chaos, and we knew going in that nothing would come of it, but it was a good experience for her.

 

Meanwhile, my son did summer stock at a local theatre. They rehearsed a few hours a day from mid-June through late July and then ran for two weekends. They sold out nearly all of the performances, which was awesome! He also volunteered at the theatre when he wasn't in rehearsal, assisting with their day camps for younger kids.

 

We ended our summer this past week with a "staycation" at a Disney World resort and a couple of days of water parks and fun local activities.

 

And did I mention we also moved this summer?

 

I'm almost glad that we've started school again, since it means a return to structure and possibly a little more downtime for me.

[Nan in Mass]

LOL - My toys turned turtle when I was learning to talk so it never occurred to me that it was peculiar until you pointed it out. There is rather a lot of it, if you didn't grow up with it. It is handy, though. We tend to apply it to anything nonliving that moves. Are you going to be pushing the season? Have you read up on dry suits and hypothermia yet?

[Elinor Everywhere]

We have been learning a whole new vocabulary, which can be confusing:

 

Hiking is not done standing upright but stretched out horizontally...over water.

 

"Turtle" is not an animal. It is an action you don't want to be a part of unless it is voluntary and you are only practicing.

 

The boy is smiling again. I can't tell you how good this is.

 

This made me :001_smile:. Last summer my dd and her best friend wanted to turtle their Laser enough to break some record - I think they turtled 120 times in one day or something crazy like that. As for me, I prefer to keep my boat upright and dry.... ;)