Vitamin D

Mommy says that 10 minutes of sunshine will give you all the vitamin D that you need in a day. If that's true, I definitely got my D vitamins for the next week. I was pulling weeds around the pool fence. Daddy had everyone outside helping get the pool ready for use: vacuuming, skimming leaves off the surface, fishing the dead frog off the bottom, sweeping, weeding, and putting the ladder in. Only thing was, he decided to do all this at 1 o'clock this bright and sunny afternoon, when it was 83 degrees in the shade.

Fortunately, after we finished, we got to go swimming for the first time this year. The water was a delightful 76 degrees and felt absolutely wonderful after working in the blazing sun. Daddy sat on the edge, dangling his feet, and almost refused to get in. He said it was too cold. I think he's getting wimpy in his old age. Finally I splashed him and he came in after me. I got dunked for my efforts.

Afterward, Daddy made us an early dinner on the grill, and now we're going to go visit Grandma Siebert. Got to go!

~Megan~

This & That

There's not a lot of big news around here, just bits and pieces...

~ It's been hot. Too hot. And humid. Blech.

~ I learned to French braid my hair this week. Not quite mastered it yet, but I'm working on it.

~ Joshua was the acolyte today in church. He had a very solemn and serious attitude as he walked down the aisle. (I thought he was adorable.)

~ We have strawberries in our garden- juicy, red strawberries.

~ We are now the owners of a new used car- a red Isuzu Trooper. Now Daddy can take that to work, so the rest of us can have the van. Whoopee!

~ Amanda, Nathan, and I haven't done much writing lately- maybe because it's too hot for coffee.

~ Stella has been hunting. She's caught almost a dozen chipmunks, two moles, and several mice. She brings them to her babies to play with and tear apart.

~ The winter pool cover is off, and now Ben and Hannah can't stop asking when we can go swimming.

~ The garden is thriving. We have harvested a mountain of spinach and lettuce.

Well, that's all the news I can think of at the moment, and Mommy is suggesting all sorts of random, boring details, and there's watermelon slices waiting for me, so I shall wrap this up for today. Happy Memorial Day!

~Megan~

Battle Plans

Writing today was more hands-on than usual. At this point in the story, there is supposed to be a battle. That meant we had to figure out some battle plans. So the three of us set up Nathan's Axis and Allies pieces on our map and moved them around like they always do in movies. The tanks were catapults, the bombers stood for dragons, a soldier represented 100 infantry, and so on.

We then proceeded to have a long and very heated discussion as to the best plan. (We tried to keep it mostly in character. It's much nicer to yell at each other in character than in reality.) Finally we mostly agreed on a strategy. Nathan says it's unrealistic, because it involves 100 men charging at 300 men and winning, but he doesn't have any better ideas, so we're going with it.

Just pretend you're a starving Indian...

Nathan and I were in charge of making supper tonight. (We make dinner every Thursday, and Amanda and Joshua cook on Friday.) Nathan very much wanted potato soup, so I agreed. The soup turned out alright. The biscuits, however, were a deep shade of brown when I removed them from the oven. The texture seemed fine, so we were hopeful that we hadn't overdone them too badly. A single bite, with its burned aftertaste, changed our minds. Most of us managed to choke ours down with a heap of jelly and a lot of drama. A scene from the movie The War, also involving burned biscuits, came to mind...

"Just pretend you're a starving Indian and this is the last bite of food between you and death. And you got into a fight over it with another starving Indian and it fell into the fire and got burned."

Nathan and I decided that we'd rather give our biscuits to the neighboring tribe and let them die from eating them. Then we can take all their food.

Characters and Coffee

Nathan, Amanda, and I have finally gotten back to writing The Adventures of Regan, Jack, and Rhilin. In the last two days, we wrote 1,320 words or almost 3 pages. Nathan has been typing for us. Today he finally learned how to spell 'horses'! He usually types it as hosres, or hroses, or hores. He's also learning to put two spaces between sentences, which is the way I like it.

We've become addicted to having coffee while we write. Well, to be accurate, Nathan has milk with a bit a coffee, sugar, and cocoa and Amanda and I have coffee with a bunch of milk, sugar, and cocoa. Mommy says we're addicted to the sugar, not the coffee. She's probably right. Either way, there's something special about grabbing a mug of coffee and your siblings and gathering around the computer to tell a story, hang out with your characters, and laugh together.

Multicultural Kittens

The kittens are growing up, exploring, and getting cuter all the time. They have been exploring the out-of-doors and are just starting to take an interest in pouncing and chasing moving things. They love people, especially running to them and climbing on their laps. Their wonderful mother Stella seems to have started their hunting education already, as she has brought them a dead chipmunk and a mole in the past two days.

~

Since all our kittens are completely black, we decided to give them names meaning black in different languages. We can tell them apart though, by the shade of their fur. As they get older, their faces, sizes, and attitudes will help too.

Name: Shachor (SHAH kor)

Gender: Male

Name Origin and Meaning: Hebrew for 'black'

Distinguishing Features: lighter, slightly grayish fur

Name: Shyam (shy AM)

Gender: Male

Name Origin and Meaning: Sanskrit for 'dark and beautiful'

Distinguishing Features: darker black fur

Name: Melaenis (meh LAY niss)

Gender: Female

Name Origin and Meaning: Greek for 'black one'

Distinguishing Features: deep black poofy fur

~Megan~

Potato Character Study

I've discovered a new area of character study- watching my family eat dinner. I compared the way each person ate their whole, boiled, red potatoes.

Mommy cut hers in half and then mashed them with her fork.

Nathan just started digging out of the top of the potato, but then changed his mind and chopped off thin slices on all sides to dip in his tartar sauce.

I, Megan, cut mine in half, then in half again, and then usually in half one more time, depending on the size of the potato.

Amanda also cut hers into quarters, but then she mashed it like Mommy.

Joshua started cutting his into slices at one end and worked his way down.

Now for what exactly this all means... I haven't quite figured that out yet. Nathan's is definitely indicative of his unique attitude, and mine might show my neater, organized nature, but what about the rest? What conclusions can you draw about the character of my family by their potato-eating style?

Girls' Night Out!

On Saturday evening, Mommy took Amanda, Christy, Katherine, and I on a girls' night out. We went to a Greek restaurant for a delicious dinner, and then to Elmer's Diner for dessert. We had a great time chatting, laughing, and getting caught up on each others' lives.
Christy is taking a class on child development at school, so as a project she had to take care of a high-tech baby doll for the weekend. It cries, needs fed, and needs diaper changes. It looks so realistic that several people commented on the cute little baby before realizing it wasn't real!

Happy Sweet Sixteen, Amanda!

Yesterday was Amanda's 16th birthday! The boys started her day by bringing her breakfast in bed. (And waking me up at the same time, but without the breakfast!) Later she went on an A-Team themed scavenger hunt I made her. When Daddy got home at 11 that night, we celebrated with chocolate swirl cheesecake. Her main present was a new hammock, since her old one died. It's pink and khaki and she already tried it out.

~Megan~

A Day at the Beach

We had planned to go to the beach on Monday, but when we woke up, the weather had turned drizzly. We went anyway. At Napatree Point in RI, it was even chillier with the sea breeze, but Amanda, Joshua, and I went swimming in spite of the weather. (What does that say about our intelligence?) I was completely numb in less than 30 seconds. When I got out of the water after a minute or two, I literally could not feel my legs. I think it's the coldest swimming I have ever done. The wind was good for kite flying, however.

On the way back, we stopped at Harkness Memorial State Park. Harkness is a really cool mansion and grounds on the oceanfront. There are all sorts of gardens surrounding the house, which looks like something out of Pride and Prejudice. Across the enormous lawn and over the sand dunes is the rocky shore and a 180 degree ocean view. One tree on the property splits into multiple partswith branches everywhere, creating an ideal climbing spot. The entire place is so much fun to explore. It looks like it ought to be the setting for a book.

~Megan~

Catch Up

OK, we haven't posted in almost a month, so I'm gonna sorta do a post that will hopefully catch up on most things. Then in the future, I'll post more often. I mean it. So here's the news in reverse order, from newest to oldest.

Hannah Stories
Nathan keeps a locked chest in his room with his weapons in it. Yesterday, Hannah came running downstairs ecstatically waving the combination lock in the air. "I cracked Nathan's combination!" she said gleefully. "Next day, I'm gonna crack it again!"
Apparently, she decided not to wait that long, because she broke in 3 more times that day, with 3 different combinations. It seems that if you turn the numbers enough,, you can randomly come up with the right 3-digit combination. My baby sister is a genius. (She's insanely proud of herself too.)

"Why did the Easter bunny bring us all this floss?" Hannah asked from behind me. I turned around to see what she was talking about and found her with a strand of Easter grass in her hand, trying to floss her teeth!

Happy Birthday, Mommy!
Thursday was Mommy's 38th birthday. (Hopefully I don't get in trouble for mentioning her age. Grown-ups are funny like that.) Daddy made her breakfast in bed, and we celebrated the next day with a birthday dinner and cheesecake.

Cabining in PA
We stayed at a rustic cabin at Promised Land State Park in PA for 3 nights. It drizzled most of the time, so we mostly hung out in the cabin round the woodstove. We played Monopoly, Hearts, and other board games, solved crosswords, colored pictures, played Mab Libs, told stories, read out loud, scared Nathan when he was in the bathroom, and ate. The biggest problem with sticking around the cabin was that we tended to want to snack all day. We did get in a few walks around the park, and they were beautiful. It was a lovely, relaxing vacation.

Kittens
Two weeks ago, four new little kittens were born! All of them are black. Unfortunately, one of them appears to have been the runt of the litter, From the start, he wasn't nursing and was weaker than all the rest. Nothing we did could induce him to nurse. He died around 36 hours after birth. We had a little funeral and buried him in the cemetery the boys built. Nathan wrote this poem about it:

The Kitten

The kitty was born weak and frail,

We thought for sure he'd not prevail,

-

We tried to restore its strength,

We went to such great length,

-

We hoped the kitty would live,

A chance is all we could give,

-

But the next day,

The kitty passed away,

-

We all hysterically cried,

But at least we had tried,

-

We buried the kitty without delay,

We'll remember him to the end of our day.

-

Visit from the Grandparents

Grandpa and Grandma Nisly came to stay with us for almost a week. Unfortunately, Daddy was away on a business trip for the first two days of their visit. However, we had a great time while they were here and were sorry when they had to leave.

Happy Birthday, Hannah!
While they were here, Hannah had her 4th birthday. She very much enjoyed being the center of attention, though by the time we celebrated in the evening, she was tired and grumpy. She threw a huge fit because Mommy had baked a chocolate cake even though Hannah insisted she wanted a white one. (She had chosen chocolate a few days earlier.) However, when the cake was served, she ate just as heartily as usual, so chocolate can't have been that bad.
I think one of Hannah's favorite presents is a water bottle with her name andrainbow swirlies on it. It also has a no-spill top so she can drink out of it. She has enjoyed taking that on every outing with her and having water of her very own.

~Megan~