multi-hyphenated-me

the hyphens that define my life

Through Our Children’s Eyes June 24, 2013

Filed under: Gardening — multihyphenatedme @ 10:26 pm
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This summer is no fun, at least through our children’s eyes.

First,  we rip them away from everything and everyone they know.  We force them to participate in the arduous task of moving.  We strap them in the car for 20+ hours, sitting next to each other, looking at each other, torturing each other, and, yes, torturing us. As soon as we arrive, we spend the entire weekend working to unload the trailer, clean the house and garage and begin getting settled. Their only hope for fun was for internet hookup on Monday to distract their misery with Minecraft.

Trace was looking forward to his first day at soccer academy today with FC Spokane, his new soccer team.  With the preceding week filled with so much hard work, hotel germs, poor diet and emotional damage, he started playing strong and lasted about 45 minutes before his stomach gave way and he got sick. He was really impressed with the Indoor Soccer Center and trainer and hopes he’s well enough for regular practice tomorrow on the field and academy again on Wednesday.  A rough start with his new team.

Niko and Andre are bored senseless.  They are not inspired or motivated to play in the rain.  They haven’t seen one kid in the neighborhood that isn’t a baby (the memory of playing soccer with some kids on Saturday is completely erased from their minds).  Andre said and I quote, “there is probably no chance I’ll ever make any friends here”.

Today, Vince and I  had to work as we would any Monday.   This was our first “real” Monday of summer.  The kids are bored and whiney and we’re losing our minds.  Yeah, summer! Ugh.  Vince and I are also temporarily sharing an office for about a week until he’s finished modifying his space to his grandiose specifications.  Read this correctly, I’m low maintenance, he is high maintenance.  We survived Monday.

Tonight at dinner, along with a great meal of homemade chicken and rice stew to heal the ailing and provide comfort in rainy weather, I served french bread and strawberry jam.  Trace sighed, “oh, it’s not homemade bread”.  Niko looked at the jam and said, “it’s not homemade strawberry jam either”.  I nearly fell off my chair. Did they not see me busting my butt all weekend?  Did they not see me working all day today? Do they not realize I have a skillet, a pot and a grand total of three cooking utensils?  I held it together while Vince calmly reminded them that we are still in transition mode.  We’re still getting settled, he told them, while he looked at me to concur that store bought bread and jam are temporary.  Spoiled brats every one of them and I’m outnumbered.  I’m convinced they only keep me around so they are well fed.

Well fed they are and will be.  Fun will be had. Where Vince and I have already found Spokane to be great with every experience, Spokane has nothing to offer the kids, at least through their eyes and gathered from their comments. Woe is them.

Patience and planning is all that’s needed.  I only planned up to the move.  Now the kids are staring at us for entertainment and I’ve got nothing to offer.   What was I thinking? The kids lack of patience definitely comes from me.  I, too, want my oompah loompah now.  Tomorrow we are planning our Summer Fun schedule.   Our family day camp will be open for business and fully operational soon.  Advertures await!

Correction:  Reading the Inlander, Spokane’s weekly rag, today, I realized I made a mistake in an earlier post that Hoopfest was scheduled for the weekend we moved to Spokane 6/20 & 6/21.  Wrong!  Phew, we didn’t miss a thing.  Hoopfest is scheduled for this upcoming weekend June 29 & 30.

Feel free to fact check me and correct my errors.

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My Daily Blog: T-5 H.A.G.S. June 14, 2013

Filed under: Family,Life — multihyphenatedme @ 7:43 am
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Schools Out for Summer.

HAGS!! is the new acronym to hit elementary school yearbooks.  I couldn’t decipher it on my own, I had to enlist the help of my 9-year-old to guide me through the elementary school vernacular.  My thought was that HAGS!! was similar to WHAS UP?!?!  Instead of saying HUGS!! you say HAGS!! Oh no.  HAGS is simply Have A Great Summer.  Of course.

Urbandictionary.com has some entertaining definitions and examples using HAGS in a sentence.  I won’t go into great detail here and highly recommend you check it out yourself, but I will tell you that my favorite defined HAGS as an STD (yes, you read that correctly, sexually transmitted disease).  HAGS could also stand for Herpes, AIDS, Ghonorrea and Syphilis.  Now read your elementary kid’s yearbook and interpret all 37 HAGS references with the STD message.  Fun to frightening in seconds flat.

No more pencils.  No more books.  No more teachers dirty looks.  These are all things worth celebrating, but school out for summer for me should be celebrated for not having to wake sleeping children, pack lunches and no homework!  Woo!  My life just got easier.  Except, now  I have to entertain 3 kids so they don’t fry their brains playing video games all summer, fight like mad dogs or push me further into the well of insanity.

What are your summer plans?  Here’s a newsflash in case you haven’t been paying attention – we’re moving to Spokane.  Though moving is a big project, it isn’t all-consuming right now, nor will it be once we arrive.  We’ll take it one box at a time.

We’re billing this summer as the “Summer of Adventure”.  It could equally be named “Spokane, You Got It, We’re Doing It”.  “Summer of Adventure” actually begins on Tuesday, before we leave, with our final trip to Disneyland.  As annual pass holders, we have our fill of Disney often, but Tuesday, with the help of our adult daughter, the boys will be at Disney all day long.  We’ll show up for dinner and take over for the rest of the night.  (Smart).

Nothing says summer like a good road trip!  We will be on the road and we will cover 1,237 miles but that is the beginning and end of “trip”.  We’re moving, no sightseeing or time-consuming tourist attractions on the way up.  Not much of an adventure?  Yeah.  Right.  If that’s what you think, you’ve never travelled 20 hours, in a car, with children, not to mention our menagerie.  Door to door in less than the 20 prescribed hours it takes to get there without losing our minds.  Safety first, of course.

The Adventure picks back up when we arrive in Spokane at the start of Hoopfest, “the largest  3-on-3 street basketball tournament on the planet”.  Check it out www.spokanehoopfest.com Spokane utilizes 42 city blocks for 456 courts on day one of this weekend extravaganza.  We are definitely going to check out this action.  The boys are already talking about forming teams next year.

That’s as far as we have planned.  Knowing what we’re doing next weekend hardly qualifies a dramatic action-packed title like “Summer of Adventure”.  Buying furniture doesn’t qualify either, yet it counts for me..  If you’re one of the kids, your biggest concern is when will the internet be connected?  If you’re my husband, his plans include buying a boat which certainly lends credibility to “Summer of Adventure”.  Buying a boat will be great for all of the lakes and summer fun in Spokane.  I cringe at the thought.  This will be our fourth boat since we’ve been together.  Boats are a lot of fun, but they are a lot of work.  There is no work sitting on the beach with a book where I am perfectly content.  Just the thought of the beach and a book takes me to a happy place on a lake, at the ocean, or next to a mud puddle.  With adventurous boys and a water-skiing husband that also loves to sail, we’re definitely boating this summer if not sailing too.

Bicycling, checking out the sites, entertaining friends and family, trying new restaurants and just absorbing our new surroundings will be adventure in itself.  Our summer will be full of fun.

HAGS!  Whether this is a wish for fun or catching an STD, I hope you have a great time doing whatever you have planned this summer!  Make it count.

 

 

80 days of Summer June 25, 2012

Filed under: Family — multihyphenatedme @ 9:25 pm
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The kids counted from the day they got out of school until the day they go back.  We have 80 days of summer, weekends and holidays included, to take advantage of the season.  We’ve boycotted day care summer camps and summer school and planned daily good summer fun.

Each week is themed, each day has a rough plan to keep everyone busy. Each day includes brain work (anything from puzzles, workbooks, reading, and such), chores (of course the kids think WHAT? It’s summer!  and I see it as free child slave labor), and an adventure or activity that gets us out of the house while still managing a full time work schedule.  Creative planning required to pull off my 9 hour+ work days.  All work and no play is dull.  Our weeks are sweetened with a different homemade ice cream on Sundays!

We began our adventure by tent camping 3 nights on the Kern River with a group of friends.  The river was cold and low and slow but provided plenty of entertainment with rafting and fishing and soaking. We also took a beautiful drive and fun hike at the Trail of 100 Giants in the Sequoias. Camping week ended with a lot of laundry and Fresh Strawberry Ice Cream!!

Weekly themes include Camping (check!); California Style; History; Science; Crafts; Culture; Fun & Fitness; Myths & Legends; Animal Planet; Oceanography; and All Ball.  Each week includes Movie/Museum; Beach; Soak City/Knotts; Picnic at the Park; and a Bike Ride/Hike.  We have  couple of trips planned to Palm Springs and San Diego too.  Mom is another name for Camp Director right?

What was Rory Vaden’s quote from my prior post?  The moment you tell yourself you’re too busy is the moment you stop thinking creatively about how to get other potentially important items into your schedule and your routine.”

He also states that “Balance shouldn’t mean equal time spent on equal activities. Balance should mean appropriate time spent on critical priorities.”

Whether I’m practicing the art of balancing by either definition or juggling my multi-hyphenated life,  my main goal for the summer is to learn how to hula hoop.  Somehow I missed out on this lesson as a kid.

Hurray for summer!