family

Don’t Let Them Go Dark…

- Mama 1 Comment

I know this isn’t the first summer that I’ve shared with you how much I love Drive-In movies.

Drive-In movies are part of a family tradition for us. I can’t remember how old I was when we went to our first Drive-In, but I know for sure it’s a fun tradition I want to keep alive for my son’s sake. It’s one of the most important traditions we have.

You see, we don’t just go for the movie.

It’s tradition to get there early and play on the playground in front of the screen.

At the beginning of the summer, Zach was unable to make it up the slide without help. Last time we visited, however, he was able to make it up and down the slide all by himself! I love seeing him grow up on this equipment.

We always take a ball in case we decide to play a pick-up game of soccer. This photo shows Javier, a student from Brazil, heading the ball during one of these games.

Drive-In movies are about FAMILY.  The picture above shows family and friends we love attending the Drive-In with, as well as exchange students. We love introducing students to Drive-In movies, because they’re really not as common outside of the U.S.

There’s just something about the Marquee, the Playground, waiting for it to get dark outside, watching the movie…

Most recently, we went to the Drive-In during the Meteor Shower. It meant that, as we watched the movie, above the screen we could see massive amounts of shooting stars.

On one of these stars, I wished that our Drive-In would be saved. You see, Drive-Ins are suffering right now. Most of them cannot afford to survive the shift to digital, and Hollywood keeps raising the cost of keeping a drive-in open. I mean, where else can you see a double feature for only $7? Drive-In movies just aren’t making enough to survive or make the shift.

So, each summer, fewer and fewer drive ins survive. Each summer, there are casualties. And it’s sad.

The thought of our Drive-In closing before my son can be old enough to keep those memories of the drive in devastates me.

I just want these memories to last. I want him to grow old enough to remember the Drive-In. In wishful thinking, I want Drive-In movies to still be a thing when my son is grown. Can you imagine how great it would be for him to take HIS kids to the drive-in?

That’s why I’m desperate to Save the Midway Drive-In that we go to every summer.

If you want to help save my Drive-In, or a Drive-In near you, please head over to Project Drive-In and VOTE. Vote to keep this family tradition alive. Vote to give everyone a chance to visit a Drive-In movie. Vote to give hope to this amazing movie culture that is dwindling.

Please. Don’t let the drive-ins go dark. Save them. The best way to support your local drive in? Spread the word about it. Visit it often. Support the concession stand. If you’re going to the Midway, you always have the option of tipping the Concession Stand– all money goes to the Save the Midway fund.

Speaking of, if you’re in the area, Planes and Smurfs 2 are the movies airing at the final weekend of the season this weekend, August 30, 31, and September 1. I hope to see you there!

A New Connection with ConnectMyDNA

- Mama 3 Comments

The symbol above may look like some odd form of tribal art, or a strange emblem from a tattoo or CD cover. But this emblem, it isn’t any of that. It’s actually a very personal representation of my DNA. Isn’t that crazy to think about?

I should start at the beginning. This year, in Jeffrey’s homeschooling unit on Exploring Countries and Cultures, we thought it would be interesting to find out a little more about the countries and cultures we come from. So as soon as we saw a groupon for a company called ConnectMyDNA, we jumped on the opportunity to buy a couple of test kits!

The kits arrived as a nondescript envelope, something small, that when you opened it up, held something very powerful and personal.

The inside of the envelope contained two swabs and an envelope, as well as information on how to register your barcode (which is also printed on the envelope) on the website.

You start by taking a cheek swab on each of the two swabs, making sure to twirl them as you swab, so you can totally collect your DNA.

Cute, right?

Once your swabs are sealed in the envelope, you mail them off, and within a couple of weeks, you get an email letting you know your results.

I honestly didn’t expect to be surprised by mine at all. I’ve always known that I have some pretty strong ties to Ireland (as evidenced by the red tones in my hair and my incredibly fair skin), and it’s no shocker that I’ve got all kinds of European blood in me.

When I got my results, I looked them over. Irish. Number one. No surprise. Farther down the list, Bosnia and Greece… I had no idea about those! Portugal, Cyprus, Macedonia.

My number 2 match was more of a surprise… Peru? I had never known that I might have South American heritage. A look at my family tree reveals a lot of Europe, but not a lot of South America, if any.

I mean, I knew my ancestry was pretty mixed, pretty blended, but I had no idea what kind of diversity I had floating around in my own bloodstream!

I’ve always made a point to think about my Irish heritage, to learn more about the German heritage I got through adoption rather than blood. And I’ve worked hard to follow my family tree when I can. But… to find this whole world, literally, of heritage that I had never known was thrilling.

Countries I never expected to have anything to do with, I found out, were a part of me!

I am a huge history and geography junkie. I love to know about cultures, which is why I love the My Father’s World unit, Exploring Countries and Cultures. Every two weeks in the curriculum, we go to a different country, in our minds, and learn as much as we can about it.

To extend that into a chance to find out where we’re REALLY from using ConnectMyDNA is amazing.

And it definitely will make me think twice about using the “come here” motion with my index finger to ask someone to come to me– apparently, in Peru, that’s not a nice signal at all!

Check out my results below on my personalized DNA poster!

 

Have you ever been surprised by some family history you’ve stumbled upon? What do you think of the idea that you can have a DNA test tell you where you’re from?

 

The Target $5 Challenge

- Mama 3 Comments

For Advent, we’re always looking for creative ways to bond as a family, as I’ve previously shared. I love trying to do this in new and different ways. I had been considering ways that we could really either get to know each other better, or prove that we knew each other very well as a family.

When I saw these awesome Gift Card coins from Target, my idea came to me pretty suddenly.

Aren’t they adorable? They look like little cookies! You can load any amount on them, but the only catch is that all 5 coins in the package have to be loaded with the same amount. I chose to load $5 on each gift card, meaning that this pack was $25 total. I can think of so many awesome ways to use these other than the way we used them, such as:

-Teacher gifts. Buy the whole package, load the amount on all of them, and have your student pass out a coin to each of their teachers.
-Stocking stuffers. Put a certain amount in each one and slip it into stockings for a great gift that allows the recipient to pick anything out they want.
-Rewards. Potty training? Give your little trainer a gift coin for every certain amount of times they use the potty. Give them for good grades, one coin for each A, give them for doing extra work around the house or as a reward for siblings being extra nice to each other one day.
-Allowance. Instead of giving the kids cash for allowance, try a gift coin. Since you can pre-load the amount on multiple coins at once, you can keep the stash and give them out one at a time (or to multiple kids at once).
-A way to put yourself on a little bit of a budget. If you’re like me, you can’t enter Target without spending ridiculous amounts. By purchasing these with my limit in advance, I can go through the post holiday sale knowing I only have a certain amount of money to spend. Then, come Valentine’s day sales, I can pull out another coin and spend that amount in THAT sale.

I’m sure you can think of a ton of other ideas for these awesome coins, but for our gift challenge, this is what we did:

When we entered the store, we had a small pow-wow. I gave each person a gift coin (since our family has 6 people, I had to purchase one extra gift card separately) and each person drew a slip of paper with another family member’s name on it. Each person had $5 and 30 minutes to find the perfect gift for their recipient. I personally had to shop for my person, and help Zach find his gift for someone, as well.

The best part of the challenge was that, sometimes walking around the store, you’d see someone else in the family. Immediately, one of you would dart behind a sign or head down another aisle. Since none of us knew who had us, we didn’t want to spoil our own surprise, and we didn’t want the person we were buying for to see their gift, either. I kind of felt like a super spy when trying to participate in the activity!

At the end of the activity, we each checked out separately using our Target gift coins, and then we met in the cafe area at the front of our store. Then, it was time to head home and unwrap our gifts. It was at home that we would find out who our Secret Gifter was. We gifted in order of age, youngest to oldest.

It turns out that Nicolas drew Zach’s name. Zach was eager to find out what might be inside of his shopping bag.

CARS!

Jeffrey was next…

Dad clearly did a good job with his! Jeffrey and Nicolas often have Nerf wars around the house, so it’s not uncommon to have a little orange bullet whizzing past your head at any given moment. It was a great choice under $5 for Jeffrey!

Nicolas got a great variety of snacks from Jeffrey, including some favorites like Goldfish and Hershey’s Kisses.

Mom bought me one of my favorite things– Ghiradelli chocolates filled with caramel!

When I drew mom, I found the perfect present for her quite easily… when she had gotten her shoulder surgery a few years ago, she constantly needed help from me. You see, she puts on socks at night, but then by morning, they’ve somehow fallen off of her feet. After surgery, I had to look for them, since she couldn’t search under the covers to find them!

I purchased some warm, cozy, fuzzy socks so that for years to come, we’d get to play the sock game.

Nicolas didn’t think it sounded very fun, so mom said “Don’t you insult the sock game!”

We wrapped up with Zach’s gift to my dad (his Grandpa), a pumpkin pie and a leg lamp stress ball!

It was amazing the creative gifts that we could get for only $5 each! It was really cool to see how creative each of us got and how much thought we put into our gifts. I loved that each person was thoroughly pleased with what they received (and with what they gave!). $5 was plenty to get an interesting and unique gift for each person… and it helps that Target has a lot of sections that have affordable gifts. It also helped me see how many great gifts I could get for Christmas, as well, even though I’m on a strict budget.

The front of the store has a great $3 stocking stuffer section currently, as well as plenty of items priced at $1 and $2.50. The seasonal section includes gobs of seasonal candy and gifts at great prices, as well as more stocking stuffers at a $5 price point. There are also many great books, CDs, and movies in the $5 range, as well as food, gourmet coffee, and gifts. For example, 4 pairs of fuzzy socks for $5? That’s awesome!

My family did consider ways that we could have done things differently. All of us thought that more time would have been helpful. A lot of us spent more time worrying about whether we were on time than if we were getting the right thing, so having an hour instead of 30 minutes would have made the experience more fun. We also were surprised that if we had $7 instead of $5, it would have totally changed what we could have gotten each other, and absolutely made a difference in the number of items or quality of items we could have purchased. It’s amazing what a huge difference $2 could have made!

All in all, it was the perfect evening for our family, filled with fun and giving, and we loved having a great opportunity to try to pick out the perfect gift for other members of our family.

A Dauphin Island Sunday

- Mama 5 Comments

I know, I know, we’ve been back from Dauphin Island for a little while, but between Zach’s birthday, and family health, I’ve still been working on editing and uploading my photos! Can you believe it? Seriously… worst blogger ever. I swear!

Anyway, here goes, more of my photos from Dauphin Island.

Sunday was our opportunity to really explore the Island. Each year, we take time to drive around the Island and visit different things. We devote a couple of hours to looking around. We usually go for a drive and explore the streets and see what is up. Sometimes, Jeffrey makes fun faces along the way.

For being such a small island, there is really a lot of great things there, like the Dauphin Island Sea Lab, Historic Fort Gaines, the Lighthouse Bakery, and more.

Our first stop was Historic Fort Gaines. We’ve been inside a few times, so we decided to skip the actual fort, which costs money (but is very worth it, especially if you have an interest in history, particularly Civil War era). Instead, we took a peek at the outside of the fort.

Fort Gaines was established in 1821, and is named after Edward Pendleton Gaines. It is best known for it’s role during the Battle of Mobile Bay (during the Civil War). It’s actually been on lists for most endangered historic places, because erosion and hurricanes have put it at risk of disappearing entirely. For now, though, it is an amazing fort worth checking out.

It even still features the original cannons used in the battle!

I snapped this shot of my sister peeking into the tunnels outside of the fort. I felt like this shot seemed very “Tomb Raider” of her.

On that same side of the island is a rocky beach, where the waves kind of splash up against the rocks, and you can really enjoy the view, or maybe even go fishing! (But don’t go swimming– seriously, that side of the island has a bad current!)

It’s also a great place to snap some photos. My brother was great at leaping from rock to rock to catch some shots of the waves. Unfortunately, I was a little less stable on my feet, so I either stayed off of the rocks, or tread very carefully!

After driving up and down the island, exploring, we decided to head back to our condo and go to the beach! I’ll tell you more about our condo experience in another post, but I will let you know that the beach was just about the only usable part of it, so a trip down there was a welcome release from sitting in our condo!

Aside from the night before, this was Zach’s first-ever experience with sand and the beach, so it was sure to be either really amazing, or really awful (you never know with kids).

Luckily, it was a HIT! Zach loved playing on the beach and building sand castles with Carolin!

Zach wasn’t the only one to enjoy the beach, though. Jeffrey and Carolin had a lot of fun, as well. The beach is always a great family fun activity. Jeffrey could easily spend his entire day out there, if he was allowed to.

Jeffrey is a huge fan of anything that involves a board… back home, he loves skateboarding, wakeboarding, and kneeboarding, and on vacation, he is all about the boogie board and skimboard!

When it came time for Zach to get to have some waterplay, he raced to the ocean as fast as he could!

I love these photos of Zach and I on the beach. Even though in some ways, I wish I weren’t in these photos because I feel like they’re not the “perfect” photos of me– I’m not at my goal weight, my hair is windblown, I’m so pale, etc– I feel like they are pictures that Zach will still be able to treasure, regardless, because they’re pictures of us together at the beach.

My favorite series of pictures was just adorable. Jeffrey had decided to dig a hole to catch some crabs. Sometimes, if you dig the hole, the crabs will skitter up with the surf, and get caught in the hole. He started digging, and suddenly, Zach was interested.

He looked at him like, “Hey, Jeffrey! What’re you doing?”

It was at that point that the plastic bag I had brought to protect my camera from sea and sand started blowing down the beach. Jeffrey abandoned his digging to chase after the bag!

What happened next was purely Zach deciding to do what he was going to do… my only involvement was to keep the camera ready.

It was seriously one of the cutest things I’ve ever seen!

Later that evening, Zach got to try out the pool for the first time! We had to venture over to the pool at the condo next door (like I said, I will tell you all about that crazy story soon), but it was worth the walk over there.

It was such a great day on the Island. I honestly can’t wait until we can venture back down there.