Museum trip and Archery

I have a hard time with summer vacation.  Trying to entertain/keep busy two girls who are 5 1/2 years apart is exhausting, especially when they have two different stages of life and they bug each other all the time.

This week Jeff is out of town so I took the girls to the Lawrence Hall of Science at Cal.  Annalise won tickets in a school raffle this past year.  We went and it was free but it is not a museum we will be going to again.  Robyn loved it and Annalise did not.  It's the age thing again.  Though I have to say it was not my favorite museum as we saw everything within the first 45 minutes.  Growing up in the DC area I was spoiled by being surrounded by neat (and free) museums.  Many of the museums around just can't compare.

Even so, it was a beautiful day and it was lovely to get out of the house.



Bay view



That same day was Annalise's last archery lesson of the month.  July is going to be busy so she won't be back until August.  Though she will be able to practice many times at girls camp next month.

Archery is definitely something she enjoys.  After seeing the movie Brave, Robyn wants to take archery lessons too.  I think we will wait a while before signing her up and let Annalise do it herself for now.

Summer is Here

School is finished!  Yes!  I think I am more excited for myself.  This year I was the elementary school's PTO Secretary.  It's not a hard position but definitively an active one.  Especially for someone like me who is inclined to help out when needed.  In fact I'm going to be doing it again next year, but I am going to use the summer to rest up for August. 

I'm hoping to get a bit of sewing in this summer.  For some reason I've pushed the knitting aside and have really been doing a lot of sewing projects.  I'm sure I will go back to knitting but maybe not until this fall.   Now I will just need to figure out to how to keep the girls occupied this summer, especially since Robyn has her cast until July....

So, some of the projects I've completed so far:

Robyn has been the recipient of most of the clothes.  Though I did attempt a swim top for Annalise.  It fits okay but it should have been a little tighter.  She's so skinny that I should have made the XS and not the S.  I have material to make Robyn a suit but I need to finish this up:

I'm making this for Quilts for Kids.  They provided the kit free of cost and I am putting it together and I will mail it back completed.  I found out about the program by reading the blog Make It And Love It .  I am finished with the top but now I need to go buy some batting and then it will be time to machine quilt.  Wish me luck!  I will need it as machine quilting is something that I am still learning.

Fiesta Days Parade

Yesterday was our town's Fiesta Days Parade. 

Annalise's middle school marched in the parade.  They did such a good job, especially considering that for half the band this was their first time marching! 

These were taken at the end of the parade.  You can see how tired Annalise's arms were getting.  She told us the marching wasn't hard, what was hard was keeping her arms up the entire length of the parade.  By the end of the parade she was wishing she was playing an instrument like the clarinet.  Even so, she did such a good job! 

Afterwards she got to hang out with her friends at the carnival.  Poor Robyn, we spent some time there but she wasn't able to go on a lot of the rides because of her cast.  It's going to be a long six weeks until she gets her cast off.

Look What I Did

This is what I did on Tuesday night: 

fall off razor scooter = hairline fracture on her right arm = 3 hours at the ER. 

Boy are we tired!

Middle School Track Meet

Last week was Annalise's first middle school track meet.  She wanted to participate in the long jump but you had to try out for that and she was sick when that happened.  So, she had to run in the longer distance events.  At this meet she only ran one event because her knee was hurting so she ran the one mile.  She came in 5th out of 12 runners (I think).  I didn't get to see the event.  It was a crazy day of crisscrossing across town so when her event did actually happen I was at Robyn's piano lessons on the other side of town.  Definitely frustrating but there's one more track meet this week and hopefully this time I will get to see her run!

(A friend took these pictures for me!)

Calling All Participants

Well it's that time of year again -- fair time.  Every year I enter projects in the May Fair and the County Fair.  I'm usually quite excited about what I'm entering but this year was a little different.  I didn't enter in any knitting.  I was knitting a sweater that I thought would be a good entry but after ripping out one section several times I finally just decided to rip out the whole sweater.  I'll just have to use the yarn on another project. 

So I decided to enter the dress I made for Annalise for Christmas.

I was excited about the USA map.  My first attempt I had some problems with the iron which resulted in scorch marks so I made another one because I like things to (at least) appear perfect.  I was pleased with the first place but I when I saw the picture hanging I just wanted to put up my hand so I could smooth out the bubbles in the fabric.  I guess that will have to wait until I can take it home!

Annalise declined in participating (she said no!) but Robyn was excited to enter.  This was a picture she took while we were hiking in the hills by our house.

I found a project on Pinterest and thought this would be perfect for Robyn to do.  We had fun picking out the different shades of red out of magazines.



We at least have a couple months until the county fair.  Now we just need to decide if we will enter the same projects or something different. 

Run, Run as Fast as You Can

Every spring we make time for our annual local race which benefits the schools.  This year only Jeff and Robyn ran it.  Jeff ran the 10K and Robyn ran the 1/2 mile kids race.  Annalise didn't have anyone to do the 5K with so she refused to run, and since I don't run I didn't race either.  So Annalise and I came to cheer for Robyn.

So proud of her....she ran the entire time.  When Annalise ran it the first time she didn't do so well.  She ran into a soccer friend and they ended up talking the entire race.  Drove Jeff crazy!  :)