Exciting Evening

Last evening was a memorable one. It was the day of the Wright-Patterson AFB Tattoo, which has become sort of a mini-airshow, with flybys, as well as stuff o nthe ground, a concert by the AF band, and a country concert by Aaron Tippin. We didn't feel like braving the heat and crowds to actually go, especially since we could get a good view of the flybys from Mom and Dad's front porch. While we were watching the planes, Bob and the boys were trying to fly some kites, and having a grand time of it. While this was all happening, a car pulled into the neighbors' driveway. A man took a toddler inside, and he came back out and sat in the car. Next thing you knnow, an ambulance with sirens blaring has raced down the street and stopped in front of the house! Men with a stretcher leap out and go to the car. A very pregnant lady, who is obviously in very active labor gets out and onto the stretcher, moaning as she goes. (This is very scary for Anna, who starts crying. Obviously she needs to watch some of my birthing videos!) They put her into the ambulance as a fire department pickup truck drove up. He parked in the driveway and also went into the ambulance, which made no move to drive off anywhere. The neighbor lady was out talking with the interested crowd that had gathered. It was her sister, and she had been planning to go to the hospital when the contractions were 5 minutes apart, except all of a sudden they were right on top of each other, and there was no time! They had to drop off their son, so they met the ambulance there at the sister's house. After about 5 minutes, the truck driver got out and said, "It's a girl!" We all cheered and clapped. How exciting! Another neighbor said, "The miracle of life never gets old!", and she is so right!

After all this excitement, we went in to celebrate the birth by eating ice cream! Cheers! LOL Anna was no longer scared, and kept talking about how they were going with their new baby to the hospital. In fact, she's mentioned them today as well, LOL. And after it got dark, we watched a lovely fireworks show that was also part of the Tattoo over at the Air Force Museum. What a memorable evening!

Fun Times in Ohio

We've been having a great time here! We had a good drive on Tuesday, with beautiful weather. We stopped at a park in a small town on the MD/WV border for a picnic lunch. They had a really nice playground, so the kids enjoyed running around there. We finished listened to My Side of the Mountain on CD, one of our favorite books, so that made the drive go quickly. We've read that book before, but I didn't think the little boys would remember it at all, so it was a good choice. Good books never get old!

Wednesday was an all-day day of fun. We started out over at Amy's house. The boys played baseball and ran around in the water on that very hot day. After lunch, Bob volunteered to take the girls home to nap, and I stayed behind to visit with Amy, while the boys kept on playing. Bob and the girls came back a little after 5:00, and we headed to a different house for dinner!

We went over to Fred and Marie's house, which is on 6 acres out in the country. Marie and I both went to Cedarville and graduated in '95, and we both were married in college to Air Force husbands! Bob and Fred actually worked in the same building while we were finishing up college. Now they are stationed back at Wright-Pat again. They also have 7 kids and homeschool, so we have lots in common. It was so fun to get together and catch up while our kdis all played! Their oldest is a boy who is in between Nathan and Luke, and then they have 5 girls. They also have a baby boy, who was born back in October. You can imagine that Anna was in heaven with all these girls around! She's been getting her emotions mixed up lately, so as we were leaving, she told the girls, "I love you! I'm so mad!" LOL. Nathan, Luke, and Samuel played some soccer, but Nathan was fairly unenthusiastic about everything, which is really out of character for him. As we were leaving, I realized that it was most likely the day spent in the presence of cats, along with him having to take benedryl over at Amy's. That'll take the edge off! Anyway, it was a lovely evening, and we were very envious of their beautiful house, garden, and most of all, acres of land right by the bike path!

Yesterday we took it easy. Bob took the boys bowling at Wright-Pat. The bowling alley has an "eat and exercise" deal where you get shoe rental, 2 games, and $3.50 for the snack bar for $6.00. Of course, the exercise is bowling, and the food is typical snack bar fare, albeit with fancy bowling names, so I'm not sure this is a healthy option for lunchtime exercising, LOL. The boys had a ball, though, and they are back there again today. I headed down to the teacher store in Centerville yesterday afternoon to pick up some stuff for the Egypt unit I'll be teaching at our co-op this year.

This morning, Anna, Grandma, and I went to Great Clips to get Anna's hair cut by a professional. It has grown in really wonky, and I needed someone who knew what they were doing to kind of just even everything out. It looks cute, although not all that much different from the front. Now maybe I'll be able to keep up with it. The sides need to grow out more before it can all be even. Anna did really well.

On Sunday afternoon we're heading down to KY to visit another family for a few nights. Fred and Marie's family were just a warm-up because this family has 9 kids and are expecting #10! I've know Carri for years, ever since we both worked on staff at White Sulphur Springs in the summers when I was in high school. I am so excited to see her again and meet her family! We're going to stay at their house, which is a converted milking parlor, for 2 nights. The boys are going to sleep in a tent, which Nathan and Luke at least are VERY excited about! Then when we come back we'll stay with Amy and Jason for 2 nights before heading back home and leaving Nathan and Luke here with my parents for an extra 10 days or so. They're going to take part in a camp on flight principles at the Air Force Museum during the mornings. I hope it's fun!

Mummies!

Sunday morning we went to church with Sandra and Phil, and then we ate lunch at their house. They were heading off to eat with Phil's parents, who live nearby, before Phil jetted back off to London, where he has business. We went back to downtown Philadelphia, this time to the University of Pennsylvania Museum of Archeaology and Anthropology . What a fascinating place! I had found this place on the internet, and since we'll be studying the Ancients again in history this year, and I will be teaching a unit on ancient Egypt for our homeschool co-op, I thought it would fit right in for us.
We started out in the "Lower Egypt Gallery". Here they had all these pillars, door frames, and other parts of a palace that a man from the museum had excavated back in the early 1900's. This sphinx had guarded the palace. Apparently, after the pharoah's death (no one you would recognize, most likely, and I'm too lazy to search for it right now), the palace burned down. It was buried in ash and mud, which preserved it until the archaeologist discovered it. The body of the sphinx was under the mud, but the head was exposed to the wind and sands for thousands of years, and it wore away his face.

After Lower Egypt, we moved through the galleries dealing with Greece, Rome, and Canaan and Ancient Isreal. Here Caleb is in front of a Roman mosaic. I always like seeing things with Latin on them, to see if I can recognize any words!
Next we moved through an amazing rotunda, which was totally huge. The whole building was so old and fascinating, and this rotunda was a beautiful part of it! It housed artifacts from China, including a bunch of Buddhas, but also this really cool crystal ball.

Next we moved on to the Upper Egypt Gallery, which had a lot of mummies exhibited. The mummies in the display case were the "youngest" mummies on display, from around 1000 B.C. There were others that were much older. One of the mummies had been removed from his bandages so you could actually see what was left of him. It was definitely a "him" too, since they preserve all those parts too. The boys were quite amazed by that. Ewww.

There were also a lot of other sarcophagi and huge statues displayed, including this one of another pharoah. He's wearing the white bowling ball hat of the Upper Egpyt kingdom. I'm sure you all remember that Lower Egyptian pharoahs wore a red bowling ball crown, and eventually the 2 kingdoms merged together.

By this point, Anna and Grace were rapidly approaching total meltdown, so we called it a day. This was truly a fascinating museum, with lots of neat things to see. Bob and most of the kids headed off to get the van, and I nursed again while Grace, Faith and I waited for them to come. We started to drive back home the same way we came, down I-95, which is certianly the shortest way, distance-wise. As we crept along hitting speeds of 20 mph, Bob asked if there wasn't any other way we could possibly get back home. We headed north again, and then out west on Rt. 30 through Lancaster and York. What a beautiful drive! We passed Amish farms and even a buggy, and lots of very old houses. Even though it was a lot farther, we made it home in only 5 hours, and we were actually moving the whole way! So we had such a fun time, and we are very grateful to Phil and Sandra for their amazing hospitality! Now we need to go back because there were things we still haven't seen, like the Mint, which is only open on weekdays.

But for now, we're off to Ohio tomorrow (well, today actually, as I see it is after midnight), where we are hoping to spend some time with a few families that I haven't seen since college, as well as family! Blogging will probably be light for awhile because we'll be too busy having fun!

Whirlwind Philadelphia Trip

We got back last night from a quick weekend trip up to Philadelphia. I don't have much time, since we are leaving tomorrow to drive to Ohio, but I wanted to give a quick report. We drove up Frday afternoon. We left here at 2:30 and arrived there at 8:30--6 hours for about 180 miles of driving! Crazy east coast traffic!

We drove to the house of my friends from college, Sandra and Phil. They live in this beautiful house, the stone part of which was built in the early 1700s. A builder completely restored it and added on a large kitchne, family room, and master bedroom suite. It was so lovely!

Saturday we drove into downtown Philadelphia after breakfast. We started out at the Betsy Ross house, where Betsy Ross herself told us that we were one of the few families she had seen that had an average amount of children for the time! She also pointed out that we looked like a troop of Redcoats, since I had done the matching red shirts again. Whoops!

We then walked over to a large Quaker meeting house, which had a little exhibit on William Penn that was interesting, not to mention free. I am all for that!

Then we headed over to the Independence Hall Visitors Center, and on to the Liberty Bell. It rained off and on the whole day, often quite steadily, which was a good thing because it really kept away the crowds. I would MUCH rather deal with rain than crowds. The downside is that we all looked a bit damp and bedraggled the whole day.

At the Liberty Bell we met up with Bob's sister Rose and her 2 girls. They had come down from northeastern PA to visit for the day. Here we all are in front of Independence Hall. They had tickets for an earlier tour, so we ate lunch while they did that, and then we met up again at the site of Ben Franklin's house.

It was so great to have someone like Phil around, who was very knowledgeable about downtown Philadelphia, since he grew up in Philly. This was a great boon at lunch time, especially. We had brought a cooler for a picnic lunch, but with all the rain, where could we eat? He suggested a food court place, the Bouse or something, where you can also take food in. This sounded great, so we walked over there. It was really crowded and I was wondering where we would ever find tables all together. Then he said we would go downstairs, where they had cafeteria-style tables. There was plenty of room there! This is where students on field trips would come to eat their lunches. Inside information--it makes life much easier!

After lunch and Ben Franklin's museum, we walked back over to Independence Hall for our tour. This was at 3:45, and the girls were getting pretty tired by then. We had a good tour guide, who was full of interesting tidbits and had an engaging manner, but the girls were quite restless. After that was done, we walked over to Christ Church (which was a good deal farther away than I had thought!), and I nursed there one last time before we headed back to Sandra's. There we cooked out and had a delicious dinner before we got the kids in bed. The girls were so tired! They went down even before our dessert--"water ice", which is a Philadelphia specialty. It's sort of like a slushie, but not totally. I had lemon, and it was very tasty and refreshing!

Two Virtues

Faith is definitely rolling over from back to tummy now! She has become much faster at it, so no more laying her on the couch, a bed, etc. without really watching! She also finally moved into her own room (Grace's old room) last Wednesday night, because I finally got around to switching crib bedding, moving clothes, and so on. Grace and Anna, who are now sharing a room, definitely talk and giggle for awhile each night before they go off to sleep, but so do the boys. Faith has done just fine in her new room, and it's nice to be able to go into our closet anytime we want to, especially for Bob in the mornings!

Grace is all big eyes and smiles in this picture, but we haven't actually seen too many smiles the past few days from her. That's because she has the most gigantic canker sore on her tongue, on the top towards the back, and it is an ugly, angry thing. It obviously really hurts, especially when she eats or tries to suck on her pacifier. I feel for her, since I get them too, even in weird soft tissue places like the tongue, but I don't think I or anyone else has started getting them quite so young. My usual solution of swishing my mouth with equal parts of liquid benedryl and milk of magnesia for 30 seconds won't really work with a 2 year old, who is just learning not to swallow toothpaste! So I'm just praying the sore will go away quickly, before Grace decides it's just too much of a pain to eat and stops it altogether. We definitely don't want her to slip back under 20 pounds again. Why does this sort of thing happen to my skinniest one?!

Nathan's Big Present

We don't usually get the kids big gifts for their birthdays. This year, however, we got Nathan a big gift, one that Bob and I researched for quite awhile. We ordered it over Memorial Day because the Digital Kitchen Store was having a big sale on this particular item, so this big box had been sitting in our dining room for a few weeks, and Nathan was dying of curiosity. We will be in Ohio on his actual birthday, so we let him open the present Friday before dinner.

What could be in this big box????? We kept telling Nathan is was something he would never ocme up with himself, but something we thought he'd really enjoy, and that the family would all appreciate.

We got him a food dehydrator! And not just any food dehydrator . . . we got the Nesco FD-1018 Gardenmaster, complete with 8 trays, 8 mesh sheets for drying small things like herbs, and 8 fruit roll sheets. We figured if we were going to use the electricity to dry stuff, we might as well be able to dry a whole lot of stuff at one time! This dehydrator has a variable temperature setting, so you can be sure your beef jerky is drying at a hot enough temp, but your herbs are drying at a low enough temp. Also, it has some fancy air-flow thing so that the stuff takes hours, as opposed to days, to dry. It also came with a big book on how to dry foods, as well as the little basic intruction manual. Nathan was THRILLED! He really, truly was. He immediately started going through the bok and marking recipes and things he'd like to try. First off was jerky, which he absolutely loves to snack on, but which is very expensive in stores, and is filled with nitrates to boot. After Bible study, we got out an old flank steak from the freezer, and he made up a teriyaki marinade while I sliced the meat. We marinated it overnight, and then he put all the strips on the trays (it took up 3 trays) at 10:30 in the morning. We dryed the jerky at the highest setting (160 degrees) for the first 4 hours, as the book said to do, and then we moved the temperature down to 135 degrees for the remaining time we could make some apple/pear fruit leather at the same time. Nathan did the peeling/coring of the fruit, with some help from his brothers, and he pureed everything all by himself. Three apples and 3 pears gave us 3 trays' worth of puree. Here is the finished beef jerky! It was done around 5:00, so it took about 6 1/2 hours. It was SOO delicious! Even Luke, who doesn't like jerky, really loved this. We all gobbled it down. By last night, there were only a few lone pieces left, all of which are gone today. I was wishing we had this thing before my gestational diabetes--this jerky would have been the perfect thing to take along for snacks when I needed my protein! Here is the finished fruit leather. It was quite tasty as well. Everyone except Caleb loved it. Caleb was disappointed because it didn't taste like "real" fruit-roll-ups, which of course are filled with sugar, LOL. He'll get over it.

We are actually making an unplanned trip to the commissary tomorrow afternoon to get more beef and fruit for more dehydrating adventures. We did a ton of research, and I must say that this machine is living up to the good reviews it got on Amazon. It is incredibly easy to use, it's quiet, and we can fit a lot of stuff on at one time. Best of all, we got it for a great price because of the Memorial Day sake! I hope we get lots and lots of good use out of this thing for many years!

Celebrating Jonathan and Nathan!

We celebrated Jonathan's 6th birthday, and Nathan's 12th birthday tonight after Bible study. I made a carrier cake--bonus points to those who know which carrier is CVN-68.

I had planned to do more details, like radar antennae and these little shelves that stick out for the guns, but I just ran out of oomph and inspiration. So that's why the "island' (everyone knows that's what that big tower is called, right?) looks bare and lonesome.

Here is a close-up of some of our squadron of aircraft. We made them with this marshmallow fondant recipe that Amy P. sent me. It was surprisingly yummy! Luke even said that he liked it better than frosting! I wouldn't go that far, but it was tasty. It was fun to work with, too. I made the fondant on Wednesday evening, and Thursday night I started making the airplanes, along with Nathan and Luke, who stayed up to watch. We had a bit of a scare, as when I added the black food gel which turns regular buttercream a lovely shade of gray instead turned the fondant a definite shade of light purple! Ack! Fortunately I had only used half of the fondant, so I started again and only added a tiny bit of gel. It was still a bit purple-y, but not as bad, and it did dry gray.

I made F/A-18s, an E/A-6, an E-2, and Nathan made one F-14. As you can see, everyone got in on the action and tried their hands at making airplanes. Like edible play-doh!

*CVN-68 is the USS Nimitz, the first nuclear-powered aircraft carrier, so the others after it are called "Nimitz class carriers". Bob was on the Nimitz for a retirement ceremony when he was the aide to the admiral who was DCINC of USSPACECOM, back in our Colorado days. He also got to fly out to the USS Abraham Lincoln (CVN-72) with the admiral.

4 Month Old Faith

Faith turned 4 months old on June 8, which also happened to be my Mom's birthday! We had Faith's well-baby appointment yesterday, and she is up to 12 pounds, 10 ounces. The doctor said that was something like between the 40th and 50th percentile, and I had to laugh. At her 2 month well-baby, that doctor (different one) said she wouldn't be surprised if Faith was in the 75th percentile for weight at 4 months! Looks like I was right . . . The tech measured her at 25 3/4 inches, but the doctor totally laughed at that and said they were measuring everyone wrong that day. That would put Faith over the 100th percentile for height, and well, that's simply not how we grow them, LOL. She is definitely no tall giant of a baby.

The doctor didn't give me too hard of a time about putting her to sleep on her tummy. I guess they have to say something, even though most babies sleep so much better on their tummies, where they don't startle themselves awake. And now Faith is pretty close to being able to roll from back to tummy, so then she'll be able to get herself over to her own tummy and choose her own sleeping position! Right now, she can turn from tummy to back, and when she does this, she fusses around for awhile until someone come and turns her back over to her tummy. Then she goes off to sleep.

The doctor also told me that they are now recommending babies stay rear-facing until 2 years old. Can you believe that?! I mean, it's really probably safer to never put your child in a car at all, so when are they just going to start recommending that? And frankly, with the super-nanny democrats in office, it's probably just a matter of time until they pass that as a law--"Don't drive with children in the vehicle." Good grief.

So Faith is a healthy, happy baby. I tried to get her to smile today for a picture, but she was having none of it. She had shots yesterday, so she wasn't as cooperative. But in general, she still rarely fusses, and she absolutely adores all her big brothers and sisters, who adore her in return. What a life!

Fun at Busch Gardens!

Yesterday we had such a wonderful time at Busch Gardens! It was so great; I think we will be spoiled any other time we go to any amusement park! The weather was absolutely perfect. It was just as Michele said in the comments on my last post--it was much, much cooler and very cloudy all day. It kept looking like rain was imminent, but the Lord held off the rain until we had left the park and were eating dinner! The gloomy clouds kept a lot of people home, so the park was not crowded at all. In fact, several times we had our own personal family ride, and everyone could ride every ride pretty much as many times as they wanted too, sometimes without even having to get off and get on again. Nathan, Ann, and Wally rode the Loch Ness Monster roller coaster for half an hour without getting off! The cooler weather meant that everyone was so much more comfortable. Faith rode in the stroller a lot, but I also carried her in the front pack quite a bit, which she loved. I would not have been able to do that in the broiling heat and humidity that we often have in June! We all wore red shirts, which made it very easy to keep track of everyone. Wally is tall and wore a red baseball hat as well, which also helped!

We got there around 11:00, and we started in this new area for kids, the Sesame Street Forest of Fun. Anna was in a very crabby mood, made crabbier by the fact that she couldn't ride the kiddie roller coaster. She was also very alarmed by the presense of all these Sesame Street characters, in fuzzy costumes, strolling around and talking to the little kids. She has not gotten over all her phobias, LOL. Fortunately the characters all went off to some other place when it was time to walk past them. Then the little ones all rode this cute this boat ride, where they floated around this little circuit. Anna was grumpy here too.

Next was this Elmo Spire thing, where they blast off and bounce down. All the kids rode this, even Grace, who looked very tiny in her seat. Although she is smiling in this picture, she was not a fan, and they had to stop the ride to let her off. Anna was on the other side, and she was not enjoying it either, but she just grimaced and looked terrified, instead of crying loudly, a la Grace, so she didn't get off. Anna did get off in the middle of the next ride, although again, it wasn't her that stopped the ride. She and I took a potty break at that point, and we talked about the day so far:

Me: Why are you being so grumpy?

Anna: Well, I just really didn't want to go on that ride, and so I was grumpy. (said with lots of drama)

Me: Well, what about that boat ride? Wasn't that fun?

Anna: No . . . I was just mad on that ride. (said with lots of emphasis)

Me: I think you need to change your attitude . . . (little drama queen)

We moved on to the Italy part of the park. Here I realized how brilliantly Busch Gardens is set up--there are kiddie rides scattered all throughout the park! Nathan and Wally went off to ride adult rides, while everyone else rode this flying kiddie ride, which is supposed to look like an invention of Da Vinci's. They rode this several times, even Grace, and finally Anna decided it might be fun after all. So she rode with Aunt Ann and had a good time, which put her in a better mood for the rest of the day's rides.

Here you can see her even braving the teacups! Grace went on this too. She looked so tiny, and I could never even get a very good picture of her! Grace enjoyed all the other rides as well. Caleb and Jonathan switched back and forth, riding whatever adult rides they were allowed to, as well as all the kiddie rides. Jonathan agreed that Busch Gardens was even funner that Chuck E. Cheese's, which was where he had wanted to go for his birthday! He is eager to go back when he is tall enough to ride all the big rides, especially the roller coasters. He is quite the little thrill-seeker, as it turns out.

This was the first time that Nathan has had the opportunity to ride big roller coasters, and he obviously inherited his enjoyment of them from his father. The only one he didn't ride was the Griffon, which has this straight-down drop, before which the car comes to a complete stop, so they are just hovering there, looking straight down. Blech. Not my cup of tea. Luke is in my camp. He didn't ride any big roller coasters either, although he did enjoy almost all the other adult rides. He likes going around in circles, which I also find much more tolerable than going up and down. I must say that I only rode kiddie rides, and then only when my presence was required. I'm not that big into rides. I have given birth naturally 7 times, with no pain relief medication whatsoever, and I no longer feel any need to prove myself by riding around in little metal buckets, LOL. Now I enjoy watching my kids have fun while I keep watch over the stroller. Hey, someone's got to do it . . .

The park closed at 6:00, so we made our way back to the van, having done all that we wanted to do several times or more! We went out to eat at this Italian restaurant in Williamsburg with Ann and Wally before driving back. We were amazed that they ever discovered this place, tucked way back into a strip mall, but it sure had delicious pizza! It was the perfect end to a perfect day. We got back late last night (almost 11:00), but it was worth it! I called off school for today, and everyone slept in. Now we're trying to get cleaned up for Bible study here tonight. Back to normal!

Happy Birthday, Jonathan!

Jonathan is 6 years old today! He is having a big week. As you can obviously tell, he is riding his bike without training wheels now. Bob took them off actually a week or two ago, so he is like a pro now! He also has a very, very loose tooth--his first! I am hoping that comes out sooner rather than later because he is not known as my stoic one, and the discomfort of eating with a wiggly tooth, plus random bits of blood in his mouth, are not his favorite things. It is very close to coming out, and in fact, he has had several offers of assistance from various older siblings, but he has not taken them up, LOL.

This has been, and will continue to be, a week of special things. Sunday afternoon the McCs took their canoe out for the first time this year, and they asked Bob and the boys to go with them. They all had such a blast out there on the river! They reported getting lots of questioning looks at their big group of boys (8 boys, 2 dads). I'm sure everyone assumed they were a boy scout tropp or something! The girls and I went over to their house at dinnertime to help Christine, who made dinner for all of us when the menfolk returned. Then the boys played street hockey for awhile while we visited. So fun!

Today we didn't do school, but instead went over to the church for a playgroup in the morning. It's every first Tuesday, and it's for all women, not just moms with young children, which I really like. So today a newly married woman came as well and visited. She's a nurse, so she was off today, and we all enjoyed getting to know her better. The kids ran around outside and played on the swingset, and then we had a picnic lunch, so that was fun.

Tomorrow night we're going to drive down to Richmond after Bob gets home from work, and we all get home from Bethesda where Caleb has a doctor appointment at the horrible time of 3:20. I'm hoping we get home by 6:00! After we grab a quick bite to eat, we'll leave for the house of Bob's sister Ann and her husband Wally. We are going to go to Busch Garden Williamsburg with them on Thursday (although the weather is looking like it will be cooler and possibly rainy! No!). Busch Gardens has that specail deal where active duty military members can get in free for one day, along with 3 dependents, so we are going to take them up on that! Who knows how much longer Bob will be active duty?! Ann is getting 3 kids tickets at her parks and rec department, so for all 9 of us to get in, it will cost us $105! That's a lot of money, but not anywhere as much as it could be, considering the regular admission price is $59.99 for an adult, and we have 3 adults--wait, I think Luke is one now too--Ack!--and 3 paying kids, who normally cost $49.99 a person! Ann and Wally have season's tickets, so they really know their way around. Hopefully it will be a really fun day for everyone, and not too crowded. We're going before all the schools let out.

So you can see that Jonathan is not lacking special things with which to celebrate his birthday! We're having his birthday dinner tonight (he requested tacos), but I'm not making his cake until next Friday's Bible study. I'm making another joint cake for Jonathan and Nathan (yes!), which is going to be a Nimitz-class aircraft carrier, with airplanes out of fondant, if I can make it work. Amy P. sent me a recipe for fondant using marshmallows that she said tasted a lot better than store-bought fondant, so I'm going to give that a go. I can't stand fondant, so I'm thinking anything has to be better, and Amy is an excellent cook!

Deja Vu All OVer Again . . .

We moved here when Jonathan was 1. The next summer, when he was 2, he developed a terrible fear of trash trucks. I don't really remember when this phobia passed, but I can safely say that he is no longer scared when they roar up and down our street. (And I never did move him into the back bedroom, like I had mentioned in the old blog post, so the phase must not have lasted too much longer.)

Now Anna was of course the queen of all phobias. She was hysterically terrified of dogs, cats (even fat, old, slow ones), Muslim women who cover, the vacuum cleaner, etc., culminating with the absolutely humiliating episode with the clown at Golden Corral last summer. Ironically, the one thing that didn't really bother her much was the trash truck. Amazingly, Anna seems to have gotten over all these fears, and I think the clown episode was the last big thing like that (praise the Lord). But I can see a pattern that our kids get scared around 2.

So on Tuesday I was sitting upstairs in the hallway folding laundry when I heard the trash truck rumble down our street (and right by our house because I forgot to put the trash out because of the holiday, LOL). All of a sudden, Grace, who was in her room, starts sobbing loudly. I thought maybe she had gotten stuck somewhere, but when I got in there to see what the problem was, she started crying, "Trash truck! Trash truck!" Sigh.

New Commissary Strategy

Today we made another big trip to the commissary. It has only taken me almost 5 years of living here, and 3 new babies, to figure out the ideal way to work this. I have always done school in the morning of a big trip, fed everyone lunch, nursed, and left right after that. Then the baby would fall asleep in the car, wake up when we got there (about 35 minutes later), and be really crabby by the time we were done (almost 2 hours later). I would nurse in the parking lot before we drove home, and the baby would again fall asleep on the drive, getting another nap that wasn't long enough. We would get on the road around 3:30, which is the busiest time on the main highway we take because at 4:00, the whole road going west becomes an HOV (high occupancy vehicle) road. So at 3:30, all the single commuters are scrambling to get on the road before the witching hour, and the road is quite clogged.

This time, we still did school, and I nursed around 11:00. Then I got everyone lunch while Faith played. We left around 1:00, and Faith napped in the car. I nursed again as soon as we got there, so she was tanked up and ready to go. She was happy the whole time, and she fell asleep as we got to the frozen food section. We left around 4:00, and she slept the way home too, which was a pleasant drive because we zipped right along, with very little traffic. Then at home, I waltzed inside to nurse while the boys unloaded over $600 of groceries! Luke said, "Lucky!" in a very envious voice when I announced my intentions. Time to get out the birthing videos again to remind him he's glad to be a boy, LOL.

So now that I have it figured out, that must mean it's time to move, right?

Memorial Day Pool Party

We such a fun time today! We had a Memorial Day pool party at the house of a couple who is in our OCF (Officers' Christian Fellowship) Bible study. There were 6 families there, and we had a serious OCF mind meld going on. We planned this thing Friday night, at Bible study. We agreed that I would bring a fruit salad, Christine would bring veggies/chips, Elizabeth would bring a green salad, Amy would bring a pasta salad, and Chrys (whose house has the pool) would provide the plates, utensils and drinks. We all brought our own meat to grill. I'm sure you can tell right away what is missing from this menu . . . . . . baked beans! You can't have a cookout without baked beans, especially since we were only bringing hot dogs to grill! I decided I would bring baked beans as well. Tim and Amy also noticed this sad lack, so they also showed up with a pot of baked beans. There was one other family, who weren't at Bible study Friday but called Chrys to see what they could bring. She said . . . baked beans! Because no one had said that at Bible study, LOL. So we ended up with 3 pots of baked beans. There were, however, surprisingly few baked beans left over, so they were a popular choice. I guess if there is a toxic cloud hovering over northern VA, you'll know what happened, LOL. Some serious bean consumption.


We also had the mind meld thing going on for dessert. Sara and I both made chocolate chip cookie bars (although she drizzled melted chocolate over hers--a very nice touch!), and Chrys bought a delicious chocolate chip cookie pie thing from Costco. Very yummy! Chrys also had angel food cake with strawberries and blueberries, as well as chocolate sauce and whipped cream for toppings. Caleb LOVED this. He had 3 slices with strawberries and chocolate sauce! I am going to have to remember this as an easy dairy-free dessert that he loves!

Here is the pool area. They even had a diving board, which the kids thought was great fun. Bob demonstrated his diving talents, and everyone agreed he had been hiding his light under a bushel. His family, especially Paul and Rose, were big divers, so although Bob was never on the diving team, he observed. Ed couldn't believe that he has known Bob all these many years, but didn't know he had diving skills, LOL.

Here is Bob, holding court in the hot tub. We had 18 kids of swimmable age there, not counting Bob (or the 2 babies). Vernon and Chrys have kids, but they are grown and have children of their own, so this pool hasn't had such a workout for quite a long time now!

Here is Grace enjoying the food. She did swim with Daddy some, but she definitely put away some food--2 hot dogs, 2 helpings of baked beans, fruit, chips, carrot sticks, and tons of dessert. Where does she put it all?! We enjoyed eating on the screened in porch, and on the built-in bench on the deck right past the porch. It was such a nice set-up for a party. I brought the pack-n-play so Faith could nap there, and also the bouncy seat so I didn't have to hold her the whole time. It was too humid for that!

While it was very humid, it was also warm and sunny for most of the afternoon. Around 3:00, it started getting cloudy, and there was a rumble of thunder. We were all ready to eat dessert by that time, so everyone got out of the pool and did that. By 4:00 it had started raining, as we were all cleaning up, and by the time we got home it was a downpour! We were thankful the Lord kept the rain away so we could swim (well, not "we" as in all of us including me, LOL. I did not even bring my suit, and I sat on the lovely screened-in porch and enjoyed visiting with the other ladies). It's wonderful to remember our brave soldiers and their sacrifice together with other military friends!

Hmmmm . . .

Trying to think of something to say here . . . I feel like I should post because I haven't posted since Tuesday, but I'm not being inspired by anything! No one has done anything particularly funny, nothing is new, and while we've been busy, it's been with a mishmash of things not particularly newsworthy in and of themselves.

One thing we have been busy with is cleaning. Our neighbors called Thursday morning to say they were going to hold a garage sale this morning, if we wanted to be in on that. I knew there were things we could stand to get rid of, so I called off school for the day, and we thoroughly cleaned the garage, making a pile in the middle of stuff to go. The boys and I brought down our old double stroller from the shelves over our garage door, and Anna and Grace thought it was perfect for their dolls. But double stroller technology has actually come a long way since we received that one as a gift when Luke was born, and when Grace was born, we bought a much newer one off craigslist, which is much improved. So we definitely didn't need two double strollers, even if one could be used as a doll stroller, LOL.

One good reason to weed through junk is that we found out we are on the fall move list a few weeks ago. Of course, the email was vague,and ended with something like "don't do anything like sell your house because you may NOT actually receive an assignment", so we'll see what happens. So far, nothing. And even if we did get another assignment, we might turn it down and stay here. Things are going really well, as far as homeschooling, our church, and our friends, and it is hard to think about starting all over with finding co-ops and other opportunities as Nathan gets older and goes into junior high and high school. But it is always motivating to go through junk with an eye of "would I really want to move with this, and if not, why not get rid of it now?!"

The garage sale was this morning, and we sold pretty much everything we put out. Yay! Plenty more room in the old garage now! I was so reminded of the fun Amy and I used to have when we would hold garage sales together back in Ohio! One of us would be a "pretend shopper", and look at things and ask questions about them. If you brought attention to something and acted like you were thinking about buying it, then the second you put it down, someone else would snatch it up! Human nature. Anyhow, we would have a great time people-watching and seeing what things people will buy when they think they are geting a bargain.

We actually moved all our stuff down to our neighbor's driveway this morning so she could watch it for us, and we left mid-morning to go to Zachary L.'s homeschool graduation. He is going to go to Cedarville, my old alma mater, for college. I'm sure he'll have a great time there, but we will miss him here, especially the boys! Bible study night just won't be the same for them.

This afternoon another neighbor had a big party. "Dr. Joe" is the one who also throws the great neighborhood Christmas party each year. This party was to celebrate his birthday. He is Italian, and an excellent cook, so the food was delicious. All the kids are still over there playing dodgeball in his front yard. I had to put Faith down for a nap, so I escaped back home to the peace, quiet, and air conditioning. I forsee showers for everyone, and then a good night's sleep because everyone is going to be exhausted! Tomorrow night we are planning on going to a free Marine Corps band concert at Wolf Trap with our Bible study group, so the social activities just keep on happening!

New Term

The kids had their standardized testing last week. They take the Standford Achievement Test through our homeschool co-op. I'm not too worried about Nathan and Luke, other than just careless mistakes, but this was Caleb's first year of testing. I didn't want him to get some wild hair and fill in the bubbles willy-nilly, or in a pretty pattern or something! We'll see when the results get back in a few weeks . . .

But now that we're done with testing, I feel like it's the start of our "summer term". We're doing a few things differently right now. For one thing, we're going easy on math. I never thought I'd say that, but we're not actually doing math every single day. The reason for this is that Nathan and especially Luke are really far ahead, and I'm not sure that's the best thing for high school. We pretty much school year-around, with short breaks every 6 weeks or so, and that means that when we finish a book, we just roll right into the next one--skipping the first 30 lessons or so that are just review of the previous one. Now that's all catching up to us. Nathan, who is finishing 6th grade, is on lesson 57 of Algebra 1/2. Luke, who is finishing up 4th grade, is on lesson 32 of Saxon 7/6. So if Nathan were to finish Algebra 1/2 in the Fall, and go right into Algebra 1, then do Algebra 2 in 8th, geometry in 9th, trig on 10th, calculus in 11th, then I could probably pull together a linear algebra course or something like that for the last year. But do I want that? He would need to keep his calculus fresh for college, especially if he goes into engineering, which is what he is leaning towards now.

Luke would be finishing Algebra 2 by 7th grade, and that just seems ridiculous. So we're just stepping back and slowing down. The boys think they have died and gone to heaven, LOL.

We are also slowing down in Latin. We're done with Latina Christiana II, so we're ready to move into Henle Latin. That's a high school course, and I don;t know that we need to rush right into that, so we're just reviewing vocabulary and grammar chants daily, and I give Latin review sheets that I've made up every week or so. Also, we'll be working through Ligua Angelica this summer, which Memoria Press calls a "Christian Latin reading course". I had kind of forgotten I even had this, but something made me think of it, so I pulled it out. It is a bunch of Latin hymns, and the kids translate them and see the various cases in action, so to speak. I think that Nathan and Luke have the depth of understanding to be able to do it pretty independently now, as opposed to a few years ago when I actually bought the program! It will be a good review for them.

In place of Latin, we've started Greek! The 4 boys and I have all learned the alphabet, and I'm debating how much farther Caleb and Jonathan will go. They will be starting Prima Latina in the Fall, but they are really enjoying doing Greek now. I know Caleb especially really feels like one of the big boys. Each day I've been transliterating English words and writing them with Greek letters for them to translate, and Caleb has been doing great at that! I think that's pretty much the level I'm going to keep him at though. We're using Elementary Greek, which looks like a wonderful program for Koine Greek, but I think it would be too much for him as we get deeper into the grammar of Greek.

As an interesting Greek aside, did you know that we Americans mispronounce most of the letters of the Greek alphabet as opposed to how a real Greek person would pronounce them? My parents have a Greek officer living with them right now, and when we were back home on spring break, he led us through the alphabet. For example, the letter that looks like our letter u is called "mu", which we would all say as "moo". But they pronounce it as "me". Or tau, which looks like a letter t, is not pronounced "taw", but rather "tuf". So we say the alphabet the Greek way, but I make sure they know how Americans say it all too, just in case they join a fraternity in college or something, LOL.

Those are the main differences. We're plugging on with grammar (Rod and Staff), spelling, and writing, and we're going through a Bob Jones science book with everyone. We're not doing any history except library books now, and we'll start back with Story of the World Ancients in the Fall, this time with Caleb and Jonathan as well.

Speaking of Caleb and Jonathan, I am really making them a priority, since I felt they got the short end of the stick with this last pregnancy, especially as I had to do so much exercising there at the end. They are definitely not as far ahead as Nathan and Luke were at those ages, LOL. Jonathan is not sure he likes this added emphasis on his schoolwork . . . Good for his character, I always say. He is definitely the naturally laziest one so far!

So that's where we are. Summer is a more relaxed time just because we have other things going on. Nathan and Luke will be doing a camp at the Air Force Museum the first week of July. The kids and I will be out there a week or so early to drop them off, and then they'll stay out there and spend some special time with Grandma and Grandpa. They will also go to Camp Caleb the end of July, and while they are away, the other kids and I will most likely be doing the tutor training for Classical Conversations at one of their parent practicums. That will be fun for Caleb, Jonathan, and the girls too, as they will have special classes as well (just the nursery for Faith, of course! They don't start classical education quite that early!). In the middle of July, we are very much looking forward to my sister-in-law Melinda and adorable niece Emily coming out to visit for a week. We will definitely not be doing formal school while they are here!

Lake Fun

Rose lives in this beautiful old house on a lake. Well, actually the lake is across the street, so the kids do have to be careful crossing the road. The drivers are crazy! The best thing about the house is the huge porch over there on the side. She has a 3-person swing out there, and it is just so lovely to sit there.

This is Rose's lakefront. I'm standing on the road right in front of her house. There is quite a bit of grass over here, and past the trampoline she has her own private dock. The speck out in the water is her boat. She gave boat rides all afternoon.

Caleb, Jonathan, Anna, and Grace are all on here, along with Bob, Matt (Rose's ex-brother-in-law), and Wally, Bob's brother in law. I thought maybe Grace wouldn't like the boat, but she did! Caleb and Jonathan both got to drive the boat some, which was quite thrilling for them!

Nathan and Luke couldn't be bothered to go on a boat ride--they were too busy fishing. Here Luke has just caught a fish, and Bob's brother Dennis is demonstrating how you hold them by the bottom of the mouth, which paralyzes the fish so it doesn't wiggle around. I don't think any of the boys actually touched a fish however, LOL. All the boys caught fish. The lake is private and definitely not over-fished, so the kids caught a total of maybe 20 fish, including some bass which we had to throw back because it's not bass season (who knew? and who could tell?!).

Here Dennis is demonstrating to an eager audience how to clean and fillet a fish. Dennis is an avid hunter and fisherman--the type of person you would want to be around if there was ever some sort of catastrophic event, and we all had to scrounge around for food. He'd be eating well, LOL. Nathan was very impressed with his expertise. Dennis was so patient with all the kids the whole afternoon, running between all the kids, casting lines, helping reel fish in, getting out hooks, and finally cleaning all the fish. The boys were very sad that we had to leave before we could cook them all up and eat them. The boys had the best time Saturday, and now they think Rose's place is paradise, LOL. We need to go back sometime when we can spend more time up there. We had to be back Sunday so Bob could teach children's church.

First Communion

The main reason we went up to PA last weekend was for to celebrate the First Holy Communion for Bob's niece, Amanda. It was also a good reason to see Bob's family, who we hadn't seen for awhile, and have them all meet Faith.

The service was at the local Catholic church, and let me tell you, they were not really a church interested in having visitors return! There were 40 kids taking their first communion, and the church was absolutely packed with relatives. Here is a picture of 3 rows of Bob's family, for example, all squashed together like sardines!
As we got there, we were a little early because Rose had warned us that it would be really crowded. The lady in charge of their CCD program was talking to the parents, and she didn't like it that there was not complete silence while everone else was finding seats. "What part of 'be quiet' do you all not understand?!!" she hollered. Okay. Then she came up to the front later to tell us all that there needed to be "reverant silence" until the service started. That is certainly a reasonable goal, but there were so many people there, including a lot of little children, and there wasn't even any music or anything to mask little sounds! So there was not silence. Then the priest came up, without his robes on. He said, "WHERE do you people think you are." Just like that! It wasn't even a question, just a condemnation! Then he went on about how he knew Catholics knew how to be reverent, but definitely implying that no one else did! So like I said, not a real welcoming church!
Our kids were so tired from our long drive the night before. Faith slept through most of the service, and Jonathan and Grace also dozed off. Here Jane is holding Grace.

Afterward, we took a bunch of pictures outside. The church had a professional photographer who went around and took pictures of each family. I hope the one of all of us turned out, because it was quite a good showing.

Amanda looked really beautiful. Anna definitely thought she looked like a princess in her dress! The brother of Chuck (Rose's ex-husband) has his "special friend", Steve, who does hair, so they came over early Saturday morning to do Amanda's hair. He did a lovely job. I should have been paying closer attention! As a side note, Matt and Steve were definitely the nicest of all Chuck's family, including his girlfriend Suzanne, the one he had the affair with that ended the marriage. She happens to look almost exactly like Rose. Interesting family.

Here are all 6 of Bob's living siblings together. This is a rare occurance, so I made sure pictures were taken to mark the event! Bob's oldest brother Dennis is on active-duty right now with the Army Reserve, and he was able to make it from New Jersey. The back row is Bob, Dennis, and Paul, and the front row is Ann, Rose, and Jane (left to right).

Welcome Theodore!

Our really good friends, Ed and Elizabeth had their baby Theodore Joshua last Thursday at 8:57 PM, and I thought you might like to see him! I got to go over there Sunday night and hold him for awhile. What a doll-baby! He was 6 pounds, 11 ounces and 19.5 inches long, so smaller than any of mine have even been. I just love holding newborn babies! Their soft, fuzzy heads, the newborn baby smell, the way they scrunch up their faces, like they are trying the muscles out--so cute! Our kids haven't gotten to meet Theodore yet, and they are all anxiously awaiting that opportunity. The boys especially are glad that SOMEONE around here is having boy babies! We are all looking forward to seeing Theodore grow up. I know he will be a blessing, just like the other 4 L. kids are to us!

Drive to PA

( . . . cue ominous music . . .)

I mentioned we had a wonderful time up in PA this weekend, and we did. We also had about the worst drive ever to get up there! But let me back up even further, to last Thursday. We had lots of errands to run, including the Christian bookstore, Walmart, Target, and the library. The ONLY thing we had to get at Target was a pair of blue dress pants for Nathan, who had outgrown his last pair. At the checkout, the cashier was talking about the kids. I can't emphasize enough how often this happens, but somehow I was distracted over it. Maybe because she was trying to figure out the girl/boy breakdown, and she only mentioned 3 boys. I told her 4 boys, but as I was looking around, I only saw 3 . . . oh yes, Nathan was getting a drink, which led to everyone wanting water. When we finally made it out to the van, I realized that no one had the bag containing the one thing we bought--Nathan's pants. So I ran back in, the cashier looked at me like she had never seen me before--and the pants weren't there. I guess the man behind me picked up that bag too. Sigh. We went off to the library, with me feeling totally frustrated with myself for not noticing. On our way back from the library, I called Target to see if anyone had, by some miracle, turned the pants back in. The lady said no, but then she told me that if I brought in my receipt, I could get the money refunded or get another pair of pants! What?! I couldn't believe that, since Target has such an unforgiving return policy! And maybe she's wrong, but we high-tailed it right back there. I wasn't going to let that get away! So all's well that end's well--we got the last pair of blue size 12 pants. But it was certainly an omen indicative of how the next day was going to go!

Thursday evening at 11:00 I was finishing getting a little bit of school work out before filling snack bags for the trip Friday, when I became aware of a noise from the kitchen. "Hmmmm," I thought, "I didn't start the dishwasher, and I'm not running a load of laundry . . ." I went over to investigate, and when I opened the door of the cabinet under the sink, water sprayed out everywhere. Ack! We have a separate faucet for filtered water, and the thing that attaches it to the cold water line just . . . unattached somehow. What a huge mess! I was sooooo incredibly thankful that this did not happen Friday night, however. I can not even imagine the flood in the kitchen and basement that would have resulted from that! So we got the water stopped, but it was a huge clean up. Finally we went to bed around 1:00 . . . but as I went into our room, another door opened, and Jonathan stumbled out crying. Yes! He had an accident! So we had to get new sheets, start laundry, move Caleb to the top bunk, etc. It was a late night.

We got off Friday afternoon at 2:00 to drive to the Poconos in NE Pennsylvania. We have made this drive before, although the last time was almost 3 years ago. It usually takes us about 4 1/2 hours to get there, so we estimated we'd get there by 7:30, with nursing stops. We started out in a lot of traffic as we left town because of construction, but we were able to go around that, so everything was great. I entered in Rose's address on our GPS, and we set off. It took up over to I-81, which is quite a bit farther west of where we live, but we didn't really think about that. It was until we'd been driving awhile that I happened to look at a map and realized that we really added on quite a bit of mileage. How did that happen? I honestly don't know. We stopped aroun 4:15 because Faith needed to eat. That was poor coordination on my part--we should have been able to drive more than 2 hours before she needed to eat, and I knew we would have to stop a second time. We picked an exit with a Wendy's, Subway, and McDonalds, so we could eat an early dinner, but we never saw the Wendy's or Subway. We just kept driving--over 5 minutes off the road (we were actually in the town of Shippensburg, Carri!). Finally we found the McDonalds, but we could not figure out where the other restaurants had been. As we drove back, we saw a big shopping center that was TOTALLY hidden by trees if you were coming from the freeway, and that's where the other restaurants were--less than 1/2 mile away from the freeway exit! Oh well.

We got back on the freeway, and promptly came to a complete stop. No one moved for a long time. Of course, we were 10 miles away from the closest exit, and there was a big gully in the median, so we couldn't turn around. Occasionally we would move up a few car lengths, then everything would stop again. We were expecting a major car accident or construction or something, but eventually things started moving, and we could never see any problem at all! Totally weird, and a huge time sink.

We made good time the rest of the way, and we thought things were looking up. At least we'd get there before dark. We got off the highway onto a smaller PA road. The road that runs through Rose's town was off this main road, so we were expecting a bigger intersection. I even thought I might recognize it. We drove for a long time, blindly obeying our GPS thing. We were a little suspicious because it told us we were to turn onto "Unnamed Road". As I said, it was the main road through Rose's town, so I was pretty darn sure it had a name. But maybe this was a shortcut? When we got to the Unnamed Road, it was little more than a paved cowpath. I told Bob there was NO WAY we were turning on that, so we kept going. The GPS recalculated, and told us to turn on another road. At least that one had a name, but it still did not look at all familiar. But we turned, and we turned again, and we wound around and around on small, dark PA back country roads, with me getting more and more alarmed becuase nothing looked right, and I knew the lake wasn't that far away from the main road. Finally we reached the lake . . . and IT WAS THE WRONG LAKE!! I about had a heart attack. It was getting dark, and it seriously looked like the kind of place where the axe murderer would step out of the woods in front of us (of course, we were in the big van, so we could have mowed him down . . . but what if we ran out of gas?!) . . . Bob was in favor of driving a little farther, but I told him we had to turn around NOW so we could at least make it back to the main road before darkness completely fell, and we missed one of the crazy turns! I looked at the atlas and found the lake we were at, which was a good 10 miles away from Rose's lake. We made it back to the main road, praise the Lord, and then it was easy to get to Rose's by looking at the actual atlas, which apparently has her lake down at the right place, unlike our GPS system! We rolled in around 9:00, over 7 hours after we left! VERY stressful drive. VERY crabby Claire, who could not believe that she had trusted a mechanical device 2 times instead of her trusty atlas. Never again!

So you can see what a surprise it was to actually have a very enjoyable weekend with Bob's family! I was expecting some kind of major fireworks! I'll post more about being there later. I've got to get kids down, since we're in the middle of standardized testing!

Happy Mother's Day!

I have a lot to blog about, as we had a wonderful time up in PA with Bob's family. But first, I am enjoying a lovely Mother's Day with Bob and all my beautiful children! Since I really, really don't like going out to eat on Mother's Day, and I like cooking myself even less, Bob usually grills out. Today he grilled some filet mignons for us all. The commissary at Ft. Belvior sells beef tenderloin, and he got it sliced up into steaks. DELICIOUS!! Much better than at a restaurant! Now I'm just relaxing, and I'm hoping later on tonight to be able to visit Elizabeth and Ed and meet their new little baby Theodore, who was born Thursday night!

Faith celebrated Mother's Day in her own special way. As I nursed her during church, she blew her diaper out the top, covering her dress, diaper cover, the blanket, burpcloth, and my dress. Poop was literally dripping off of her, and I was so thankful there was another mom back in the nursing area with me to help! She ran and got some bags for the diaper and wipes, as well as for all the poopy clothes! I finally got everything fairly cleaned up, and I was so thankful that I had a spare outfit for her in the diaper bag! That's the good thing about having just been traveling, LOL. She had obviously been saving up for this special mother/daughter bonding moment.