St. Croix

And we are back!

We had a lovely time, again, in St. Croix. We've gone there three years running and oh my, it hasn't gotten old yet! We stay at Cottages by the Sea, a family owned property with little cottages complete with kitchens and, in our case, an ocean view. Which we pay for, but it is worth it.

There is truly an embarrassment of riches where pictures are concerned.  One day, Kevin took 1000+ pictures.  ONE DAY. I know that sounds crazy but he was underwater and snorkeling and he has found that taking multiple pictures in a burst is a great idea when sea creatures are concerned.  These pics are not underwater -- I will show some of those later.  He got some GREAT pics!

We visited, briefly, an eco lodge.  This is not actually used by anyone to sleep under, but is presumably an example of  the kind of structure used in the past. I look huge in it.  It was not very tall.

Kevin.  Ocean. Happiness.

Since St. Croix is tropical, there are many feral chickens.  This one has 3 little chicks she is mothering.  She and the chicks just wandered into a restaurant in Frederiksted, the town we were staying near.  I thought that was hilarious and cute.

Sunset off our porch.  Wow.

I just love wet sand between my toes!

Things didn't go really really smoothly at home, though everyone survived.  Kevin's mother kindly stayed with the children and did a great job, but she got very tired.  The older two girls are in the throes of final projects and exams so it wasn't a great time for us to run off.  We booked the cottage a year ago without really thinking about college issues AT ALL. The Crow's Nest, where we stayed, is delightful and often booked way out in advance.

It was a great thing for us to get away together to a relaxing place.  We work hard in life and sometimes I get weary.  I feel renewed in energy now, and Kevin and I had many lovely hours together.

I was really glad to get home though. I adore my kids and missed them.

Random Thoughts

Kevin and I are going to St. Croix in the next few weeks, for the third year running.  It is part of the U. S. Virgin Islands and a delightful place.  We are excited!

Lydia had an interview for a summer child care position last week, and Naomi has an interview for a web design position next week.  It is shocking how grown up our children are, or at least the eldest 2.  Rose and Daniel and Sarah are still small, and the other 4 kids are young as well, though growing fast.

Speaking of growing fast, Angela has shot up to 5 ft. 2 inches tall. She is 11 years old.  Joseph is very close to 5 ft. 9 inches tall at 14 years of age.  Isaac, let's not even talk about Isaac. Ok, let's talk about Isaac. He is 6 ft. 2 inches tall and looms over his parents.

Miriam will apparently be our tiny girl. She is now 5 ft. even and may well not grow much more. Which is fine. Being small is great!

I had a random thought this week.  A long, long, long, long time ago, I took a difficult Nuclear Engineering class the first semester of graduate school.  My background was Materials Science so I was quite flummoxed.  The only reason I passed that class was because the teaching assistant was amazing.  So Deb, if I never thanked you before, I thank you now for saving me in that class.

If I had failed that course, it would have been quite devastating. I was having a hard enough time adjusting to graduate school.  I got an A. Again, thanks to Deb.

I keep praying for wisdom during this season.  So many kids doing so many things. Older kids growing up.  Younger kids needing discipline and love and guidance.

I went to the chiropractor this week. I don't like exercising, especially boring core exercises, but I really need to work on my core, which was messed up last year because of the hysterectomy. I keep having neck and back pain.  So I am determined to exercise somewhat regularly.  Again, I don't enjoy that kind of exercise. Walking is fun, but I need to work harder on my abdominal muscles and all like that.

New Counter!

Our main bathroom has an odd counter length so it took us 13 + years to get around to changing the counter. The previous counter was a weird color. We also discovered, when Kevin removed it last week, that it had mold growing in certain areas of the backsplash. Yuck!

So now we have a gorgeous new counter and we are so happy!

Except that there is still a very minor plumbing leak which Kevin has to cope with.  Sigh. But when he fixes it, and I know he will, it'll be 100% great.

Literate Children

I was an early reader, I guess.  I don't remember when I learned to read, but I was bored in first grade because the teacher was teaching way simpler stuff than I already knew.

When I was 8 years old, my parents moved our family to South America. I remember, distinctly, reading All Creatures Great and Small on the plane on the way down. So I was reading a many hundred page book with complex vocabulary at the age of 8.

I am not trying to brag.  I just learned to read easily.

So far, none of our children have had major issues with reading. Thankfully.

One thing I learned with Isaac, in particular, was that the books I loved as a child were not necessarily the ones he liked.  He's a boy, and I realized (with some difficulty) that his interests were allowed to be very different from mine. Our eldest girls loved the Laura Ingalls Wilder books and other books with female protagonists but Isaac, and then Joseph, were less enthralled with some books.

With the older boys, I started bringing home lots of graphic books and novels when they were fluent but young readers. They liked being able to look at pictures while also reading lots of prose.

As the children have gotten older, I've worked hard to provide books of interest.  Now, I definitely don't believe that "any book is a good book".  I've nixed many a book because it has horrendous themes.  But, I've also realized that weird books can be good books.

Like the Horrible Science, and Horrible History, and Horrible Geography, and Murderous Math books, all non fiction books with "horrible" stuff left in.  It is secular but fun, and the kids love reading them on their own.

No, its not Les Miserables but that's Ok, even though I'm a determined reader, I rarely like the classics.

I want my kids to enjoy reading and be fluent readers, but I'm fine if they enjoy books I don't so long as they aren't ungodly.

I'm thankful for Amazon and online groups with great ideas of what to get our kids so they can enjoy reading.