Fun and Fast Summer/Growing Up!

 Dear Friends and Family,

Wow, it's been so long since I've written those words! Tonight I said to myself, "If I don't write this blog soon, my children will be fully grown before I blog again!" Tomorrow is Rosh Hashanah and the kids have the day off school so I'm taking advantage writing on a night when I will get to sleep past 6:30am the next day. Although I'm covering a lot of material, I'll do my best to be brief!

Let's start by going back to the beginning of Summer: 

In mid June, Claire promoted from Elementary school to Middle school! As PTO President, I got to hand out the tassels to the students. I was so proud to hand Claire hers! I managed not to cry on stage. Claire also got to play her viola in a duet to accompany the 5th grade song. The hardest part of her promotion for me was when the Mallard Mascot came to lead the 5th graders through the halls for the last time and all the teachers and students came out to line the halls and cheer! I just love the community of our Elementary school and I will miss having the kids at the same school.

After the ceremony with the Mayo Mallard.

Claire with her fabulous 5th grade teacher, Mrs. Hargrove!

Back home to celebrate!

All the neighbors loved the big sign!

This summer was our shortest summer yet! Our school system went extra days due to a snowy winter, and they decided to start school back earlier (end of August vs. after Labor Day). As a result we had two months of summer break. In that time we fit in a swim team season, Vacation Bible Camp, two family vacations to the Outer Banks area of North Carolina, and Claire's Strings Camp.

 

Claire smiles after winning her heat! She got ribbons for freestyle and breast stroke.

The Strategier Family Vacation to Jarvisburg, NC took us to an amazing house right on the Sound. The water was 3 feet at it's deepest and was very calm. The house had it's own kayaks and private beach. It was perfect for the all the littles in our group!

Uno with Uncle Kyle!

Checking out the view from the deck!

Aunt Sara kayaking both kids!

More cards with Aunt Sara.

Fun drinks with my mixologist brother!

Fourth of July Sunset was red, white and blue!

Puzzle fun with the family!

Cousin Crew! Herding them for a picture was a major challenge!

Dad and Dixie

We took our kids to the big waves and they had so much fun jumping!

Date night! Chris took me to a nice restaurant in Duck, N.C. for cocktails and dinner.

Dad and Dixie bought us all crab to pick on our last night!

When we returned from vacation, Claire and I had a planned dinner with friends to recreate a photo from Pre-K days to our now Middle school girls stage!

Same girls, same sweet smiles!

Time flies!

We then wished Claire a wonderful first camp experience. She auditioned and was accepted into a free strings camp at North Bay (on the Chesapeake Bay but near the Delaware State line almost 2 hours away.) During her four days of sleep away camp, she would be practicing for a concert while also enjoying ropes courses, zip line, giant swing, and other fun camp experiences. 

While Claire was gone, Will and I had some good quality Mom and Son time!

But Will was happy to get Claire back from camp!

Claire's orchestra group put on an amazing show which surprised Chris and I with how wonderful the children sounded. You could tell that they really worked hard!

The next morning after coming home with Claire, we headed back to the Outer Banks, but this time we stayed in Nags Head, just a block from the beach!

Claire loved to boogie board!

Gliders, sled rides, and kites at the Jockey Ridge State Park!

The look alikes! Chris, Kelli, and Claire on check out day.

When we got home we decided to a make a point of going to Six Flags. Although we found some fun, we felt annoyed by tired and rude park workers and found the facilities in need of lots of TLC. 

Ready for Halloween!

Here are some fun Turkey Point summer pics from the beach and crab traps!

Crab: "Must hang on!"

Winnie with her best friends Fisher and Chloe!

Will had fun meeting his teacher at Sneak a peek! He also found out that his best friend is in his class this year!

Claire's Girl Scout Troop is raising awareness to save the Osprey from injuries relating to discarded fishing line. Claire went on a trip with her Girl Scouts leader to deliver a wounded osprey to a raptor recovery shelter. She had lots of fun and learned a lot about these majestic birds.

This is Onyx in her transport box.

She had a broken wing that needed help!

We prepared for the new school year with a visit to Claire's Middle school (Central Middle School - CMS- also Claire's initials). While Claire was overwhelmed by the size of her new school, she was reassured seeing many friends from her Elementary school, sports, Girl Scouts, and church going to the same school and looking equally overwhelmed! 

 

So far she has adjusted to her new school well. Her biggest fear in starting Middle school was missing a day and having to catch up. Unfortunately for her, she ended up getting COVID and had to miss a whole week of school! Chris and I had been on the fence about allowing Claire to get a phone, but she made us so proud by her independence in getting herself ready for school each morning, always preparing for practices (Field Hockey and Viola), and getting homework done on time. Now that she may be starting afterschool clubs and is freely traveling the neighborhood to visit with friends, it will be much easier for us to keep in contact.

Chris and I decided to get her a Gabb phone. It is a good beginner phone with NO apps. The phone only allows calling and texting. You can take pictures but you can't text them unless you add that ability to your plan. You can also listen to music. It's pretty barebones, but we thought that would be a good start! We worked up a list of rules for her to sign and then we presented her with an index card that had her phone number written out with no hyphens or parentheses. Chris placed it in front of her at the dinner table and said, "Claire I have a number game for you to solve."

Claire looked at the card and said, "Huh?" She was clearly perplexed. Will walks in and glances at the index card and says, "Is that a phone number?"

I look at him incredulously and say, "What makes you think it's a phone number?"

Will says, "Well it starts with the number 443 and most phone numbers start with that."

I say, "Are there even enough numbers there to be a phone number?"

Will glances back and says, "Yep."

Meanwhile, Claire starts to grin and the grin gets bigger as Will makes his case. So I go into the other room and I bring her a gift bag, which she opens with glee!

Later I said to Claire, "I'm really impressed by Will's maturity. He was really excited for you to get a phone and he didn't complain that he wasn't getting anything." Claire nodded and said, "I know! He's been really nice to me about it!"

Here are a few pictures of the kids on their first day of school!

Will's bus driver quit the morning of the first day of school so about 15 minutes after the bus was supposed to arrive, we got a message from the school system telling us we needed to find a ride to school. Luckily my friend Andrea jumped into action and loaded all the kids into her car! We now have a carpool set up and although it's inconvenient, it is much more dependable the the bus.

Claire before starting Middle School. The school system switched the start time for Middle School to 9:15am, so Claire's bus arrives between 8:45am and 9am. 

Her bus came late, but it still came!

On Labor Day weekend, we did our normal trip to Oneonta for the Supple Family Reunion. George and Beth hosted us beautifully once again. It was so nice to see family members and to have a good visit with Grandma and Grandpa Supple.

Family meals under the big tent!

Claire, Marie and Mandy go for a gator ride! 

My most recent event was our neighborhood Turkey Point Day. I am heading up the committee to build the new playground so I was supporting the silent auction, and I was also on the events committee to help plan Turkey Point Day. 

We had a great planning meeting at my friend Diana's house in July:

And we had a great turn out in volunteers and for attendance of the actual event!

The event included a DJ, a bounce house, the silent auction, meat smoking competition, baking competition, relay races, ice cream truck, and raffle. 

Our gourmet quality meat smokers! Mike and Mike

Big decisions at the ice cream truck

Our bakers!

Whew! As fun as that was, I'm glad to have it behind me! Here are the pictures for the Playground we now raised enough money to purchase for the community! Woohoo!

I hope everyone is having a great week!

Love,

Bethie