wallpaper rippers

Tonight Tricia, Dan, Doug and I were playing tennis on the courts down the street and Courtney was keeping an eye on the kids. When the phone rang, we were surprised an worried. Then Courtney reported that Izzy came to her and confessed that she "breaked the wall."

She follows a tradition of "wall breakers" though her brother and sister didn't call it that. Among the four of them, I think I repaired the most wallpaper ripping from the hands of Carter, but here is a picture of the piece Izzy broke.

I was surprised to discover that the wallpaper on the wall was half an inch wider than the wallpaper on the roll. It really did stretch that much in the 3 minutes that it spent in the bath. It all turned out very nicely. You can't even tell where the piece was replaced. But Izzy...is still "on restrictions" as she says.

how to french braid

Step 1: Bear and raise three daughters to the age that all of them are sufficiently old enough to have long hair and not old enough to not want you to do their hair.

Step 2: Make them sit in front of you for consecutive days until you have mastered the art that you have been reading about.

Disclaimer: Keep in mind that they may remember those days unpleasantly for the rest of their lives. So much so that they don't even WaNT to learn how to french braid their own daughter's hair.

Step 3: Take some small measure of satisfaction that they really did like it and think it was worth it when they DO ask you to teach them.

Step 4: Have fun braiding your daughter's hair once again before she braids her daughter's hair.

Well done Tricia!

happy birthday izzy

She is afraid of the fire on her cupcake,

But otherwise having a very wonderful

Birthday!

off the mountain

I asked my mountain man to wait to shave

 so that I could see what his beard looks like nowadays.

 I am quite sure that I have never seen him  like this:

After 12 days and +/- 70 miles he truly looked like a mountain man.

With so many days without any kind of communication, I was overjoyed

...really, actually tearful,

when I finally heard from him the second to the last day.

It is a blessing that they were all safe. When I asked him who had the best experience, he thought for a moment and then said that he did. I am glad that he enjoyed it and it makes the fact that I missed him so much, easier to bear. I have truly been relaxing at Tricia's "house of peace". Since Dan was away at his own scout camp for a week as well, we were the lonely widows together. Lonely, if you don't count the four littles that is...thank heaven for those sweet things.

I enjoyed taking a couple of pictures,

 but I sure am glad to have his now clean shaven face back home again.

on her way to nauvoo

 The seminary class from Eustis, Florida was invited to take a road trip with their teacher, Sister Ingalls to Nauvoo. For Brianna, that meant a flight back to Orlando before she could head north again. Carter and I got gate passes to see her off.

She sent me this nice picture of the Nauvoo Temple

and another late sunset shot from Adam-ondi-Ahman. The picture is not so great, but I am quite sure she will always remember the beautiful experience that she had there.

needlepoint

My grandmother did tatting.

My mother did not do any kind of crafts.

I learned how to needlepoint from my mother-in-law.

Tricia doesn't love that kind of thing,

but Courtney does!

Maybe we are on the every other generation plan with her family!

what they do

The four Seguine kids have a play place. They all like to play with their toys and they all like to play games. They all like to dress up and pretend and they all like computer games. Today I took a few pictures.

Here are Courtney and Carter with the legos.

JB is busy with Wizard 101.

Izzy's in her favorite dress up costume--Spiderman!

wing haven

 

We went to these  interesting gardens near downtown Charlotte. The lady who lived there planned and developed them her whole life. She loved the birds and even let some of them live wild in the house with her.

    

 

 

rosedale plantation

We went to visit one of the oldest surviving homes in Charlotte today. Apparently the rest of the old houses got ruined ie burned after the civil war when the Union soldiers decided to destroy the south.

 

The tour guide was extremely interesting, but the house wasn’t very photogenic from the inside.

  

Tricia and boys are exploring the archeological dig showing the barn and the 16 stalls that once stood there and even housed an elephant when the circus came to town.

The gardens were restored in the early 1900’s.

The house is three miles from downtown Charlotte and the owner, who was a doctor,   had a 30 minute buggy commute to his office.

botanical gardens@unc-charlotte

   

two new accounts

At our weekly missionary meeting today, it was suggested that we help our grandkids get an account at  new.familysearch.org  so that they can learn about their ancestors. I helped both Courtney and Carter set up their accounts. Carter followed one of his lines out to 1429 and was thrilled with the idea that he had a many- greats grandfather that lived six centuries ago!

efy

While we have been busy having grandkid camp, Brianna has been busy at Eckerd College in St. Petersburg, Florida. She along with 399 other high school age kids spent the week together learning more about the Savior.

She says she loved it all except the cold dorm rooms and can’t wait to go back next year (with a blanket).

   

kid camp—fly em

 

Before we started our amazing flying adventure today, Spartans got a makeover.

 

Then we were off to our flying field that the kite fairy kindly mowed for us since yesterday, and she also sent us some great wind today.

Launch!

Soar!

  

Launch!

Soar!

Launch!

Launch!

Launch!

They are all soaring!

It was really a beautiful sight, but impossible to capture the huge expanse of sky and color with my little camera. Quite a few families driving by stopped  to chat and admire the kites.

Carter successfully launched and flew Spartans!

 

The kids  are having fun chasing kite shadows.

Then Peter, manning the four line kite called Revolution, began chasing the kids with the kite.      

And Carter reversed the game.