Jeff has been enjoying his new building, which means being able to expand his fleet of classic cars. His newest addition, a vintage Ford, is a fun deviation from his typical Chevy-only taste. Summer means car show season, and the girls and I stopped by on one of our Girl Scout outing days to surprise him at a local car show.
We are super proud of Eden (what's new) for earning the highest Community Service award in Girl Scouting, the Silver Trefoil. She was honored at a local awards ceremony, with other recipients, as well as at a Washington, DC ceremony. Eden was also asked if she would sing the National Anthem at one of the ceremonies, and she did an amazing job! The Silver Trefoil represents over 100 hours of community service in very specific categories: federal government, state government, local government, general service, international service, and all hours are juried and have to be done only with approved agencies/organizations. Among her service, Eden volunteered as a docent at the Smithsonian Air and Space Museum, worked at the Prince William National Park, volunteered at the Occoquan Wildlife Refuge, assisted local cultural exchanges and packed food for both domestic and international relief.
and the DC ceremony
I am behind on blogging, again, so I figure I better catch up before next week, since it's the beginning of camps and summer excursions, etc. The first updates are from Scouts, as we are wrapping up our Scout year, and it's been super full and terrific! Our past couple of meetings have been a lot of fun for the girls. We had a mother/daughter tea party as an inter-troop event with our sister Daisy troop. The girls dressed up and had chocolate covered strawberries and lots of little tea cookies and sandwiches and then watched a Barbie movie.
The girls also had a stitching badge night where they made no-sew dog toys, handsewn kawaii felt toys and Eden taught them all to sew on the machine!
We are getting down to the last few meetings of the year, and our Girl Scout tea party is always a blast. We invite the Daisy troop to join us, so that we can meet any girls who will be joining us in the Fall. The moms join us, too, and the girls all feast on chocolate covered strawberries, tea sandwiches and lots of little cookies and cupcakes. Then, they get to watch a fun movie on the wall! The girls loved it, and it was nice to see them enjoying some frou frou fun!
It's always a challenge to keep Grace busy - and healthy - so we are thrilled that she is in her second year of tennis and soccer. She is proud of her trophies from last season, and she is soon adding horse back riding and swimming to her list of activities. Fortunately, we can do all of these things during the day and avoid the evening and weekend lessons, which are always packed. Grace has met some friends in soccer, especially, who also share her love of horses, so it's been fun for her to meet up with them each week.
She doesn't get much sleep these days with all of her civic and school work, and last weekend was the Occoquan River Cleanup Day, which had her checking in kayakers and cleanup volunteers in the early hours. She and the other volunteers picked up 4 lbs of trash from the dam site, including a ton of glass, which has accumulated there over the past however many years. There is still so much glass to cleanup before kids can safely use the trail down to the water. The put-in site for kayaks at Eden's Adopt-a-Stream site has been newly refurbished by PW Co, though and they have done an amazing job adding new rock and clearing the trail so that recreational boaters can put in after the dam. Eden's stream-site is a big job, because when the dam is opened, a lot of trash comes through and gets stuck in the weeds and bushes. She is hoping to start holding workshops at the site about pollution and benthic-macroinvertebrates, as well. PW Co did have a nice surprise for her when she got to the site for her cleanup day - they erected her sign! She was super excited!
One of Eden's favorite things to do is to teach the watershed model, something else that she learned from PWSWCD and even though she has moved onto a lot of different community service efforts, she still looks for opportunities to teach about water pollution and its path into the Chesapeake. Last week, she taught the model to my Brownie and Junior troops and to her Cadette/Senior Troop. We always appreciate PWSWCD allowing us to check out the model whenever there is an opportunity for her to teach it.
Finally, Eden's Congressional Award efforts have evolved into a new kind of work. Starting last month, Eden started her first hours of 100 volunteering at an assisted living facility. She is almost at 20 hours, having helped with bingo, cooking and crafts. She really enjoys being there and has found that many of the residents are just enjoying having someone to talk to. With her school year finished (except for math and German), Eden has a lot of availability to volunteer this month, so she has been able to have some consistency, which has been nice in order to get to know many of the residents.
Eden presented her Girl Scout Gold Award proposal in front of a panel this month and is anxiously awaiting their decision. It was a stressful experience, but a learning one, and she is just hoping to get the go-ahead to start her Take Action Project. Regardless, I am so proud of her. She has really tackled everything this year with gusto. Once she gets started, she will have a blog for her project to follow!
Eden began sewing lessons again and has been sewing a ton this week, including finishing a cuddle monster for Grace, a zombie for her cousin Erich's zombie themed birthday, letter pillows for her aunt and a snuggie for her Gramma in Michigan.
Meanwhile, Grace is reading faster than we can get her books and I'm thrilled to see that she has found so many series that she is enjoying, from Animal Ark to Pony Pals to Saddle Club. The theme here is horses, so if it's a book or a series or books, she is either reading it or has plans to. Fortunately, between McKays Bookstore, the library (which, believe it or not, doesn't have much in terms of the series she likes, which often come from the UK), Amazon, eBay, Half.com and some other venues, we are able to find some good used book sources for all of her books.
Eden always looks forward to her homeschool dances, and she was especially looking forward to this theme which was a post-apocolpytic/steampunk sort of thing. She caught up with her preschool-friend Miranda, and they just looked adorable - actually, that doesn't cover it- GORGEOUS!
This is a little project I started last year - replacing all of our mulch with rock. It's expensive but sustainable, and we only have to replenish what gets blown out or moved. Eventually, I want to make the rock two inches high, so it will take a couple of years to pile it up, but mulch had to be replaced every year and snakes were starting to hide in it. Last year, we had at least four large black snakes making their home underneath the top layer of mulch, which is a little surprising when you go out to pull weeds or walk around. The deer were also eating any flowers I planted and with all I do, I really didnt have time to maintain and water everything. We also have an erosion problem in the front and side of the house, eventually I'll have a couple of retaining walls with more rock and then some barrier bushes. I'll be working on a rock area in the front later this week, where we will have a small firepit to roast marshmallows at night.
