Dentist

Both James & Leah lost a tooth on our vacation! But this post is from before we left! We recently went to the dentist & I forgot to ask how many more baby teeth James has, but he already has another loose one - surely he's almost done! 

Poor Leah had cavities & has to go back & do a filling & an extraction :( 

They did a big X-ray:

Amelie was in the no-cavity club with James & they both got sealants - but no photos of her because she wasn't having a good time! She's like me & is not a fan even of the cleaning. 

Summer School Outfit of the Day

I wasn't planning on changing jobs at the library (& so didn't realize I wouldn't be home during the day with the kids again this summer!) So Leah's the only kid who went to summer school - and she was the only kid at her bus stop! One week of school the big kids were at Wakonda. The other neighborhood kids went to the neighborhood school & were at a stop closer to our house in a big group. Since the bus was usually late & there was not much to do, I got in the habit of taking her photo every morning. I also tried to make friends with a Spanish-speaking mom who walked by from the other stop. 

This was the first day that started off the trend & the bus was fantastically late (more than 30 minutes!) Leah was not impressed: 

Pigtails!

About halfway through, they adjusted the official time of the bus to 8am so I stopped being (as) irritated about its lateness. She was the 2nd to last pickup and school didn’t start til 8:20 - an hour after when we have to be at Jeff during the regular school year. So that part was nice!

She skipped school the day of the dentist appointment- it was right in the middle of the day. 

They had crazy hair day:

And also a pajama day that coincided with show-and-tell. She wanted to bring some of her rock collection. 

Camp Wakonda

Sam drove the kids down to Camp Wakonda for the 3rd time - I guess actually 4th, since James went twice last year. Here's the blogpost from Amelie's first time & James's first time. 

Leah was very jealous - especially because the brochure says 7 year olds can go - but James didn't go for the first time until he was 9. We've tentatively decided she can go next year when she's 8. 

Here's the packing list: 

Drop off picture: 

I'm not sure if you can tell, but the name on that nametag is JIM, which he went by all week. 

Amelie tie-dyed a shirt in arts & crafts & brought it home - these are from the photos the camp uploaded to facebook for us. 

James took a dance class - they learned the YMCA, the ketchup song, the stanky leg, and more dances that he doesn't know the name of. They performed at the campfire on the last night. 

This must have been a different day, since Jim is wearing a different shirt: 

And the same reasoning for Amelie in arts & crafts - this must have been a different day. She says this was when she was making her planet: 

Here's Ottawa cabin: 

There's Amelie in the middle: 

Amelie is second from the right, singing? yelling? 

See James waving in the back? 

James said this was part of an improv game. 

Here they are at pick-up. It was hot!

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Since I didn’t post it last year, here is a letter from Amelie from last summer (neither of the kids wrote letters this year!)

Hi Mom and Dad,

It's been a world of events at Wakonda. It's currently Wednesday and I've just now found time to write! (I hope you can read this well enough.) So much has happened and I can't seem to recall any of it. A few hits have been predator vs prey, a [something??] his chase game that is extremely unbalanced, our opening campfire, and a pool party with the Outbacks that changed my cabin's plans in the best way possible. Tonight was our second camp activity "the great adventure." We had dinner in a jungle themed dining hall where I ate a few too many honey buns. One of my cabin mates brought bandanas for all of us so we were matching during it! After we went on a scavenger hunt for cardboard, tape and markers and made a makeshift boat. Then all the cabins had to swim across the pool with them! The winner was Jack, his cabin just poked two holes for arms and he swam across! Speaking of the pool, I was able to get a green band this year and it was way funner if you're not stuck in the deep end! [I think she meant shallow end] It's been great and I can't believe it's closing campfire tomorrow! At least it means I'll be home soon, probably before this letter gets here. 

Love, Amelie 

Singer/Songwriter

 Song lyrics, preserved here for posterity:

Father's Day

Sam played the music at church on Father's Day. 

I tried to take a photo of him with the kids: 

James is in a fun phase of making this weird face in all the pictures. Then someone came up & wanted to take a photo of all of us together but it didn't go much better!

The kids filled out these sheets while Sam was practicing:

We had dinner with Sam’s folks but didn’t get a picture of the dads!