Merry Christmas And A Happy New Year!

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Mommy Moments

MERRY CHRISTMAS AND A HAPPY NEW YEAR!

By Melanie Lewis

Greetings!

I am happy to report that we are all well.  This year, the parents spent their time accounting, commuting, gardening and hanging out with lots of dogs.  We have a long-term guest, named Mr. Darcy, filling the role of Golden Retriever.  He’s a sweet, loving dog and has fit into the activities as a good camper.  He hikes, walks, swims and plays ball with the entire crew.  He’s also on good terms with Percy the cat.

Bennett and Evan spent another summer at Camp Owatonna.  They excelled in: waterskiing, trips, running 4 on the 4th in Bridgeton (Bennett came in 3rd for his age) archery and camp games.  They played soccer and Evan, cross country.  Both teams did very well and the boys are keeping active biking, sledding and exercising at the local YMCA until spring soccer returns.

We’re very proud of their academic achievements maintaining good grades. They also have been doing various jobs; dog-walking, Bennett’s refereeing younger players and Evan has a small candy business (if he doesn’t eat all the profits). 

We’re grateful for all the good this year and look forward to the next. 

With love, Melanie, Steve, Bennett, Evan, & Percy the cat

For some winter fun…

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Getting Our Kicks on Route 66

I wish I knew what percentage of our time is spent in the car.  If I had the mental lifting power to program my Fitbit, I probably could find out.  On most days it seems like about half. From school to sports and trips we log a few miles. We’ve found a lot of fun things to do in the car and logged quite a few memories.

The earliest memories were of getting the babies to go to sleep when all else failed.  As they got older they were a captive audience.  I could sing songs like; Old MacDonald Had A Farm, B-I-N-G-O-, Baa Baa Blacksheep, Mary Had a Little Lamb and the Itsy Bitsy Spider.  There’s nothing like getting a duet going in the car especially if you get “bridged” on the inter-coastal.

After a few trips to library story time, I discovered a section of CDs.  Our repertoire expanded to all kinds of music.  Here’s a list of our favorites:

The Wiggles

Movie soundtracks, Frozen, Cars, Lilo and Stitch, Moana

Ziggly Marley Family Time

HAPA (A Hawaiian group)

Tom Chapin In My Hometown

A CD compilation hostess gift from a friend’s birthday; “Hot Dog” and “Birdhouse in my Soul” by They Might Be Giants, Dan Crow, Raffi and The B52s.

The Nutcracker Suite

Soon they chirped, “Play the music,” as soon as they got into the car.

In time, I discovered spoken books.  The Barabara Robinson books, “Best Worst School Year”…”Christmas Pageant Ever,” are fabulous entertainment.  As the kids got older, Harry Potter came on the scene.  I enjoyed the books more than the movies.  Lucky for me that I did, we’ve listened to all of the books at least 2 times.

When we tire of the books, we go to the old fall back of games in the car.  Alphabet – finding something that starts with A then B, and so on.  Finding state license plates – Print out a sheet to tick off the list and keep it in the car.  We still haven’t found an Arkansas, but got Alaska and Hawaii without a hitch. The Green Glass Door – A guessing game.  Someone thinks of a word or object that is the same and the other person has to guess the rule that applies.  For example, I would say, “egg and puzzle”.  If you guessed the rule is double consonant then you guessed it, if not I have to come up with another example of the rule until you can.  My son started a game with “Lamborghini and table”.  Can you guess?  No more suspense the answer is “things with wood”.  The Lamborghini part really threw us off the trail!  If you can confirm Lamborghini’s have woods, I’d like to know.

Make your own car memories and may you have miles of smiles!