pamelamyers | August 30, 2017
Mark told me an interesting story the other day. He and Sam were out back recently and she was playing with something, he can’t recall what. She said, “This damn thing doesn’t work!” And he told her, “Sam, don’t say that!” Then she said, “Ok, this God damn thing doesn’t work!” Oh boy. That’s my girl.
pamelamyers | August 28, 2017
Mark’s dad has been wanting to get his boat into the water all summer. We finally did it! Sam has never been on a boat and she was really looking forward to it. Luckily, you can launch a boat not far from where we live at the Ridley marina. Sam got her life jacket on and was ready to go!
I don’t think she expected it, but once we got away from the marina area, Mark let Sam drive! She couldn’t believe she was actually driving a real boat, not some toy boat at the boardwalk. An. Actual. Boat!
She did pretty good, not too many crazy maneuvers!
After Pop Pop started driving again, we sped up a bit. The spray was really jumping up and Sam was yelling about getting wet. Thankfully, she could hide inside her hoodie.
Later she decided to sit in the front where you really get wet! But she loved it.
Here’s Captain Pop Pop and Mark out for a spin.
After our ride, while Mark and Rich were getting the boat out of the water, Sam and I visited the ducks. I swear, that kid finds animal friends everywhere she goes! She really did like it, and I think she’d enjoy and even longer ride on a boat sometime. Unfortunately, her mommy is not too thrilled with boats, although this ride was fine. Maybe your dad can take you, Sam. And maybe he’ll let you drive again!
pamelamyers | August 21, 2017
Today, something very, very cool happened. A solar eclipse, which went coast to coast for the first time since 1918, happened in the U.S. The path went from Oregon to South Carolina, but unfortunately, we were not in the path of totality. We did get a 79.9% eclipse, which is still pretty cool. I have to admit, I didn’t even have this on my radar. Mark did, of course, and he got us all psyched up for it. Thankfully, it was on a Monday so I had off. In the Philadelphia area, the partial eclipse started at 1:21 p.m., had the maximum coverage at 2:44 p.m. and ended at about 4:00 p.m.
We decided to make a party of sorts, and invited my mom, Mark’s dad, and Sam’s friend, Julia and her mom over to watch. Early in the day, we watched live TV coverage of the parts of the U.S. getting a total eclipse. I managed to get a good shot from the TV. We didn’t get to see that in person, but look how great it is! If you look at the small screen at the bottom, you can see how it turned to night when the full eclipse was happening.
We were fully prepared with special eclipse viewing glasses and special eclipse day t-shirts, purchased especially for the occasion. 🙂
You may notice the change in attire…Sam and Julia are nuts. They wanted to be twins. 🙂
It was a pretty amazing event. Maybe not a once in a lifetime, as many were calling it on TV, but it’s not like it happens every day. It’s one of those things that you need to share. I hope Sam looks back and remembers that crazy day when she was little when the moon just about covered up the sun. And how she shared it with the people that she loves. We certainly wanted to share it with the person we love more than anything else. As Julia’s mom said about the girls, more beautiful than any sun. I know to us, she shines brighter. That is for sure.
pamelamyers | August 20, 2017
Yesterday we took a bike ride in Manayunk. It is so nice riding the trail there. Sam loves it because it’s an easy ride, nice and flat, shady, and there are not a ton of people to avoid. She also loves that she sometimes sees geese and other animals in the water that she can feed. This trip, she fed the geese, and some turtles, and even a duck or two. And our trip ended up with ice cream. All in all, a good day! Except for the part where Mark and I wanted to stay and eat dinner there and Sam was whiney and tired and that whole idea got scrapped. I swear, she was a lot easier to take out when she was a baby! In some ways, the older she gets, the harder it gets. Maybe because she has a mind of her own now and she doesn’t have to just go along with whatever we say. Well. That has to stop!
Family selfie!
Sam loves to take pics of Mom and Dad.
My two bike riding champions. 🙂
Turtles! Sam fed them all her snacks. I guess it’s a good thing we stopped for ice cream – she gave away all her food!
I love this picture. Just like me, Sam gets “ice cream headache.” Mark never does, which is so weird.
Until next time, Manayunk!
pamelamyers | August 19, 2017
Sam just finished her last week of camp this summer, this time at Tyler Arboretum. The theme was Fizz, Bang, Pop! and it was supposed to be a week of potions and experimentation. Her counselors were Alex and Kerianne and she seemed to like them. The week started out a bit rocky, unfortunately. There were a few issues that took Mark and I aback, and we spent the first few days of the week going back and forth on email and the phone with the woman who runs the camp program. Basically, some of the kids were a bit rough at recess and she got shoved around a bit. We weren’t too happy about that. We absolutely LOVE Tyler and Sam does too. I didn’t want her experience with the place ruined because the counselors weren’t supervising the kids properly.
We did get it worked out, and Sam enjoyed camp a lot. She made friends (Emma and Taylor and another random girl whose name she never did find out…oh, Sam, when are you going to get better at asking people’s names!?) Most of these photos are not ours, obviously. We do love our daughter, but we don’t stalk her at camp! The camp counselors post photos on a closed Facebook group and we downloaded them. 🙂
On the first day of camp, Sam was super excited to make slime! She has been begging me to make slime at home and I keep saying no. Why this is a thing now, I have no idea. But alllll the kids want to make slime.
On the second day, it was a bit rainy, but the kids did get to the stream to catch bugs and minnows. Sam’s favorite part of that day was making out crazy contraptions to keep an egg from breaking when thrown off of one of the treehouses!
Mark did drop off and pick up Tuesday through Thursday while I was working, and Sam dragged him around to find the last bug sculpture that we hadn’t seen when we were there biking this summer. It was the only bug that we never did see and since her camp group found it, Sam knew right where it was. She took me to see it too, on her last day. She almost got lost, but eventually found the right path. She’s quite the little tour guide!
Later that week they made balloon rockets, watched the counselors try to make a watermelon explode using rubber bands, and, Sam’s favorite part, they went to the butterfly house.
Sam loves the butterfly house. On the last day of camp, when I went to pick her up, I asked her if she wanted to go again before we left. It was actually pretty awesome. There was no one in there but us, not even a Tyler person, and it was full of butterflies!
In the tiny pond inside, we found this little guy! How cute!
The butterflies were plentiful…
…as were the caterpillars!
Sam told me that a butterfly landed on her when her camp group was there and she showed me just how friendly some butterflies can be. She just held out her hand in front of a butterfly, and it went right to her! That totally made her day.
On one of the last days, they made ice cream, which Sam did NOT like. I mean, I personally have never had homemade ice cream, and I’m sure it’s good, but I don’t know how great it can be being made in a ziploc bag.
As a side note, the little boy who has his arm around her apparently had a bit of a crush on our little girl. Sam told us he was stuck to her like glue the whole week. There are a bunch of photos that we were able to get from the Facebook page that I didn’t post here, and it every one of them it seems, that little boy is right next to Sam. It cracks me up. It’s not the first time that some little boy has seemed to like her, and she has no idea why. Oh, Sam. One day, you’ll appreciate it. Not one day soon. No. Not anytime soon. NO.
