Mushrooms? Um, yes please.

Okay, this is sort-of a weird post.  But, I'm okay with that.  My Kansas friends have told me they like seeing what we're doing here in Kentucky, so here goes! 

We go on a lot of hikes around here.  I think we've been on 17 different trails so far.  Sometimes, I get a little bored.  Don't get me wrong, the hikes are gorgeous.  It's like walking in a jungle not a forest - at least not a forest like you would find in Colorado which is really my only other frame of reference for hiking.  It's hard to describe with my Kansas brain, but I guess it's just ridiculously lush with all kind of plants that make you feel like you're in the tropical rain forest building at the zoo. Not kidding at all!  Seriously, the moss growing on the trees is amazing! 

But, sometimes the trails do start to feel similar after a while.  So I spend a lot of time really looking around.  What I've noticed on the last two trails we've been on is there are tons of mushrooms out there of all different shapes, colors and sizes.  So I started taking pictures.  Weird, I know, but you just don't grow up seeing these in Kansas!  So humor me a bit as I show you a few of the mushrooms I've seen lately. 
 

 

                                                 

 

 

                        

  

 Anybody know what this is??  It was rubbery like a mushroom. 











So, I know it's a little weird, but still...mushroom hunting helps keeps the kids from getting bored too!  And, honestly, I just never saw this back in Kansas!  

Sam, Sam the Swimming Man!

It's summertime so that means one thing at the Moon house:  it's time to swim! 

The girls are on a year-round team so they are constantly in the pool, but during the summer we also always join a local summer team so they can have a little more fun swimming with friends and attending weekly meets.  It's less serious and more about just having fun. 

This summer it was finally Sam's turn to join the team too.  Oh, man, he's such a cutie in his little swim jammers.  He even tried to convince me to buy him a little speedo, but I think he can wait on that one! 

We're only able to go to 1 practice a week with the summer team since the girls' other team practices at the same time.  So he hasn't gotten much practice - maybe 4 or 5 total.  But he's steadily making progress so we decided to let him swim in his first meet this last Wednesday.  It was pretty funny! 

 

 

Here he's waiting for his turn to swim with his good friends, Jenny and Jessie! 

 

And then Isabella sat down with him to give him some last minute advice!

 

 

Here he's all lined up ready to race!   Luckily he was in the second heat.  The first heat is always the fastest swimmers in this league.  And there's always fewer boy swimmers than girl swimmers, so in his heat, he only had to race one other little boy.  They were equally matched - neither could really swim the whole length of the pool on their own!  But Sam took off confidently with a giant belly flop into the pool!  He finished pretty far ahead of the other little boy so he walked away with a first place blue ribbon.  I cannot even describe how excited he was.  He showed EVERYONE!  The next morning he casually told me, "Well, now I can be in the Olympics."  Love the confidence, Sam! 



 

Summer swimming will be over in another couple of weeks.  It's kept us busy for sure!  We don't have a pool in our small town, so we drive about 30 minutes to our summer team.  Normally, our year-round team practices in another town about 35 minutes away, but in the summer, in order to practice in a 50 meter pool, we drive to a pool that is 55 minutes away.  I have no idea why there aren't more 50 meter pools around here!  And we have to be there by 8am.  So many early mornings!!  We actually get up earlier in the summer than we do during the school year!

 

I figured up the other day that I spend about 11 hours a week driving the kids to their practices and meet.  I spend another 12 1/2 hours while they practice and 3-4 hours at their weekly meet.  It keeps us busy, but they have most afternoons and evenings free to just be kids!  And we all love it!  

A weekend of fishing and hiking!



It's been a good weekend!  Friday night we all went fishing with Dick and Marie and their two grandsons.  The pond was beautiful and filled to the brim with small blue gill fish.  I think between the six kids they easily caught 50 fish.  

 

Yes, it is actually impossible for Chris to look normal when someone points a camera in his direction!  I somehow missed taking a picture of Sam holding a fish.  But he went fishing with Dick a few weeks ago and I have a shot from then! 

The kids came home tired!  We slept in a bit and then went on a short hike in the Gorge Saturday morning.  Sometimes we read up about the trail we're going to do, other times we just randomly pick one.  It was a nice surprise to find that at the end of the trail was a great place to watch people rock climbing.  This is obviously going to be a passion of Sophia's so we're signing her up for some classes soon.  She will climb on anything we let her!  The kids also got to end the trail walking through a creek.  It was hot, so any chance to get a little wet was welcome! 

 

 

It's hard to tell, but this climber (who blends in with the rocks) free climbed right up the side of the rock to set up the rope for the other climbers.  He had serious skills!  The other climbers struggled even with  attached to the ropes!  

 

We've been in Kentucky about 3 months now and we've gone on 14 hikes on 12 different trails.  Not bad!  We've got countless more to try out too!   It's so nice to get outside and explore! 

 

Graduation for my biggest and littlest!

Tomorrow is the last day of school for my kiddos.  I'm not going to lie, I am so VERY ready for this school year to be over.  Stanton had 30 snow days this winter, so they had to go several extra weeks longer than usual to make up those days.  The only problem...we didn't live here then.  My kids were back in Kansas going to school all of those days.  So they got stuck making up snow days they never got to take.  Bummer!!  It has been a long school year! 

Last week Sam had his kindergarten graduation.  We were so worried about sending him to kindergarten last August since he was barely five years-old.  And then we walked into class and there were so many big six year-olds in the room that I started worrying even more.  But he has done great!  He can read so well - even better than his sisters did at this time.  So I'm really glad we went ahead and sent him.  And I'm also really glad that I'm done helping with kindergarten homework!  The graduation celebration was shockingly crowded. We were there 20 minutes early and could only stand along the wall to watch.  Lots of people showed up to watch these sweeties!  There was singing, dancing and lots of memorized lines!   He was pretty proud of his certificate! 

 

Then tonight we attended Sophia's fifth grade graduation.  Luckily, I already went through the emotions of having my baby leave elementary school since she started the year back in VC at the Intermediate school.  We've already gone through the drama of  entering a new school filled with so many new students, switching classes, beginning band, following a schedule, opening lockers, deodorant and discussing who is suddenly shaving and wearing make-up!!  When we moved to Stanton she had to finish out the last two months back in elementary school, but she adjusted well. 

I am so very proud of her.  She entered a new school with only two months left in the year into a class where kids had been together for six years.  And she did it seamlessly.  Then, she volunteered to say the prayer at her graduation ceremony.  So stinkin' proud!  Every time I think I'm failing as a parent, I'm going to remember her standing up in front of all of the 5th grade class and a gym full of their friends and family, and praying.  She's confident, but more importantly, she's totally comfortable praying to God in front of people.  That's awesome!  I still get nervous when I'm asked to pray in front of others.  I absolutely love seeing the person she's becoming!  Totally, uniquely her own person! 

 

With her good friend Alisha.

 Saying the prayer she co-wrote with a classmate.

 

 

From Kindergarten...

To ready for 6th grade! 

A Walk in the Clouds...and Taking Cover in a Cave!

We woke up Saturday morning looking forward to another hike.  But it was raining.  We thought about it for a while, but really, we didn't want to waste an entire Saturday sitting at home.  And the rain here in Kentucky is so darn gentle.  Kansas friends, seriously, the rain comes straight down.  There is hardly any wind.  Crazy, right? 

So we decided to head into the Gorge.  Gentle rain, and then a walk in the clouds.  The view was really beautiful. 

 

 

 

The kids are getting used to longer hikes so it didn't feel right turning around and going straight home.  So we decided to press our luck and go on another trail. About the time we had hiked down to another beautiful stone arch, it started to really rain.  Like, slip off the side of the arch - rain.  And the thunder, oh my!  We couldn't quickly find a way down so we did our best to climb/slide/fall (just kidding) down under the arch. 

 

 

And then we took cover!  Some of the kids hid in a tiny little cave.  The others perched on the rocks.  And we waited.  And waited.  And waited.  The thunder didn't really stop so we decided to head back to the car.

Sophia didn't like the thunder! 

 

The trail was flooded out, but we made it back quickly without any problems. 

 

We were pretty wet, but we had a fun time!