Oh my goodness! It's July!! So much we have to catch up on here!!! Soon!

I will let you know that this Summer so far has been absolutely amazing!!

Summer

Hi, Ms. Bellie here. If you don't have a Kirkwood Pool pass, you really need to get one. The Kirkwood Pool is so cool. The kiddie pool goes to about 2 feet deep and it has a water playground and small waterslide called "The Watering Hole".  In the family pool, the water gets to 4 feet deep and is just a free for all pool. A lot of space to really swim. The Big Pool is awesome to. The shallowest is 4 feet deep and it gets to 12 feet deep. It's a good pool for real swimmers. There's something called the Lazy River which is kind of like a river that circles all of the pools. You go around in intertubes. The water is 3 feet deep there. My favorite part of the Kirkwood Pool is the waterslides, (of course!) They start from about 30 feet high and spiral all the way down to the bottom into a 3 water-zone. There are two water slides. One is white and is just like a normal slide. You can look over all the swimming pools as you go down. The other is a green slide. It's covered and has the fastest, coldest, rushing water in Kirkwood Pool. It's pitch black inside and goes really fast. It's my favorite.


There are these two bands that rock on youtube that I love. One is named Karmin, where they do covers of different songs, but their original songs are better. Another is Cimorelli. It's these sisters who also do covers of songs, but the less capable singers sing the melody, so they don't need instruments. I highly recommend watching Cimorelli "Price Tag" by Jessie J. An amazing song with amazing singers... and two little rappers. Hope everyone has a great summer! Ms. Bellie has left the building.

Always Amazed...

When I was a very young girl, my family was driving to my Mom's hometown of Advance.

My sister and I were in the big, bench, backseat, trying to keep our feet out of each other's faces, looking out the windows at all the rows of crops that seemed to run along the road with you.  Rain started coming down.  Big huge drops of rain that you knew meant a storm coming.  We followed the raindrops as they ran down the glass of the windows.

Out of one of these drops, I saw a cow.  A cow out standing in the middle of a field getting pelted by hard, big raindrops.  Not far from the cow was a barn.  I asked my Mother: "Why doesn't the cow go into the barn to get out of the rain?".  Mom answered: "Because it doesn't know any better."

Simple. So, so simple.
Some of the most simple things that we now long for in this day and age of instant everything.

A desk that holds so many thoughts from a man who divided our Country and caused a great War.

A cook stove that could serve hundreds, or a small family.

A fence row that can take boys away from Wii into flying spells.

A girl who searches for so much knowledge.

And a Mom who still really wants the simple things.  No matter how hard they might be able to grasp (especially a decent, smiling, photo)!

Sorry!

After hearing things like:

"When you feed monkeys, they can grow wings and fly!"

"When you feed Parrots, they can come sit on your table and chew! I just made that one up!"

"1st is the Worst, 2nd is the Best, 3rd is the lady with the Treasure Chest! But that doesn't mean it is full! It might be empty!"

"I'm so glad another family goes to 7-11 as much as we do!"

"Where's the comics that show the lil girl throwin up Mama? That was sooo funny!!"

After hearing all of this verbage come out of the mouths of my family, the last thing I really wanted to do was sit down and play Sorry! with them!
Don't get me wrong, I do love playing games with my kiddos, but this time I knew that chaos was going to continue and I wasn't sure if my stomach muscles could handle anymore laughing!

Instead, I started dinner, laughing the whole time and then finally grabbed the video camera!

America's Funniest Home Videos would be proud to get a copy of this!!
Enjoy!

The look on Hubby's face says it all!

Fourth Grade Perspective

The City of Jefferson, Missouri is where I spent today with Ms. Bellie on her Fourth Grade trip to our state Capital.

The excitement of getting on a tour bus with television monitors, all dressed up, and spending a bunch of "free" time with friends was palpable!

Giggling like one of these 4th graders was a blast, but I was certainly not ready for the depth this trip held in store for us!

Our first stop was the Capital Building.  I had been here before a longggggg time ago and it was fun to see what memories I had stored away that came back to me.

We were greeted by our own Representative and Senator, and the building itself was very welcoming.

It said "MOM" on all the staircases and landings!

As we walked on our own through part of the museum, the students had time to absorb everything around them before a formal tour began.  They experienced uniforms and artifacts, replicas and tools from every different War the United States has been involved in.  

I went through my mind of family history.  Civil War = check, WWI = check, WW2 = check, Vietnam = check, Korea = check, Ship Builders = check, Clerks = check, All Brances = check.  Surprisingly, I knew more about our family than I thought I did.  Paying attention, and listening carefully paid off for me today.  Telling my daughter who in our family fought in what Wars meant a lot to me.  Letting her hear all of this while visually sucking in details made me feel really old, however!  And I do have to admit, I will always be partial to Navy Men (I think it might be the uniform)!

The classes worked their way through the House Lounge which houses one of the most amazing murals sculpted and then painted by Thomas Hart Burton.

The History of Missouri is depicted in an extraordinary manner when seen in egg shell paint and family faces.

The students moved on into the Gallery of the House of Representatives.  To our surprise, we were able to hear some of the debate on HCS HB 276 233 & 274.

If I thought I felt old while going through our family history, I really felt old listening to this debate: What is the original definition of Free Speech?

Not only have we heard this argument before, but this time I was looking at Ms. Bellie, realizing she has NOT heard this argument before (unless you include "when it is appropriate to use the word toot").  

Reality pretty much slapped me across the face at this point!  Why? Because:

-my baby girl, who is no longer a baby, who I  held in my arms and sobbed as the Towers came down will never know a world without War. And that is normal.  The United States has been at War the whole of my boy's lives.

-no matter when I think about War, there is always an association with it.  

-arguments are still had about who can serve in a war.

-arguments are still had concerning who is able to protest a war and how.

And the biggest kicker was this:

The Senate wall states "Nothing is Politically Right that is Morally Wrong" and I started wondering why then, the above bill was being debated.

Maybe if some of the engraved sayings and rules were being followed we wouldn't have a debate over children reading these books sitting out on the Governor's Library Desk:

And then maybe, just maybe, we wouldn't have to worry about children acting like this without something bad happening...

And then one day, maybe, just maybe, when I am really, really old, children can look up at this and have their own impression about how beautiful the world could be without war...

Until then, I have resolved that the history of our families and our heritage start becoming more forefront in my children's minds.  Maybe, just maybe, they will be smarter than the rest of us about history repeating itself.

Hmmmmm...

Something I noticed last night! I was looking at Mr. Stinky and kept thinking he reminded me of someone.
Interesting!