Spoonful of Imagination

Add it to a Family for Something Beautiful

Good-bye Summer!

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The summer flew by. We start school on Monday, and I can hardly believe it. I know as a second year homeschool mom there is so much I should probably be doing to prepare. There are supplies to gather, a room to set up, curriculum to buy (yes, I still haven’t ordered our books), but my mind is fried. Instead, I would like to imagine I’m still at the beach, and take you there with me. I edited a few of the pictures from our trip last week to St. George with my family.

family

Most of you know, but I have 8 siblings and some of which are married with kids now. There were maybe 20 people on this trip?! I can’t count right now, but hopefully I can next week when I start teaching first grade, right!? Let’s just relax for now though. Here are some highlights from our beach trip…

meeting my nephew Jack for the first time

morning porch time with everyone in their pajamas

porch_family_time

hanging out with family for longer than a dinner

having to make three full pots of coffee-so everyone got their first cup for the day

sharing a snow cone with my niece and daughter

snowcones

watching the cousins play together

grandkids

laughing with my sisters

sisters

the boys fishing trip-where they caught a shark

fishing trip

having a cannon ball contest with my sister-in-law (and losing)

taking & comparing pics w/ my sis to see how similar we look

catching fish in nets on the beach

beach_fishing

beach_fishing_nets

fishing

an easier week of potty training 😉

baby_Pool

watching my boys have no fear

family_beach_trip

collecting_shells

watching my boys laugh with my brothers

big dinners

building a sand mermaid with my daughter

mom and daughter on beach

a huge squirt gun war

grilling out

talking about dreams and life

being tired from the sun

beach kids

tired kids

On our last day, we hit the beach all morning and the pool all afternoon. We left in the evening and all three kiddos were asleep in minutes. I think they had fun :).

kids asleep in van

We are already planning next year’s trip. I’m thankful for family and thankful for vacations where we can step into another world for a little bit. It was so fun! I hope you too had a great summer! Now, I’m off to start transitioning this mind to notebooks and school!

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It’s Time For A Vacation!

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Did you know that July is National Vacation Rental Month? I just learned that from my new friends at Wyndham Vacation Rentals.

 

If you’ve spent anytime around here, you know that we love to travel as a family. We’ll be packing up the ole mini van pretty soon for a trip to Indiana for a dear friend’s wedding. I think if we’ve learned anything about traveling is that there are plenty of deals to be had. For so long I was afraid to dream about taking vacations-fearing that we could never afford it. I’ve found it just takes a little work to make it affordable. 7 quick traveling tips to use

Here’s a few quick tips we’ve learned along the way to make things more affordable and fun:

    1. Pack food for the car. This saves money and cuts down on stops. It also gives you healthy options. Trust me, when you are cruising along I-40 outside of Albuqureque, NM your choices are gas station beef jerky or Big Macs.
    2. If traveling with kids, try to get them to play really hard before typical nap-time or bedtime, load them up, and roll! On our last trip to Arkansas, we did this and got 7 hours of drive time in with the kids totally asleep. No extra food, potty, or stretch breaks needed. Of course, you need to keep coffee on hand and rotate your drivers to stay safe, but it can really help for long distances.
    3. If you can rent a place that has a kitchen, do it. Again, it’s another huge savings than going out for every meal. This is where a rental can work out to be better than a hotel. You’ll often find a lot of conveniences of home and more ways to save.
    4. Being on the beach is awesome. Being 1-2 blocks from the beach is still awesome and often times 30-50% cheaper. We’ve found that if you have to load the car up to hit the beach, find parking, load back up, etc., it can be draining. But if you are staying at a place that is less than a mile from the beach, it’s perfect. You can walk back and forth easily and enjoy the same beach access at a fraction of the cost as the folks on the beach front.
    5. Have realistic expectations for your kids. They don’t normally sit in the car for hours. They don’t usually hike around an amusement park all day in the hot sun and stand in line for hours. They rarely spend all day getting hot and sandy at the beach. Bottom line, you are going to have some meltdowns. Be prepared. Don’t push them too hard. Just realize that they don’t need to do everything in the park or be on the beach for 6 hours straight to have fun. Be willing to adjust to their level and needs and everyone will have more fun.
    6. If you are going to a prime time spot for vacation, try to stock up on supplies or groceries before you get there. Vacation areas charge a premium even for simple things like eggs, milk, and bread. Pack a cooler and hit up the last town before your destination. Same goes for gas. Fill up away from the hot spots.
    7. Relax. Think simple. Don’t miss your vacation by over scheduling it. The most important part is being together and creating space to rest.

What are some of your travel tips? Are you going anywhere on vacation this month? Screen Shot 2013-07-10 at 9.28.06 PM If you haven’t booked your trip yet, consider trying Wyndham Vacation Rentals.  They are offering summer deals at up to 35 percent off nightly rates on bookings made throughout July at www.WyndhamVacationRentals.com. Also, for peace of mind, Wyndham offers a “Vacation Rental Bill of Rights®” service pledge ensuring quality standards (vetted rentals with accurate images), comprehensive customer service and real-time payment and bookings. In the U.S., their properties range from private homes, resorts condos and villas in beach destinations such as Florida, South Carolina, Delaware and Alabama’s Gulf Coast to mountain-side condos and luxury cabins in Colorado, Utah, Tennessee and Idaho.

Take a look at a couple of their beautiful properties. Wyndham Vacation Rentals_ Hilton Head Island, SC

Hilton Head, SC

Wyndham Vacation Rentals_ Charleston, SC

Charleston, SC

I can’t wait to hit the road again for our next trip. I hope you’ve got some fun travel plans ahead too! Make sure to chime in and tell me where you are going and things you’ve learned about traveling along the way.

To connect with Wyndham Vacation Rentals more be sure to visit them online, twitter, or facebook!

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I was selected for this opportunity as a member of Clever Girls Collective and the content and opinions expressed here are all my own.

Our Vacation Books

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***First off, congratulations to Becca Stanley for winning my Embroidered Owl on last week’s giveaway!  Thank you to everyone who entered!  That was our largest entered giveaway to date!  I’m going to try to do them more often, since it seemed like a hit.  Please stick around and keep coming back!***

My project I would like to spotlight this week is my boys’ Summer vacation books.  We worked on them all week in school, and they are so completely proud of them!

I have wanted to incorporate making a summer book of our big road trip into our school days, but it kept getting pushed to the following week’s to do list.  Finally, I just decided we needed to do it, and this was the week!  I am so glad we did it!  We have all had a blast with this project!

We have talked about and learned so many valuable things this week through the process of making these books.  One of my main lessons was to try Super glue before many other strong glues needed to hold these thick babies together!  The boys have learned about the author and illustrator of books.  They know the names and the difference between the two roles.  They learned what a title page was and where it is located in a book.  We talked about key events and order and sequence.  We pulled out the map and showed the path we took on our 25 day road trip, while talking about states and distance.  We talked about the difference in opinions and facts.  They did a mock interview and are now doing “show and tell” for all who will sit through their reading of their books.

I love the pride that was earned with the completion of this big project.  Everyday Caleb wanted to “finish” his book, so it really taught patience to work a little at it everyday.

We picked out flag fabric for our cover since we drove across the United States for our vacation.  Caleb created both boys’ covers by glueing and wrapping the fabric around big pieces of cardboard.

We glued postcards that we had collected at our different stops on sheets of paper to insert as pages.

The boys sorted through a huge pile of pictures from our trip to pick out the ones they wanted to use in their book.  It was so fun to see and talk about the different things/events we did as the memories came back to us.  It is really quite funny to see the pictures they actually choose to use in their books.  They might not the the ones I would have chosen, but it is their books!

We worked on writing as they created title pages for their books.

Everyday, Caleb wrote a sentence for his book.

You know we love dictation.  He also dictated lots of stories or memories to me for pages in his book.

We printed out maps and drew the route we took to and from California on our maps.  We talked about distance and the United States, and had a blast talking about places we would like to travel next.  Caleb wants to travel across a different country on the other side of the world now.  Dream big my boy.  I love it!

Once we had finished creating all our different pages, we had to sort them into an order for the book.  We talked about events with similarities/differences as we placed all the “same state” pages in piles.

I get to do my job in my pajama pants. Awesome!

I had plans to sew the pages together with my sewing machine, but our books were too thick with all the pages and card stock.  We opted to punch holes and string thread though them to bind all the pages together.  I then glued the two outside pages to the cover.  It has taken several different types of glue to figure this step out.

The boys are so proud of their creations!!  They worked so hard writing, cutting, gluing, and learning this week.  I am just as proud of them as they are.

Today, we also talked about being a hard worker and finishing strong.  They were not wanting to complete the last steps, but they came around and finished strong and I adore their results!

Thank you so much for reading this week’s Project Spotlight.  Thank you again for all of you who entered my giveaway and might have started following me in a new way!  I really appreciate it!!

Tomorrow, I am attending the Country Living Fair at Stone Mountain with a group of other DIY Atlanta Bloggers, and I am so excited about it!  I will be sure to share it with you next week!

Do you have big plans this week?  Are you going to check out Mitcham Farm?  I hope whatever you do, you have a wonderful weekend!  Happy Friday!!