Camp Over the Years for Baylee

I was thinking this morning about how many years Baylee and Rachel have gone to camp together (5!), and that led to looking for pictures of them on the first day of camp each of those years, and that that led to looking for pictures of all Baylee's years at camp.  There have been quite a few!  Here's what I found...

2009  This was her very first year.  She had just turned 8 a few days before.

2010  Her second year...she was practically an old pro!  lol

2011  Nobody went to camp this summer, because Baylee and I did a VBA ministry in Leavenworth in July and then my parents visited in August.  Camp would've been too much to think about.

2012 Baylee and her counselor

2013  This was the first summer that Rachel started to go, too.   They were still young enough to go to Camp Cedarbrook, which is for elementary-school-aged kids.

2014  This was their first summer going to the older kids (Jr. and Sr. high) camp.

2015  This was the summer Baylee broke her wrist during all-camp games, but still finished out the week with a cast.

2016  I didn't get one on the actual first day of camp...I totally dropped the ball...but this was taken the day before.

2017  And this was taken yesterday right before they left.  

There have been big changes over the years, huh?  What a lot of great memories!

PS:  Yesterday the last thing Baylee said to me before she left was, "Mom, if you get a call, just know that the facts are being twisted, and Rachel and I are innocent."

LOL  Sigh.

Sunday

I've been keeping my circles gold in Duolingo for quite awhile now, because it's easy and only takes a couple minutes a day at this point.  Also, once in awhile I have a French conversation with a "bot," which is something else Duolingo offers.  Artificial intelligence talks to you about some topic, and you're awarded points based on how accurate your responses are.  Anyway!  Yesterday I had a conversation with a bot about going to the movies.  Basically, she invited me to see a movie with her, I agreed, she asked what kind I'd like to see, I said I'd be interested in a romantic comedy, then she said, "Tu peux prendre les places?" which means, "Can you buy the tickets?"

I'm proud of the sentence I put together in response.  I told her, "Wow.  Maintenant je vois pourquoi vous avez m'invité," which means, "Wow.  Now I see why you've invited me."  I thought of that on my own, and I'm proud of it, because 1) it's got the past tense in it and 2) it's got an object pronoun.  I earned high points!

Baylee and Rachel are going to camp today!  They've been excited for WEEKS.  I hope they have tons of fun and learn a lot.

I took this of Zach awhile back.  He's been a little tired lately, because he's working 6 or sometimes even 7 days a week.  He's really good at that job, so they give him tons of hours.

Levels

(This is my second post for today.)

I've been talking about my level of French according to the Common European Framework of Reference for Languages, and I've been saying it in terms of a number.  Last time I mentioned it, for instance, I said I was at 2.4.  (I'm at 2.5 now, by the way.)  Since then I've come to realize that those numbers aren't the way most people understand the levels according to the CEFR system.  Usually they're talked about like this:

Beginner:  A1
Elementary:  A2
Intermediate:  B1
Upper Intermediate:  B2
Advanced:  C1
Mastery:  C2

To get to the point, I did some research, and I'm halfway through A2.  Boo.  Here's how that level is described:

Sigh.  That's probably about right, though.  It's not like I'm prepared to have much of a conversation, although I could have a limited one, especially if the person spoke slowly.  (I could do a lot better if everyone in France walked around with a bubble over their heads, showing me their words in writing, like real-life closed captioning.  lol)  Mostly I think I could order in restaurants, deal with hotels, find my way around on the subway or train, and ask for help.

Anyway, whatever.  I'm going to keep pushing hard, and at some point in the not too distant future I'll get to B1.  At that point things really start looking up!


PS:  Also, I want to share a weird French language tidbit with you.  There are two words in the French language for "they."  There's the "they" for groups of men, which is "ils," and the "they" for groups of women, which is "elles."  What about mixed groups, though?  Well, here's the thing:  You always use the male "they" if there's even one guy in the group.  The only time you ever use the female "they" is if it's a group made entirely of females.  For instance, you could have a thousand women and one man, and you'd still have to say "ils."

Friday

Baylee went to that audition yesterday and it went well!  They had her play the song she prepared for them ("Out on the Tiles" by Led Zeppelin), and then she played a couple of their songs along with them.  Finally they told her they'd been working on something, and they said they wanted her to jam with them on it (ie improvise) to see what happened.  She did that, and they liked what she brought to the table. Afterward they all talked for quite awhile to see if they vibed together as people...Baylee said she thought they did...and then it was over.  The whole thing lasted a couple hours.  They told her she's the best person they've auditioned so far, but they have a few other people lined up, so she'd hear from them in a few days.  Yeah, she's excited and has her hopes up.  We'll see what happens.  If she doesn't get in, then I'm guessing it's because of her age and possibly her lack of experience.

Yesterday I started to feel really draggy and tired, and then pretty soon I was achy, and finally I realized I was getting sick.  By nighttime I was feeling horrible with a high fever, chills, and an overall "I'm dying" sensation.  (I remember getting up in the middle of the night to use the bathroom, which is about 20 feet from our bed, and it seemed like a 10-mile walk.)  Today I've got a lot of Tylenol in me and I feel quite a bit better.

Parenting Again

I've been talking about parenting, especially parenting teen girls, a lot lately, but that's because it's suddenly front-and-center around here.  I hope you're not getting the wrong impression, though.  Baylee is a great kid.  She's kind and loving, intelligent and funny.  She's got a huge heart.  It's just that she's growing up and wants more freedom, and it's hard, harder than it was with the boys, to let go.

The latest thing is that she wants to try to join an all-girl band called...well...we'll get to that.  The important thing is that it's an already established, fairly successful local punk band made up of girls in their late teens and early twenties.  They've got an album out, and they've opened for groups like Bret Michaels and Warrant.  They're good!  Their drummer is going off to college, so they're auditioning people to fill her spot.

Baylee found out from a friend at the SoR about the audition, she got really excited, and she contacted the lead singer of the band.  Over the course of the next 24 hours the girl asked Baylee a few questions and had her send in a video of herself playing.  All was quiet for the next 24 hours or so, then last night she contacted Baylee again.  I haven't seen the email, but she said something like, "We want to audition you tomorrow at 4pm.  Come to [such and such address] ready to play a cover of your choosing and any two of our songs.  We'll be playing along with you."  Soooo...Baylee got up early today and she's preparing, trying to learn all this in such short notice.

I had a whole second part to this post, talking about my hesitation and how I'm not totally on board yet, but I deleted it.  Sigh.  Let's just wait and see what happens.

PS:  Zach just told me, "Yeah, that group gets radio play sometimes.  I've heard them on KEXP."  Quoi?!

Friends

Last night Rachel came over, and she and Baylee hung out on the floor in Baylee's room talking, eating snacks, listening to music, and making coasters out of Perler beads.  There's a little part of each of them that's still about 10 years old, and I love it.

Tuesday, Part 2 (Just 'Cause I'm in the Mood)

Earlier this afternoon Baylee and I had to have a little talk.  To give you the background info:  I stopped her at the front door as she was getting ready to leave.  Literally, she had a little backpack on and everything, and she was half outside.  A bit later we had this conversation about it...

Me:  When you were getting ready to leave earlier, it looked very much like you were planning to walk right out the door without saying anything.

Baylee:  I wasn't gonna do that.  I was gonna call out, "Mom!  I'm going to Green Lake with friends!"

Me:  Hmm.  That's not the way this works.  It might work that way for Drew, who's nineteen, but for you, a sixteen-year-old, it works more like this:  "Mom, would it be alright if...?"  Do you hear the difference?

Baylee:  Yeah.

Me:  Okay, good.

#JesusTakeTheWheel  #LoveThatGirlThough

Fun, Unrelated Fact:  In French the word "journée" has a different (but vaguely related) meaning than the English word "journey".  In French it means "throughout the day" or "during the day".  (The word "jour" means "day" in French.)  Along those same lines, in French the word "matinée" means "during the morning," as "matin" is "morning," and soirée means "during the evening," since "soir" is "evening".

Tuesday

Yesterday I was eating dinner...lasagna...when Zach wandered by.  "Mom," he said, "guess what my supervisor at work told me today."

"What?"

"He said that there have been a few times when he's taken apart office furniture and run across people's booger collections."

Dinner was pretty much over after that.

Another work-related thing involving Zach:  He was unloading furniture from a truck the other day when one of the other guys started to pull the lift that was right behind Zach away from the truck without saying anything.  Zach stepped back, thinking that lift was still there, and one of his legs fell through the gap.  He's got a huge bruise and some very scraped up skin.  (Yeah, the other guy got into some trouble about that.)

Yesterday afternoon Drew opened up a little more about what it was like to play at the Jazz Noise Fest.  He said it was held at a really neat place called Gallery 1412, and that the audience was "different."  When I asked him what he meant by that he said that they were well-dressed, middle-aged people who listened to the music quietly and carefully.  Despite (or maybe because?) of that, many of them came up to Drew and the rest of the band afterward to tell them how much they enjoyed it, and to talk jazz with them.

Another thing Drew mentioned was that he played both guitar and piano.  He said there was a beautiful grand piano in there facing the audience, and it had no bench.  For one of their songs Drew went over to it and played while standing.  He let me hear that one, because somebody had recorded the whole event and put it online, and I think it sounds lovely.

Here's a picture from that night, which I stole from Drew's Facebook page.  Not all of these guys are in the band, but I'm not sure which are and which aren't.

Monday

Recently I had to dig through the garbage on my computer to find a picture of my brother, sister, and me that was taken on our trip and that I had thrown away, because I didn't like the way I look in it.  (Eric and Lindsey look great, of course.)  My mom said she wanted a copy of it, thus the search.  Anyway, it was quite a task, because I rarely empty the garbage and it had about a year's worth of random stuff in it, but on the bright side while I was in there I ran across a few good things.

Some memes...

This picture of me looking confused.

This one of Morrow.

And this snapshot of the dog.

Drew said that his free jazz band did really well the other night!  He came home excited about it and inspired by the other groups that played.

Yesterday Mike and I went to see the house band play at a huge park here in Seattle for something called the Seattle Peace Concerts.  It was fun and the kids did a great job.  I think I got the best video ever, because I happened to catch an old guy dancing to their music, and he was definitely dancing like nobody was watching.

Procrastination Taken to a Whole New Level

Drew's in a free jazz band called The Comedown Quartet, although he hasn't devoted very much time to it.  It seems to be more of a hobby for him.  The group did make an EP, and that was sold at a record store here in town, but, really, the whole thing is more of a side project, not just for Drew, but for all the members, I think.

That said, they were invited to play at something called the Jazz Noise Fest here in Seattle.  They were asked weeks ago, they accepted, and then they did nothing to prepare.  They kept, for different reasons mostly involving being busy, putting off getting together to rehearse, and, long story short, they didn't practice at all until today.  Ahem.  THE DAY OF THE EVENT.  In other words, they got together for the first time in months this morning, and they're going onstage tonight.

Sigh.  On the bright side, it's free jazz.  It's possible nobody will even notice if they suck.  (Don't tell him I said that.)

Parenting

It's a different world for teens than it was when I was that age.  Or maybe...and this is a distinct possibility...I was just an especially home-bound kid.  I was the firstborn, so I didn't test boundaries almost at all.  If I even thought my parents might say no, I usually didn't ask.  I was happy spending my free time at home most of the time, and occasionally doing something with my group of friends.  (That said, I did spend weeks on end [and once an entire summer] away from home during my teen years.  I worked at Grace Youth Camp.  And once, during either my junior or senior year [I can't remember], my parents let me go with a bunch of Bible college friends to Key West for spring break.)

With Baylee it's different.  Let me give you a typical example:  Last night at 9pm a car full of teens, both boys and girls, pulled into our driveway.  One of them called her on the phone and said, "We're right outside!  Come with us to see Dunkirk!"  She quickly asked me if she could go, I said yes, and off she went.

Here's another example:  She was asked if she'd like to spend 4 days at somebody's family's cabin a couple hours away.  The kids who would be going (both boys and girls again) would be driving there together, and there would be no adults along.  Apparently, though, this is okay, because there are cameras in every room (which the owners/parents of one of the boys can access from home), and the grandparents live right next door.  Mike and I said no to that one, but do you know what?  We were the only parents that did!  Is that weird or what?

And another one:  Teens and even pre-teens get all over the city by Metro bus here.  Drew started doing it himself when he was 17.  It's normal and nobody thinks a thing of it.  Now Baylee is 16 and she's starting to make noise about wanting to do it, too.  And, by the way, she's not talking about busing with a group of friends, which we have allowed.  She wants to try it alone.  In a nutshell, my feeling about that is ABSOLUTELY NOT.  It's an over-my-dead-body situation.  She's small!  She's vulnerable!  She's still my baby!

Sigh.  Parenting is hard, parenting in this day and age is harder, and I think parenting girls is the hardest. 

Thursday

I'm having so much fun with French this summer.  I do my Frantastique lesson every morning without fail...I even did it when I was on vacation...and I'm already learning so much.  My Common European Framework of Reference for Languages score has gone up .4 points since I first started.  (It's a scale of 1-5.  I tested in at 1.9 and now I'm at 2.3.  That might not sound so great, but keep in mind that 1 is an absolute beginner and 5 is a native speaker.  If I could claw my way up into the 3's I'd be pretty dang happy.)  Also, I'm slowly working my way through a French grammar textbook called Easy French Step-by-Step.  I only make myself do one little section a day, as it's boring, but it's still helping to solidify things.  Finally, I'm thinking about spending my next credit from Audible on a book of short stories in French.  I could listen as I clean the house, and it would be great practice in hearing the language spoken.  We'll see.

Baylee's in the middle of the biggest sleepover we've had in the TV room to date.  There are five of them in there.  I had to walk through to get to the laundry room where we keep the cat food, because Cooper wasn't going to wait a second longer for breakfast, and I almost stepped on somebody's head.  Teens are sprawled everywhere.

I haven't mentioned this yet, but Zach has a new job.  (He's still employed at the video game tester place, too, but that's not steady work; it's contract work.  When they have a game they need tested they call him.)  Remember that furniture construction/installation place that Drew worked at a couple summers ago?  Well, they called Drew several weeks ago, because they had more work than people to do it, so Drew started up with them again on weekends.  He told Zach about it, Zach applied and got a job there as well, and he's been working there full-time ever since.  He's good at it.  He said the other day he was the only person at a site, including the manager, who knew how to do a certain thing (something he learned at the airplane gear shop), so they made that his job from now on.

I was thinking about the first day of school, kinda planning when I want to start and what I still need to do and buy, and I realized something:  I'm completely not mentally ready for a new school year yet.  Luckily there's still lots of summer left.

Piano and Organ

Yesterday Drew found a free organ on OfferUp, and before the end of the day he had it installed it in his room.  He couldn't be more pleased.  Now he has to learn how to play it.

Speaking of playing things, he's taking Piano 3 this summer quarter (along with Theory 3), and the professor gave everyone a huge assignment meant to last the entire course.  They have to take a song and compose four variations of it.  Drew chose the Smashmouth song "All Star," which you probably know, because it was in the Shrek movie, but in case you don't, here it is:

First he figured out how to play it as is.  This version, even though it's the same as the original, makes me laugh, because it sounds like "All Star" the way your grandma might play it.

Then he came up with his own versions.  They're neat.  One's jazzy.  The one I want to show you, though, is a crazy classical rendition.  Fair warning:  It doesn't sound a thing like "All Star" anymore.  Drew explained to me how he "changed the mode and then broke the phrasing up into expanded motifs," but that it's all fine, because his teacher said it's beautiful and she loves it.  Here's a little bit of that one:

Random Stuff

I got the house totally clean yesterday!  Man, that was a lot of work, and afterward my whole body was sore.  It finally feels like I'm truly back home, though, so it was worth it.  Unfortunately, my to-do list of errands, paperwork, and phone-calls-to-be-made is still long.  Blah.

It's time to get back on the wagon, lose the weight I gained, and start moving forward again.  I plan to end this month moving strongly in the right direction.  In fact, I hope to lose what I've gained and be back on track by July 31.  I'm excited about it.

Mike found my reading glasses!  That might not seem like a big deal, but I'm to the point now where I'm useless at seeing things close up without them.  I have to have those glasses at restaurants to see menus, when I'm homeschooling, when I want to read recipes, etc.  It's a bummer.  What I really want to say, though, is that Mike found them buried deep in our new (to us) chaise, which, I'm pretty sure, is the most comfortable chair on the planet.  Here's a picture of it:

You know what it reminds me of?  Have you ever read A Wrinkle in Time?  You know the part where Meg is held by an alien that she calls Aunt Beast?  The book reads, " ...lying there, cradled in the four strange arms, Meg, despite herself, felt a sense of security that was deeper than anything she had known since the days when she lay in her mother's arms in the old rocking chair and was sung to sleep."  And then a bit later it says, "She leaned her head against the beast's chest, and realized that the gray body was covered with the softest, most delicate fur imaginable, and the fur had the same beautiful odor as the air."  Our chair is Aunt Beast!  It's quite relaxing.  If you ever come over you can sit on it and see for yourself.  Try to keep track of your glasses, though.

Baylee's sick with a cold.  She was supposed to help with an AC/DC camp at the SoR today (and all of this week), plus she has a lesson and a House Band rehearsal, but instead I think she's going to stay in bed and rest.  Her body needs it.

Vacation, Part 4

(Okay, after this I'm for sure gonna clean.)

Days 6-11

After Summerfest everybody went back home to Seattle, except Mike, Baylee, and me.  We went to Michigan to spend time with family there.  We had so much fun, and it was really relaxing, which we all needed after the whirlwind of activity we'd just been through.  Baylee said that all she did in Michigan was sleep and eat Grandma's cooking, and that it was the best thing ever.  Actually, she played with her cousins a ton, too.  Basically, it was a time of enjoying family.

These first pictures were taken at Spring Lake.

And these are at Lake Michigan.

The pier was closed for construction, which was a bummer.

A lot of manicures and pedicures were given by the girl cousins.

 We even took the kids to a pool with a hot tub a couple times, because of rain, and once we went to a water park.

Here's Mike and my brother, Eric, talking at the water park.

 Baylee got a sunburn with a different bathing suit back at Lake Michigan.

On the last day we celebrated Baylee's birthday.  She turned 16 during our trip!

Also, we spent one of our mornings in Michigan getting a tour of Grace Bible College.  It was Baylee's idea.  She wanted to check the place out as a possibility for her future.  Afterward we went out for breakfast and I snapped this picture.

Finally, here are some miscellaneous moments.  In this one Baylee is explaining the "What are the Odds?" game to my mom, and my mom is sort of horrified.  LOL

Grandparents and Grandkids

Just grandkids

 Me and Baylee

And here are several mountains all lined up.  I saw this out the plane window when we were finally back home again.

 

 As fun as all that was, I'm very glad to be back!  I'm a homebody at heart.

Vacation, Part 3

(I still haven't cleaned.  The house still smells like feet.)

Days 4 and 5

On days 4 and 5 we were at a massive music festival in Milwaukee called Summerfest.  On both day every SoR team got to play a 12-minute set on one of several different huge stages in front of hundreds of people.  It was a wonderful, fun, amazing opportunity for them.  I have lots of pictures and a video of this part of the trip.

These next three pictures show the stage that Baylee's team got to play on.  It was called the BMO Harris Stage, and it was huge!

This is from way in the back, before many people came.

 This is from closer to the front.  You can see Lake Michigan in the background.

And this is close up.

  

Here are some pictures of Baylee and the rest of her team up there.  I love her smile in the first one.

And this is of our whole school at the very end, after our last team played.  It was taken on the Harley Davidson Stage, and those are real motorcycles, not props.

I was so proud of all of these kids!

Here are a few more group shots...

Calm kids:

Crazy kids:

And exhausted parents:

By the way, it was so nice getting to know the other parents better.  They're good people.

Finally, here's a video of Baylee's group.  Their set had three songs: The 1st starts at beginning, the 2nd starts at 3:45, and the 3rd starts at 8:00. I love the 2nd and 3rd songs especially. PS: Baylee starts getting really awesome at about the 5:20 mark.