camping – Jewish and Homeschooling in an Amazing World

It’s Summer Vacation… I Guess

It is easy to get into a mode and forget what is really going on or should be going on. This year has been a year of treading water and I kept saying to myself that summer is almost here and we will start fresh next year. I need the summer to organize the house better after moving in. Aside from making the house look a little bit nicer, it will help me with our learning. All our boxes from the move were emptied and contents put somewhere in a frantic few weeks before Pesach, just to check for chometz and get the boxes out of the house, but we did not put things in a proper home. I am not used to “summer” starting a month early. I think about every place I have lived, school has finished mid-late June, not the end of May. Summer for kids has been here for a month now, with one more month to go. I realized that I might as well be finished for the school year, take the next month to “chill” in the 95 degree heat (with lots of ice,) do at least some of the organizing and just let the boys chill out as well. So, that was it. We don’t give out certificates, though we did the first year or two, then it never seemed to work out, so I don’t think about it now. It was just, “Ok boys, school’s finished.” Just like that. I don’t think it even phased them for they were busy camping with Grandpa and what not that they were not doing much of anything anyways.

It feels weird to let the boys hang. Especially this year when I felt that I had to try to cram things in when I could for there were lots of times that we did not do much because of all the moves, it feels strange. I feel rather relieved, which is a nice thing. I don’t feel guilty about them not doing their work. My husband was complaining that he does not think they did much this year. I am the first one to admit that is the case, and even though I have tried to tell him and explain to him multiple times throughout the year, it is hard when he is not here and seeing things for himself. And yes, even when we had a week here or there to just do school, there were multiple occasions when I had a hard time motivating myself and just did not feel like doing anything because of all that was going on in our lives.

I do feel optimistic though. I think this allowed time off is good for now I don’t worry about trying to teach and I have time to try to organize (which we already started last week!) I am not sure how much time I have for organizing for we always seem to be doing something. But I have big plans, both for school and for the house, though not quite sure about what I am doing exactly I’m doing, but I have plans. 🙂 Yesterday the scouts had their first campout. It was really good with all but 2 boys there and several fathers coming. Mr. Little made cupcakes for the fathers (and boys) in honor of Father’s Day. Father’s got first pick at cupcakes for once. They were even able to hang a flag on their portable Ham Radio antenna!

Speaking of radios, last Friday was a Ham Fest (which did not start on Shabbos!) and so we all spent the afternoon roaming around the candy store for Hams. We even had an extra boy tag along with us. Mr. Big surprised us by actually taking his license manual on the camping trip with Grandpa and spend some time going over his manual. When he came home he announce that he wanted to upgrade his license at the Ham Fest. We looked at him and asked if he thought he was going to pass (it costs money to write the tests.) “I don’t know.” He definitely did not sound convincing. We made an agreement with him that we would pay if he thought he had a good chance of passing. He told us that we only needed to pay for one more test and if needed, he would pay for additional testings. Sounded fair enough. When we arrived at the convention center, he took off to write his test while the rest of us went through the candy store. It was a pretty cool place, even if one is not too interested – I do have my license but I am not interested like all the boys are. We even talked to the severe weather watch people and brought home some really nice posters on clouds. (Ham operators often times get certified as spotters so they can help watch for and call in weather warnings, for a big plus of being a Ham is for emergency preparedness.)

After what seemed like forever, we finally got a call on our radios from Mr. Big. He was wanted to know where to find us. Nothing about the test, but that is like him. Mr. Big #2 was the first to comment – even though Mr. Big was still too far away to say hi to. Did he or didn’t he, that was the question. Mr. Big #2 saw a sticker on his brother’s shirt and knew (though we could not read what it said.) As he came closer, sure enough, he had the tell tail signs of someone who passed – the small rectangle piece of paper proving all that hard work paid off! We were surprised! He did a LOT more studying without us knowing than we realized. Great job! Incidentally, that is now the reason why we have a hole in our ceiling; they wanted to put up an antenna in the attic that Mr. Big could now use…

Next week we’re off for a week trip with Grandpa. Not sure when I am organizing, but at least I don’t have to worry about school! 🙂

My Week of the Year

Most years I get a few days after our school year is finished where most kids are out of the house, at least during the day. Yesterday started my yearly “week.” Well, almost 4 days, but that is close to 5 days, so close to a business week. Grandpa took the three older boys along with a cousin to go camping. I am left with a beautiful almost 6 year old (though if you ask him, he is actually 5, and will very quickly correct you if you try to say he is 5 and a half or something similar,) which is a good thing for I am not sure what I would do if he was gone as well! I am not sure I would do well to go cold turkey for an entire week. A day, yes, maybe even a night, but a week? I just got my husband off to work and am now sitting in the living room with a sleeping boy across from me on the couch. He was too lonely to sleep upstairs all by himself so I said he could sleep on the couch downstairs, for we were also downstairs.

I did have BIG plans for the week, but I quickly saw that I would have to change plans to make the week feel worthwhile. I was going to start by organizing the books in the house- the living room, family room, dining room and upstairs on the landing. We have a lot. 5 built in book cases and 8 that we brought into the house. A Jewish, Homeschooling family is the worst for books for not only do we have the requisite homeschooling books, which is the gathering-of-as-many-books-that-we-find-interesting-as-we-can-get, but it means the in-gathering-of-as-many-Judaic-books-we-can-get as well. So, I guess we are getting close to being able to open up our own library. I did start by collecting all our sefarim into the dining room, but that took me about 10 minutes for they were basically there anyways. Then I got stuck for I was not quite sure what I wanted to do from there. I have a variety of actual school books that we use – some as books and some books in 3-ring binders. We were talking about putting school books in our converted wet bar area (we had someone take out the sink and make a built in book case there for we just needed more book shelves!) It seems the best place for school books like binders for there are doors to close off any mess. I’m just not sure.

I did not have to worry about things too much though yesterday, for after gathering in all the sefarim, Mr. Little wanted a freezie which I bought the day before. I said yes and before I could get my shoes on and get myself ready to go outside, he was done. I told him he needed to get a second one then. I did not get any complaints from him. It is definitely summer time now, and has been for about a week. The weather has been in the mid 90’s and it is staying. It is funny how you can just tell. Spring can have a day here and there that is hot but you know it is not summer yet, but when the first day or two of summer heat comes, you know. There is something different about spring heat and summer heat.

I let him choose where to go, and he decided to go towards the creek that is the next block over. He told me we were to walk until he finished half his freezie and then we were going to turn

around. We walked a little and we talked a little. He asked some questions and then it was time to turn around. We stopped off on the bridge crossing the creek and enjoyed looking down at it. With all the rain and storms last month, the creek really did overflow and last week we saw the bent grasses and the sticks, logs and other debris that water leaves on the banks of the creek. Yesterday it was all back to normal, the debris had all been cleared away and the grasses were standing nice and tall again. Last Sunday we took a walk along a bridge downtown and the river that is usually almost dry was still flooded.You could not see the trunks of the trees and the stop sign was covered up to the red octagon. There was damage 45-60 minutes west of us and then south through Houston, but we were just fine though. Baruch Hashem. I realized that it does not just rain, or dribble here, it storms. That means that lots of water comes down at once. It is hard to go from the car to the house door without getting drenched, unless you have a rain jacket and boots. So, I decided to use our school money to get everyone rain boots and rain jackets and 2 nice umbrellas. All were extremely useful this year and everyone loved to walk through the water and rain. Even Mr. Big was caught walking to and from shul using the path that had the water draining on the side of the roads. Definitely CM style learning and I’m sticking to it.

But back to our walk. Mr. Little and I were talking about how the water was making the various lines in the sand and the water when I spotted fish! We both ran down to the bank and sure enough there were lots of little fish. And then we saw even smaller fish, all swimming around in a school. Mr. Little when further down where the water was a little deeper and we found bigger fish over there. We enjoyed watching them. He has a fascination for dragon flies so he had to take my phone several times to take pictures and videos of the dragon flies. With his freezie long gone, we went back home for lunch. On the way home he told me this was the first time he took someone out for a walk and he was proud of the fact and had lots of fun. And here I was thinking I was the one taking him for a walk. I was not going to argue with him and decided to let myself feel honored.

Instead of book organizing today, I think I need to do boys’ rooms organizing instead. It definitely will take the two of us all day to do it, at the minimum, but will give the most feelings of satisfaction of actually having accomplished something this week if nothing

Mr. Little is quite a photographer of dragon flies.

else, so I think that is what we should do. Books can wait until tomorrow, or even when boys come back. School is basically done, at least I have officially thought so. We still have a book or two that we will be finishing up over the summer, but since it is an audio we are listening to, it makes it feel less like school. And my plans for the summer? Since I don’t even know myself, I just need to say I have written too much today and I’ll save it for another posting. 😉

OH! I promised last time to tell you about our project. Well, since there are multiple

Had a hard time with lighting on my phone for it was so tall!

Amateur Radio Operators in the house, and more in the works, we put up an antenna – it goes up about 45 feet. We finally got the coax fixed nicely (that is the wire that connects the antenna to the radio in the house,) and contact have been made. They even talked to someone from our old city in NYS! Kind of cool. Mr. Little is making some movements now, he might be ready to get up soon. I wonder where he is going to take me today. 😀

Our Long Weekend and Scroll Tutor Review

Another busy week has past and another busy week has started. The boys went on a scout campout Sunday and Monday, and since DH was their scoutmaster as well, it was just me and the little one at home for some nice quiet time. Motzei Shabbos I sat down with him and had him tell me what he wanted to eat the next day. We settled on some pasta for lunch (which he made for me) and pizza for supper. I was able to convince him that jellybeans would best be had for a snack opposed to a full meal. 😉 We had a nice lazy morning with some beautiful weather, picked up a tefillin bag for my oldest who starts to put on tefillin this week (!!!) and even got to surprise Daddy and brothers by coming by the campsite for supper (we pushed pizza till the next day and had delicious fire cooked hot dogs and hamburgers instead, complete with roasted marshmallows.) I think the car is finally cleaned out, with all the camping gear still in the living room, however, all boys had showers and all clothes are in the hamper (I think…) I have decided that all clothes are going in the laundry at the same time – This time I will not discriminate between lights, darks, heavy, thin, etc. I believe in all clothes getting the same opportunity to being washed and dried. 😉 (Just do not tell the boys that, for then they will want to do it all the time!)

This morning is the first morning that my oldest put on his new tefillin! As I woke up early and saw father and son leave the room, I made sure to remind my husband, for the third time, to remember to take at least one picture for me. No, I am not excited in the least. I am feeling a bit overwhelmed right now between trying to figure out what to do with the scout popcorn this week as well as work on details for the Big Day next month. But, have no fear, the nice thing is that even if I don’t do anything, time still goes on! Ha! And yes, that does comfort me as I try to juggle everything for Time comes and Time goes, and Life really does go on and I won’t get stuck in a rut. C’est la vie!

There is a new website that has just launched call Scroll Tutor. They have 10 minute videos on Chumash and they are starting off with Parshas Shemos. Right now, there is a new video once a week and they are sending out a weekly email with the next video link. I received the link to the 3^rd video this weekend
and finally got around to pulling up a video to watch. I figured that I could afford to spare 10 minutes to check it out especially with everyone out of the house.

The videos are definitely geared a little more towards children, though, as an adult, I did enjoy watching it as well. (They do advertise it is for both children and adults.) The videos are very similar the kind of videos done on Khan Academy. The speaker has the Hebrew text on the screen, goes through it and translates it, talks briefly about it and then pulls up Rashi to answer some questions. He puts in some clip art in as well to help the viewer better visualize what is being talked about and to help keep the interest of the viewer. He underlines the words as he goes, which I thought was great for there was regular motion to redirect delicious minds to keep focused on the task at hand. 10 minutes. Nice, short and sweet. Very easy to fit into busy schedules as well. There really is no excuse not to fit in 10 minutes into the day. Right now there is one chapter sent out every week, with about 6 six videos per chapter. After all, 10 minutes a day, 6 days a week, 52 weeks, that is 520 hours or 21.7 days more of Torah learning a year! And hey, if even one of my children learn 21.7 extra days of Torah learning a year, that is 21.7 extra days of credit that I get on my account, and I have 4 boys, so that is 86.7 days and if I sit down to learn with them, well, it is starting to look mighty good. I know, I’m just thinking of myself. 😉

I thought of my one little boy that I am the one struggling to understand better, who really is taller than me, and thought he would really benefit from videos like these. So, as I prodded one little boy a few times (this one really is shorter than me still,) to keep awake while finishing up the Rambams they were doing and then sent 3 off to bed, I kept the one boy behind to show him the video. Even though he was tired from the campout, he was really good at focusing and listening.

I asked him what he thought about it and then what he liked and what he didn’t like. His answers, in order, are 1) he liked the pictures and 2) he liked how it was taught. (The teaching style.) I asked if he liked how it was underlined and if it helped keep his focus and he said yes. He did not have anything he did not like. He also told me “too bad he does not do videos for trop,” my guess he is thinking about HIS bar mitzvah that is coming up in the not so distant future. As he walked sleepily off to bed, he asked me if he could watch more tomorrow. They are planning on having a subscription for the videos, but right now you can sign up for a free trial.

I think campouts are a great thing, and think they should have more of them for within minutes, the room with 4 boys was silent. They all fell fast asleep.

It’s Not Summer Yet

Well, I made it to Monday! I actually did enjoy myself camping despite the fact that my arms and legs look and feel like I have the chickenpox. It was as if those mosquitoes were starved and no one had come to visit them in days (or hours)! Even though it was hot and mosquito free in the sun and cool and mosquito infested in the forest and we were lucky to be included in a storm on Saturday evening that went through the night, I had a good time. It is always nice to be away in nature and to be able to enjoy and appreciate Hashem’s creations. No phones, no internet, very few cars. The only noises were the various birds that sang some gorgeous music starting at 4:30 in the morning. Our boys enjoyed it as well. They even got up at 4:30 in the morning on Shabbos morning to play frizbee in the field (we constructed an eruv as well.) Showers were had by all when we got back on Sunday to clean up and remove any lingering insects that thought our home would be better than their home. And yes, I was told of some of interesting places where those lingering bugs were found, I just won’t mention them here!

Monday was a day where I got little done, on purpose. The boys emptied most of the car, the tents and sleeping bags were opened up in the backyard and aired out and dried the day before, and eventually they all got rolled up again Monday. We davened, did parsha and math. I just would not do much more other than laundry and some basic cleaning up of the kitchen. we listened to Mishnayos in the evening and then the big surprise came when I realized the boys were in bed ON TIME; and not the “new usual” since Daddy’s accident, it was the real bedtime! If nothing else, that did put a nice smile on my face since I was annoyed that it took almost 4 hours to pack up all the tents in the backyard and there were only 5 of them.

Today went much better. We got off to a late start but managed to pack in outside davening, not just one but two sessions of math, piano practicing, merit badge completion including the required counselor signature, dropping off camp forms to be filled out by the boys’ doctor, mishnayos and even some cleaning by boys on their own! It started off by one beautiful boy waking up and being dressed before the parents got out of bed, him helping make his father’s lunch, doing his breakfast job before I could even finish eating, davening with his father, and not to mention coming over, on his own accord, to massage my shoulders. I was not sure what he wanted from me, but with nicely massaged shoulders I was most likely going to say yes to whatever it was. To thank him to the punch, I handed him a new treat I bought that was supposed to have been for fast helpers in rolling up the tents but never happened for the fast helpers were replaced with snails. A little brother wanted an extra special treat as well, however, I blurted out that extra special treats go to boys to do extra, extra special chores all on their own. Smile. So, while davening, the already davened boy cleaned up the front yard, including picking up lots of trash, did lots of work in my kitchen by being proactive and putting away the remaining bags of groceries from the previous day and meriting himself a second extra special treat. The youngest also wanted to help and so he kept asking me for chores and so that is how I got my kitchen and dining room swept AND mopped as only a 3 year old can do and earned himself an extra, extra special treat as well. 🙂 Unfortunately none of the others took the bait. Oh well, I guess I’ll have to take what I can get!

As I started to feel good about myself with regards to how nice the day went I remembered something: It was not summer time yet and we still have school work to finish. Minor details. 😐 So, tomorrow morning is going to start by figuring out what each boy has left to do and making a short schedule on how to finish it. Technically we have 1.5 weeks of school before the end of the year, and I think we can get it all in except math. Thank goodness for summer!

In some of my down time, which I actually had today, I was excited about the summer. I thought of all sorts of stuff for the boys to do that we just do not get to do during the year because of time; more math, typing practice (we started last summer), dik duk, Hebrew, more piano practice and lessons, chemistry from Khan Academy by request from boy #3, and the list went on. Hmm. Perhaps I need to rethink our summer? I *had* been thinking about just a couple of classes a day for the summer, but there is just so much I want to do! Perhaps Camp Harper is going to be more than just playing like planned. I am wondering if I can make a Camp Harper that is more of an educational camp that lasts through lunch. Can I make it fun as well? There is going to be one week of Scout camp for three boys – overnight sleeping in tents through rain and shine which overlaps a bit with a visit from Grandpa, but can I really pull off putting in a lot of good learning in the summer AND keeping it fun? I will have to mull that over in my mind. It will, most likely, have to include a field trip of some sort somewhere most weeks to help liven it up; picnics to various places near us, one or two trips to the zoo, maybe even a walk down the Erie Canal to visit some neat shops that are down the path. What ever the case is, I think I will have much better luck if we start off the summer by making camp shirts. The boys always liked doing that in the past when we did do it.

I still have a few weeks to think about the summer, and not to mention look for next year’s books that I need to order so I can read them (hopefully) before school starts, and don’t forget to figure out what school work to do with a newly 4 year old; though he has taken to Readingeggs.com for beginning ABC’s and especially their new math program. I’m about ready to find La La Land now, there is a lot to do tomorrow morning and just the fact that when I’m there I don’t itch is a good reason to go! Oh, and yes, the boys got into bed within a few minutes of the real bedtime again tonight. We might be on a roll. 🙂

To An Absolutely Amazing Weekend!

Yael – here is the post you were waiting for! The conference has come and gone, but where to start? As the rain is pouring outside, and the boys are getting ready for bed so they can get ready for more tomorrow, I have a few minutes to write. What started out as a short trip and back to the conference, turned into something more. Oh, so much more!

My husband called me up and informed that he had a vacation day that he had to use or loose. We decided that driving 6 hours from Motzei Shabbos until Sunday morning at 9am was too much in the summer time, so we decided to use it on Friday and drive to our friends’ house in Virginia to spend Shabbos. That way the trip into Baltimore would be short and we would actually be awake. My husband had Monday off for Memorial Day and we were going to find something nice and educational for the boys that day and then drive home. That was the plan!

What I need to say here is that this new plan was thought of and decided within an hour or two late on Thursday afternoon – meaning I had just a few hours to pack for a departure of early Friday morning! Not to mention we had scouts and challah baking that night as well. Somehow everything got packed and we had a very nice drive to Virginia. We arrived at our destination on time and were pretty pleased with ourselves…that is until our friends’ daughter asked if we could just move our van over just a bit. The van would not start. I thought perhaps it was the battery in our key (it is one of those fob keys,) and our friend had replacement batteries. Nope. We thought ahead and had purchased AAA. I honestly thought it was the key – the battery was replaced about a year ago, lights came on, etc. Just the car did not turn on when I turned the key. AAA sent out a locksmith. He could not figure out the problem, and with Shabbos just minutes away, we had to let him go. (Fob keys are usually only able to be made at the dealership…)

Shabbos was wonderful! To wonderful friends, to meeting new friends, to boys having lots of fun! It was really nice. But then reality kicked in and that key issue just did not go away during Shabbos. Tried calling AAA again, but the locksmith I talked too said they could not give me a new key until several days after the weekend. 😐 Never mind, it’s too late, time for bed, I cannot think. Sunday morning – what to do? How to get to the conference? Never fear – friends are here! After convincing us that they really did intend to drive into Baltimore that day, we had our ride. So, we were a little late, that was fine, we made it late in the morning, but we made it! Baruch Hashem. What were we to do afterwards? Once step at a time, worrying would come later. Boys were sent to be babysitters or to be babysat, and the parents were free! My oldest was one of the boys watching the other sort of older boys. He was shocked that about 28 bottles of juice was finished up by 15 boys (including the teenagers) in 4 hours. Those are boys for you! You put it out, it will be gone! 🙂 Baruch Hashem!

It was wonderful. So many people, so many vendors! It was so nice to be amongst so many fellow homeschoolers. It really felt like one big family with everyone out there to help other people out. It was a place where one could just walk up to anyone else and ask questions or help give answers. There were many wonderful speakers, an amazing binder full of chizuk to everyone, and yes, enough food to fill everyone’s tummy. I think the big thing that I got out of it all was the connections. Over the last year or so I have met many people online, and this weekend was a time where I seemed to have met many of those people in person! It was so nice to put a face to a name and to connect in person. I am really a quiet person, but since I have “known” these people already, when we finally met, it was not a new friend feeling and I enjoyed every bit of it! I wish we had more time to chat with everyone, even with our friends we have met several times before, there was just so much to do and so many people to talk too that we did not get to chat with any one person.

When the conference was about ready to end, our dear friend was just finishing up her trip and was there to pick us up. She drove us to the airport so we could pick up our rental van that AAA is supposed to pay for (we purchased the highest AAA membership – 200 miles towing and up to $1500 in a car rental OR food and lodging on a trip interruption.) After taking forever to pick up the van, driving back, waiting several hours for a tow truck, we were finally ready to drive all the way back to Baltimore to our prepaid hotel. We had the man tow our truck 189 miles towards home to the car dealership. At after midnight, we were ready for bed. We were NOT going to set any alarm for the next morning.

Monday was a nice lazy start. After getting up late, driving next door to Target to get a carseat that we left at the conference and food to eat, we were ready to find a place to eat our food. It was really lunch time. We ended up going out to eat instead! The perks of being in such a huge Jewish population – we just drove up and down the street and saw restaurant upon restaurant that was available to eat at. After filling up our bellies, we decided that we should do some learning, and we headed on over to Fort McHenry for an amazing adventure!

It was a beautiful day to be outside. We walked around and found ourselves near some canons and a Park Ranger. After standing there admiring the canons for a few minutes, the Park Ranger started giving the crowd some information about the canons. One of them was an original that was found in France, and the others were replicas. He was funny, entertaining, and educational all in one. Apparently it took over 20 people per canon to man it. He started taking children and positioning them in different places, at the same time, telling them what their job was. The canon was “shot” 3 times in total. It was wonderful! We also took a tour of the Star Fort and saw the barracks, prison and other rooms. Back in the main building, we watched a movie about the battle at the fort in September 1814. It was an awesome film! Even though we all knew the outcome, we were kept in “suspense” anxious to find out the ending. It was also wonderful that we saw the canons and how they worked first before seeing the movie, we understood more of what was going on and it was more meaningful to us. I will not give away the ending – it was a wonderful surprise! The whole movie was only about 10-15 minutes long and so worth every minute of it. I would recommend 1.5-2 hours for a nice visit and tour.

After too long of a visit to the gift store, we were on our way to find our car. We arrived in Lewisburg, PA just after suppertime – that breakfast we bought in the morning sure came in handy! We went into our motel room (and I think we were the only guests there!) ate supper, did mishnayos and finally went into bed. We were exhausted from the weekend, and it was not over. Up early again to get to the dealer about the time they opened. Long story short – it was something under the dashboard that went out and it would take a day or so to fix, so on our way home we went. Made it back to do the afternoon classes in Room613 and send Daddy to work a full day.

It is now Wednesday morning. Clothes from the trip have been washed and dried. Counters have been cleaned and food for the rest of the week bought. In about an hour we are off again to drive back to Lewisburg to pick up the car and get one of the two keys we have rekeyed. We are now down to only one key. New keys cost $225. That’s a fob key for you. Tomorrow, Thursday, I make challah, have scouts and go shopping for the boy scouts. Why? Because Friday is the beginning of the boy scout campout and us two parents are the adults. I am so not interested in camping at the moment, but we cannot disappoint those beautiful boys! It should be fun, really. Monday. I think my extended weekend will be over then. Bonus? I don’t have to make any food for Shabbos (except for challah which I volunteered,)- the Boy Scouts are doing the food making, cleaning, and most importantly, the tent raising and lowering!

First Day of School

Well, today is the first day of school and my children have been given the privilege of sleeping in. Yes, so now you are believing the stereotype of homeschoolers sleeping in and going to school in their pajamas, etc. I will tell you that is not how I run my school. Normally. But today is not a normal day.

This last weekend was a 4 day weekend for Daddy. He got Friday off as well as Monday off. The boys had fun making a 10 meter antenna for Amateur Radio (Ham Radio for short,) watching Daddy climb high up in the tree to hang it, and I think they even tested it a little bit. The antenna is not finished, but almost. On Sunday, the boys went flying in a private airplane with the Scouts and had a wonderful time, and then we all went camping.

The car was packed and we headed straight out to Ossian State Forest. We found our way to Evergreen Pond where there was supposed to be a primitive camping spot available on a first come first serve basis. The camping area was right off the road, and we sat down at the picnic table and decided to stay. We even saw a lot of road kill, just in case we were hungry. (See picture of frog) 😉 After hearing a shotgun and my husband actually SEEING the hunter and yelling at him to be careful and the hunter very recklessly swinging the gun around and apologizing, we decided it was not the place for us. So, with strict orders to the older boys to sit at the table and not move, we took the younger one and off we went to find another spot. It was not long before we found a nicer spot – off the main road, down a path, with a fire pit and wood available for us to use. (You are not permitted to bring wood into the forest for potential of invasive insects coming and destroying the forest, but you are permitted to use wood found in the forest.)

We had a blast! Two tents were put up, fire was started and the boys had fun roasting potatoes and having baked beans for supper. We put the fire out and went to bed. The boys went to bed really good – almost immediately! The next morning the boys got up quite early surprisingly, however, that did not help them in packing up their tent! They just could not get it done in less than 2.5 hours! (Don’t really blame them, I hate packing up as well, but it needs to get done!) To try to help them out I said no breakfast until it was finished. Not sure it helped 😉 but we finally got everything packed up, a new fire made for coffee that was accidentally left on the counter, davened and ate.

We finished and packed up the few remaining items around 12:30. Nothing had gone the way my husband wanted it to that morning (and it did not help that I forgot the coffee!) However, we left, got some coffee and spent some time walking around a Lowes that we found in the area. We decided we were just looking at ladders (for the antenna!) and we had no set time to leave. I made lunch before we took off again. We were going to try to do a geocache before going home. We went to Hemlock Lake – that is the lake where we get our water from. Unfortunately, there were a few grumpy people, and when grumpy people are in the same vehicle, it affects everyone for there is no room to go and hide.

We ended driving around to the west side of the lake and finding a trail down the forest. The plan was for the four big boys to hike in the old growth forest around the lake to a meeting point on the other side. The littlest boy and I were going to meet them over there in the van. DH took his phone with the GPS on it and a Ham radio for the phone did not have a signal very reliably. This was around 4:45pm.

Everything went fine until they had traveled a long ways, the trail ended and they went bush wacking. Then the phone decided it was going to get ready to die. I was given a few location coordinates before the phone died. The area was very marshy and full of thickets and wild roses, making it extremely difficult to walk through. It was not until about 7:30 that I started to get really worried. It was almost sunset. It was going to be getting dark very soon. I told them to turn their radio off for a while to make sure they would continue to have battery when needed. 8:20 I called 9-1-1. The lady dispatcher was very nice and helpful. She dispatched the sheriff who was a few towns over, so it took a few minutes to get to where I was. She stayed on the phone with me and we kept tabs on what was happening to the boys. As we were trying to narrow down their location, the sheriff came and we drove to where he thought everyone might be. He shined his light in the forest and yes, boys saw it! By this time there were more police cars driving around at various spots, that I only found out later. It was not that much longer before they were on their way and close to coming out of the forest.

They came out at a different place to where I was at the moment and the sheriff and I drove to them. Around 9:30 they finally made it out! As they climbed out one at a time, you can be sure that each one got a hug! My oldest was a great trooper, never complaining, just chugging along in the bush. Another boy was almost in tears – he was scared and was just so glad to be out! The third boy did not say much other than smile and say he was glad to be out. The biggest boy? I think he was a bit dazed. I do not think it really hit him fully until this morning.

There were almost a dozen police cars, fire trucks and ambulances over there. I want to thank the Livingston County Sheriff department and the Springwater volunteer ambulance and everyone else that came. Obviously they were just Hashem’s messengers and even though we need to thank them, it was ultimately Hashem’s doing that they were found that quickly. I also thank Hashem that the batteries in the radio lasted the entire time, for without the radio it would have required a whole lot more time and energy to find them!

We finally got home around 11pm. We had not eaten supper, but I made everyone hot chocolate and they got as much orange juice as they wanted. Other than being smoked out from our camp fires, they needed to get clean from their hike! After getting clean and filling the tummies a little bit, they were all tucked into bed. It was then that I told them they could sleep in on the first day of school. I finally woke them up at 10 am to say brachos, eat and clean the table.

So now, the biggest brave boy is at work, and the others are in Room613 for the open house. The little one who did not have a bath last night just washed himself and is getting dressed. The day will involve our math like we have done in the summer, and the afternoon is going to involve emptying the van and perhaps washing it (if it does not rain!)

So that, my friends, is why my boys got to sleep in on our first day of school.