August 2014

So we got back from Niagara Falls, and there was no rest for the weary.  Our summer was still far from over!

The next day, Margie got up early and joined the Primary Presidency (as well as some additional members of the ward) in a trip to the temple.

That afternoon, the entire family went to an end of the season party, where John received his season trophy and some kind words from his coach.

John and Coach Chris

That night, Lyn attended a birthday party for a friend from church.  It was a "neon" party that was held in a dark gym with fun games.

The next day, after church, we headed over to Deb's house for a farewell Barbeque to celebrate cousin Daria's visit.  Before we left, we all worked as a team to make gluten-free chocolate eclairs especially for Aunt Deb!

Lyn filled them.

John made the chocolate sauce.

 After dinner, we made sure to take lots of pictures of all the Remmers!

The Remmers!

The next day, John started a program called "Jump Start," which is designed to help rising 7th graders transition to middle school.  For the next week, he had a great time learning his way around the school, how to open a locker, and meeting some of his teachers.

Jump Start didn't begin until 9am, so that gave Margie a chance to enjoy one of her favorite pastimes, riding her bike at sunrise.

Sunrise on the Potomac, 8/13/14

And, of course, Dan and Margie celebrate their birthdays in August.  On Dan's birthday (the 13th), the whole family went to see Spamalot at LTA.  It was a great show.  On Friday, we had planned to go to one of our favorite restaurants, but we discovered it was closed (because they are moving), so we went instead to Whole Foods, which we discovered was having a special on vegan Banh Mi, which is a Vietnamese sandwich.  It was soooo good!  (I'm still dreaming about it...)  On her birthday, Margie went by herself to the The Lion King at The Kennedy Center.  The family was kind of ho-hum about seing it when she asked about getting tickets back in the spring, and she didn't want to spend the money if they weren't really enthusiastic.  Instead, she was able to spend the money to get a better seat (first row balcony!) since she was only buying one ticket.  She thoroughly enjoyed it!  Finally, that evening, the whole family went to the wedding reception of the daughter of some friends from church, where Margie ran into an old friend from her single days.  Such a small world--turns out her husband is a good friend of the father of the bride!  On the whole, it was a great birthday week!

The last two weeks of August were delightfully calm.  We had been running around so much all summer, that it was nice to just spend some time at home doing our own thing.  Margie got to ride her bike with the sunrise each day, and each morning she and the kids had a little brunch.

On the 22nd, John went on a little campout with his scout troop, while Dan, Margie and Lyn went to a birthday party for a friend from theatre.  If John had been home, we would have left Lyn with him, but we didn't feel comfortable having her by herself late at night.  We were really impressed that she was able to hold her own with a group of adult strangers!

The last week in August, things started ramping up for school.

On Sunday, August 24, we attended an information night for Seminary, which is the religious education program for high schoolers.  Lyn will be going to the church every morning at 6am during the school year to study, before heading over to school.  Luckily for her, the church and the school are right across the street from each other!

The next morning, Lyn rode the high school bus for the first time to go to Freshman Orientation, where she got her schedule (Drama, Percussion Ensemble, PE, History, and Math this semester; Latin, Percussion Ensemble, PE, Science, and English next semester), a map and a t-shirt, and learned about the school.

On Tuesday, we attended a middle school party thrown by a friend of ours each year to give the 8th graders a chance to pass on their wisdom to the rising 7th graders.

On Wednesday, John and Margie dropped by the middle school to pick up his schedule and find his locker.  Unfortunately, his schedule wasn't right, so we also had to drop by to see the counselor and fill out a schedule change.  That became a huge deal the first week of school, but I'll write about that in the Semptember update.

On Thursday, John had his orientation, where he had a chance to find all his classrooms and meet some of his teachers.  There was also an event at the high school, where Margie signed up for the PTSA (no longer just the parent-teacher association, the students are old enough to get involved as well) and attended a parent information session, and Lyn picked up her PE uniform, as well as information about the drama club.

On Saturday, we attended a church potluck, held at a local park.  We attempted to make a cake from Margie's most recent Food Network Magazine, but it didn't quite work.

Well, it only moderately looked like the picture, but it tasted good!

And that's it for August.  We had a great summer!

Niagara Falls

Another exciting thing we did this summer was make a trip up to Niagara Falls.

Sometime last year, Dan and Margie attended a sales presentation and had received as a thank you gift a free 2-night stay at any Great Wolf Lodge resort and waterpark for a family of four.  Lyn looked at the list and declared that she wanted to go to the one in Niagara Falls, Canada, so we planned to make a trip during the following summer.

However, when Margie went to make the reservations, she discovered that 1) she needed to do so 60 days in advance, and 2) she needed to provide three alternate dates.  Well, spring break was just around the corner, and we only had one week to choose from, so we decided to go in the summer instead.  "Besides," Margie said, "I suspect it will still be a little cold in Canada in the spring."

Time went on, and Margie kept thinking she needed to make those reservations, but she didn't.  Finally, when it was close to 60 days out, she picked up the gift certificate, only to discover it had expired!  Ack!

Well, Dan and Margie had a long talk, and since we were all already looking forward to Niagara Falls (we can go to a water park anywhere), we decided to make a trip up there on the cheap.

It is only a six hour drive from here to there, but we decided to make an extended trip out of it, so we left the afternoon of Monday, August 4 and drove a couple hours to Altoona, Pennsylvania, where we camped at Prince Gallitzin State Park. We stayed in site #73, and it was perfect.  Our tent opened up to the lake and woods (with hiking trail), we had a water pump one site over, we were just a few steps from the bathrooms and shower, and we were just across from the playground.  It was lovely!

We built a campfire for the first time, and that was a little challenging.  Margie did not bring any matches, but rather a flint and rod that she had gotten for emergencies.  We were able to make it spark, but not enough to light the paper we had put under the logs in the fire pit.  Luckily, one of our camping neighbors saw our difficulties and brought us a piece of burning wood.  Yay!


Lyn and Margie prepared foil packet dinners (and dessert!) the night before.  It was yummy!

All was well until bedtime, when some other neighbors completely disregarded quiet hours!  They were so loud that Margie had to call the ranger on them. :(

The next morning, we had pancakes and fruit for breakfast.  Since we almost always get campsites with electricity, Margie had had the brilliant idea to bring her electric skillet.  It worked great!

After breakfast, we went on a little 1.3 mile hike around the lake.  At one point, we came across a tree that had fallen into the water, and Margie felt her life would not be complete if she didn't climb out onto it.  Then Lyn decided she felt the same way.  And, of course, John did, too.  Dan stayed behind and took pictures.


This was much scarier than it looks!

Made it!

Lyn didn't want to venture out quite as far.

Yeah, John felt the same way.

By the time we got back, it had warmed up, and Margie decided to take a swim in the lake.  Afterwards, we packed up and headed to Farmington, New York, which is just outside Rochester.  It was about an hour and a half from Niagara, but the price of the motel was definitely right, and we didn't mind the drive.

After we got settled in, we headed into town for dinner.  Dan had found this really cool place called Dog Town.  It's a gourmet hot dog joint that caters to vegetarians.  It was fantastic!

The next morning after breakfast we started our trek to Niagara.  We started with Cave of the Winds.  We picked up our sandals, then headed down the elevator, where we received our ponchos.

 

We had to take pictures before, because we knew we would be too wet to do it after!

It was AMAZING!!  You climb a staircase right into the edge of the falls (Bridal Veil)!  Lyn said it was like being in the middle of a storm, and she couldn't wipe the smile off her face!  At one point Margie looked at John and said, "Where are your glasses?"  They had fallen off somewhere along the way!  We thought they were lost for good--another victim of the falls--but luckily Dan found them on one of the platforms below.  Woo hoo!!

After that we walked up to a little bridge/observation platform, where we could look over the edge and see where we had been.

See those yellow specks?  That was us, just a few minutes earlier.

 

From the platform overlooking the American Falls.  The greenish tower in the background is where we're headed next!

From there we walked across the pedestrian bridge to the other side of American Falls.  Over there is another observation tower that allowed us to see both American Falls and Horseshoe Falls (in Canada).  The tower houses an elevator that took us down to where we would board our boat--Maid of the Mist!

This famous boat ride was ABSOLUTELY AMAZING!!! Lyn thought she loved Cave of the Winds, but this turned out to be her favorite.  Such a close view of the Falls (including Horseshoe!)! So much wind and water! It was FANTASTIC.  Even Dan and John--not boat or water people at all--seemed to enjoy it.

Passing by American Falls.  Too much water at Horseshoe to get any pictures.

After that, we hiked up a little cliff to get a view of American Falls from the other side.

So the artistic sillouette of Dan didn't quite turn out the way I'd hoped, but I love how this picture captures the power of the water.

John wanted me to take this picture, because he thought it was funny.  I agreed!  What's the opposite of enter?

We were all hot and thirsty, so we got some lemonade and ice cream (not together!), before we hopped on a trolley that would take us to the Discovery Center, a little museum about the natural and manmade history of the Falls.

Next we headed to the IMAX theatre, where we watched a movie about the history of the falls, including the daredevils who had gone over in barrels and walked tightropes, and Roger Woodward, who had fallen when he was 7 years old and survived.

At that was it!  Time to head out and find some dinner.

The whole trip, we had meticulously avoided toll roads, but leaving Niagara Falls, we accidentally ended up on one and found ourselves on Grand Island.  What a happy mistake!  Thanks to the magic of the iPhone, we stubbled upon what may be one of the coolest restaurants of all time, Comic Book Cafe.  There was comic book memorabilia EVERYWHERE. Margie wished her brother could have seen it!

Spiderman welcomes you from the roof of the Comic Book Cafe.

John and Batman.

Unfortunately, due to the lighting, the camera just couldn't capture how cool the decor of this restaurant was.  You'll just have to trust us!

The next day, we spent some time visiting a couple Church history sites.  Joseph Smith, the man, who we believe restored the Church of Jesus Christ in the our time (i.e., "the latter-days"), lived in upstate New York at the time, very close to where we were staying.

We started with the Grandin building in downtown Palmyra, where the very first copies of the Book of Mormon had been printed.  There we received a tour of the new (well, 1998--new since Margie had been there 20 years ago!) visitors center, including a detailed lesson specifically for the kids about how the printing press and book binding process worked back then.  When John mentioned something about going back in time, the missionary who was our tour guide asked if we had ever heard of Doctor Who!! We had fun chatting with her about doctors and companions and daleks.

From there we went to the Joseph Smith Farm Welcome Center, which included the Smith family log house (which they built when they first arrived from Vermont), the Smith family frame house (which they built later), Brigham Young's barn (which had been brought in to replace the orginal Smith family barn, which is no longer standing), and the Sacred Grove (where Joseph Smith received his first vision).

It was great to see all these things, especially all the places Joseph hid the plates when the mobs came and tried to take them away from him.  Unfortunately, this stop took much longer than expected, so we had to head south before seeing any more of the sites.

We stopped at a grocery store to pick up some lunch and then stopped at a little park along the Finger Lakes to eat it.

Our lunch spot.

We stayed the night at Cowans Gap State Park, which we thought was going to be another lovely lakeside spot like Prince Gallitzin had been.  Unfortunately, it was set up more for RVs, so there was only gravel to put our tent on.  No thank you!  And while we were close to the entrance to the water and hiking path, we were across the lake from the swimming area.  We hunted down the ranger and found a better spot, putting our tent in a little clearing in a grove of trees.  It was very nice, but we didn't have a view of the water, which Margie always looks for.  Dinner that night was some prepared food that Margie cooked in the electric skillet.  Again, what a great idea to bring it!

That night, our neighbors quieted down and we had a great night's sleep.  Whew!

The next morning, we went on a hike around the lake.  It was lovely, but we were ready to come home.

Cowans Gap

Unfortunately, the trip home was a big frustrating.  As long has Margie has been a vegetarian (around 20 years now!), she has wanted to stop for a meal in Hagerstown, Maryland.  This town is the headquarters of the Seventh-Day Adventist Church, which promotes vegetarianism, so there is a well-known cafe and market there.  We had planned to go there for lunch, and Margie and Lyn were really looking forward to it.  Sadly, we got there 15 minutes after they had closed.  :(

Forced to find another place for lunch, we selected Red Robin.  John recently discovered a love of rootbeer (I guess he takes after his dad!), and the bottomless rootbeer floats made his day!

After that, we made our way back to our house, our beds, and our normal lives.

But it was a great adventure!

July 2014

As I mentioned in my June update, shortly before the end of school, we learned about a FREE, 5-week summer camp offered through the county school system for rising 7th and 8th graders.  Value in Prevention (VIP) camp included half a day of sports (John chose mixed sports, with indoor games such as Capture the Flag, Freeze Tag, and others) and a half day of mini-classes such as technology, arts & crafts and, John's favorite, cooking.  It also included a field trip once a week.  Two of the trips were to water parks, and since John is not a strong swimmer, he chose not to go.  He also chose to take the third week of camp off so he could have some free time.  Remember, he had just gotten back from a week of scout camp, followed by VIP camp, which was then going to be followed by a week of traveling (more on that in the August update).  He needed the break!  By missing the middle week, he also missed a trip to the Maryland Science Center.  We'll have to go there on our own another time.

He did enjoy one field trip to Medieval Times, however.  You'll remember that we had gone there during Spring Break last year and it had inspired him to write an epic poem.  He loved it so much that he is brainstorming ideas to turn bringing groups there into a business.

Lyn also attended camp, but just for a week.  Every year our church runs a sleepaway camp for all the girls 12 and older.  This year, amazingly, it was held at Pocohontas State Park--where Dan and Margie had been for Bike Virginia.  The theme was "Go For the Gold," and all of the activites were centered around increasing their spiritual stength and endurance.  Lyn had a great time!  She's a little nervous about next year, though, since one of the fourth year activities is a 10 mile hike!

Last month, Dan's sister Deb celebrated her 50th birthday with a big party.  For her present, Lyn and Margie treated her to a girls day out.  We started with pedicures, had some lunch, and then ended by seeing the movie, Maleficent.  The movie was fantastic, and we had all had a great time!

During John's week off of VIP camp, he celebrated his 1/2 birthday.  We like to celebrate in the summer, rather than on his real birthday in January, because it is always so crazy around the holiday season (and frankly, Mom is tired!).  He and some boys from church got together to play laser tag and eat pizza.  Instead of a birthday cake, he decided to have colossol donuts.  Not only are they his favorite, but since he was in charge of his budget this year, it was a great money saver.

John continued to run track, even though the Junior Olympics was over.  On July 19 he participated in his last track meet of the season.  It was held in Newport News, several hours away, and the coach had recommended we all get hotel rooms.  Well, the Remmers Family are now campers extraordinaire!  We found a great little campground nearby to stay the night.  Our spot was right near a little pond, and THE FROGS WERE SO LOUD!!!  It was part funny, part amazing, and part annoying.  LOL

Anyway, John did an OK job at the meet.  He beat his seeded time in all three races, but did not set any personal records. 

Last track meet of the year.  John is off and running!

We headed home and, as luck would have it, found ourselves in Williamsburg at dinner time.  We got to take the kids to Food for Thought, the restaurant Dan and Margie had been so impressed with on there trip earlier in the summer.

The day after we got back, Dan's cousin, Karen Pida had an art reception at the Reston Community Center.  Only Dan and Lyn went, because Margie and John had another commitment, but they had fun catching up with relatives they hadn't seen in awhile and admiring Karen's beach-themed art work.

Meanwhile, John and Margie attended a district-wide fireside, put on by the missionaries in our area.  John's piano teacher had asked us to expose him to as many different kinds of music as possible, and Margie thought this concert would be the perfect thing. Unfortunately, it wasn't as music-focused as she had expected.  Still, it was very uplifting, and we were glad we went.

The following weekend, Lyn attended a babysitting certification class held by the Red Cross.  Now that she is 14, she is really excited to start babysitting for real--and for money.  This is especially important, since her birthday meant the end of her allowance.  She's now old enough to make her own money if she wants it!

It's official!  Lyn's ready to babysit!

Did I say birthday?  14????  Yep, it's true.  Lyn turned 14 at the end of this month.  What a delightful young woman she's turning into!  She wanted to have two different parties--one for her family, and one for her friends.

Her family party was held on her actual birthday.  Awhile back, Dan's brother Tom and his family had visited, and their Dad took everyone out to dinner at one of their favorite restaurants, Cafesano, in Reston.  Lyn was intrigued by their desserts--baklava and cannoli--and resolved to have some for her birthday.  We had originally planned to have the party there, but then we realized that Aunt Debbie (Dan's sister) wouldn't be able to eat either of those desserts, since they both contain gluten. We decided instead to get the desserts to go and pick up some ice cream and strawberries to go with it.  Since Reston is quite far from where we live, Dan's Dad and his wife graciously offered to host.  We were delighted to also include cousin Daria, who was visiting from Germany!

The next day (technically August, but I'll include it here), Lyn hosted her "friend party".  This was the first party where Margie was not involved at all--a little scary!  Lyn didn't have any games or activities planned--just food.  She even made her own cake! The house was filled with a gaggle of giggling girls for a few hours and everyone had a great time.

Lyn made a grasshopper cake (chocolate and mint) all by herself!