August was another month full of activities. I was still on crutches but finally decided to use one of the old people ride on carts at Target. It was hysterical. It was so slow that Sofia was laughing becuase she had to slow her walk pace to stay with me. The reverse beeping was so loud I did everything to not go in reverse. Sofia and I had a good time with it. It did make life much easier and I probably should have taken advantage of it sooner. Oh well!
The beginning of the month meant it was time to head to Beach Week! The kids LOVE beach week. They love being at the beach and the love playing with their cousins. Unfortunately a lot of the family just stay at the pool at the rental but as Sofia said, "It isn't pool week!" so we head to the beach. Half of the kids cousins are at the beach though so they have a blast building sand castles and playing in the water. We enjoyed all the things the beach has to offer...swimming in the ocean, dough boys, Del's, dinner with family, and seafood dinners sitting by the ocean. The kids were finally at an age that the adults (my brothers and spouses and Jason and I) were able to go out for a nice dinner together. It was fun to have an adults only (no kids no parent) dinner. I think that is the first time we have ever done that. It is also nice that the kids are old enough to stand in line at the clam shack for 45 minutes and not whine so we tried out a new clam shack and sat on the pier for dinner...fish and chips, fried clams and chowder. We had one day when the weather was not perfect beach weather and it happen to be the day we all (my mom, my brother and his family and us) went to Mystic Aquarium with Auntie Carlene. The girls love the aquarium and so do I. The animals are so fun to watch. We went into the bird exhibit and fed the birds too which everyone enjoyed and noone got pooped on which made it even better! The kids were sad to have beach week come to an end.
Following beach week the girls got to stay with Grandma and Grandpa for the weekend because Jason and I headed up to Vermont. Jason was scheduled to run the Tough Mudder. I was also scheduled to run it but the whole hip surgery thing got int he way! We drove up and met up with my friend Aaron from high school along with his wife, Carley, and another couple. Carley was signed up to run with Jason as was Carley's friend. It had come about at my high school reunion when I met Carley for the first time. She was excited to run that kind of race so I encouraged her to join our team. She did and then our team dwindled to Jason and two women. Jason and Carley did great. Carley's friend ended up bailing on the race after the first obstacle but Jason and Carley stuck with it and completed the 11 mile race in just over four hours. It was a tough race up and down Mount Snow 4 or 5 times. It was good course for spectators if you weren't all gimped out like me. Aaron walked up and down the mountain seeing Jason and Carley at multiple obstacles. I however laid on a picnic table at the base seeing how long it took for clouds to pass overhead. Needless to say I was VERY bored. I eventually made my way over the finish and watch people finish for 2 hours. At least it gave me something to do. We hung around the base area for a little bit and then headed back to the Condo. It was a fun weekend. Maybe in a couple years I will sign up again and actually get to run it.
Ali continued going to the gym three hours a day four days a week throughout August. I find it amazing that she loves gymnastics so much that she wants to be there for so long. She says it doesn't feel that long so I guess she really is enjoying it. She has improved drastically since joining this gym. The coaching is top notch and they expect a lot from the girls. They don't want sloppy work. They want perfection and expect every girl to strive for that goal. They would rather the girls perfect 4 skills than have 10 sloppy skills. The conditioning work they have the girls do is awesome. The gym recognizes if you are going to do all these skills you need the muscle strength and stamina to complete them. They make sure the girls are strong in every area of their bodies. The coaches do it with out being mean and nasty too. Don't get me wrong, there are days when coaches can be grumpy but overall Ali loves the coaches. They push you and expect you to work hard but if you are giving 100% then the coaches are funny and nice. They don't put the girls down either. One day I say to Ali, "oh that is your bad leg right?" to which she responded, "no, its my good leg." I said, "oh I thought the other one was your good leg."
She said, "No, This is my better leg." So even in the words the coaches use with the kids they are encouraging.
You don't have a "bad" leg you only have a good leg and a better leg. In truth it is the reality. If you took these girls' "good" leg and compared it to kids outside the gym it would be amazing.
Ali has also made good friends with the girls on the team especially her friend Paigie. She loves seeing Paigie at the gym and fortunately Paigie and Ali have the same recess at school
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In addition to gymnastics Ali also went to golf camp this summer for a week along with Sofia. Ali only stayed at golf for a half day but Sofia loved it the first day and begged to stay full days. I was happy she was enjoying golf so even though they were full the coach seemed to enjoy Sofia and allowed her to stay full days. Sofia made friends with two other girls in her group her were thirteen years old. They were very nice to her and Sofia loves being with the older kids. One day I picked Ali up at lunch time and one of the kids yelled out to me that Sofia fell off the cart. I of course came to immediate attention and got concerned and got to Sofia. The two thirteen year olds jumped up quickly to assure me that Sofia didn't do anything wrong and that she was fine. It made me smile that these two girls felt they needed to protect Sofia. Apparently when the cart was being driven around a corner going downhill Sofia saw that her club was going to fall out of the cart and went to reach for it. Of course that was a horrible idea and she quickly went tumbling out of the cart. She landed half on the grass and half on pavement. Her fingers, arms and knees were scraped up and she had a bump on her head from where her head hit the pavement. She assured me she was fine and she wanted to stay for the rest of the day. She seemed ok so I left her and came back to pick her up at the end of the day. When I arrived I made a joke to the coach about keeping her out of harms way only to find out that Sofia had been hit in the head by a driver. This was totally Sofia's fault as she walked behind another player during their back swing but she had a huge welt on her head. She managed to be ok with it and learned a lesson the hard way. I asked her if she had fun even with of all her mishaps that day and I couldn't help but laugh out loud when she responds, "oh yeah totes mom". I guess the thirteen year olds were rubbing off on Sofia! She is hoping to join a league next year so she can start playing more often.
The final item on the to do list for August were haircuts. The girls love going to the salon. They like how Brianna cuts their hair and they love they she always straightens their hair for them. I can't blame them. Curly hair blown straight is always so soft and smooth and feels so nice. It didn't last long in the humidity of August but it was fun while it lasted!
We headed up to Fryeburg to go to the Fryeburg Fair. The kids really enjoy the fair and it is fun to see them enjoy all the rides, games, animals etc. They love going in the little red school house as well. I have probably blogged about the school house in previous years but it was the school that Jason's grandmother attended and it was on their land. His grandmother donated the school house to the fair so now everybody can enjoy that piece of history. I think it is a good way to keep the girls connected to their history and their great grandmother. 
Grammie (as I call her) was an awesome lady. Always kind and always genuinely seemed to be interested in what we had to say. The girls think it is fun to sit at the desks in the school house and write on the mini chalkboards at each seat. We looked again for Clementine the draft horse but we didn't see her this year and we walked through four draft horse barns looking for her. We took the kids on Monday so we could see some of the woodsman day activities but we misjudged the excitement. The start of the day was pretty boring and all the seats in the grandstand were filled by 8:30AM so it was hard for the kids to see unless they were on our shoulders. At 48lbs Ali gets to be heavy after a while! Next year if we attend on woodsman's day we will have to see if there is a list of events so we could see only the ones we wanted to watch rather than trying to randomly guess when they might be doing something exciting. We also messed up our days for the pig scramble and the sheep dog trials. We thought they were on the same day as the Woodman's day but they weren't so next year we will have to try to get that right. I think the kids would really enjoy watching the sheepdog trials.
In addition to the fair Jason and the girls camped out. Given my hip and the fact that I had the implant done only a couple days before I decided it probably wasn't a good idea for me to sleep in the tent but the kids had a blast. I went out to the tent to get them settled in and we played a few hands of cards before I said good night. Jason says they played a little more and then it was lights out. Some animal must have come in front of the barns because it turned on the motion sensor light. That made Ali a little nervous because it sent a lot of shadows over the tent. Then they had the excitement of hearing the deer come out of the woods and start eating apples right next to the tent. After all that excitement the girls fell to sleep and slept through the night. Jason in is advanced years woke up every couple hours with a sore shoulder...sore back...etc. Camping is definitely much easier when you are young! In the morning they woke up to a thick fog which made the kids feel like they were in the middle of nowhere and they loved that. Jason started the backpacking/camping stove to heat up water and they enjoyed oatmeal and hot chocolate while sitting on a rock. It was a good time had by all.
