Beach Magic

If you know us at all, you KNOW we LOVE the beach. It is part of the fiber of who our family is. Also, you probably know about out "other" family... our Project Surf Camp family, which is also part of the fiber of who we are.

 

 

With Nathaniel's recent health struggles and surgery I was very worried that we wouldn't get to experience the magic of Project Surf Camp this summer, and my heart was breaking over that. I think Nathaniel's was too, as it was ALL he talked about while in Rehab. You can't possible imagine the excitement and relief I felt when Dr. Sun told us he was released to surf. I actually did cry tears of relief and joy. Our family was able to join PSC for the opening day of surf camps season this year, yet I have been remiss in blogging it because the emotions were just too raw. I am going to take a stab at it today, and hope the tears stay where they belong!

 

To us, Project Surf Camp is:

 

 

Family that welcomes us home with open arms and love in their hearts.

 

 

Accessibility to one of God's greatest gifts for ALL!

 

 

A chance for siblings so differently abled to do something magical together.

 

 

It's a time for personal victories.

 

 

And a time to share the blessings with treasured friends.

 

 

To me personally, this day was

 

 

About contagious JOY! From a boy who had MAJOR, life altering spinal surgery just 38 days before this!

 

It was about personal victories and finding out that no matter how changed his body is, he can still fight back and be victorious!

 

It was about our family finding normal again.

 

And it was about PRAISING the Lord for His GREATNESS!

 

On this special day at Project Surf Camp, I hung up my hat as Board of Directors member, I didn't even take many pictures (and if you know me then you KNOW that is a miracle),

 

 I just BASKED in His glory.

 

I let Him wash all around me as I prayed and worshiped Him for His GREATNESS.

 

I wept tears unending.

 

And I TOTALLY enjoyed the precious gift of my children SURFING TOGETHER!

 

If you wonder why we say that Project Surf Camp CHANGES LIVES, this is just one small story of the HUGE greatness this camp does.

 

If you want to experience TRUE magic, and God's blessing, let me know, I would LOVE to take you down to the beach with us, get you hooked up to volunteer.... I GUARANTEE you will walk away a changed person.

 

I am excited to say, we are heading down to the beach today... and I can't tell you how much my heart needs a little magic today!

 

I also want to mention a quick THANK YOU to Breann Hollon of Breann Hollon Photography for the AMAZING images of this special day that she captured. My dear, sweet friend volunteers her time and talent to come out and take fabulous pictures that she provides to PSC families free of cost. What a sweetheart! But she also does great work here locally too, so if you need so fabulous photographs, make sure you look her up!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 



Go Fly A Kite!

This weekend was the Kite Festival in Morro Bay, and I actually took the kids!

Considering that I HATE crowds of people, journeying out to something like this is a major accomplishment for me!

But I am so glad we went!

There were some fun kites,

The skies were blue and the views were great,

And the kids had lots of fun!

Not to mention....

I got to take TONS of pictures!

And I mean TONS.....

So watch out!

 Even though I only chose like 1/4 of the final edited ones for the post!

I REALLY liked this kite, and I think that this is my favorite shot of it I took.

Audrey liked this one.

I think she took about 50 pictures of it!

Another Audrey shot. And just in case you are wondering, the outfit I have on... NOT a great choice to wear to a kite festival! I nearly froze to death!

Nathaniel's favorite...

Although he wanted to know if this one would fit in his aquarium!

Audrey's two favorites together.

And Gramie Sharon's favorite!

Super model mode???

I don't know what she was doing, but she is cute anyways!

All in all, a great outing

And we will go back next year... dressed in better and bringing our own chairs!

DONE...... Finally!

Dang.... sometimes I think the kid's school projects are just exercises in ways to torture parents! I KNOW that they are to expand the kids world, but still....

So Audrey has been working on this horribly hard project for the last two weeks. Part of the problem has been how sick Nathaniel has been, and therefore how tired I have been. But another part of the problem is that the project was a creative art project that also needed to be a book report. My artistic daughter spent countless HOURS over planning and executing the details of her creativity, but didn't want to spend ANY time on the book report part!

Case in point: She needed to make a list of "ingredients" in the books she was reporting on. She took TWO HOURS to "write" the few words out in the MOST DRAMATIC handwriting EVER. The problem? Other than it took her FOREVER and drove me bonkers? You couldn't READ the handwriting because it was so dramatic! When I pointed this fact out to her the answer I got in return was "But it LOOKS beautiful and it adds visual power to the project." Seriously? Visual power from a third grader???

So we had to compromise.

I INSISTED that all the writing had to be done on the computer, and that she could not spend more time on the execution of the art than she spent on the execution of the report. Could have been a BAD compromise on my part.

See, my kid is pretty smart.

 I set a timer for how long it took her to answer the questions on the scratch paper, then type them all into the computer. Then the deal was she got to spend that long on the art too.

See a problem here?

Yup, you guessed it.

She DRUG out the writing part FOREVER to have FOREVER on her art.

Sigh.

Can't say I didn't try...

But the project is FINALLY done, and most of her planned "creativity" is still included in the project, yet it is readable enough for me to be OK with her turning it in.

So here it is, in all of it's glory:

I DID decide that this project was not a lesson in computer skills, so I helped with the formatting of the pages. That was a little over the top, but I did put everything where SHE told me to. And she TYPED all of the words, I just formated the pages so that they printed correctly.

Notice the words search in TEENY TINY letter that you need a magnifying glass to read, that was her plan! She was SO DETERMINED about that. Other than setting up the graph for her, and helping her to get all the words in there, I didn't help with this page. SHE put all those dang random letters in there! And she was HILARIOUS about the words she put in there NOT on her list.... her teacher's name, her school name, her name, thoughts about the project, the names she was calling her brother while he was picking on her during this project, ALL kinds of stuff. It was pretty funny to watch her.

And the BIGGEST plan of all: 

The spring loaded turtle that pops up when you open the box... my goodness she was so funny explaining that to the guy at the hardware store where we had to go buy a spring! He thought we were totally crazy I am sure!

It might have felt like it was going to KILL me to get through this project without hanging her, but it is DONE! Finally.....

Now I need a glass of wine!

Take THAT Spina Bifida!

Some things take YEARS of work....

But are TOTALLY worth it!

ESPECIALLY when the person doing it has been told that he will most likely NEVER walk due to his Spina Bifida!

Please take a few minutes and watch HOW AMAZING our God is!

And if this doesn't show you why I LOVE my God, and I LOVE PSC, nothing will!

The first year we surfed with PSC was 2009.

It had been a ROUGH summer with services, and disability related things. People who were supposed to be trained in interacting with children like mine dropped the ball big time, several times throughout the summer. Then there was this surfer guy at church trying to get me to bring Nathaniel to a surf camp for special needs kids. I  would see him and go the other way! In my mind he just DIDN'T GET my kid. There finally came a time that I caved, and I agreed to bring Nathaniel to camp to check it out.

And it was LOVE at first sight.

Nathaniel LOVED surfing.

I was in TEARS on the beach watching my child get supported the RIGHT way in doing something special.

And the girls LOVED participating with Nathaniel.

This is a video clip from the first day Nathaniel ever did Project Surf Camp in August of 2009.

Notice the shallow water.

Notice the GREAT volunteers.

Notice the HUGE smiles.

In 2010 Nathaniel COULDN'T wait to get back to surf camp. And I was praying for a way to make his surf camp dreams come true. This was the first summer I was a single mom, and money was TIGHT to say the least. But God had a plan....

 In June I got a phone call that would CHANGE our summer that year. John Taylor, the director of PSC was in a TIGHT spot. He had producers from NBC coming to film the camp the NEXT DAY, and the group that was going to be at the camp that day had to pull out for confidentiality reasons (it was a group of foster kids, and they couldn't be on national television!)  Now I KNOW special needs people, and I have connections in that community. With a few phone calls we were able to have a camp full of kids for John the next day!

Check out what happened that day HERE!

Thus began the 2010 Pepsi Refresh ride for our family with Project Surf Camp. It was a summer I could NEVER have dreamed giving my kids and we had a BLAST riding the wave with PSC. John was so grateful for my help getting kids to his big day that he let my kids surf often that summer. And we were always invited to NBC/Pepsi Refresh events.

Through countless adventures with PSC in the summer of 2010, Nathaniel became more confident, more daring and more in love with surfing! 

He even won his very own surf board!

This is 2 video clips from Nathaniel surfing in 2010

6.25.2010

Notice the independence.

Notice the confidence.

Notice the joy.

6.25.2010 With assistance....

Notice the dedicated support to bring about victory.

Notice the little boy who was not supposed to walk....

Surfing has become a passion for my kids. They LOVE it. In 2011, I was generously invited to join the board of directors for Project Surf Camp. As a board member, one perk was that my kids got to surf OFTEN in camp! We spent countless hours on the beach, me shooting pictures, Nat and Audrey surfing in camp and Brianna volunteering with other campers. It was a family event, and for those five weeks we lived PSC.

7.29.2011

Through the tears in this mommy's eyes there are not words to describe that clip.

My boy. Born with Spina Bifida. Getting himself to a standing position on a moving surf board unassisted.

PRICELESS!!!!

This is why I LOVE our PSC family.

And this is why you will ALWAYS see me doing anything in my power to keep the funding rolling in for PSC so other families can experience this joy, this astonishment and this unforgettable feel good!

Our God KNEW what he was doing when he place the dream of PSC in the hearts of many fabulous people and brought this dream to reality!

I never did get around to posting pictures of our Spring Break trip (because I JUST finished editing them!), but I do want to share them.

For day two of our trip we went to Gilroy Gardens.

This is the view walking in!

If you have never been and you have small children, this is a GREAT place to go.

It's beautiful.

It's clean.

The rides are fun.

The people were nice and helpful.

And it was SUPER wheelchair friendly!

My parents went on this trip with us too, and I think they really enjoyed themselves too!

The kids are excited and ready to start exploring.

This is how beautiful it was everywhere we went in the park. Lush green plants everywhere. Nice and cool, not cold cool but comfortable cool, from all the plants. And when we left we also realized it had been VERY windy that day, but we didn't even notice in the park because it was so protected.

Nat and Audrey LOVED the spinning garlic. We rode this over and over!

See how much she liked it???

They even managed to talk Gramie and Papa into this one a couple of times!

The little worm eating the apple ride was pretty darned cute!

The waterfalls were simple BEAUTIFUL!

You could even walk right under them!

I love water.....

Then the kids took us driving on a very scenic little road...

Audrey drove Gramie and Papa....

And Nat drove me......

Let's just say it is a VERY GOOD thing that neither of them will be old enough to drive on the real roads any time soon!

Oh look... I actually made it into a picture! Amazing....

Live ducks even...

And check out that waterfall.... I paddled Nathaniel out to see it.

They said it would take 7 minutes there and back..... they LIED!

But he loved it, so it's all good!

Wheelchair friendly train.... SCORE!

Some of the views from our train ride. 

I am so proud of this boy... it was a very LONG day, and yet he did NOT melt.

It was so much fun playing with him and him staying in such a great mood!

One Last spin in the garlic....

One last spin on the carousal (mommy has a thing for carousals...)

Last ride of the day,

Seriously! They rolled the doors down when we got off!

And still big smiles on their faces... I count that as a GREAT outing!

And the super cute grandparents picture of the day...

So much fun!

I hope we get a chance to go back before the kids are too big for most of the rides!