Year 2012 Recap

Last year I did a quick recap of Year 2011, and decided I wanted to do it again, this year. But, whoa, Year 2012 was a very busy year for us. We loved it, but wouldn't mind if 2013 was a bit quieter, heh heh... All in all, it was a great year!

JANUARY

Early January found us in Maine and in Virginia. The Captain, and two children left Florida to prepare our little cabin for our family in Maine, and to oversee renovations on our Maine camp. I took three children with me, and visited my sister in Virginia for good part of January.

Homeschooling with AOP Monarch allowed our teens to work on school wherever they were. I would check their schoolwork online, and we'd communicate via email and phone calls. Little Miss did a lot of Kindergarten work in Virginia with her cousin. Missy started dance lessons in Maine, both tap and jazz.

Once we were all together again in Maine, we played in the snow a lot. After all, all of us squeezing into our little cabin felt quite claustrophobic! But, we kept telling ourselves: we had more room than in our Mothership motorhome... Laundry was done at the town laundromat - not fun. Our fridge was smaller than the one in our RV, and the town only had a small grocery store. Definitely challenging (three or so months). (I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me! Phil. 4:13 - was very true!)

We also celebrated Captain's Grandmother's 95th birthday with family. Happy Birthday, Nanny!!

At the end of the month we took our first snowmobile ride of the year.

FEBRUARY 

We were outside a lot! Snowmobiling, skiing, sledding and cross-country skiing. While the rest of the country was lacking in snow, we had enough for us. I wrote two articles on snowmobiling, you can read them here and here.

We had a quiet month, no travels for us in February, but we got a lot of homeschooling done. One of our favorite science experiments was frozen bubbles. Camp renovations continued on. We survived The Stomach Plague of the year without a washing machine, and having very limited bathroom facilities. Yuck.

MARCH

In March we managed to squeeze in a trip, doctors visits, school and play. Towards the end of the month we started getting mud. And the lake started showing signs of thawing. Still working on our camp, too - which didn't help in the mud department (all the vehicles in and out of our driveway).

For play we did snowshoeing, skiing, snowmobiling, and waterskiing (yes, check it out!). As a homeschool science experiment we ate snow, and we celebrated Little Miss' 6th birthday!

Things got very interesting when I slipped on ice, and dislocated my shoulder. All dish duty (no dishwasher in our cabin) and various other mama jobs landed on our teens' shoulders. Literally.

The Captain and I had a lovely trip to Dallas on business. Dislocated shoulder, and all.

APRIL

Big news!!! Snow started melting, which meant ice out - which meant swimming, yay! Brrr, lol!! Also, True Mud Season started, March was nothing compared to April's mud. The town pretty much closed also, including the laundromat, but fortunately our camp had a working washing machine for part of the month.

Huge progress in camp renovations, and my mom came to visit from Finland. We had hoped to be in Florida by now, but due to camp progress couldn't. But it was very exciting to see the ice disappear on lake.

Missy's dance school had recitals, and she was able to attend last classes, and the recital (the recital link also includes a spring homeschool update). We spent Easter weekend at our camp, and visiting Captain's parents and family in southern Maine.

MAY

Spring tends to be complicated for us, and this year was no exception. Since my mom was staying with us in Maine (working, working, working on our camp clean-up), Captain and I flew to Virginia for a mini visit with my sister's family. They had graciously hosted some of our furniture (don't ask) in their garage, so we finally went there, rented a U-haul, and brought it all up, bringing kitchen appliances up at the same time.

We worked hard on the camp to be able to bring the furniture in, and actually started moving into the rooms that were ready.

Middle of May we all left our camp, my mom flew to my sister's house, Captain went on a men's retreat, and the kids and I spent some time in New Hampshire with friends (even traveled down Memory Lane - aka our old road, sniff). Once the Captain got back, our family flew to Florida, where our Mothership motorhome awaited for us.

We attended FPEA homeschool conference in Orlando, which was a fantastic experience!!! During the conference Missy got glasses!

We had a lovely time in Florida, visiting some of our favorite spots.

JUNE

Part of the first week of June we had a vacation on the beach, in our Mothership. It was glorious. I think we did a little school, a lot of beach, and a lot of rest, which was great after such a hectic May. After that, we spent three days at Disney Wilderness Campground, but didn't go to any of the parks. We met with our New Hampshire friends at Downtown Disney for a dinner together, then started driving North.

We stopped in Virginia for about two days to see my sister and her family, which is always special. I wasn't able to do a lot of blogging on the road, but posted this twitter feed of our travels.

On our way up North we stopped in Pennsylvania, and toured Hershey Chocolate Factory. Which was super lame (fortunately free!), but at least their factory outlet store had some great deals on chocolate, yum!

Our next stop for a couple of days was New Hampshire. Great time with friends!

Our second to last stop on this trip was Grandma and Grandpa's house. We stored the Mothership in their barn for the summer months this year, and spent Father's day organizing, packing and cleaning. The same night we continued on, and made it back to our camp, finally.

We spent a week or so at our camp, had friends visit us from Kansas, and really enjoyed the cooler summer temps up North.

We still worked on homeschool, as during travels we didn't always have reliable internet.

JULY

One of July's highlights was our annual trip to Nantucket for 4th of July. It is time with Captain's family, and we fully engage in all of the island's fun festivities. Missy brought watermelon home again, also check year 2010 and year 2011 (year of the Nanny!!).

After Nantucket we had a few days up in Maine, before our teens headed to summer camp in New Hampshire. During camp Little Miss and I spent some time with Captain's grandmother Nanny, and Captain's sister's family.

We discovered summer in Maine is pretty sweet, too! And finally finished our homeschool year. Whew. Just in time, as Little Miss received her first grade material in the mail!

AUGUST

Our August Adventure was sailing! We found an old sailboat for our lake, and after the Captain and the boys fixed it up, they first had a dry lesson on land, before their first sail. The Captain also taught the boys how to capsize the sailboat.

While we were having summer vacation from homeschool (other than sailing aka the homeschool PE), Little Miss wanted to do some school. I think the boys' online government class started in August, also.

No travels in August!

SEPTEMBER

Mr. D broke his toe, and spent a good part of September recovering. We stayed put for most of the month, and had guests pretty much every week (or weekend), including my sister and her family from Virginia!

We officially started homeschool fall semester, Missy started dance classes again, and Little Miss started ballet! Mr. A had saved up for a bow and arrow, and started practicing his new hobby. All boys got to try shooting, also.

We picked blueberries, and made blueberry pies. More work was done on the camp. September was beautiful in Maine! After a storm we thought we had lost the sailboat, but found evetually all pieces.

Captain and I took a quick trip to Montreal with business (pictures here and here).

OCTOBER

Fall foliage was gorgeous in Maine this year (pictures here and here)! Although we saw our first snow in early October... Nevertheless, we still had our dips in the lake. We picked apples and made apple pie.

Mr A and Mr D tried zip lining for the first time. We studied beavers after a beaver decided to munch on one of our trees.

Due to hurricane Sandy we had to delay our departure to Florida, and waited out the storm. We left Maine in our Mothership RV on Halloween night.

NOVEMBER

We drove to Pennsylvania via New Hampshire, and spent a wonderful weekend with friends near Scranton. Got exciting news: my sister's family welcomed a baby girl on the 2nd of October! We decided to visit them on our way back north, and headed straight to Florida from Pennsylvania.

We had a great time being back in the Mothership, and back in Florida! While in St. Pete, we had a fun outing to VW Bulli Brigade.

Our Florida travels took us also to Miami, Orlando for Thanksgiving, and to Florida Keys. We really enjoyed visiting Long Key, Key West and Bahia Honda State Park. And in Key West our sail on Schooner Hindu was the highlight of that whole trip to the Keys!

It was hard to leave beautiful St. Pete and Florida, but we were very antsy to see our new cousin!

DECEMBER

Another whirlwind month for us! After meeting Baby C (and my mom!) at my sister's house in Virginia, and spending a couple of days with cousins (we got to go to Christmas Town!), we said our good-byes, took my mom with us, and headed back to Pennsylvania. We had made plans to store the Mothership near Scranton, so we went back to our friends' house, organized, packed and cleaned our RV, and left it in Pennsylvania.

Sounds fairly easy, but it was nothing but. You can read more here. We needed to rent a minivan to get home, and drove straight to southern Maine. A night there, and then drove the rest of the way back to our camp. I think I'm getting old. I don't know how long I can keep up with this pace!

We had a nice Christmas, and right before Christmas we celebrated birthdays and adoption days. I loved having my mom help with preparations. When we got to Maine there was barely any snow, but since then we have gotten several snow storms. On Christmas the lake froze over, as well.


So there. A full 2012 for sure. And congratulations if you actually read this whole long post:)


Happy New Year 2013 to all my readers!! Hyvää uutta vuotta 2013 kaikille lukijoilleni!