June 2018

June 1st the Choir sang at Rabbi Masters last service. I could not believe how many people were at services.  It was like high holidays.  I tried to talk to Rabbi about CJ's tutoring but we did not get much of a chance to talk.  He was so busy.  He told me that he would try to contact us and do CJ's tutoring over Skype.  I was very disappointed that this was the last that we would hear from Rabbi Master.

The new furniture for CJ's office came and were it a lot of boxes that needed to be put together.  CJ has been waiting for this moment since April.  We spent most of that Saturday setting up her room.  She was so happy with it and could not wait to sleep on the new couch. 

The first week in June we had to go to school to make up for the Hurricane days that we had in September.  They were mostly half days so it was not to bad but no one really wanted to be there.  Teachers were suppose to work on Saturday but if they did some extra in-service they did not have to.  So I quickly did my extra in-service so on Friday I could go home early and worry.  I could not believe that I got everything done but I did and was so glad. On Saturday, CJ and I went to a get together at Roger Thompson's house with all the other 7th graders from CJ's Hebrew school class.  All the kids spent the whole time in the tree house far away from the grown ups.  They did have fun roasting marshmallows and goofing around.

The first week of summer break we spent making phone calls to set things up and working on catching up on thing around the house.  On Thursday and Friday CJ got to attend Zoo Camp at the Greenville Zoo.  At this camp she was going to see what a Zoo keeper does.  She wanted to do this because she thinks that she wants to be an Veterinarian of Aquatic animals or Zoo animals.  She did so much at the camp in two days and had such a good time and she really wanted to do the second half of the camp in August.  But after the camp she said that she thinks that she now whats to be an Aerospace Engineer and not a Vet. 

Saturday CJ went to her American girl club meeting.  She has been doing such a great job with creating a craft table and helping the little kids with her craft.  This time she had the girls creating lockets out of bottle caps.  I am so proud of her volunteer work.  I am just glad that we could be doing something that was not with animals.  CJ so wanted to volunteer at a animal shelter but because of her age they would not let her unless I was with her and I do not what to work with cats and dogs.

Sunday was Father's day.  Jay asked me to make him a cake using fondant and the cake lace that I was tried to make.  Fondant was not as hard to work with as I thought but I learned at lot and needs a lot of practice to get ready for CJ's party.  We also got Jay a grill top but he knew about it.  When I ordered I did not think that it was came in a box that had a picture on the outside.  He saw it early but I told him that he could not have it until Father's day.  He was happy to get it.

 Monday I took CJ to get her hair done.  She wanted to have her hair dyed teal. I told her that if she wanted that she was going to have to save her money and pay for it herself.  Going to the salon to have your hair done was very costly.  CJ saved her money, so I took her.  I also had my hair highlighted while we were their.  The little hair dresser did not release how thick CJ's hair was and I did not realized that she would be their for 4 hours because CJ's hair was so thick it took forever to dye it.  CJ loved her teal hair and it did not look bad.  We came home and then finished her name letters.  They are going to look great.

The next day we got up early and headed out on our family vacation.  Jay wanted to take CJ to Washington DC and to the Smithsonian Museums.  Since CJ is thinking that she wants to be an Aerospace Engineer we had to take her to the Aerospace Museum.  The trip started off with a lot of traffic and took us a long time to get there.  We were not sure which way our GPS was going to take us, but started to notice that it was going to take us right by Jay's brothers house.  So we called him and found out that he had the day off and would meet us for lunch and ice cream.  CJ was so cute.  Her uncle Ron ordered an upside down banana split so she had to have the same thing.  I do not think that she released how much ice cream that was going to be.  I think that she was a little sick after eating the whole thing but she was not going to admit that she could not keep up with her uncle Ron. 

The traffic as we got to Washington DC did not get any better it got worse.  By the time we got to the hotel Jay was almost sick from how bad the traffic was.  We decided to just let CJ go swimming and order a pizza to the hotel so that we did not have to drive anymore.

Do to all the traffic the day before and the cost of parking in DC we decided to take the Metro train into the city and just use public transportation.  I did not know that Jay was going to get car sick on the train.  He had a lot of trouble with the public transportation as well but was glad that he was not driving.  We had the train attendant help us buy our tickets but I had so many questions about how the tickets worked but forget to ask because we just wanted to get into the city and see the Museums.  We got into the city and there were so many Smithsonian Museums that we had to do a lot of walking to get them.  We wanted to do the Aerospace Museum first.

The Museum was large and it took us all morning to see it.  We were hungry and not sure what to do.  We left the museum and saw all these food trucks.  It was the neatest thing, block of food trucks.  We walked and picked want we wanted to eat.  We found a corner to sit and have lunch.  It was different and fun.

After lunch we went to the Holocaust Museum.  The museum was a little confusing and I did not think that it was as good as the Breman in Atlanta.  It was sad but most of the stories and pictures I had already seen at the Breman.  The one thing that I really like was they had how Hitler figured out if you were Jewish.  It was done by your grandparents.  So even if you did not go to temple or practice Judaism it did not matter.  If you had at least 2 grandparents that were Jewish you were a full blooded Jew.  If you had only one grandparent that was Jewish you were consider a half Jew. 

After we left the museum we were all tired and wanted to go back to the hotel and rest.  We decided for dinner we would just eat sandwiches at the hotel and let CJ go swimming again.  I think that by 8:30 I was dosing off it the bed because of all the walking and being so tired.  The next day we got up and decided that we were going to see the Nature history Museum. I did not pack correctly for his trip.  CJ forgot her tena shoes so she complained most of the day about her feet hurting and I forgot a backpack so we could pack water, snacks, and lunch. I just told everyone I did not know and would do better next time.  There was lots at the Nature History Museum and we all enjoyed it but we thought that it would take longer to go through.  We were done by 1:00 and wanted to find somewhere to catch a cheap lunch.  We could not find the food trucks but did find a vendor that had cheap hot dogs.  CJ did not what a hot dog
and was not happy but we did find that the vendor had cheap pizza.  So we let her have a slice of pizza.  She was very happy with that.

We had some time and wanted to see more so we then went to the American History Museum.  That one was also a great museum.  I loved seeing the first ladies dresses.  I am not sure what Jay and CJ's favorites were but I know that they liked seeing the Bat mobile. By the time we left this museum and went back to the hotel we were so tired that CJ did not even went to go swimming we just ordered dinner to the hotel and went to bed.

 On the way home we decided to stop by Appomattox Court House where the South surrendered and ended the Civil War. It was raining so hard that we just decided to head home, but about 2 hours into our trip it stopped raining and the sun came out.  So we went ahead and headed to Appomattox.  We had lunch at the park and then looked at the buildings. We did not stay very long and ran through the museum really fast. It was neat going there after seeing the real chairs they sat in to sign the treaty at the Smithsonian and seeing Lincoln's Hat. I think it was because we knew we had a long drive home. 

After seeing Appomattox Court house to go home our GPS was taking us near Jay's Brothers place again. We did not call him because we knew that he was at work. As we pulled onto the highway Jay said, "Look! I think that is my brothers car." We got a little closer and it was Jay's brother he was just getting off work and heading home on the same highway that we just pulled on. That was a one in a million chance that we would be on the same highway at the some time and see each other. So we stopped and had an ice cream with him. I told Jay we should have bought a lottery ticket.

We got home late and spent Saturday unpacking and cleaning.  Sunday CJ had Choir practice so I made an appointment to have her birthday pictures done.  Jay wanted them all done with her Kippah and Tallit.  I was very happy with the pictures this year.

The rest of the week CJ and I spend each day deep cleaning the house.  We started with her office and the living room.  We hand washed floors, windows, and moved all the furniture.  I could not believe how much dust there was.  But it all looked so good when we were done.  Friday CJ sang in the choir for Shabbat services she Sang her song "Heal Us Now" everyone just loved it.  Sunday we went shopping with Ms. Margy.  She wanted to get shoes for CJ as her Bat Mitzvah gift to her.  They had so much fun shopping and then we went to lunch. Ms. Margy is so great.  She told us stories about what it was like when she was 12 years old.  When she turned 12 that is when WWII started in the US with the booming of Pearl Harbor.  She said that she remembered it so clearly and told us stories about people rioting to wanting to kill good people just because they were Japaneses.  She said people were scared and crazy.  It was really neat to hear how a 12 year old felt and saw during WWII.  I so love Ms. Margy.  We then came home had dinner, went out for ice cream and then to watch the Williamston Fireworks show.  It was a fun way to end the month.