Emperors Clothes

I will be honest. I hate CROCS. I think they are the ugliest shoes. I will NEVER own a pair. They are for certain professional convenience and that is about it. Mike wears them into surgery. He says the bone chips and blood are easily removed with shoes that can be bleached and washed. Ok, understandable. I still dont think anyone should wear them outside of work. Do Ballerina's walk around in their slippers all day?
I dont care what anyone says, so much of fashion is just the emperors clothes. Someone says so, so it must be. Who decides what fashion is anyway? You like what you like, right?- I mean Maria made clothes for the Von Trapp children out of curtains, and they were tons cuter than the stuff they were wearing when she got there. Again,- you like what you like.

I saw CROC look-a-likes for 1 dollar at Walmart in May. The boys wanted them. I thought, ok for 1 dollar. NEVER AGAIN! You can see from the wear in the big toes, that the boys wore them all around town. Now, Im happy to say, they are in the trash.YIPPEE!
Here is the trade up. CROCS for real shoes. And you'll never believe what my boys picked themselves. Id have been fine with tennis shoes, Nike or New Balance, something like that.But no, they wanted "cool dude shoes" (thanks for your influence on them, uncles). So they both picked Skate shoes. I was surprised that they already have their own style. As long as they dont have any characters on them, I dont care. Good Riddance to the CROCS!

My Fridge

Just thought I would show those far away, the fun things Im doing with vinyl. this is my new set that Im selling. I think my fridge turned out cute.

For Grandpa Babbel

Goodbye sweet corn. How I will miss you all winter long. The taste of your delicious kernels straight off the cob. Buttery goodness on a summers day.

Until we met again. Adieu, Adieu. Parting is such sweet sorrow.

My grandpa and I will both shed a tear.

The end of the corn season is already here.

Chamberlain Family Reunion 2009

We had a blast at our family reunion this past week. We spent a week in Duck, North Carolina (the Outer Banks) in a beach house. Eight of the ten siblings were able to attend. Its the first time in years we have all been together in one place.
Madison got stuck in soccer practices for the week and couldnt get there. Noah, is still on his mission in Japan. We were definately missing them. We did have a KIWI from New Zeland join us (Hayden, Lincoln's college friend who had to vacate the dorms during ED Week). It was fun to hear a cool accent amongst the daily babbling. But, please never wear your "Mankini" again. (I kid, I kid).

We had so much fun. No accidents, no food poisoning, no fights. Hurricane Bill didnt make landfall on our beach, as was first assumed. The last two days of our trip brought in some clouds, wind and 8-15 ft swells. Of course all the surfers in my family were so excited. Even when the beach patrol was making everyone get out of the water, they passed by my brothers. They parked their four-wheelers, watched them for a few minutes catching waves, and then decided that they knew what they were doing and wouldnt drown. It made for fun wave watching, but the rip tide was pulling kids away, so we didnt do much swimming in the ocean those last 2 days.
The nice thing about the hurricane was that our kite was a huge hit on the shore. You will see pictures at the end of my montage of everyone looking to the sky...they are watching the kids fly the dragon kite.
Also in the montage is some video footage. Let me preface the film by saying, I caught nothing good on tape. All the great surfing, body surfing, bungee boarding and skim boarding happened off camera. I was in the wrong places at the right time. Taylor and Cole brought some of their new boards to try. They started a company shaping boards, and brought some prototypes. They also brought their bungee boarding device that they made. You can see how it works the vid, but I didnt catch it when they got it placed in the right spot. They got some great air!!!

That is what happens when you are a mom. You miss things. Comes with the job. Your never really on vacation. Just doing your duties in a different location. So, yes...I missed a few things.

I truly love the dune shores of the Kitty Hawk/Nags Head/Duck area. Totally different than where I grew up in Florida, and completely different than the west coast and its cold water. The water is so warm there.
Nights were divine, filled with family games and conversation. There is never a lull in chatter in my family. I especially enjoyed watching them play crab chicken one night. Where everyone puts their feet into a circle shape and then they drop a live crab in the middle. They wait to see which way the crab will run, and who will freak, scream and move their foot before it claws them...DREW!!!! :)

The days were filled with great memories, green hair from the pool, and lots of loving on my kiddos from the aunts and uncles. My heart is filled with gratitude for each person and their contribution to my life and happiness. Thanks to all my siblings and their families. We miss you and love you.
EXPELLIAMAS to you all!

Photo and video editing at www.OneTrueMedia.com

Fall TV is coming....GLEE is in the air

Finally back from vacation. Im still putting together my pictures,which I will post soon!
I wanted to mention something before I forget. All the re-runs and boring summer TV are almost over. The fall line up is starting to fill my calendar with evening obligations. My new favorite TV show is called GLEE. If you havent seen it, I highly recommend it. HILARIOUS and FUN. The new season starts Sept 9th at 8 pm. Heres a sneak peak.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0X2f_NS5NXE

Potpourri of randomness by Eden

Wow, its been a while since I posted last. Things have been busy. I cant believe our summer is almost over. BOO HOO! Its been a nice, relatively cool summer here in the east. Only in the past few days have been had awful humidity and heat.

Maybe I just never noticed it before, but Halloween seems to be on display earlier and earlier. About a month ago, Zach and Tanner saw skeletons that we had to buy for our house to "scare all the little kids". Close to 3 weeks ago, Zach started talking about being Harry Potter for Halloween. He loves anything creepy, and has enjoyed watching the Harry Potter movies (we have only let him watch the first 2, because of the wear wolves and things in the next few. They may be a little much still!).He wants me to throw a "Potter Party" that he saw on Discovery Kids. Tanner wants to be a scary pirate and say "AARRR to the door people". So I guess my planning is done?
Why cant my twins let me dress them up as a theme while they are still little. Having twins has to have some perks right? Guess they are already too old for mom to pick their costumes?!
Even our local Carters store, already has their cute little baby costumes hanging in the window. WHAT?- Isnt it August? So confused. Do they want me to take down my American Flags and Fourth of July decor, only to replace it will jack-o-lanterns and cobwebs in August? Weird?

So speaking of the twins, Zach and Tanner have been in a library phase all summer. I wont complain, actually; truth be told, I started the craze. The love to read books. We go weekly. Usually we haul home 16 books a week. I always have to have the librarians print us a list of the books, so I dont lose them. Its kind of a pain, but they love it. Every night we read a few.
I decided that I should go to the book store and buy some that we want to keep. While I was there, I found the cutest book. Its called GOODNIGHT GOON. Its a parody of Goodnight Moon. Zach loves anything scary or creepy. He loves this book. I also picked up the classic, Bernstein Bears Spooky Old Tree. They are obsessed with these books. Tanner saw something on Between the Lions about a book called "STOP THAT PICKLE", so I grabbed that one too. Its darling and we love reading it. I highly recommend these books for this age.
I also hit the local library book sale and WOW did I hit the jackpot there. I spent 13 dollars and came home with 10 books. Two of which were the big fat books the MORAL COMPASS and BOOK OF VIRTURES. These are great resource books. They have tons of great famous stories in them. I almost had to fight some lady for one of them, she claimed to have been looking for it all morning. I had the other, so I told her I wanted the set and I was buying them (I know, Im so rude!).

- I hope the boys will learn to love to read, as much as I do. Reading has opened my heart and mind to so many things.Reading is such an important part of internalizing messages and ideas. This is why the Lord asks us to Read his word. Not just hear it, or rely upon the word of others. We must read it, to truly internalize it, adapt it, ponder and understand it.

In my opinion, there is nothing more sad and more revealing than hearing a person say they dont like to read. I understand limits in ones time, or accessibility to good books. Those are some reasons to not do it. But when those arent issues, why dont people enjoy it??
Is it that taxing on your brain? Did you pick a book that is simply not enjoyable?-
then change books! You can not like a particular book, and still like to read. You should still like to read SOMETHING!!!
With technology, video games, DVD's ,etc. Reading is no longer fashionable. Sad...because so much of mans greatest literary works, can never fully be internalized, valued or portrayed fully in a 3 hour movie or television show. Hopefully, my boys will learn this early and enjoy books. Enough of my soapbox now.

MUSIKFEST

Life has been busy! Unfortunately, I havent been taking tons of pictures. I keep forgetting to take my camera with me.
This weekend we went to Bethlehem for their annual MUSIKFEST. Its 10 days of musical performances that run all day. AMAZING!!
More than 300 performers from across the country and around the globe preform.
Musical programming at 14 different indoor and outdoor stages (11 stages are free)People come from all over to drink and dance. Of course, we went to just dance and eat. It was fabulous.
During the day we took the kids, that turned into a nightmare. Asher started crying about 30 minutes into the event, which is really unusual for him. He is always very happy and content. We assumed it was his teeth, he is getting all 4 of his incisors. But he accelerated into hysteria and cried for over 1 hour. Finally as we were leaving, Mike thought to take off his shoes. For some reason Ashers shoes were really hurting him. He had no socks on, and the shoe was just pinching him in all the wrong places.It must have been extremely painful and he just couldn't tell us. I felt like such a bad mom. Tanner was bawling for no reason at all, he was just hot.

After kids went to bed at Grandma's house, Mike and I got to go back and enjoy some gyros and an amazing Funk/Jazz performance at the Volksplatz venue. We wanted to walk over to the Indie Rock tent, but our selection turned out to be fantastic! The show was by Trombone Shorty and Orleans Avenue. It was packed, and so humid outside!! This band is from New Orleans (love them already,Jen?!)

I didnt take pictures, but I found a video of the performance online. Go here and fast forward to 4:30 and you will get a good taste of the feel of the show. This was a great number, WHEN THE SAINTS GO MARCHING IN was great too!



Mike and I were just to the right of the camera and in the middle. It was awesome!
If you are one of our Pennsylvania peeps, you may want to drive up there for the shows this weekend. You wont regret it! Bethlehem is a cool town, with tons of history (Moravians settled here and built a college MORAVIAN COLLEGE, Americas 6th oldest college). Go and enjoy, we did!