Better Late Than Never

What is your name?

I’m Liz, mama to S (almost five) and K (three.)

Tell a little bit about each of you.

We live year-round on Mackinac Island. Mackinac is a small island located between the upper and lower peninsulas of Michigan. Cars are illegal here so everything is done via bicycle, horse power and snowmobile. It is a major tourist attraction in the summer, but in the winter there are only 500 of us here so it is the quintessential small town. Since we live in such a small town, I do not use S and K's real names or show their faces on-line. S loves legos, mermaids and princesses, while K loves her baby dolls, stuffed animals and her Leap Pad. I love to sew, quilt and be crafty.

Do you have any back to school traditions?

Not really. S went to his first year of pre-school last year and K starts her first year in two weeks. So far we just take lots of pictures on that first day.

What's your favorite back to school memory?

Fresh milk! My parents were both teachers so they didn’t get paid all summer long. By the time the end of August rolled around money was really tight. My mom would often try to sneak canned milk into a milk carton to try to save money. She insisted she couldn’t tell the difference – but we sure could. Blech!!

Name one thing you like to do with your child.

We really love to read books together. It is one of S and K’s favorite things.

Tell three things you've learned since becoming a mom?

1. Criticizing other parents is easy - until you are one. Then you realize things aren’t quite so black and white.
2. It is different when it is your child. As a teacher people always told me that but I never believed them; now I know it is true.
3. Having a clean house isn’t as important as spending time with your children.
   What do you like to do?

What do you like to do?

We enjoy geocaching, taking walks through the woods, riding bikes, playing at the park, inventing recipes and reading books.

Lisa and Fischer

I guess we are EXTREMELY late introducing ourselves. (We blame the baby.) We had a wonderful swap and want to give a BIG thank you to Amber and B for such an awesome back-to-school package! Fischer is elated! We’ve really enjoyed getting to know B!

What is your name?
I'm Lisa and this is my son, Fischer.

Tell a little bit about each of you.
I am a teacher, but my main student right now is Fischer. I left the classroom shortly after he was born to stay at home with him. Fischer is a very busy boy who loves all kinds of vehicles, sports, space, and anything to do with firemen and their trucks!

Do you have any back to school traditions?
Fischer hasn’t started formal schooling, so he doesn’t really have any traditions yet. Mine, growing up, were back-to-school shopping – my favorite and organizing all of my new school supplies. Like some of you - I still love school supplies.

What's your favorite back to school memory?
My favorite back-to-school memories are actually as a teacher. I love that first day – jitters and all!


Name one thing you like to do with your child.
Fischer and I love to read and sing together. Thankfully, he has no idea that his mother can’t carry a tune! We also love to go to Starbucks -is that bad? ;) Our most favorite thing is to get together with our friends and “play, play, play” – as Fischer puts it.


Tell three things you've learned since becoming a mom?
1. I was the perfect mom – BEFORE I ever had kids!
2. I never knew love like this – Sometimes I miss him when he is asleep.
3. Being a mom makes me want to be and do better.

What do you like to do?
We like to play with friends and family.

Hello from CShell

I am finally on board...yeah!!now I can share about my gang too! We are a family of 5. Court is 16, my Jeremiah is 11, and Autumn is 9. This is our first family swap. All of the kids were interested in this, and offered to do a bit of everything to make our fuzzy friend travels fun!
And our summer travels start this weekend! We are camping for the first time ever as a family. In the West Virginia mountains.Then, in July, mom and Dad get to go away while the kids stay with Grandma! Finally, in August, we are heading to Busch Gardens and Williamsburg, VA. I am sure we will have mini-trips planned as well. Living about an hour from Washington D.C. and Baltimore, MD, we head out often. Can't wait to meet you all!

(posted via meg and mag from Cshell)

Hi from Australia

Hi! My name is Sophia, and this is my sister Tessa. I am 4 and Tessa is 2.
We live in Melbourne, Australia. At the moment it is Winter, not Summer!
We are wearing our winter cardys our great aunt in England sent us for our birthdays.
We have 2 weeks holiday in July, I don't think we are going away, so, most of the time our toy will come to kindergarten and playgroup and do other fun things with us.
We hope you enjoy visiting Australia through our family.

Hi!  My name is Cherie Uyeyama.  My daughter Manami and I will be giving you the tour of the cowboy capitol of the world...Oakdale, CA.  We do short trips lots of places, so our little friend will be doing alot of here and thereing!  No big vacation.  I look forward to the adventure.  I've never done anything like this...sounds cool!  

Countdown to Summer Swap

Really, our top priority right now is figuring out what *kind* of stuffed animal to make. Or stuffed object? I'm a big fan of upcycling material and I have some excellent fabric from a fleece sleepsack with a faulty zipper (and no, I am not capable of replacing a zipper!). We're from Washington, DC but will be traveling to the Pacific Northwest, California, and New England this summer. Two kids: EGirl is 5 and CBoy is 18 months. We loved our experience in the first round of the swap and can't wait to come back for more. Thanks Meg and Mag!!

Us in Ohio...well, right now

Hi, I am Meg one of the orgnanizers. My name is Michelle. But, on here and between Mag and I am Meg...
This picture is from Mother's Day. I am much bigger now. Think bus + house!!! Our trip is going to be long and last all of July. We live in Ohio. BUT, moved here only last year. After we moved here they started prosecuting homebirth midwives as felons. We only ever had homebirths. So when we got pregnant, (darn that Long Island Iced Tea) we weighed our options and decided that it was important enough to us to have another homebirth with legally acceptable help. So we are taking a trip to CA to live with my dear friend and midwife and have a homebirth. Sometime in July, I am due June 29th. This will be one vacation we will never forget. Along the way we aren't stopping. But, once we get there play in our homestate near San Francisco and head home we will be making many stops. Those new babes have to eat every 2 hours you know. From the Bay area we will hit Medford, Oregon then, Seattle, WA then Mag's house in Spokane, WA, then Lakeside, MT to see my parents, then home. We have friends in all the other places. It will be a very memorable trip with amazing before and after pics. Also my husband thinks it will be so much fun to be able to say: Look here is a picture of Michelle nursing at Yellowstone, here is a picture of Michelle nursing in Eureka, here is Michelle nursing by the side of the road. I think I prefer the Look here is Ryan changing a diaper at the fish market, here is Ryan changing another diaper at the Denny's parking lot and so on! At any rate I am trying to keep a positive attitude because I wake up thinking we are CRAZY! They have all kinds of travel now, I wonder what you call birth travel? If there is an odd number of you all participating than I will sit back and facilitate. Otherwise one of you needs to be very understanding and will be paired with me!! Happy Swapping, we are so excited for round 2!

Greetings from Washington!

Hi, I'm Melissa, one of the organizers of the swap. My family and I are travelling to the Oregon coast this summer for the 4th of July weekend. This picture was actually taken byMeg on a trip our families took to the OR coast together almost 3 years ago. We now have a fourth member to our tribe and our son is like twice the size! I am really looking forward to the extra fun the swap will bring to our travels, as well as seeing all the adventures everyone else take their "friends" on.

Hi I am B and I am 5 years old. My sister S is going to be 3 in a couple weeks. We live in Ooltewah, TN which is really close to Chattanooga. We love traveling, and this summer we are going to go to southern Florida and southern California. We have not done the swap before, but we are looking forward to it!

Hi from Alabama

We live in Alabama and we home school. The Dancer is almost 5, and The Robot is 8. We like being outside so much that we do our school in a treehouse! Our blog is about our adventures in life, and the discoveries we make. We did the last swap and had a great time. We made new friends and we still write to them and keep in touch!

We're looking forward to making more friends this time around too!

Hello from Big Sky Country...

Hi! My name is Zoe... I am 2 1/2 and love this swapping fun! We had such a good time on the last go around we had to do it again.  My mommy loves to scrapbook so that part will be fun for her.  I like pretty much everything... This summer we get to go to see my uncle in a Broadway play, he is a dancer... We are also going to Flat Head Lake to swim and play with all of mommies old friends. Other than that we will be taking our little friend on hikes, to the farmers market, other short trips around Montana, and my favorite the SPLASH park!!! Oh, I almost forgot, we get to go see my Gamma's NEW baby horse, it will be born in July.  I can't wait to meet my new partner! Have a GREAT day...

Hello from Idaho...

Hi! My name is Genny and I am 9 years old!
I live in Idaho with my mom, dad and sometimes people who are like my older brother and sisters. It's pretty fun having teens around!
I am a home schooler and I love art, and music!
This July we are going to Missouri to visit family, (my mom says, "unless gas prices get really high!" ) and to the Ocean. We also go camping a lot! I can't wait to work on the scrapbook!
Hopefully I can make a new friend or penpal! That would be cool!
Thanks for reading this! My mom said I might get to guest post on her blog because I am wording out what she types so good!

Hello from Northern Michigan

Hi! I'm S and I am 3 and 1/2. K, my little sister is only 2. Our family lives on an island in Northern Michigan. (Because only about 500 people live on our island, my mama tries not to use our names or faces on-line.) Our island gets a lot of tourists because there are lots of historic things to look at here. K and I would love to send you pictures of our Butterfly House and the old Fort. My mama is a teacher so we get to take our trips in the summer. This year we are going to visit our Grandma and Grandpie in Southern Indiana. While we are in Indiana we will go to Wonder Lab and to Holiday World. Both places are a lot of fun. We can't wait to get to know our new swap partner friends!

Greetings from Upstate NY!

Hi!
I'm Isaac, and I'm 4 years old. Mommy calls me "Monkey!" My Mommy and I are so excited to be a part of this swap. Daddy's confused about swaps, so he's not as excited. We're taking a few day trips away from our home in Upstate NY, because I've got summer session at school, and I can't miss those days, because I like playing with my speech therapist and my occupational therapist that I see all week. Plus, I'd miss my friends too much! So, Mommy promised me some cool trips that only take a day, and we can do them on the weekend or Mommy's days off from Starbucks. I can't wait to get to know all of you!

Hello

Hello! My name is Jill. My daughter and I are very excited to be taking part in this swap! My daughter is 4 and is known as Nature Girl in the blogosphere since she is a true nature lover! We have plans to do some local field trips including several plays, movies, some local attractions and a few nature hikes. We'll also be spending a week in NY with our family in July. We're looking forward to making a special friend to take on our adventures. Of course we'll probably have to make two friends so mailing it off won't be so painful!

Hi from Utah!

I'm Lisa and this is my 2 year-old son. We are really excited to participate in the swap! We don't have too many travel plans other than camping and a visit to Colorado, but we have plenty to do here! We live close to the mountains, and love to go there to escape the summer heat! We look forward to "meeting" you all!

Aloha from Oregon!

So this is us. Christel and Tay. And we're excited for this swap. Summer is always an exciting time for us. We love the warm weather and all that it has to offer. So let's get this started and have some fun.

Scamp from Tennessee

Hi! I'm Scamp, and I'm two years old. I live in TN and my Mama and Daddy are taking me to Gatlinburg (The Great Smokey Mountains) with my grandparents this year. We are gonna stay in a big chalet. I'm excited because me and my cousin Bubby are gonna have so much fun. You'll probably meet him later on. We get into a lot of trouble together. Anyway, we're gonna go swimming and probably ride the big Tram through the mountains. We might even meet Dolly (as in Parton) this year. It's gonna be great! I already wrote a post about this swap at Scamp's Place, so come on over and visit me there if you'd like.

Hi From North Carolina!

Hi fellow swappers! I'm Angi from North Carolina. I have three wonderful kids - youngest who is a precious 6yr. old boy, middle who is a sweet 11 yr. old girl, and smartie-pants who is a 13 yr. old teen. We participated in the Spring Swap and had a great time. The kids were very into it and loved "meeting" our swap family. Last week middle child asked if we were ever going to do it again and ironically enough - the next day I got the announcement of the Summer Swap. They are looking forward to it!