Tag: camp

Independence Day 2021

Independence Day 2021

July 10, 2021

“Freedom fireworks!” Screams one of the littler girls when she hears me say, “fireworks over the Matanzas starts at 9:30.”

The best fireworks show in the world (okay, maybe since St Augustine is my city, I might be a little biased) is our downtown spectacular “Fireworks Over the Matanzas.” Every year since our little family moved to St Augustine with a one-year-old little Christina, we’ve been down at the bayfront when the sky explodes with vibrant colors to musiç that stirs your soul and shakes through your shoes up to your chest.

My sisters have joined us, my mom came to her first one with us in 2019, various nieces and nephews have camped out in the stroller (now retired) or on blankets at the festivities. We dance, enjoy the day, watch fish, marine life, and people.

This year it was park late, walk fast, and get there with 15 minutes to spare!

I love our tradition!

As long as we have “Fireworks over the Matanzas” we will be there. Sometimes more than “Tart, party of 9” and sometimes less as the kiddos start branching out, but we will be there!

This year was exciting as everyone stayed up through the show but also sad because Christina wasn’t there (in Indiana doing pilot stuff).

Time marches on.

Seasons change, stages overlap, and years pass by. You have 18 summers (maybe) before your infant, who slept though her first Fireworks, becomes an independent adult. That could be scary.

This year Christina is 17, going to Embry-Riddle, and just graduated with her AA and is blowing our expectations out of the water! I’m so humbled by watching this amazing young woman become an adult.

Becky went to PreMed camp. Her triumphant return with a passion that turned my silent introvert into a chatterbox relaying exciting experiences and new goals and plans made me thankful for our decision to send her. She is such a caring heart and her passion is contagious! I’m humbled by this beautiful heart I’m getting the privilege to connect with. I’m praying God grants me the wisdom to guide her as she chooses her next steps.

Kimberly had a difficult decision to make for summer and did it with grace. I’m proud of watching her take control of her responsibilities.

Jaquline is proving herself a competent household manager and baby/toddler whisperer. I can’t wait to see what God does with her tender servant’s heart.

Jillian is learning to take direction and focus better. Her live of sports and can-do attitude make for a world of possibilities! I’m praying this season teaches her responsibility and determination.

Lucas is growing by leaps and bounds. I pray his tender heart continues to protect others.

Thea is learning to count by 10s and quarters!! (That made Jaquline and I blink) “Mom, I need 25 *raises 1 finger* and 50 *raises 2nd finger* but not 75 *raises 3rd finger* for goldfish.” She was right, goldfish snacks at gym need 2 quarters aka 50 cents.

Treasure each stage. Embrace each challenge. Look for the positive in what appears to be negative. Find truth. Choose joy. What few summers you have with each one will slip away faster than you think. It wasn’t like last year (with no Fireworks over the Matanzas) I thought, “Christina won’t be here next year.” Nope, didn’t cross my mind. Just like I balk at the thought that Becky is beginning to mange her own schedule… As is Kimberly.

Just like pregnancy (I love being pregnant, the feel of honor carrying life), you never know when “the lasts” will happen so you have to treasure each moment.

Enjoy your last half of summer! Make some memories!! Do the unexpected simple things (like play a game outside in the light rain) to make this summer special. Treasure each moment. I’m trying to…

Thanks for reading!

Type at you later!

~Nancy Tart

New Year at Gym!

January 3, 2021

New Year At Gym!

Welcome to 2021!!

This is how WGV Gymnastics is welcoming in 2021 our first week of classes! We start back with Recreational Gymnastics Monday, January 4, 2021 and the happy decorations and big smiles help us launch in the New Year!

Come join us!

Check out our website for beginner gymnastics (ages 5 to 17), tumbling (ages 5 to 17), boy’s gymnastics (ages 5 to 17), preschool gymnastics (ages 3 to 5), Parent and Tot (just walking to 3), open gyms, skill clinics, our Gym-N-Learn Preschool Program (potty trained through 5 years), and more!

We offer day camps, summer camp, winter camp (we just finished up 2020’s winter camp), birthday parties, afterschool pickup, our pro shop, private lessons, preteam, competitive team…

Oh, can’t forget the monthly gym parties! We call them “Parent’s Night Out” but the kids call them “Gym Parties” – mark your calendar for every third Saturday in 2021! Tickets for those are already on sale at eventbrite or through the gym’s facebook page.

We are all super excited about our wonderful new year and what amazing things the gym will offer! Our goal is to “provide love and encouragement while inspiring kids to develop self-esteem and confidence through gymnastics.” We have a lot of fun fulfilling that goal!

See you at WGV Gymnastics in 2021! (Oh my, we open tomorrow! Register online for a free trial class!)

Type at you later,

~Nancy Tart

Sand in a Glass

Sliding Sands in a Glass Bottle: Life thoughts from Sand Art

August 21, 2020

Sand in a Glass

We were making sand art at summer camp yesterday.  As I was pouring different color sands into tiny cute plastic critters and shapes for the cute crew of younglings we call campers, one said, “I want red like in The Wizard of Oz.”

I didn’t remember the red sand in the hourglass that the wicked witch sets up for Dorothy. 

Instantly I thought of time slowly falling through a tiny hole like the red sands dropping from my spoon into the funnel to fill the little dinosaur. 

Time does just slip away.

So many times we say, “later,” or “when this is finished,” or “maybe next time,” or “when I’m not so busy.”

But I’ve learned that if it’s something I want to do, I need to do it now.  As soon as possible.  Before the person I want to do it with moves away, grows up, changes schools, changes jobs, etc. I’ve learned to live life in the now. That doesn’t mean I don’t plan for the future and have goals. It means that when it comes to relationships, I always choose now over later.

When someone is gone, it is too late.

You never want to live with regret.

We used to measure time with sand in a glass. Hourglass. That’s an old concept for most of us. I mean, really, how many of us have even seen an hourglass unless we happen to be a fan of “The Wizard of Oz” or play games like Scrabble, Boggle, or Guesstures? It isn’t just a 3-minute timer (it is in the aforementioned games). An hourglass historically was used as a reliable measure of time. It was flipped every time the last grain of sand slid into the bottom and someone yelled out the new hour. On ships, at military forts, etc.

That is how life was measured.

Now we have digital everything and except for a few traditionalists like me, constantly glancing at a timepiece on my wrist governed by fancy cogs, we seldom know how to read that analog device sitting somewhere in the distance. We certainly don’t depend on the flipping of an odd shaped sand-filled bottle.

Our life on Earth is like that hourglass though.

We have so many grains of sand before they run out.

Those few seconds of distraction were enough to finish my spoon of red sands into the plastic reptile. “What color now?” I ask. She picks blue, dark sparkly blue, and I ask, “a little or a lot?”

As I pour a little line of dark sparkly blue, I think, “and God fills our life with different layers or seasons.”

Yellow and dark sparkly purple follow with “all the rest” a black that looks like someone shredded a jet stone.

I think of how we are blessed with so many seasons of time with those we love. Some long – some short – some impact our lives just for a day. Each season of life we spend with each other is like a different layer in sand art; unique and special. Something to enjoy. Something to treasure.

I pray that I take time to treasure each relationship I have and those that will come.

One of the campers is swinging his sand art furiously – “mine’s all rainbowed!” He had a perfectly lined rainbow; red, two orange tones, yellow, two green tones, blue, indigo, violet, lavender, and black at the top. Now it is a fusion of color that looks like gray muck with spots of brilliance.

Wow. My writer’s brain goes into overdrive with that one. Bright spots in the mundane. This is what time spent in relationship is. For instance: we spent 3 days at a winter getaway with my family once and talking to my kids you would think it was an entire 3-month winter season! Those memories together is a bright spot in the normalcy of life that they bring out fondly whenever they please.

Thank you, Jesus.  Help me to treasure today, build relationships that last, and make memories for tomorrow.

Type at you next time,

~Nancy Tart

Becky’s Parakeets!

Becky’s Parakeets!

May 2, 2020

Becky has been dreaming of and saving for parakeets for over four years. When her savings goal of the summer camp all three teens were to do together canceled due to COVID-19, she decided to invest in Disney shares while they were record low cost (someone has been Christina’s study buddy for Personal Finance), buy her “smaller” cage (we will build a much larger one at our new house), and her birds!

So… Cage…

And now Birdies!

Better introduction of each bird will be coming, but for now, they are all young and sweet with blooming individual personalities. Becky loves them all!

She waited so long for these pets – they have the best! She included toys, feed, treats, bedding, and even a nest box in her budget (not yet in the cage though). She has a continuing budget for new toys and feed – she grows specific plants they love like carrot tops (they love the greens from carrot tops), parsley, basil, and millet. There are others, but I don’t know them all yet. The birds get tasty apple bits occasionally.

And Becky already has them coming to eat from her hand!

When one dream is canceled, you adapt and move on to something else. No, the three oldest will not be able to do a summer camp together because next year Christina will be doing flight and starting Embry-Riddle, but they can enjoy the birds together & Mom got to do a project (the stand, here) with Becky! As they say, your character is showed by how you react to whatever life throws at you – and adding beautiful birds to our family is definitely a plus!

Thanks for reading!

Type at you next time,

~Nancy Tart

Different Woods

How can splitting wood teach us about life?

October 10, 2018

Different Woods

Have you ever split wood?  As a child, I watched my Daddy split wood for a fireplace when we stayed at a cabin in the Smoky Mountains.  We camped all the time, so being in a cabin was a little different for us – we were actually going to spend that Christmas in an A-frame cabin with a big fireplace!  I was young, but remember being so excited.  We were praying for snow!

I’d helped chop wood a few times before this, but it was never splitting big round logs, it was always just cutting small roots or scrap wood from fallen trees discovered in the backyard so the scrap bits would fit in our firepit.  I’d always used this tiny ax. (Daddy called it a hatchet, and although he said “the Indians in Davy Crocket used weapons exactly like this,” we were warned NEVER to play with the hatchet.  We made “hatchets” out of wood to run around like Indians instead.)

At the cabin, Daddy was using the BIG ax, it had about a three foot handle, maybe four feet, with a weighted gleaming head.  Daddy would raise that ax up over his head, swing hard, and with a crash it would come down.  Most of the time, his blows would chop the round wood into three or four hunks.  Sometimes, the ax went thud and stuck.  Daddy would step on the wood, wiggle the ax, and go again.  Sometimes, the ax would take three of four cuts to split the wood.

My sisters, brother, and I were watching, fascinated at our Daddy’s strength, from what Mom considered a “safe distance” – I’m pretty sure we were inside watching through the window, but can’t be sure.  What I do remember, is what he said to us later.  It might have been a day or so later, but I remember the wood-splitting was fresh in my mind and we were sitting around the fireplace when he started talking.

“Did you see how it’s easy to cut one type of wood but harder to cut another?” Daddy asked.

We all nodded, my brother pointed out some “really tough woods” (oak).

“But I was using the same ax and I’m the same person, so it was about the same effort for each one,” Daddy said, “it’s the same with parenting.  God gave us each of you and you are all different in your own special ways.”  (The way he smiled at us when he said that made us look at each other and giggle.)

“We are the same parents, trying to use the same methods, but since each of you are different types of wood…” Here I’m sure someone yipped, “I’m this one!” (oak, of course) Daddy smiled but continued, “so we have to find different methods of teaching each of you so that in the end, we can tell God we’ve done our best.”

As I look at this memory, I realize that Daddy was probably encouraging my mom and himself (as we would have been about 8, 6, 4, 2, and almost here) and they were “early” in their own parenting journey.

This illustration of parenting is also an illustration of everything in life.  I’ve remembered this “different wood” lesson and applied it to most things in my life.  Teaching – each child is unique so it is understandable that they would each learn differently.  Friendship – each friend is different and  therefore has different likes and dislikes.  Parenting – YES, huge here, true.

Last Sunday, this memory was brought to the forefront because our pastor used chopping wood for his example of how we apply different metrics to each part of our lives.  If we judge ourselves by same metrics or measures when we strike a softwood (it shattered into perfect sticks) as when we are striking slightly petrified oak (crud, the ax stuck fast), we would be discouraged.  Just as we use different strokes and techniques when chopping different woods, we use different metrics or measures in evaluating ourselves in various areas of life.

Each area of life is unique, as we grow and change throughout our lives.  The measures we used ten years ago shouldn’t be the same measures we use today (we measure babies’ length in inches but adult height in feet).  We also should use different measures for different areas of our life.  For example: We may find challenges in using patience while trusting God is easy.  Just because patience is more of a challenge, doesn’t mean we are failing at being patient.

Thank you, God, for giving us easy examples to help us not judge ourselves too harshly.  Let us see our life progress through Your eyes.

Thanks for reading!

Type at you next time…

~Nancy Tart

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