Last Sunday: piano recital

Last Sunday Isaac had his piano recital.  It was at an outdoor park, but there was nice seating and it wasn't too hot.

We didn't invite anyone to join us since we wanted to quickly head up to Mackinaw afterwards.  I found a motel about 10 minutes from Mackinaw city that was surprisingly nice for the price.  There were some canoes/kayaks/paddle boats that we could have used along with corn hole.  We played a few rounds before bed.

Thursday: hike

We went for our first "hike" of the season today.  It wasn't super long, but it was nice.

We had testing at karate this evening.  Everyone passed, as passing is the default.  Joshua will be taking a break for the next few months.

Saturday: VBS

The worst part about VBS is that the songs get stuck in your head.  There are good songs this year, but the parts I don't ...resonate with as much... are of course the parts in my head.  It's annoying.

I also bought some new sandals.  The old ones were holding together by a thread.  Almost literally.

Last night Joshua decided he needed to sleep on the couch.  He was willing to sleep in his room if there was a partition up around his bed because apparently otherwise his room is creepy.*  Well, the thumbtacks finally all fell out and I don't want to put more holes in the ceiling.  I told him he could sleep on the couch if he couldn't handle it, and he quickly took me up on the offer, unfortunately.  (I was hoping we could just be done with the whole creepy bedroom attitude.)  So today we worked on a new system.  It's still pretty cobbled together with sticks, zip ties, an old baby food container, and the tacks, but I'm a bit more optimistic about it.  (The tacks go into a tack board this time, so it was a better solution.)  Two of the three poles I think will hold well while the third might slip down.  We'll deal with that later as needed.

*When the boys separated bedrooms last time...maybe three months ago?...we had some issues with Joshua sleeping in the loft because it was creepy.  So I hung up a sheet around his bed using thumbtacks put into the ceiling.  They've slowly been coming out, but held up longer than I was expecting.

Friday: VBS

Today was the last day of VBS.  It ended well, but I was not very excited about it today.  Isaac and I were in a few of the pictures posted on-line, but it was just our shoulders and our heads were hidden.  So they wouldn't be very interesting pictures.

Thursday: craft

VBS went well again today.  I have a great group of kids.  They participate during lesson time, they're excited for the memory work game, and can be trusted to get themselves from one spot to the next.

However, their coolness was seen even more today during the craft.  They were decorating crosses with some plastic tiles, and of course everyone is trying to make a pattern and needs specific shapes and colors.  I saw many of them help each other out.  Isaac even took a few tiles off his cross to give to someone, because he didn't care about the exact color of his tiles.  (Although he did have select colors that he was using.)

Honestly though, I thought Isaac's cross was the best of the group.  I like the color and shape randomness.  (It isn't a great picture of his cross, but it's the only one I have.)

In other news, Tornado has been spotted on Isaac's lap several times lately.  His lap must suddenly be large enough to be comfortable.

Wednesday: swimming lessons

The boys had their first swimming lessons today.  Joshua made it about halfway across the lap pool ( so 13m of 25m?) swimming without help right away!  And I thought he couldn't swim.  They are with the same teacher at the same time this year and I think it helped Joshua.  He actually said that he enjoyed swimming lessons, even though in the past he hasn't liked them at all!  Isaac has liked swimming lessons for a while, so that was normal.

The sad thing is that our normal teacher got a promotion and will only be able to do two of the five lessons.  She recommended a few others, but the time frames just really didn't work well for us so we went with a different teacher that I'm sure will be good too.

Tuesday: VBS day 2

Well, there were some pictures on Facebook about VBS this afternoon, but they've disappeared this evening.  The day went fine.  I got a whole bunch of cool teacher points because I stood on the chairs like the kids.  (We're the last row of kids, so while there are a few helpers behind us I don't feel too bad about blocking their view.)

I got a several chores done today too, but I'm trying to resign myself that's it's ok to perpetually have clean laundry in the basket and a mess in the house this summer.  I mean, it'll get cleaned up eventually.  Most of the important things are getting finished.  Mostly.

The pictures showed back up!

My group:

Joshua's group

This one is "find Isaac and Amanda"

Last Monday: Indy children's museum

On Monday we went to the children's museum.  We went a year ago and made it through most of the museum in the allotted time, so I was a bit worried we'd run out of things to do, but there were also a few areas that we didn't go to last time because it was too hot or they were closed.

We started in the outside area.  We didn't go last time because it was too hot; it was almost too hot again this time.  We did some of the things, but the favorite was the tree house.  Isaac also liked mini-golfing with Ben.

We did the water clock again, and it was just as interesting this time as it was the first time.

We spent a really long time in the dinosaur area.  We talked to the paleontologists for a bit and learned about dinosaur eggs.  (The biggest was about the size of a football, because otherwise the eggs got to fragile.  And you couldn't make the shell thicker because then the baby couldn't get out.)  We also walked by a program as it was starting so we did that.  I wasn't too sure of the program, as it just sent you to an exhibit and asked you to find information, but it actually worked really well.  Since there were specific things we were looking for we paid more attention to our dinosaur and learned about it well.  Joshua also got a scuba tank; Isaac decided to hold his breath.

We found Giraffe!  I'm not sure how Isaac's lovey got into the museum, but luckily he also got home before us.

We did a few exhibits twice, including the ball machine, space, and glass.

We had two very tired kiddos.  Isaac fell asleep in the last five minutes and was out until Ben bonked his head on the door while trying to get him out of the car.  He's just too tall.

Tuesday we took a few pictures before leaving.  (I like the adults in the mirror.)

Sunday: Father's Day

Happy Father's Day!  I unfortunately didn't plan much for Ben, but that's just how the day went.  We did spend some time with Lego pick-a-brick cups.

There was also a great conversation.

Amanda: Dad, do you want apple or pineapple for lunch?

Ben: Pineapple

Joshua: Pineapple

Ben: Is your name Dad?

Joshua: No, but it will be someday.  Right?

Ben: Well, it depends if you get married and decide to have kids.

Joshua: You can choose to have kids or not?!?!

Monday: VBS

VBS started today.  I'm teaching Isaac's class, 5th grade yellow.  Today he was the only boy in the class, but he was ok with that.  The day went fine.

Joshua said he didn't like the singing part, but I was able to watch him during some of the singing.  He got into the motions well.

The art project was a scratch off...Isaac drew bananas.

Joshua and I made our first strawberry pie.  It was delicious.

Last Sunday: playgrounds and donuts

The weather was rainy and humid today.  This was our low-key day, although we still were out of the house for most of the day.

We did a playground in the morning.  It was a really neat playground with lots of climbing and got high marks from everyone.  However, it looks like I didn't take any pictures.

It started to rain, so we went to a place called Doughnuts & Dragons.  They had delicious specialty donuts and a collection of board games to play.  The doughnuts were so delicious that everyone got a second round for breakfast the next day.  Laura and I went to IKEA while the rest played some games.  It was my first trip to IKEA...it was pretty cool and there were lots of things I could have gotten, but settled with just a few storage totes for fabric.  We somehow managed to keep our trip down to about an hour, but we knew the others probably had a limited attention span with the kids.  If there were closer ones I'd probably go more often, but I rarely need something when we're going to be close to one.

There was a LEGO store nearby, so we stopped for a quick pick-a-brick cup.  We haven't done one in a while.

Last Saturday: Conner Praire

The forecast changed overnight, and so at the last minute we decided to change our plans.  (This ended up being a wonderful change.)  So we went to Conner Prairie.  This was probably my favorite place of the trip.  It was so fun to have all the people in character and talk to you and it was a beautiful day.  We were there almost the whole time and didn't get through all the stuff either.

There was a trading post.

A farm area, although the boys were not as impressed by this.

A treetop/tree fort area:

A prairie town.  We talked a lot about leaches and even got to touch one.

We got ice cream after prairie town because it was getting hot and the kids were wilting a bit.  (To be fair, it was snack time.)  Isaac ended up with my root beer float.  The kids had been waiting all afternoon for the ice cream.

We made one more stop at the loom house.  They were unfortunately not actually using the loom that day, which I had really wanted to see.  They were spinning though, and we spent quite a while watching and asking questions.

We had to leave after that because it was closing time, but we had asked the guys to get dinner ready.  So by the time we got home and settled there was something delicious to eat!

Saturday: summer list

One of the things the boys said they wanted to do this summer was eat blackberries.  They were on sale this week, so we were able to cross it off the list.

Friday: Urban Air

Today was a busy day!  We started out in at a playground (Drenthe Grove Park) with my mom's group from church.  It was a new playground for us, so we rated it like last year.  It was a pretty normal playground, but it did have close bathrooms and a lot of shade.

Isaac: 6
Joshua: 7
Amanda: 9

We ate lunch and then went to Urban Air.  The boys have wanted to go for ages.  It was a lot of fun...I got the parent admission so I could also do all the activities, but I don't think I'll need to do them again.  Once was enough...fun and I'm glad I did it, but trying to escape the foam pit was more difficult than I expected.  I think being larger just makes a lot of the things harder.

Anyway...Joshua was a bit afraid of heights, but he worked his way up to the tops of the climbing wall and even tried the ropes course at the very end.  He was a bit scared of the ropes course so we only went around the first small section, but he did a good job while he was up there. 

There was a ton of climbing stuff for Isaac.

Joshua's favorite part was the ball pit.  It was really an obstacle course with balls underneath (like ninja warrior), but a lot of kids just played in the balls.

Isaac's favorite thing was in the climbing wall section.  It was a bunch of capped tubes that got higher and higher that you needed to climb and then you could jump/spin off the top one.

We stayed about 3.5hours, but at the end everyone was just a tad bit out of sorts.  They rebounded quickly though once we were home.

Thursday: roof

Today they put a new roof on the house.  It was loud and annoying, but...they (mostly) finished within 12 hours!  I had been expecting a week or so of annoyance, so I was delighted to find out it would go so quickly.  We did get a large crew (12 or so guys), which is one of the main reasons.  Some crews apparently have significantly fewer people and so it obviously takes longer.  We also didn't have any damage under the shingles that needed to be repaired.

There is a bit of caulking left for tomorrow and the dumpster is still in the driveway, but it should be mostly quiet at least.

We also brought Grandma to her appointment today.  The boys came with me to see her.