Wednesday: Operation: Clean the House

Well, after a summer pause I need to get started with Operation: Clean the House again.  But.

I have so many things on my to-do list.  I was about 30 items higher than normal at the beginning of the day, although I'll be the first to admit that several of those items are 15minutes or less.  Sometimes I need to do something small and it's just not a good time to do it.

Anyway, I got rid of most of my "try to do these today" items, which surprised me a bit as there were a whole bunch.  I'm going to spend next week trying to knock out a bunch more.  (This is really only two more days because of Labor Day, so we'll see how this goes.)

After that the plan is to spend just a little bit of time on all the rooms that I cleaned last year.  Not a ton, but enough to get them back organized again.

Then I'm going to start the master bathroom.  It's not super small, but not super big either, so it'll be a good way to get back in the swing of things.  I'd love to start it by the beginning of October, but I might be optimistic.  I still need to do things like get groceries after all.

Monday: back to school

 School started for the kids today!  Isaac's in 5th, Joshua's in 2nd.

The day seemed to go fine for them.  Then it was about time for pick-up, and the sky was rapidly getting dark.  I knew it was supposed to rain this afternoon, but I was hoping it'd hold off until pick-up was finished.  Well, I decided to go a bit early so that I could grab Joshua first if it was raining.  (He comes out about 5-10 minutes before Isaac.)  The rain caught up with me on the way to school, but it wasn't too bad.  It was a light rain when I got Joshua and then sat in the car a few minutes before going back up to get Isaac.  I did a poor job on the timing though, and it started to rain hard.  It was too windy for an umbrella, so the parents all got soaked.  To be fair, the kids all got soaked too.  But at least we were going home and could change.

I was looking through Joshua's homework and found this gem.  It's supposed to be "noisy".  "Nosey", while it would fit the writing prompt, is not what I saw either.  And once I saw it, as two words, there was no un-seeing it.  I had to get Joshua to read it to me so that I could understand.

Sunday: back to church

We finally went back to church today.  We've been joining a live-stream for the past 2.5 years and we've been in the church for assorted things, but have stayed away from big gatherings.  We know COVID is still a thing and will probably worship from home again in the future, but it was nice being at church.  Although let's face it, it is also nice to worship from home.

vacation Tuesday (Aug 16): Ketchikan

We woke up pulling into Ketchikan. Alaska was pretty much just as I pictured it: mountains with pine

trees. It was beautiful, although foggy with a light rain.

Our tour was Totem Bring State Park and a lumberjack show. If I remember correctly, we booked this

tour as one of our smaller tours and as something to do to get off the boat. It started with a short bus

ride around the city. There are a lot of staircase houses, where there are massive staircases to either

get to the house or to get to the front door. These are here just because it is a very steep area and it’s

easier to climb stairs than hills. There was also a salmon ladder that we didn’t get to see but probably

could have walked to…if we ever come back I’d like to see it.

We went on to Totem Bright state park, where there are a bunch of recreated totem poles from the

area. While neither Ben or I are really into totem poles, and still aren’t after the tour, it was still

interesting. The time and effort it would take to even make a small totem pole was rather amazing. We

also got to walk in a little forest…there’s not much top soil so there ends up being a lot of exposed roots

due to rain over 200 days per year. There was a light rain while we were there, but nothing too bad.

We put up our umbrellas for a bit, but it was mostly super light rain or no rain.

After the state park we went to a lumber jack show. It was fun. It’s amazing how quickly they can chop

and saw through a thick piece of wood. There was a bit too much crowd participation for my taste, but

oh well. We needed to walk back to the boat after this and it would have been nice if they could have

communicated this better. There was a half hour between the end of the show and all-aboard time.

Ben and I could do it no problem, but it probably took about ten minutes. Most of the people with us

were pretty mobile, but I could see that being a small problem for some of the people.

After dinner we went to see the comedian. He was pretty funny and did a nice job. We then played a

game of cribbage (I finally won a game) and went to sleep. 

vacation Monday (Aug 15): day at sea

 Today was a day at sea. We didn’t think any of the planned activities were all that interesting, so we just
took it easy. We did a lot of reading, played some games, watched a movie, and ate a lot of food. The
food was all good today. The best thing was a special dark chocolate and lime dessert. There were also
some hazelnuts for crunch.

The weather was foggy. The captain said the fog would leave by noon, but it came and went all day. I
also thought I saw a whale spout and perhaps a flick of a tale, but my guess is that it’s only a 30% chance
that I actually saw it. I’ll give it a strong maybe, and there was a lot of excitement on my end.

These signs kept showing up on the smart screens, but dinner tonight was the first time I was actually able to get a picture with one.  Usually I just saw them out of the corner of my eye or they didn't come up when I was ready to get a picture.

Saturday: lazy

It was a lazy day today.  We all did stuff in the basement for a while in the morning.  (Isaac brought his game down to join us; I wasn't sure he would.)

I read a lot.  I wasn't feeling bad, but I also wasn't feeling quite right.  There were a lot of things I should have been doing, but I got a few things crossed off the list, several things added to the list, and decided that it was fine to chill more than normal.

Vacation Sunday (Aug 14): on the boat

 It took us a bit to get to sleep, even though it was late and we were super tired. Of course, we also
woke up early due to the time change. We lazed around for a while, got a muffin from the lobby,
pretended to take a nap, and were finally on our way.

Our Uber driver was a bit scary. If I had been the drivers around us I would have been rather upset.
That being said, he got us there safely and easily on time. We drove through the port area of Seattle
and while it was a whirl wind and poor tour, it was still fun to see. Coming up from the south Ben and I
were both surprised at how small the Sky Needle looked compared to the other buildings, but once we
were on the boat we saw that it was much farther north and that looking at it from the west made it
look set apart and taller.

Check-in went so smoothly. The only small issue was that an airport agent had ripped off a luggage tag
and the signage for getting new luggage tags wasn’t great. Then Ben had to go through two staplers
because the first didn’t actually have any staples. We had preordered our medallions that let them track
our every movement, and so got to skip a ton of lines.

Now, the app that they use is terrible. I’ll return to this later, but it wouldn’t let me (or Ben) upload my
vaccination card or proof of negative test. Ben was able to upload his stuff. Anyway, that put us in the
“blue” lane instead of the “green” lane. Well, this actually worked out to our advantage because the
blue lane had two groups of people and the green lane looked like it would take about a half-hour. So in
this case the bad app helped us. They verified all our info and said we could get on the boat!

We had lunch right away. I had a calzone with half an apple tart. They were both good, but not
amazing. We tried to watch our safety video through the app but it wouldn’t load. We finally got to our
room (in the very front of the boat) and the beds were twins because the app didn’t submit our
preference for a queen. (Now, we knew this could easily be changed, but again, the dumb app.)
We dropped off the backpack and went to explore. We were both surprised (quite literally) to see Mt.
Rainer. We weren’t expecting to see mountains and then there one was! We enjoyed finding other
mountains around the boat after that.

I ended up taking a nap after our tour. It’s also when Ben realized that our dinner reservations hadn’t
been saved and the person on the phone was very unhelpful. We decided to walk to guest services, and
a nice lady there found us a table at our desired time and we were able to get a reservation at one of
the nice restaurants, which had been completely booked when Ben talked to the person on the phone.
While we wouldn’t have gone hungry, it’s nice to have a reservation.

Dinner…was a bit interesting. The couple two tables down from us was obnoxious. As we sat down they were bickering with each other and then a manager came over and they complained about the wine for twenty minutes. A couple finally sat down between us and things got back to normal. The four of them talked about a lot of things but it was normal conversation topics. The food itself was delicious. A cold pineapple soup and some cod with mashed potatoes, carrots and green beans.

We found a place to play a game while watching the coastline and sunset and headed back to our room
to read. We fell asleep fairly quickly…it had been a long day and we weren’t used to the time
change yet.

Friday: sort of last day of summer vacation

...then school comes along just to end it.  (We're watching Phineas and Ferb and there's no way I can say "of summer vacation" without singing more of the theme song.)

Anyway, we still have a weekend left but it's still kind of the last day of summer.  It was an excellent summer.  There were a lot of vacations and a lot of games and more time with friends than previous summers.  Definitely the best summer in a while, although the last two summers were completely empty or scaled back due to COVID.  This also meant that I did a lot of packing and unpacking, but since I ignored most chores (besides food, kitchen stuff, and laundry) it worked out.

So today.  We took a bike ride to a donut shop.  It was 1.5 miles from home which isn't that far, but Joshua isn't solid on his bike yet.  We did it anyway.  He did fall on the way home, but we had two Band-Aids and the fall wasn't really that bad.  He thought he wanted to walk the rest of the way, but we were still a ways out so I told him to get back on his bike and he could do it!  I wasn't sure what I'd do if he decided to refuse, but luckily he didn't.  He was pretty much back to normal a few minutes later.

I also played more games with both kids today than in a normal day.  They asked, I said yes.  It worked well.

Thursday: errands

 We had several errands today, but they didn't take up too much time.

*Get more kitty food because I had a great coupon.  The boys pretty much spent the coupon on a new cat toy.

*Get a new drain spout and garbage can with a step at Lowes.  Both boys wanted to try the garbage can.  Isaac did it; no problem.  Joshua tried, and it wouldn't work.  It turned out every time it needed a weird jiggle before it'd work again.  I moved up to the slightly more expensive model.  Joshua tried it; no problem.  Isaac tried it; it wouldn't work.  Needless to say, I wouldn't recommend a Rubbermaid step-opening garbage can right now.  We left without one.

*Peanut store.  What more can I say?

*Scrapyard, which is the rock climbing place Isaac's about to start lessons at.  We went so that Joshua could see it and maybe change his mind about lessons.  As we were looking, someone says hi to me...we know each other a bit from Hope and see each other in the most random places.  Well, it turns out he's actually the owner and therefore once I told him the purpose of the trip let the kids climb for a few minutes.  Joshua had a great time and changed his mind to yes, so we signed him up right away.  The kids talked my ear off on the way home about the different holds and the small amount that they learned in the ten minutes that they climbed.

*Meet the teacher night.  It was not really that fun.  It was too crowded.  However, both kids successfully met and interacted with their teachers and found their classrooms which I guess was the main point.  By the time we got out it was on the late side.  I was planning on picking up dinner anyway, but by the time we were done with dinner it was almost 7:30pm.

In other news, while we were prepping the school supplies Joshua cut open the clorox wipes wrapping and had me put it on my head.  It was a pretty good fit, so I was just wearing it around.  I stepped outside to shake something out, only to realize there were people walking by while I was wearing this awesome hat.  The kids got a kick out of my embarrassment. :s

Wednesday: empty calendar

There was nothing on the calendar today!  Not even a birthday or a bill to pay or anything.

The boys wanted a stay-at-home day and I kind of gave in.  I made them go on a bike ride with me.  This is the first bike ride that we've taken as a trio and I though it was going to be a disaster, honestly.  Joshua's bike is rather slow and he still isn't a great rider.  I was afraid Isaac would go way ahead of us and that Joshua would fall down and give up due to a scrape.

But it went really well!  Isaac didn't go too fast and Joshua, while a bit unstable at times, didn't fall down.  Both of their bike seats were too low, but they've now been adjusted for the next ride.

Joshua built with Legos most of the day.  He finished his X-wing and started on a golden dragon.  I got to make the neck and part of the wings for it.

Birthday

I forgot to post a little bit about my birthday!  I got my presents on Monday when we were home.

The kids were super cute.  Joshua got me a gift (with his own money) about four months ago and has been anxiously waiting to give it to me.  Both of them also got stuff last week that they chose to give me - a sea glass rock and some stroopwaffles.  Isaac pulled me aside later to make sure I realized those where his stroopwaffles that he could have eaten but chose to give them to me.

Ben also gave me some Lego sets.  They're ones I've been wanting, but they've also been sitting in the closet for several months and so they weren't exactly a surprise. :)

Tuesday: home again

It took me forever to get to sleep last night.  I thought that with the travel day I had maybe beat jet-lag, but it was apparent that I hadn't.  The morning went better than expected though, and I was able to get my afternoon nap.

We went to the library and went to the store for a few groceries and school supplies.  There were plenty of school supplies still, but at the same time they had been well picked over and a few things were missing.  Isaac's list had an optional stapler on it and we found the mini staplers.  Joshua was so excited about them that he got one for home too.  Also, as a whole, I was impressed with the prices.  The most expensive things were the tissues and wipes by far.

I biked to karate by myself because this is the last month for Isaac (at least for a bit) and he is done.  It really was a good choice in the end because we worked on forms for the whole time and it's something you need to care about a little bit.

Monday: home

We're home!  We got home late last night...I blogged during the vacation but couldn't add pictures, so they'll slowly be coming through.

In the meantime, Isaac and Joshua came home this morning.  Oh, it was wonderful to see them.  It was wonderful to be kid-free too, but I did miss them.  Joshua told me tonight that seeing me again was the best part of his day.

We all talked for a while and then went to Urban Air with one of Joshua's friends.  On the way in Joshua called me "Grandma."  Oops!  It was silly.

The rest of the day we relaxed and did some work.  Slowly getting back to normal.

Last Saturday: travel

Today we left for our cruise.  The flight wasn't until the evening, which gave us plenty of time during the day...for better or worse.

Ben and I got our rapid COVID tests done; they both quickly came back negative.  Phew.  One less thing to worry about.

The rest of the day we finished packing, enjoyed crazy children, and pretended not to be too anxious. 

Isaac gave Ben a tiny, folded up note that said "open on plane".  To be fair, it was hard to read.  So Ben starts asking...what plane?  Flat, parallel to the floor?  Perpendicular?  At that point I took the note (because I had the pockets at the time) and said something like, "I'll carry it until we're there."  Ben quickly realized his error, but I thought it was hilarious.  We finally dropped the kids of at Larry and Cheryl's and headed to the airport.

Of course, our plane was late.  They did a terrible job of updating the status, since at 7pm we still hadn't boarded but the status board said we were leaving at 7pm.  We had an hour and a half layover in Chicago, and weren't sure we were going to make it...and a lot of people were in the same boat.  Anyway, we finally get to Chicago, taxi forever, and join about half the plane in running for our connections.  As we were deplanning we had 3 minutes before boarding was supposed to end at our connection.  We had to do a U from concourse C to B and it turns out I'm terrible at running.  I'll blame it on the backpack.  I ran almost all the way to the bottom of the U and had to stop...but was at least able to keep fast walking.  After we did the bottom of the U I took all the luggage and Ben ran the last leg to try and hold the plane.  It worked, although they might have held it even if we were a minute slower as once we were on the plane I saw a text that said they were holding it for us.  (There was at least one other couple also going to Seattle.  I think they did the same thing we did and split up.)

In exciting news, our luggage made it on too!  It got to take a shortcut.  I'm often surprised at how fast luggage goes from plane to plane.  We were able to see that it was on the plane right after sitting down thanks to technology, so it was nice to have that worry removed right away.

The rest of the trip was rather uneventful and we ended up at our hotel just fine.

Last Weekend: CranHill

 The kids and I went up Friday morning to CranHill.  We were camping with people from our church, but were kind of secluded.  There was one group up a nearby hill, one group in a field, and then us (and another family for a short while).  While I wish we had been closer, we were also in the shade and it made a huge difference.  Everyone else was complaining about the heat, but I was rather comfortable most of the time.  We did all have a fire together in the evenings though.  

We started getting set up only to realize there was no power on the site.  It didn't effect us much since we have no camping gear, but I had brought a fan and some extension cords.  Our neighbors were also surprised by this, so the documentation may have been a bit lacking.  After getting set up and having lunch, one of the first things we did was the AquaPark.  There was a slide and a dome in the middle of their lake.  It was actually run pretty nicely...you had about 20 minutes of play time before the next group came.  After that the kids played two games of chess.  Well, I coached Joshua a lot.  They each won one, but the first game was a good amount of time and the second game was rather long.

There was also this crazy sand hill near our campsite.  The kids didn't play in it a ton, but it was played in enough to be a nice diversion.

After a poor night sleep, Saturday morning was activity morning.  (There was a dog next to us that barked every 15 minutes for what felt like an hour between 12-1am.) We did it all!  But first we started with a breakfast of champions.

It started with rock climbing.  Isaac got the bell on the hardest course.  It was funny to watch him take breaks, because half the time one of his feet would be higher than his waist.

Joshua enjoyed it too, although he often stopped when he felt he was getting too high.

Next up, pony rides for Joshua and then a zip line for Isaac.  (Unpictured because it was too high)

Ben showed up at that point and we did slingshots.  There were some cool metal things to aim at, so there was a nice ding if you hit them.  Joshua was a bit too weak for them, but if I helped we could hit something about 20% of the time.

We rested after lunch but realized it was rather hot out, so we went to get ice cream.  The ice cream store had a/c, and we cooled off in there.  There was a game room nearby too (still with a/c), so we played some carpet ball.  By that time it was late afternoon and still hot, but we had reset.  The kids wanted to do the aqua park again, so we did that.

There was a wagon ride and we left the kids sit by the fire until it was dark.

After a good nights' sleep with no rain (phew) we packed up Sunday morning.  I was on the fence...do we stay for the church service or just go home?  We started with a small orienteering course which only used the four cardinal directions.  Then we had about an hour before the service, so I asked the boys what they wanted to do.  The weather was beautiful, so they elected to stay.  They played another game of chess, we went to the service (Joshua was so tired), and then we went home.  It was another lovely trip.

Thursday: games

Isaac and I played Dominion.  He tried to make a boring game (without +action, +cards, and few +buys).  It turned out pretty fun and we both had huge decks at the end.

We also recently played a recommended set-up and managed to get the platinums (the highest currency) down to a cost of zero and then Isaac bought a whole bunch at once.  He probably was able to get about 6-8, but there weren't that many left in the pile so we didn't actually count to see how many he could get.  It was a really fun game too.

Wednesday: empty day

Surprisingly, nothing was on the calendar for today.  After asking the boys what they wanted to do, and rejecting/retiming a few of the suggestions, we settled on mini golf.  Since mini golf is right next to ice cream, we of course did that too.

I had them recreate an old picture.  The old one is from 2019...they've changed a lot in three years!!

Nostalgia: cran hill

 We went camping at Cran Hill this weekend with church.  I had gone one other time when I was about five.  I don't remember it other than the pictures, but I had a pony ride with Mom leading the horse just like I did with Joshua.  I think a lot has changed at the camp, but a few things still looked the same.

Wednesday: blueberries and movie

We went to pick blueberries this morning.  It was a beautiful day to do this; it was cloudy with a wind.  Furthermore, there were so many blueberries on the bushes!  We filled up our buckets within about twenty feet.

We went to see Rise of Gru with Cheryl.  It was pretty funny...the boys giggled a ton and even Cheryl and I laughed aloud several times.