Sunday: meh

 It wasn't a super exciting day today.

We did church at home.  Isaac and Joshua tried to steal Ben's seat; it didn't go over well for them.

We continued our Stuffed Fables game; we seem to be getting through this story pretty well.  We've had some really good luck.  It's been fun.

And...I graded.  I really thought my graders were going to come through for me a bit more after some emails/conversations I had with them this past week, but several of them completely flaked in April.  I feel like something needs to change because it happens to some extent every semester, but I'm not sure what that is without micromanaging.  (Oh, I know.  They need to communicate with me better.)  I got most of the stuff graded for the students taking the exam tomorrow morning.  I didn't finish the homework that was due this past Thursday, but I feel ok with that.  

However, there's still a lot of grading in my future.

I also had a bit of a headache this afternoon.  Nothing too bad, but at the same time bad enough to take some medicine.

Saturday: window take two and Giraffe's birthday

I forgot to tell you the funny window story from yesterday!  While I was cleaning the windows they were open and the screen was off, so it was open to the outside.  Horizon was curious and sticking his head out the window.  Then he put his front paws out.  He usually isn't very adventurous, so after trying to move him back inside I just thought I'd see what would happen.  He slowly put more and more of his body outside and then he jumped!  Silly cat.  I went to the front door and he was still on the porch.  Once I opened the door though he came right in; I didn't even have to go outside.

Five minutes later he comes back and again jumps through the window.  By the time I got to the front door he was right there waiting for me though!  I laughed, feeling like a butler.  Luckily, that was the last time.

I am still enjoying my clean windows.  I should probably do it more often, but there are so many things to clean.

On to Giraffe's birthday.  A few weeks ago Isaac decided today would be a great day for Giraffe's birthday.  It's now on the calendar with a recurring notice.  Isaac planned the 'whole' day.

We played Stuffed Fables because it had stuffed animals in it.

We made giraffes out of Lego.  Isaac started over near the end, so his isn't shown (yet).  Joshua, on the right, ran out of time before the picture.  He was trying to make a big giraffe.  Ben had the nicest body and shaped it really well (on the left).  Mine was the middle.  It is a bit blocky, but I used some slopes.  Giraffe gave my giraffe first place, mainly because of the head.  Ben's head looked a little weird.  Well, my head looked weird too but not quite as much.

And we had a birthday dinner.  Isaac made a lemonade pie and we had a yellow curry chicken, pineapple, and yellow pepper.

Friday: window and belt testing #2

Today I spent quite a bit of time on the kitchen.  Unfortunately, I mostly only finished the windows.  The window screen is inside instead of outside and so the screen just gets dirty and not cleaned by the rain.  I cleaned the windows too, but there are still a few streaks.  I also cleaned the windowsill really well and I'm so happy looking out the window now.

I also had black belt test #2.  It was a different crash and burn than the last test.  Basic actions went well, combos went fine.  Forms went ok as a whole.  I had a few issues, but did ok overall.  Then we moved on to self-defense.  I've been making the kids help me practice the self-defense as part of their chores.  So I knew what I was doing.  Apparently there were only about three-ish (out of twenty) people that knew the self-defense and it was so bad that they stopped half way through.  They started by just giving us the name of what we were supposed to be doing.  Then they added on the short description of what we should be doing.  Then they stopped us because it was so bad.  Apparently I'll get to finish up my defense at some point and everyone else will need to finish up next week.  (The official plan was a little confusing.)  But...it means I need to remember my stuff for a little bit longer.  I was able to give them my mile time from yesterday, so I was excited about that.  We finished up with some sparring, and I enjoyed it this time.  I often don't enjoy sparring, but this time was fun.  We got out about 20 minutes later than expected, but that is about what I was expecting.  I did get a special thank you from one of the instructors for knowing my stuff and that was appreciated...and then I knew that I at least did well enough.

Thursday: last day of classes

We finally reached the last day of classes.  I'm always ready to be done every spring, and this year was no exception.  Especially since there was a 7:30am class.  I shouldn't have to do this again, and so I'm rather excited about that too!

I received my first physical gift and thank you card.  It was from the sweetest student; I had been hoping that she'd want to TA next year, but she's graduating.  

Isaac was super excited about rock climbing today.  He did several new routes on his first try.  (The correct terminology would be that he flashed them.)  He had a new move too that involved letting go with both hands too.

Wednesday: Operation: Clean the House

My to-do list has somewhat gotten under control.  So today I started out with one or two random things from it along with the normal things, like cleaning the kitchen.  Then I moved on to Operation: Clean the House fairly quickly.

In so doing, I put up a bunch of shelves near the TV.  The weight limit lied and so I need to get two more sturdier shelves (hence the blue tape still there).  But this is uncluttering the kitchen counter.  I haven't removed all of them yet and the counter already feels better.

I still want to better secure them to the shelves for safety, but we're happy with how it's looking.

Tuesday: another normal day

It was another rather normal day.  There's only one more day of classes which is pretty exciting, but my graders are a bit behind.  I think they'll get most of the stuff graded this coming week, but I'm expecting to have to do more grading than I was hoping.

At karate they helped us with our forms.  There are people that know them well, people that know them well enough, and people that don't know them.  This isn't unexpected, but we'll see how the test goes Friday.

Monday: life

It was a normal Monday.

I got groceries.  There seemed to be a lot of things out of stock.  I now can't remember if it used to be like this before the pandemic or if it's gotten worse.

I did my exercises.  I finished my mile at exactly 12:30 which is my goal for Friday.  I'm not sure I'll make it after everything else that needs to be done, but we'll deal with it then I guess.  My forms were feeling pretty good so I didn't spend much time on them.

I did my other chores.  There were a bunch of short ones so I felt like I made good progress.  

I ate lunch, read my book, and took my nap.  Grey Bear joined me.

I worked on O:CtH.  I put up a shelf for one of my Lego flower sets and cleaned the door by the trash can.  It was rather yucky.

I picked up the kids.

I made dinner, a blueberry almond oatmeal bake.  I gave instructions to Isaac to put it in the oven.  I've been doing this a bit more and love it.  Having Isaac put dinner in the oven adds a lot more meal options.

I helped out at karate.  The little kids are cute but there's a lot of them.

We ate dinner.  The oatmeal bake turned out pretty good.

I did a few more chores/stuff for kids/miscellaneous stuff.

I worked on my quilting and watched TV.

And now it's almost bed time!  I'll read a bit again and probably fall asleep while reading.

Weekend: this and that

Today at church I doodled this...

 
Then Joshua (tried) to copy it and added some colors.  It was interesting to see the differences between the two.

Yesterday Ben made pick-a-brick cups for us out of Legos that have been waiting to be used.  Ben made a temple and then Joshua added to it.

I made a wall.  Well, first I made a dragon-plane, but that wasn't amazing.  I had a bunch of the arches, so I made a wall that I rather liked.

Friday: could have skipped this morning

 It felt like all the small things were going wrong this morning.  I missed picking up a library book.  I forgot to pay a bill, some measurements for a quilt block were wrong (and the pieces were already cut), and the rumba kept thinking it was stuck.

So I put the library book back on hold.  I paid the bill.  I figured out the new piece sizes.  I didn't really fix the rumba, but I put it back on the charger to hopefully reset.

And then I took a nap.  I was pretty annoyed with myself and knew that a nap would help reset my perspective.  It helped that Grey Bear was waiting for me.

Poor Grey Bear.  He rarely gets the respect he deserves.

It did.

I got a few more things done before it was time to pick up the kids.  Karate boot camp was this evening.  It went well...enough.  The second test is next week.  We didn't have a ton of time with self-defense, but we at least got through all of them.  I messed up a little bit on most of the forms, and one of the forms I messed up a bit more on.  That form I realized I was doing a few things wrong, and trying to fix them and keep pace is hard for me.

Wednesday: life

I got more chores done today than I was expecting.  Not by a ton, and there's still a lot to do, but it was still a good feeling.  I also packed lunches at Kids' Food Basket.

At nap time I finally remembered to nap with Grey Bear; I forgot last week and so I get two naps with him this week.  He was happy.

 Rock climbing was today after school.  Isaac climbed yesterday's V2 several times (see video below) and then found another V2.  After a few tries, he got that one too!  It was a good day for him.  In the video he's climbing the black route.  It's hard to see some of the holds and he uses the volumes a lot too.

When we got home Joshua picked a bunch of dandelions from the neighbors' yard and then was excited to find the cats sleeping together.  

Tuesday: Isaac

 Isaac took the ELA M-step today.  It was an all-day affair.  He has a little bit left to go tomorrow, but he doesn't think it should be very long.  But it's a long time of sitting and concentrating and writing, and ELA is by far his least favorite subject.

So when he asked to go rock climbing after school, I really wanted to make it happen for him.  We weren't able to go until later in the evening, but that ended up working out really well.  The gym was pretty empty, but his teacher, who is the nicest guy ever, was climbing there too.

Isaac was working on a V2 route, which is rather hard.  At the top was the tricky part, and it's scary to have the tricky part at the top.  Furthermore, the teacher suggested a new move for Isaac which basically put him horizontal for a short time.  I didn't see any holds up there so I was a bit nervous for him.  But, well, there are soft mats if he falls.  Anyway, he made it.  The whole gym was excited for him.

(This picture was a little bit after the scary part.  I may have been exaggerating when I said horizontal, but that's what my Mom brain thought.)

Monday: the things that tickled my funnybone

1) I bought three different types of toothpaste today.  Three of us were almost out.  I find this funny because it seems like toothpaste never runs out, yet there we were.

2) It snowed today.  After a beautiful week last week it was cold today.  That being said, I was surprisingly warm in the morning after getting groceries and took my sweatshirt off for a bit.  The weather should return to spring-like temperatures soon.

3) Tornado followed me all over quite a bit this morning.  When I was working on my sit-ups he flipped over as though he was going to do his sit-ups too.  Instead he was only able to roll back and forth from side to side.  The thought was appreciated though.

That was all the funny stuff.  I got several chores done today.  I cleaned another cabinet in the kitchen.  I didn't get rid of anything in the cabinet, but I did rearrange it slightly.  The area around the sink, which is next, has some involved spots that I'm not looking forward to doing.

Sunday: a normal Sunday

It was a pretty normal Sunday for us.

Although we did start with empty tomb rolls.  It worked well because church then told us how the church calendar actually celebrates Easter for the 50 days after Easter, so I was completely within the time frame.  They also kept saying that "It changes everything."  However, after watching all of the "How to train your dragon" series, where Hiccup says that all the time, anytime anyone says that we think of Hiccup.  So of course Joshua kept saying "Hiccup" after "It changes everything" was said, once slightly loudly when everything else was quiet.  Oh well.

We came home from church, had lunch, took a nap.  We had basement clean-up time.  Joshua's been working hard to keep the basement under control so we don't need to have as many basement clean-ups, but it was time.  It didn't take too long, so we also played our new game, Space Base.  Everyone enjoys this game which is super exciting.  The games everyone likes are somewhat few and far between.

We also played games online with Brian and Amy this evening.  They usually teach up a new game and today was no different.  It was Sea Salt & Paper.  I really enjoyed it and the pictures on the cards were really pretty.

Friday: cat box

 It's been really nice out, so I put the cat box out Friday morning.  The cats were immediately interested in it and Horizon got in first.  Tornado went in a few minutes later and Horizon gave me a look like, "really?!?  there's not enough room for both of us."

I am planning on taking it out when the weather cools next week.  They also don't seem to use it much in the summer, and since we don't have good insulation for it we'll probably take it out once the A/C turns on.  

Thursday: this and that

It was a pretty normal day.  Teaching went fine, although the first class had a lot of students out sick.  There are only four more classes, and as always I'm ready for the semester to be finished.  Spring fever hits everyone.  It's been a pretty good semester though; no major issues and the normal amount of minor issues.  With the change from four credits to three credits per class next semester I'm having a bit of a hard time finding student help for next semester.  Students need to take five classes for a full load next semester and while each class *should* be less work I think everyone is expecting about the same amount of work.  So students are a bit hesitant about adding extra work into their schedules (and with the extra class for a full load it's harder to find a student that has an opening at the correct time).

I took a nap this afternoon.  Tornado was overly affectionate and really wanted to break my nose with his head-butts.  He finally settled though and we both fell asleep.

The weather has been beautiful.  It'll cool off again next week, but it is enjoyable for now.

Wednesday: pictures

Last night I went to turn off Isaac's light and found Horizon on the bed with him.  Horizon does like beds, especially lately.  We have to keep bringing him out of Joshua's room at night because he plays with Joshua's feet when they move and Joshua doesn't like that.

I made curry today.  A lot of it.  It was a bit annoying, but at the same time I'm all set now for about four months and that is really exciting.  I made a double batch last time too and it was wonderful because I kept finding more containers in the freezer.  I did forget to start the rice at the right time tonight, but that's pretty normal.  I just can't remember it.

 

Reading

On Easter, before the kids' bedtime Ben was reading on the couch.  A bit later I joined him.  Isaac was bored, so we convinced him to join us.  Then Joshua finished his chores and joined us.  I think it was the first time we've all been reading our own books all together, and it was wonderful.

Last Sunday: Fort Wayne

Joshua managed to finagle a French toast stick and waffle sandwich from Aunt Liz.  Good thing she was making breakfast and not me.

The kids played some game with their stuffed animals all weekend.  There were very specific rules, although I'm not sure what they were.  Something about hitting people with your stuffed animals.  Sometimes they got thrown back up, sometimes they were brought back up.

Joshua was taking pictures with the phone.  This is (probably) the adults having breakfast.

We helped clean up the sticks from the storm.  There were a ton of sticks and even with six of us it took quite a bit of time.  I want to say an hour but that seems excessive.  The three younger kids won the "who can get the bigger pile of sticks" competition so they got to choose their post-stick hunt cookie first.  Below Joshua is turning into a stick.

After lunch we went to the wooden playground.  We've gone several of the past years as it is apparently the place to go and Joshua requested it.  It's always a bit cold for the adults.  We lasted about an hour and then said it was time to go.  Since it was a bit north of their house, we left for home right from the playground.  The trip home was uneventful and it was nice to see Ben.

Sunday: a juxtaposition

He is Risen!

He is Risen Indeed!

As we celebrated Easter today, I also remembered the Mom's death.  This is the first time (that I recall) that the two have fallen on the same day.

And really, it brings deeper meaning to the celebration of the resurrection.  Jesus conquered death, which means Mom is in heaven, praising God with all the believers.  What more could we want? 

Saturday: booby traps and scavenger hunts

It was Joshua's turn to choose the family time activity, and so he chose Lego Challenge: make a booby trap for Indiana Jones.

Amanda: half way down the hallway there's a stone that when you step on it missiles come flying out.  The other missiles are there as decoys.

Ben: When you step near the treasure the floor moves and the bolder comes crashing down.

Isaac: when you pull the diamond away from the stand the steps turn into a ramp and you slide down

Joshua: two with when you step on a piece missiles fly and one fake floor that sends you into a pit.  (Two of these he made yesterday.)

Here's the video of them in action:

Joshua and I also finished his scavenger hunt (and went to the Peanut store).  None of the pictures are amazing, but I did have a very nice time.

Friday: car

We sold the Ford Focus today.  It was bittersweet.  But the car change was also a good choice.  Anyway, Ben found a third-party seller to sell it to and the whole process ended up being so much easier than I was expecting.

So hurray!  We're back to two cars.

Black belt boot camp was this evening.  As previously, I did enjoy it.  We have five forms for the upcoming test (in the end of April) and I'm currently really bad at #5 and not great at #2.  However, we spent a ton of time on #1 because apparently some people were still not getting it.  I think it's a hard balance of having to study by yourself and polishing up the form in the class, but it also seems like something needs to change.  We did spend quite a bit of time on #2 and that was helpful for me, as I'm currently polishing up the form and still making small mistakes.

Thursday: home

I worked today.  Aunt C came over for a bit to break up the day for the kids, but they were still home several hours by themselves.  I found this on my camera roll...

Wednesday: a lot

There was a lot to do today.

I started off blind-folded.  I had been hoping to go on a walk with the kids, but it was rainy all morning so that didn't work out.  However, they were playing well in the basement when I got up so I stumbled to the couch and took apart a lego set.  Not very exciting, but it could have been worse.

Once the kids were upstairs Isaac made me breakfast.  The dryer broke a few days ago in the middle of laundry, so I've slowly been getting all that on the line and that was the one thing that couldn't really wait.  So I made the kids help with that.  It was a group effort.  I did my exercises.  I worked through my forms.  Actually, I kind of liked doing my forms blindfolded other than that we don't have a large enough space.  The kids tried to help me not run into walls, but it only kind of worked.

There wasn't much time left, but it felt like a long time.  Isaac made me draw things and laughed at me.

 

However, I think the joke's on Isaac because when Ben came home he could tell what I drew right away!  (Sunflower, bridge, giraffe)

Next, and this is my favorite part, Joshua made me an Easter egg hunt.  While I was blind-folded.  I told him what room we should go in.  Then I told him where I wanted to search.  He got me to the right place and I proceeded to knock down all the stuff.  He finally resorted to just putting my hand where it should go, which was a relief.

What did I learn from this?  I'm still not sure.  Perhaps that I've been raising my kids well - they can do things by themselves and were willing to help me.  I don't think that was the point of the exercise though.

We went to the beach to get a picture of Joshua with Big Red.  It was warm out today, but still rather windy by the beach.

And then rock climbing.

Tuesday: class

Registration for next semester started yesterday.  There is a shift from 4 credit classes to 3 credit classes and so students are all registering for an additional class to get a full load.

It's causing some angst, to put it mildly.

I have two classes, and usually during spring registration they hit about 20/28 by the end of the week and they get filled in with incoming freshmen.  Already today I have one class completely full and the other at 25/28.  Students that are going-to-be-juniors (ish) were registering today, although I'm not sure if they finished and going-to-be-sophomores started or not.  The bulk of my classes are usually sophomores with many juniors, some seniors, and some freshmen.  

At one point there was talk of adding a third section, but we'll see what happens.

Monday: stuff

 This morning it felt like we did a bunch of the stuff on the kids' lists that we haven't had time for recently: finishing up an art project, making root beer, playing games.  We had an early lunch and after rest time started Joshua's Holland Scavenger Hunt.  Since they had eye appointments, we selected a few of the items that were sort of on the way.

It started in the graveyard.  I didn't know which side of the street to look on, so that lead to some frustration.  (Especially since there was a time limit.)  Eventually we got on the other side of the street and found the correct gravestones.

We then had to find a house with Veneklasan brick. The first one, to which we were given a location, was probably the right bricks but didn't have the distinctive two colors.  A bit down the road was another one that seemed more representative.

The appointments went fine.  When we got back I made the kids go around the lake with me.  My goal for the next test is to be able to run 1/8 mile, fast walk 6/8 miles, and then run the last 1/8 mile in under 12:55.  (I know, this isn't an amazing goal.  But it's mine, and I do not enjoy running.)  I did hit the time goal, which is the most important, but I did have to pause it a few times for the kids to catch up.  They were on their scooters so I thought this wouldn't be a problem, but apparently the roads were bumpier than I remember and so they kept getting off the scooters.

Saturday: aftermath and kitties

In the morning we saw the aftermath of the weather.  A trampoline blew through Nathan's yard.  The basketball hoop fell over.  Luckily, first the wind turned the hoop before knocking it over, otherwise it would have hit the car.  Many trees were down; we took a walk down the street and saw a bunch.  (There were some tornados nearby, but not in the same town.)  We had driven down this street about an hour before the storm.

In the afternoon we went to a cat café.  First we pet and played with the cats and then had a treat.  There was only one active cat at a time, but petting cats is pretty fun too.

The kids played some game off the balcony with stuffed animals almost all the day when we were home.  I didn't really understand the rules, but they were all playing well so that was a bonus.  Isaac didn't play it quite as much, but he did play a lot of games.

Friday: a busy evening

The evening started out with Black Belt Test #1.  I was a bit nervous going in about the physical fitness portion...I needed to do a mile in 15 minutes.  While I was able to fast walk a mile in 12:55 yesterday around the lake, I expected that trying to do it after the bulk of the test was going to be hard.

For me, the test went well.  However, we wasted a lot of time as some of the students were not doing things correctly and we spent extra time doing some things over.  (And for some of the forms, over and over and over.)  I was trying to leave to still get to Fort Wayne tonight, so they let me submit my time from yesterday, do the physical fitness portion on my own, and call it a night.  I still got out a good 30 minutes late, but I wouldn't be surprised if the others were there for at least another 30 minutes since it takes a while to wrangle everything.  I also wouldn't be surprised if not everyone is invited back for the next round, since this was the easy round.

Anyway, I took a quick shower and ate quickly and left.  There was more lightning than I think I've ever driven through before.  There were a few stretches of heavy rain, but I stuck with some cars that were going a bit slower and it wasn't a problem.  I did have to take a quick stop to go to the bathroom thanks to all the water I had drank (drunk?) earlier.  Even with all those issues I only pulled in about 15 minutes after my original ETA.  Also, as expected, my check tire light went on around Allegan.  It always has for the last many years, and so I was happy to see that it knew exactly where to turn on.

The kids went right to sleep and Nathan and I were talking only to have his phone alert go off.  Hmm...a tornado warning.  Then my phone went off.  We debated if we needed to move to the basement for few seconds, then went to ask Liz.  After another minute or so we decided we probably should.  I tried waking up Isaac with no luck.  I tried waking up Joshua with no luck.  I was trying not to alarm them, but that might have worked better.  I finally got Joshua to respond, but he immediately fell back asleep.  Then I told him to wake up again, only to have him fall asleep again.  He finally got up on the third try and I got him moved to the basement.  Then I went to get Isaac and had to yell at him to get him to up and at this point things were getting a little scary outside.  But Isaac was slowly taking one step at a time and was not waking up enough to go any faster, even as I was loudly and strongly encouraging him to do so.

The adults hung out in the basement for about 10 more minutes, but all the kids were back asleep as soon as their heads hit the pillows.  We then realized that the tornado alarm had been going off but we couldn't hear it.  I'm not sure if there was actually any tornados, but there was some very strong winds that knocked over a lot of things (more on that tomorrow).

Lesson that I've learned: if the phone warns you of weather, moving to shelter should not be up for debate.