The day was fine.
The kids and I did preschool, but there were only three kids (and four helpers). Isaac taught the lesson for the first time.
We visited Great-Grandma, bring the bubble blower.
We were leaving right after work and school today, so my plan was to bring the kids to school and then come home and finish the last of the packing before teaching. Before I brought the kids to school I was working on stuff and found out that there was no more kitty litter. *Sigh*. I knew we were low but I thought we had enough.
Luckily Meijer carries the kitty litter we use and luckily I found it before bringing the kids to school, so it was a quick stop after dropping them off. It would have been annoying otherwise.
Classes went fine. Natalie and I had lunch - we were both flying out later in the afternoon but on different flights. We commiserated about getting ready.
Anyway, the flights actually went really well. We had to walk to the next gate during our layover a little faster than we were hoping, but we had time and then that flight was delayed about ten minutes anyway. The biggest snaffu was our Uber ride. Ben had reserved a ride in advance, but when we were ready the ride was 40 minutes away and getting farther away. Dealing with getting a refund from Uber was not the most fun thing, but Ben did manage it. The next driver was there in about ten minutes, but the whole thing took about 30min. Oh, and then at the hotel the kids and I had a hard time finding the hotel room, which was about a five minute walk from the elevators, and Ben had a hard time getting his scooter from the bellhop.
Eventually everyone was in the room though. The kids went to sleep very quickly, and Ben and I went to sleep shortly afterwards.
It was a pretty normal day. I did my stuff.
Isaac tried a bat hang yesterday. They're scary and he didn't quite get it.
Last Sunday Isaac made his Profession of Faith at church. Several friends showed up and it was a joyous way to tell everyone about the commitment he has made.
"I believe that God forgave me of my sins because he sent his only Son to die on the cross. God will always love me no matter what I do. God also challenges me in ways that help me grow my skills so I can best serve him. While on Earth, Jesus set the ultimate example and showed me how I should try to live. Jesus died on the cross even though he knew he would suffer. He died because that's what needed to be done to forgive my sins. I believe the Holy Spirit moves in both powerful and subtle ways to change my life in big ways. The Holy Spirit is how God intercedes in my life. The Trinity is Jesus, God and Holy Spirit all at the same time.
My faith is continuing to grow. The church helps me by providing worship services, mission trips, discipleship groups, and ways to serve the community. I will use my gifts of discernment and mercy to help the people around me. I will continue to learn about God. A life serving God can take many forms and I want to be ready to give up everything for Him."
Friends came over tonight. It was a lovely time.
The kids had seen each other on Sunday for Isaac's Profession of Faith and made plans. They all made LEGO cars and played a hide-and-seek/tag game. I think Joshua was the main force behind making the plans and I was so proud of all of them. 1) No adults were involved in the plans. It was amazing. 2) Most of them participated!
We also played a game called "herd mentality". I wasn't too sure of it at first, but the leader of the game kept it running well and it was a ton of fun. It was with the adults and the kids and it was just easy. I would totally play it again.
Tomorrow morning is supposed to be very cold, but we've used up our allotted snow days (without having to request more from the state). We got a message from our school saying that while they normally follow what the local school district does, for the rest of the year they might not. Especially tomorrow as it might only be cold and we don't have kids waiting for buses.
To be fair, there are no school districts that have school closings yet. The prediction for our school district was "very high", so with the above information I guess that Eagle Crest is about 50/50.
I only fish tailed once today, so the roads have gotten better. It was in a really random place and I have no idea why there would be any ice there. Fortunately, I just needed to keep going forward and I didn't actually need to stop - it was just surprising.
Today I realized that Isaac has really red hands compared to me. Joshua's hands are also on the red side, but not as red as Isaac's. Apparently this is a normal for him.
Isaac had a rock climbing competition today. This one was for the community, so the feel is much more laid back than the USAC ones. He got 6/9 routes, which was a huge improvement from last time. He got a few right away or within a few tries, worked on one for a good half hour, and then got another one easily that he originally had problems with. Oh! There were also a bunch of Christmas lights that had been strung for the finals in the evening. Isaac asked...I wonder how they got those up there. I replied with a ladder. "Oh yeah. I forget about ladders when I'm climbing." Hilarious and understandable all at the same time.
I went out to snow blow this morning and didn't find it all that cold. (Cold, yes. Just not that cold.) But it turns out that I had gone out while there was a wind break. Five minutes later I was almost done with the driveway and the wind picked up and I decided that was good enough. I was now cold.
It was a relatively normal day. Chores, games, stuff. Joshua and I took a picture of Tornado and then printed it out four times. He then drew Tornado into a bunch of monsters. Tornado watched to make sure Joshua made them..regal...enough.
We did end up with a snow day today! I had to go out several times today and the roads really weren't very good. They also seemed to be worse this evening as they were icy near intersections. I'm expecting school tomorrow (and most forecasts say a low chance of a closure), but wouldn't be overly surprised if there isn't school. I don't think anyone is expecting school on Friday due to cold, so it'll be a really short week.
Anyway, Ben stayed home so that was nice. I had an easier day than otherwise, but still had work and errands that needed to be done.
One errand included a vet appointment, and it seemed like this vet was telling me very different things than previous vets. Last year Horizon's weight had stayed the same and the vet was happy enough with that. This year he lost a little (very little) weight and the vet was quite sure that he needed to lose quite a bit of weight. We also have a cat that regularly throws up. We mention it every year, and have tried a few things to combat it but nothing seems to change. In the past it has just been ok. This year she was very worried about it. She wanted the cats to have a complete blood panel workup and said that she suggests doing this every year with older cats...which would over triple today's vet bill. Um...no. She also suggested a few other things to change that involve buying some products, but at $30 it might be something we do. So after this annoying appointment I got home and the plow had gone through and I was rather grumpy.
I did enjoy Joshua's message to me on his math work from yesterday though. I read somewhere that adults killed 6-7, and I'm not sad about it. (Please ignore the wrong answer.)
One of the kids' chores today was to shovel the end of the driveway after the plow came through. So what happens? The plow came through at 7am and I was able snow blow it away. It was still light and fluffy so it worked well. The kids went sledding after I got home from work, so they still got outside even though it's rather cold.
I got a text with this picture while at work. The kids didn't get into too many shenanigans, but definitely some.
I'm really tired.
There's a high chance of a snow day tomorrow. I personally think there's a high chance on Friday too. We'll see!
It was an interesting snow storm today.
The kids had ortho appointments this morning. I was a bit annoyed at myself for making the appointments, but in a non-snowstorm it would have been the right choice. Anyway, based on appointment times and whatnot I expected to be there for about 1.5hrs.
Twenty minutes later, we were leaving. They got both kids in at the same time and Isaac's appointment didn't take an hour as I was told. It was rather exciting.
The roads weren't as bad as I thought, but there weren't many people out. There was one gust of wind that caused very white out conditions, but it passed quickly. (The highways were much, much worse. Due to accidents, they were closed for a significant portion of the day.)
The original plan had been to have Ben take my car to work after the ortho appointments, but he managed to move all of his meetings on-line. Most people took the "do not travel" advisory seriously and worked from home.
At 5pm, all the local schools EXCEPT OURS had been canceled. It's a situation where you know the school will cancel, but they haven't yet. What if they decide not to!?! They did cancel. Phew.
The day as a whole was nice. The kids played some, read some, worked some. I actually got many of my normal chores completed since the kids were well occupied.
I made naan for dinner, but didn't decide to do so until 3pm. Usually I take Brad out of the refrigerator in the morning so it has some time to wake up. Instead I made the naan dough and had it cuddle between Isaac's legs and under some blankets to warm up just a little. I didn't need it to warm up much, but sitting on the counter would be cold.
We're in the middle of a snow storm! The kids already didn't have school tomorrow, but most schools are closed. We do have some ortho appointments in the morning. I have a small hope that they'll cancel the appointments, but I kind of doubt it.
I went to Grandville for breakfast with a friend this morning. The roads were....not great. We had even talked yesterday that we'd decide at the last minute, but thought that everything would be ok. It wasn't. ...but at the same time, we got there and back ok. This was my fourth meal with friends this week - a huge change from last week when I didn't eat with anyone.
After a lovely breakfast with a friend, I started Operation: Clean the House - entry closet. I'm really excited about a little space for once. I cleaned the top two shelves.
I am getting rid of the puppy hat. Joshua was so small and cute.
Ben and Isaac went to a magic thing. Their normal place closed, so they were going to a place that was farther away and earlier, so they didn't have dinner with us. Joshua and I had pasta - tonight's shape was elbows.
Today was just a stick around the house day. It was cool, so we didn't do as much outside. We played several games, I took a walk with the boys, and we got in the pool/hot tub in the afternoon.
During our walk we saw this pretty tree and a pencil cactus. We may have also made sure the boat was protected by toy army men.
Hmm, overall a pretty normal day. Natalie and I almost had to cancel our lunch plans, but then we realized that we could just push it back an hour. It's been over a month since we've seen each other, so it was a very nice lunch.
Rock climbing was nice, although a bit weird. There wasn't an official practice for Isaac, but he was expecting others to still be there. Well, several of the people left shortly after we got there. (There were normal reasons for them to leave. It made sense.) Isaac was a bit down because he thought everyone left and so didn't think he'd want to stay the whole two hours. Ok, so I didn't leave as planned. But then he realized that two others were there, and he semi-stayed with them the rest of the time. We did leave a bit early, but I could have easily left, done some stuff at home, and then come back to pick him up. Oh well, I talked to a lot of people, walked on the treadmill, and did a bit of work that I could do on my phone. It was still a nice night, just not what I was expecting.
Today was forecasted to be a rather cool day, but we elected to head to Margaritaville anyway. (It was the right choice.)
The boat ride was cold. We could have sat inside, but we bundled up and enjoyed the outside instead.
