Thursday: sink

After the new water heater, our kitchen faucet, which was already on the fritz, really needed to be replaced.  It gave us water, but in a weird way.  The instahot had also died about a month ago, so I decided to try and replace both at once.

It was a day of ups and downs.  I got a lot of things unplugged, only to have a really hard time getting a water filter out.  Joshua and I picked up some strap wrenches after swimming lessons and were able to loosen it up.  Hooray!  Everything was out!  We had lunch and I took a nap.

Things were going well and I got to installing the instahot.  I ordered the exact same unit so it could just be switched out.  Of course, that didn't quite work.  The fittings looked different.  Turns out, I needed some compression fittings.  Ok.  Off to Lowes!  I found what I needed, with some help, but the 1/4 nut didn't seem like it was going to fit.  (I carried the old instahot all around Lowes like a baby.)  It was the best option, so I bought it anyway in case the new one was a little smaller.  It wasn't.  I was on my third call of the day to Dad while Joshua filed down the hole and ended up making it big enough.  Like I said, it should have fit it just didn't quite fit.  So I was able to tell Dad that I didn't need his help...this time.

After that, I was almost home free.  It took ten minutes to get one of the screws in the garbage disposal back in, but after messing with it the screw finally caught.  A few more steps and we were done!  No leaks!

Now, keeping it real, this project did take most of the day (with the exception of swimming lessons, nap time, dinner, and karate).  The rest of the kitchen looks like there was an explosion.  I'm not all that optimistic that it'll get all cleaned up tomorrow, but hopefully at least the floor.  Obviously, I didn't put anything away because I want to watch for leaks.  Yeah.  That's it.

Weekend: brick world Chicago

 This past weekend we went to a Lego show.  It was the same one we went to five years ago.  It was busy at times, but super fun again. 

It's hard to choose favorites, but this dress was one of them

There was a study in color, only some shown here, that made Ben's to 5.

This was made of spider webs

This table had a lot of flowers, and many of them used fabrics (capes mostly) for the pedals

Isaac's favorite part was the great ball machine.  I only have one shown here but marbles move around in a big square over lots of machines.

This was in the top five for Ben and me.  It layered trans-blue pieces on other colors to make the painting effect.

This was in everyone's to five.  There was a black light to make the reef glow.

We got to build some city buildings.

And saw a landmark from home.

This was by far Joshua's favorite, a big and deep Minecraft scene.  Before finding it he was flagging and almost done, but then we spent 15 min here.

We thought that was the end, and it was about 45 minutes from closing.  Then we found the activity room!  The kids had asked about the green bricks because they remembered them from last time, but we didn't see them in the main room so thought they weren't around.

Joshua and I both built creepers

The back of my creeper had his mouth closed because he was underwater, so I also made some kelp.

There were several other tables, but they were all a bit busy. The lawn games were clear, so we spent some time there.  That rounded out our time nicely.

We did stop at the Lego store for some pick-a-brick boxes and then went home.

Wednesday: groceries

 I know, it's another installment of grocery adventures with Amanda.  I'm listening to a book right now about WW2 England and how some people were observing and writing everything down for posterity.  This blog doesn't come close to that, but at least if anyone ever finds it they'll know some about the grocery stores.

Anyway, it's been on my mind lately that I should switch to Aldi.  I've shopped there a little in the past, but I enjoy the variety and the large selection of items that Meijer has.  But...groceries are expensive.  And some items are getting 'really' expensive.  I buy the off-brand items most of the time anyway, so why not buy Aldi brand?

So Joshua and I tried it out today.  Of course, my grocery list was crazy small; only about ten items.  I can't remember the last time I've only had ten items on my list - it's usually about 33.  At the same time, it's a good time to start since we don't have to hunt for as many items.  We found eight of the ten items and the total came out to $29 dollars.  If we pretend that I had my normal 33 items, it would be about $120.  My grocery bill at Meijer is usually $150 +/- $50, so I probably saved a decent amount.

I think we'll try shopping there over the summer.  I like the idea of saving money, but it was annoying to be in a new place and not be able to get all my items.  I'm hoping to save up enough items that I can do a Meijer pickup just once in a while.

A, after dinner: The grocery total was less than $30 so I gave myself a triple gold medal*!
B: Well, that negates the savings offset.

*Yeah, I give myself pretend medals based on my grocery bill.  $75-$125 = gold, $125-$175 = silver, $175-$200 = bronze, >$200 = sadness - hopefully there's a weird and expensive non-grocery item

Tuesday: rock climbing

The Huismans joined us for rock climbing today.  We were afraid it was going to be really hot, but it ended up only being warm.  It wasn't sunny and there was a nice breeze, so it was good.  Everyone had a wonderful time, with one of the them even rating it 200/10!  Score.

Monday: normal

It was a pretty normal day, other than that Ben took a day of vacation.  So it felt like a hybrid Saturday/Monday: we did some of our normal Saturday things, but also normal Monday work.

The kids were occupied well this morning, so I was able to actually get a few things checked off on my to-do list.  I also gave several of my items to Isaac as chores, so the list isn't increasing as rapidly as normal.

There's a heat wave going on, so we stayed inside most of the day.  I brought Joshua to swimming lessons and went to karate in the evening, but that's was it.  (It was disappointing to come out of karate.  Usually I'm all hot and sweaty and the cooler air is a welcome relief.  Today it was hotter, because thankfully the school has A/C, and it made me even sweatier.)

Sunday: Happy Father's Day!

The kids did a great job celebrating Ben today.  I helped facilitate some things, but for the most part they did things or figured things out on their own.

Joshua spent all week making a sword from a video game for Ben, along with a stone to pull it from, a scabbard, and a stand.  He also got Ben some chocolates.  Isaac got Ben an expansion for Space Base, and we played that after church.  It was a really good expansion; it added interesting mechanics while not making the game longer or harder.

We went to Larry and Cheryl's for dinner and it was nice to see family again for a bit.

Thursday: tar pit

We ended up starting a new game of Castle Panic this morning; we were going to lose the other game.

We've had a hard time winning this game, so about half way through the game I implemented a new and permanent house rule: the tar (which used to just stick a monster in place for one turn) is now a tar pit.  We quickly came up with some additional caveats to the rule: 

1) Monsters are stuck in the tar and can't move until they take damage
2) you can attack flying monsters with the tar pit, but if the tar pit is already on the ground the flying monsters can fly over it.
3) the tar pit stays in its section until moved (which doesn't happen often)

This was just the extra little bit that we needed to win the game against the monsters.  We barely won, but we won.

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We went rock climbing in the afternoon.  There was a new traverse route around the middle section that was fun and easy, but I am just not very strong.  I got about half way around in two tries.  Joshua got around twice in the first fifteen minutes.  It will be a good new goal for me.

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I also had karate this evening and my body wasn't quite working right.  There are just days it's a little off, and there's a chance that rock climbing didn't help.  It was fine, just not amazing.

Wednesday:

 We started playing Castle Panic this morning.  I needed to pause it to get a few chores done before swimming lessons, and ten seconds after we all stood up a new monster showed up and completely destroyed our castle.  (Luckily, I had taken a picture before he arrived.)

We also went to a playground with some friends.  It was a lovely day and there was some nice shade.  The kids played well and Natalie and I had a nice time chatting.

We're also getting a new furnace/AC and water heater tomorrow!  We've been talking with the company for a bit and I sent them another few questions on Sunday via email.  Imagine my surprise when I opened my email at 3:30pm this afternoon and it said that the install was set up for tomorrow at 8am.  I called them in a slight panic.  My guess is that most of the time when furnace installs are set up it is an emergency install and happens as quickly as possible.  We have just been having small problems with the furnace - enough to need a new one but not to make it an emergency so the lack of communication surprised me.  Anyway, the company closed at 4pm.  Ben and I quickly reviewed the install quote and called them up to make a slight change and get the questions from Sunday answered.  Everything looked good and so now we're getting it set up tomorrow.

Tuesday: dad joke

 Joshua had the following joke after swimming lessons.  He wouldn't let me video him, but we have an audio of it.

Ben and I went out for dinner tonight.  I almost left without feeding the kids.  It was weird, because we had talked about a dinner plan around lunch time.  But then we got home from rock climbing, did some outside chores, and Isaac wanted to play a game and Joshua needed help on the computer.  Before I knew it, it was time for me to leave!  There was no time to make dinner!  I ended up making sandwiches and Joshua finished up the sides after I left.

Monday: first day

Today was the first official day of summer vacation.  I was a bit nervous because the kids have been...excited...this past weekend.  

The morning started out well.  Joshua had swimming lessons.  This year I decided to do group lessons instead of private lessons because Joshua could swim well enough that he wouldn't be on the edge for half the time.  (Isaac declined lessons.)  It turned out that time slot I choose wasn't very popular and there are two teachers and two students in Joshua's class.  Furthermore, we are friends with the other person in his class!  Joshua said that he enjoyed the lesson, so that was a win.

We were thinking about picking strawberries and talked about it over lunch.  It turns out that we all thought that we should want to go and liked the idea of it, but no one really wanted to go.  So we didn't.  We did make a super short trip to a playground though.  Joshua asked if we could go to one rather late in the afternoon, about 40 minutes before I needed to start making supper.  I was proud of myself for saying yes, even if we were only there for about 25 min.

Dinner was a flop.  I don't completely flop dinners very often, but this one didn't work.  Everyone was nourished and has food in their belly, but I won't be making it again.  Joshua was the only one that said it was ok, so I saved a little bit for him in case he wants it later in the week instead of whatever the other option is.  Most will probably go in the compost though.  (This is really odd for me - I try so hard to not waste food.  But.)

The kids became crazy while I was making dinner.  Something about Isaac throwing a yarn ball at Joshua over the stair's banister and if it hit him on the head he needed to give Isaac a Lego skeleton.  I really wanted to tell them to stop but also didn't really have a good reason, so I didn't.

Through the years

 Joshua has made a lot of spider webs on the front porch...

Saturday: friends

We had some friends over tonight.  Unfortunately, yesterday the weather changed a bit and there was about a 60% chance of rain...and we had plans for hobo pies and s'mores.

We decided to go for our initial plan after all.  The kids all went in the lake, but didn't stay in quite as long since the air was cool.  We got the fire started, brought all the food down to under the deck, and got dinner under way.  After about half the people were served the rain started.  The kids went inside to eat while we finished up in the rain, although the deck protected us a fair amount.

We finally had all eaten and then gave up.  We picked up and went inside.  We gave the kids raw s'mores and they seemed perfectly happy with the solution.

Friday: last day of school

They made it!  The last day of school.  It doesn't feel like we should be here already and I'm not sure why - maybe it's because the weather has been on the cool side?  Maybe because Isaac had homework through the beginning of this week?  I'm not sure.  Isaac, whose backpack has been heavy the whole year because he just takes all of his stuff with him, decided not to take his backpack and it felt weird.

I got a surprising amount of work done this morning, including some summer lists.  The kids studied them intensely soon after they got home.  One is "things to do this summer" and the other is "things to do before you can tell mom you're bored".  I've been hearing "I'm bored" a lot more the last two months, and want to try and preemptively get rid of some of that.

Thursday: groceries

 I got groceries yesterday.  Then yesterday and today I ran out of several important things - eggs (well, there are four left but I like having more on hand), flour (I found some wheat flour in the freezer), black beans (I used black bean soup instead), and pasta (I had enough frozen ravioli).  Couple that with finishing off several other items and I could go back to the store already.  It's annoying.  It's especially annoying when I'm in the middle of making something only to realize that I don't have enough.