Last Saturday: mini reunion

Last Saturday the boys and I went to a mini-reunion on my mom's side.  It was a lot of fun.

Both boys got a tractor ride.  Joshua wouldn't let Uncle Dave steer.

I love this picture.  (Aunt C, I ordered a print for you today.)

Isaac loved the tractor ride.  He really wanted a second one, so we'll have to go back some time.

Picture paparazzi

Three of the four girl cousins.  (There are ..10 boy cousins?  This is the first time I remember meeting the girl cousin from Texas, and I just can't remember if there is a boy too.)

...and a delicious lunch.

Saturday: racquetball trivia

Today's biggest news is that a racquetball hit me squarely in the arm, leaving a welt.  In honor of the welt, I've decided to give you some racquetball rule trivia.  Ben and I have wondered these questions for a long time, but finally looked them up.

1. Unintentional carries are allowed.  This is a new rule change.  See 3.13b
2.  A short serve includes balls that bounce on the short line.  See 3.9b
3. A screen serve must pass close to the server's body.  See 3.9i
4. The ball is in play until it bounces twice.  This means that it can be hit by player 1, hit the front wall, hit the back wall, bounce, hit the front wall, and may still be hit by player 2.  See 3.13e

Other things that I didn't know but learned by glancing through the rules...
1. You can call a screen during play.  See Rule 3.14.a4
2. There is a rule modification that may be adapted such that if the ball hits the front wall between one and three feet it may bounce twice instead of once and still be in play.  The lines should be marked on the front wall.  See rule 6.3

Here is the document, in case you have a burning desire to learn about racquetball rules now.

Friday: geocaching, wedding

Today we stopped on the way to the library to do a quick geocache.  We got to the spot and started to look around.  I didn't see anything.  Humph...hopefully not another bust!  Then I saw something, so I leaned into the bushes.  Bother, it was just a piece of trash.  I looked around a bit more, and saw more trash.  Isaac started to tell me, "Mom, get the red thing!"  The red thing?  Apparently the cache was under the trash.  Isaac was pretty excited to have found it.

This afternoon we went to a wedding.  It was a lovely wedding and nice to catch up with people.  I didn't get any pictures, but everything was beautiful.

Thursday: deck

We finally got our deck fixed.  (It still needs to be painted, but that's another day.)  Isaac was out of it this morning so we didn't go to gymnastics.  I went back and forth several times about going, but in the end think I made an ok decision.  It probably would have been fine either way, really.

Anyway, the carpenters got here and the boys sat down to watch.

Joshua lost interest rather quickly, but Isaac watched for all three hours.  (That's the only reason I think skipping gymnastics might have been the right call.  He doesn't seem like the type of kid that would sit watching the deck be fixed for three hours straight.)

Joshua came back near the end.

And now all the bad boards have been replaced!  Furthermore, they used screws instead of nails, so if they ever need to be replaced again it should be easier.  It's one of those things I'm glad we paid for...I'm sure we could have done it, but it might have taken a whole weekend (or we only would have dealt with the worst of the boards).

Wednesday: marble mazes

This morning Joshua and I went to the downtown game store while Isaac was at gymnastics.  They have a back room with lots of demo games.  Joshua didn't really get into it as much as I was hoping, but we did pass the whole 40 minutes there.  He enjoyed doing one game with a slide in it.  He says "Hop, hop, whee!"



I finally took a peak in Isaac's classroom too.  There are uneven bars, a low balance beam and a tall one, lots of mats, and a little trampoline.  It's nice to have a bit of an idea of what's there.

The activity of the day was to make marble mazes.  It didn't take as much time to make as I was expecting, but that's not always bad.  They're in Isaac's bedroom for now...I expect we'll play with them a bit this week and then they will go away.





Oh, and I learned at lunch today that dirty gems need to go in the sparkler upper.  Then they will be sparkly again.

Tuesday: continuing on

We took the tape off the art from yesterday.

Isaac went to gymnastics.  He didn't come out quite as excited, but told me more about what he did.  Somersaults, log rolls, and laughing at the teacher by the monkey bars.  (Monkey bars?  I wonder it if it is really a different kind of bar.  He's mentioned a high one and a low one, so maybe he means uneven bars.)

Joshua had a low fever at noon.  I gave him some meds and he was good to go...he didn't have one at bed time by when the medicine would have worn off, so I think we're over it.

Monday: an odd day

Today was odd.  It started out rather normally and we went for Isaac's first gymnastics lesson.  He seems to have liked it; they didn't let parents in during the lesson though.  He said he liked it and the second thing he asked is if we could come back tomorrow.  I have found out that he didn't like the monkey bars or the trampoline, but I haven't found out what he did like.  I haven't been in the room, so I don't even know what the options were.  But he enjoyed it.

During the hour Joshua and I went to a nearby coffee shop and got a donut.  We watched some construction while eating it.

And then Joshua came down with a fever as we were leaving.  I had forgotten that he probably had one the night before, or that he woke up in the middle of the night and I gave him more medicine.  (I know, things I should have remembered.  But he woke up fine.)  By the time we were home it reached 104.0.  It came down only a bit so I then gave him Tylenol too.  I could tell when that finally kicked in because he started commenting on the TV show that he and Isaac were watching.  He still had a fever, but was better.  Joshua actually had a fever the rest of the day, even drugged up, so we'll see how tonight goes.  Surprisingly, he still ate a lot.  It was only Cheerios, but it was a lot of Cheerios.

Our activity of the day was to do some painting.  Joshua enjoyed getting the paints out and painting for about two minutes, but then he was done.  I probably would be too if I wasn't feeling well.  Isaac enjoyed it much more.

Tomorrow we'll take off the tape and see what they end up looking like.