Thursday: raspberry prep and other stuff

It's exam week, so my schedule is wackier than normal.  I also have an exam in the last exam slot, Friday at 12:30pm.  (Note - the students were not happy about this.  However, I warned them several times not to make arrangements to go home, start jobs, etc.  For once, students listened!  I did have one change to the other section's time slot due to a job, but he at least asked first.  Anyway...)  I was working this morning and instead of grading like I should have been doing I instead worked on making a program to grade for me.  It was about 1000x more interesting than grading, and I can at least pretend that it will help the grading go faster later.

This afternoon we started raspberry prep with CC.  We got dirt and some barrier stuff and a fence. 

It turns out we only got enough dirt, but we also don't have the raspberry plants yet so there is enough time to finish it up.  Putting it all together was easier than I expected and the kids had a blast.  I think they especially enjoyed hammering the dirt.  It had clumps in it that were unacceptable.

Isaac wanted me to take a picture of his Fun Dip so that he "can remember it forever."  Since it'll get lost in the plethora of pictures, I'll put it here so there is a slightly better chance.

Wednesday: ice skating

The boys' first ice skating lessons were today.

Joshua did fine.  He started by always needing a hand, but by the end he could balance.  There were some tears, but he stuck with it.  I saw a few smiles too.

Isaac loved it.  He hadn't lost any of the balancing skills that he had learned last time, and this time even managed to move a bit!  It was a march.  It started out very slow, and by the end it was slightly less slow.  I told him that there were five more lessons and if he still enjoyed it he could have more...and he immediately wanted more.  He had lots of smiles.

Tuesday: you are my puppies

"You are my puppies, my only puppies, you make me happy, when skies are grey.  You'll never know how, much I love you.  Please don't take my puppies away.  Woof-woof-woof."

I sang this this evening and both boys liked it...until Isaac paid attention to the last part of the song.  Then he got weepy about the thought that he would go away from me.  I tried playing it as not a big deal...he'll leave to go to college and that is a good thing.  And then he said, "but when we both die we'll see each other in heaven."  Yeah.  It's true. 

So we got some snuggles in and talked about it a bit.  I mentioned that if he were to die before me he could see Grandma Julie.  It instantly cheered him up..."I can live with her!"  He was still a bit weepy, so we read in his Bible about heaven and how it is even more homier than our home.

Sunday: Grey Bear

Sunday School Teacher: Hi Joshua!
Joshua waves Grey Bear.
SST: Hi Grey Bear!

Friday: nailed it.

Joshua got a cookbook from the library a few weeks ago and wanted to make the rice krispie bears in it.  So we did that today.

...and we nailed it.  Our bears look just like the ones in the picture.  Joshua thinks some of them look a bit scary, but he was careful to make one with each color of eyes that is in the picture.  He wasn't really sure what to do when he had three bears left without eyes.

Joshua wants to make some to bring to the librarians, Mr. Rob in particular.  I think we'll do it on Monday, but with a few changes.  1) We'll let the mixture cool a bit before putting them into circles.  2) maybe we'll use a circle cookie cutter instead of guessing and 3) we won't let the toddler flatten them like the book said to do.

Thursday: engineering open house

I took the boys to the engineering open house today - senior design projects.  Isaac was interested in most things at least a bit and Joshua was interested, but just for a short time.  It was interesting to see how well the students did talking to small children about their work. :D

They both were quite interested in the SAE car.

Joshua (and Grey Bear) barely reached the top of the steering wheel, let alone able to see out of the ...cockpit?

Wednesday: chick-fil-a and dishwasher

After a busy morning, Joshua and I met Betsy and Leah at Chick-fil-a for an early lunch.  They had a nice play area for the kids.

It turns out that exactly four years ago we were together, at a play place, each with a kid.  How things have changed.

(Collage from Betsy)

Also, we had a dishwasher repair man come today.  He was scheduled for 1pm, which I was a bit annoyed about because that is prime nap time.  (But I was more annoyed that the dishwasher didn't work, which is why he was coming then.)  Anyway, he showed up about 10 minutes early, looked at it for about a minute, said he needed to order the part, and was gone.  Now I can use my dishwasher (with a leak catcher because it just has an old seal) and I got a nap!