Friday: dryer vent, pumpkin experiments

This morning Joshua and I worked on cleaning the dryer vent.  You see, the new dryer hasn't really been working very well.  However, the company wanted us to clean the dryer vent before they sent anyone out.  I guess it makes sense.  The dryer vent was very clean and now the drier seems to be working worse than it was before.  I learned a lot about how to clean the dryer vent though, as I got stuck and annoyed a few times.  Next time will be better...if I can get the pieces apart again.  I might need to call in the people with the good tools to re-separate the sections.  Joshua was a good helper and kept going inside to see if any fuzz had come out yet.  He yelled at me from inside, but since it is sort of in the middle of the house there was no way I could hear him.  I kept telling him this, but he kept yelling and asking if I had heard him anyway.

Then I went to help out with pumpkin experiments in Isaac's class.  I got the "does our pumpkin sink or float" station, which was an awesome station to have.  First of all, pumpkins float.  (I had been debating it in my head so the first one was a surprise to me too.)  Secondly, kids love finding out if things sink or float.  The second group I had had their stem fall off, so we put that in the water too.  That started putting lots of things in the water.  We may not have talked as much about density and instead just put stuff in the bucket of water, but it sure was fun.

When the third group got to me, they had cut open their pumpkins and taken out the insides.  So what did we do?  We filled the pumpkin with water!   Small pumpkins still float and the large pumpkin did not.  As they got filled with water you could see that they floated lower in the water.

Only a few people got their sleeves wet.  I cleaned up after myself, including the bucket of water and pumpkin guts.

Thursday: halloween

I made it through Halloween.

I did a lot of chauffeuring today.

The normal church that we have trick-or-treated at in the past didn't do it this year.  We went to a different church and it wasn't the same.  They had games for candy instead of trick-or-treating.  This would have been ok, except that the weather was terrible and so it was packed.  Very packed.  We played a few games because we got there near the beginning, ate our hot dog, and left.  I couldn't quite handle it.

We went to Meijer and got some bags of candy.  I told Isaac he needed to go around the table and say trick-or-treat to get it.  It turned into a grand game, as always.

Tuesday: hmm

We'll start out with the funny.

We'll move on to the hmm...excel on my teaching station likes to crash.  There doesn't seem to be a reason behind the crashing, other than after I've been teaching for a while.  I've put in a help ticket and something was done, but it didn't seem to fix the problem.  And since it's a hard one to troubleshoot, I usually don't know if it's been fixed until it does it again.  Anyway, it became unusable during my first class.  I switched to Google Sheets for a little bit, but Sheets isn't 1) the same or 2) as good as excel.

I also feel a bit like an old grump.  There are several things coming up in the rest of the week that I just don't want to do.  They're not bad things or hard things, I just don't want to do them.

Joshua decided that he wanted to write "No, don't go downstairs" out of Legos.  He got the O in no very easily.  And then...I'm not sure what happened.  He wouldn't even try the N.  It took about an hour of tears and a little bit of help and more tears and some snuggles and more tears before it got finished.  It was something I at least wanted him to try first, because he's often been able to succeed if he tries, but he refused.  However, he got through the W by the end of the night.

Monday: donuts

We got donuts at the grocery store, as normal.  Every time I put the donuts in the bag I think I should write a blog post about it.

You see, I always put my donut in last.  This way the chocolate doesn't smush and melt to the wax paper.  Sure, I try to make it so that the frosting doesn't come off on the wax paper, but I don't really have a good system.  So I just put mine on the top and the kids have never said anything when their frosting isn't perfect.

Friday: shots

We got our flu shots today.

Joshua was nervous.  He gave me a hug and the nurse said, "OK, I'll count to three.  One."  Poke.  "Two.  Three."  Joshua was then quite confused as there was no poke after three.

Isaac wasn't nervous.  The nurse said, "Ok, count to three."  Poke.  Isaac said, "One, two, three."  And then I laughed because he counted after the poke.

To be fair, the poke seemed a lot less pokey than it has in the past.

Thursday: Joshua

Joshua has been especially cute lately.  He's been giving extra hugs and thinking a little bit more about how other people are feeling. 

Tonight Joshua and Isaac both sat next to me while we prayed.  Joshua realized this shortly after everyone sat down.  His response?  "I could get Grey Bear for Dad to sit with."

Last Sunday: Shedd aquarium

We started out the last day with a trip to the pool.  Luckily this hotel had wonderful pool hours...6am-10pm.  We got there shortly after opening, due to the time change and kids that don't sleep in.  Going down the elevator a father commiserated with me about the early wake up.  (Note: I don't need them to sleep in much.  But it was a busy day and they got to bed late a little bit of sleeping in would be nice.)

On the last day of our stay we went to the aquarium.  In the past Isaac has not enjoyed aquariums, but I've never been to Shedd and I though Joshua would like it.  We told him to have a good attitude about it.

Well, after a bit of a hassle getting there due to the marathon we made it.  We went to see the dolphin show first and everyone loved it (even Isaac).

We watched the dolphins from under the water for quite a while too.

Besides the dolphins, there were four animals that really caught my eye...the Weedy Seadragon,

Jellies (although they're always a favorite),

Isaac and Joshua (oh, just kidding),

and these...I forgot what they were.  They're like tube worms and hid in the sand and would slowly come back up.  Once a fish swam by and they all disappeared down into their holes.

Joshua really wanted to take my picture on the sea turtle.  I has happy to oblige.

This is more what we're like though...Joshua squinting because he doesn't have his sunglasses on and Isaac going crazy.

After a late start on the train we took away the boys' screens.  They fell asleep pretty quickly.