Saturday: aftermath and kitties

In the morning we saw the aftermath of the weather.  A trampoline blew through Nathan's yard.  The basketball hoop fell over.  Luckily, first the wind turned the hoop before knocking it over, otherwise it would have hit the car.  Many trees were down; we took a walk down the street and saw a bunch.  (There were some tornados nearby, but not in the same town.)  We had driven down this street about an hour before the storm.

In the afternoon we went to a cat café.  First we pet and played with the cats and then had a treat.  There was only one active cat at a time, but petting cats is pretty fun too.

The kids played some game off the balcony with stuffed animals almost all the day when we were home.  I didn't really understand the rules, but they were all playing well so that was a bonus.  Isaac didn't play it quite as much, but he did play a lot of games.

Friday: a busy evening

The evening started out with Black Belt Test #1.  I was a bit nervous going in about the physical fitness portion...I needed to do a mile in 15 minutes.  While I was able to fast walk a mile in 12:55 yesterday around the lake, I expected that trying to do it after the bulk of the test was going to be hard.

For me, the test went well.  However, we wasted a lot of time as some of the students were not doing things correctly and we spent extra time doing some things over.  (And for some of the forms, over and over and over.)  I was trying to leave to still get to Fort Wayne tonight, so they let me submit my time from yesterday, do the physical fitness portion on my own, and call it a night.  I still got out a good 30 minutes late, but I wouldn't be surprised if the others were there for at least another 30 minutes since it takes a while to wrangle everything.  I also wouldn't be surprised if not everyone is invited back for the next round, since this was the easy round.

Anyway, I took a quick shower and ate quickly and left.  There was more lightning than I think I've ever driven through before.  There were a few stretches of heavy rain, but I stuck with some cars that were going a bit slower and it wasn't a problem.  I did have to take a quick stop to go to the bathroom thanks to all the water I had drank (drunk?) earlier.  Even with all those issues I only pulled in about 15 minutes after my original ETA.  Also, as expected, my check tire light went on around Allegan.  It always has for the last many years, and so I was happy to see that it knew exactly where to turn on.

The kids went right to sleep and Nathan and I were talking only to have his phone alert go off.  Hmm...a tornado warning.  Then my phone went off.  We debated if we needed to move to the basement for few seconds, then went to ask Liz.  After another minute or so we decided we probably should.  I tried waking up Isaac with no luck.  I tried waking up Joshua with no luck.  I was trying not to alarm them, but that might have worked better.  I finally got Joshua to respond, but he immediately fell back asleep.  Then I told him to wake up again, only to have him fall asleep again.  He finally got up on the third try and I got him moved to the basement.  Then I went to get Isaac and had to yell at him to get him to up and at this point things were getting a little scary outside.  But Isaac was slowly taking one step at a time and was not waking up enough to go any faster, even as I was loudly and strongly encouraging him to do so.

The adults hung out in the basement for about 10 more minutes, but all the kids were back asleep as soon as their heads hit the pillows.  We then realized that the tornado alarm had been going off but we couldn't hear it.  I'm not sure if there was actually any tornados, but there was some very strong winds that knocked over a lot of things (more on that tomorrow).

Lesson that I've learned: if the phone warns you of weather, moving to shelter should not be up for debate.

a while ago: Ben's second new car

So remember at the end of January Ben got a new car?  Well, there was a minor issue with it and so we brought it back to the dealership while we were in Florida, after having it for about a week and a half.  Without getting into details, there was an accident as they were bringing it through the car wash.  We have heard the actual story now and there wasn't any negligence, just a series of unfortunate events.  

They ended up getting us a new one.  They tried to say they'd just fix it, but Ben negotiated a new one.  Sure, this whole process could have been a bit easier but as a whole it hasn't been bad.  The sales guy that Ben worked with was especially helpful. Ben wanted a specific color and so that took a bit longer, but we finally got the new one about a week and a half ago.  I've driven this one too!  The roads were snowy with the last one and so I didn't want to be the one to get in an accident...which does seem a bit funny in hindsight.

Tuesday: wax museum

 It's been a busy few weeks as Isaac has worked really hard on his wax museum speech and paper.  Tonight was the culmination, with all the students dressing up and doing their thing.

Isaac was Benjamin Franklin.  He did a really nice job.

During his speech:

After his speech, posed while waiting to do his speech again:

They did half the students at a time, so we walked around during the first half; Isaac was a character for the second half.

Saturday: a busy day

Today was rather busy.

First I volunteered with the black belt candidates at the Children's Advocacy Center.  It's a really cool place, although also really sad that we need it.  We learned about what they do and then helped them do an assortment of things.  It felt like we had slightly too many people, but for the most part everyone had something to do.

After a somewhat fast lunch I took the kids to the school play.  It's a 5-8th grade play and they did a good job but at the same time it wasn't amazing.  We could hear them better this year and the kids loved it so it was a nice time.

I came home and crashed.  I'm not completely sure why, but I was going to take that nap and no one was going to stop me.

This evening we played some games online with some friends, which is always fun.  Tonight was Spacebase and 7 Wonders.  We think Joshua might enjoy Spacebase, so it might be added to our collection

soon.

Friday: kitchen and boot camp

I continued working on the kitchen today.  I went through another cabinet and got rid of several old mugs.  The shelf was running out of room and so some had to go, so I chose the ones I don't care about the most.  There was only time for one cabinet today after everything else, but it was still nice.

Black belt boot camp was this evening.  I like boot camp.  I'm still bad at several things, but I'm all set for the first test next Friday.  At the end I was sparring with someone and we don't have pads on so we're trying not to hit each other (too much).  Well, we did manage to hit each other and now I have a huge bump on my leg.  I probably should have put ice on it right away, but everyone is always so worried about not hurting each other that I just shook it out and continued on.  (And really, it will be fine.  There's swelling but not an absurd amount and then I'll have a nice multi-colored bruise.  And then it'll go away.)

Thursday: the mundane

I did my chores this morning along with taking a walk with a friend.  After nap time I continued working on the kitchen, doing two cabinets.  I didn't get rid of much, but they were pretty dusty because I never wipe them down.

I also spent way too much time arranging these shelves.  I took the stuff off and moved the shelves more times than I care to admit, but it was hard to figure out a plan.  (Also, why don't the shelving holes go all the way to the top and bottom?)  I wanted to move the instapot higher as it was on the bottom shelf with the lid on the second-to-bottom shelf with the lids.  I don't use it that often and the top was a bit annoying with the lids.  So now things are in a somewhat better order how how often I use them, although the top shelves were more just by size.