Sunday: related to cats

I woke up to find Horizon on a quilt I was giving away today.  That wasn't were I wanted him to be.

It was Joshua's turn to choose the family activity, so he choose Lego challenge: "related to cats".

I made a cat toy.  I really tried to get it attached to a motor and spinning, but I just don't have enough experience with gears/technic to make it work correctly in the allotted time.  Tornado played with it for about thirty seconds.

Ben also made a toy.  It used a laser pointer on a double pendulum+.  The cats played with it for about thirty seconds.

Joshua made some scenes.  One is a cat bathroom with food, sinks, and a scratching post.  The other was a minecraft-like environment where all the different biomes were called cat related things.

And Isaac made a cat in a cat.

Saturday: a Saturday

'Twas a pretty normal Saturday.  We did go rock climbing this morning with one of Joshua's friends.  We did some housework, played some games, took a nap.  The kids laughed together a lot...it's my favorite sound.

Memorial Day Weekend

It's taken me a while to get this posted, but I did want to briefly remember the weekend.

The weather was lovely.  Cool, but not cold, in the mornings and it warmed up to a pleasant/hot temp in the afternoons.  The normal crew was all there, including several people that we only see on Memorial Day weekend.  Joshua's friend's family also joined us this year!  They weren't quite attached at the hip, but they did spend quite a bit of time together.

The kids did the fun run in the morning.

Sunday we normally play a family game and frisbee golf, but Ben wasn't feeling well at all.  He actually ended up going home Sunday afternoon.  He didn't want to, but he was dragging.  The kids didn't handle this as well as I was expecting, but they got over it with minimal tears.

Monday I finally got the camera out since I realized I hadn't taken any pictures yet.  We took a peaceful walk on the beach in the morning.

We took pictures on the rock, which is apparently a tradition.

I pushed them on the merry-go-round a little bit.  The merry-go-round would out of order last year and there was much discussion prior to the trip as to whether or not it would be back.  The boys spent hours on it.  Joshua's poor legs are all bruised from it too.

I made the kids help me more with packing up this year.  Last year I volunteered to do all of it, and that was a mistake.  It just takes a little bit too long.  This year the kids helped pack up our stuff within the camper.  Isaac put packed everything into the car.  (This was in part possible because we had put some stuff into Ben's car, so my car wasn't quite as full.)  Isaac also helped to wash down the floor as I was vacuuming.  I was so excited at the end; Isaac had been so helpful and it went so much faster this year.

Friday: Bears

 Yesterday Joshua found out that Snowfoot and Grey Bear were planning to go on an adventure today.  So when he got home from school, he found out that they grabbed a few other bears and had a bear-rel adventure!

(Root beer was in the little barrels.  These are not drunk bears.)

Thursday: the day

Today was mainly a normal day.  I biked to the library instead of driving.  I did two loads of laundry and finally got it all cleaned.  (It's always a project after camping.)  It isn't sorted, let alone put away, but it's at least clean.

Grey Bear was waiting for me for nap time.

Giraffe hung out in the giraffe holder during the day.  During screen time Tornado jumped up on Isaac's lap so I got a picture of all of them.

It's been a bit of a boring week, once we got home from camping, I'll admit.  Putting the desks together was fun, but there has just been a lot of normal/boring things filling the days too.

Wednesday: a cat day

 Today was a lot of cleaning up.  Finishing up cleaning from the new office set-up, camping, and then the normal cleaning.  The cats made me smile several times though.

I was taking apart the boxes from the desks, turned away for a moment, and suddenly there was a cat in the box!  It felt a bit odd because usually the cat takes up most of the box, but this time there was room to spare.

Ben has a bad...something...and so I've been in the guest room the last two nights.  Horizon usually snuggles by my legs like a nice kitty, but when I woke up this morning he was near my shoulders and next to Snowfoot.  It is not where I was expecting to see him.

Monday: Joshua's computer

 A short while ago we decided that it was time for Joshua to have his own (good) computer.  So I have a new computer and Joshua, who is inheriting my old computer, has been sad about the lack of Minecraft for the last few days.  It hasn't been too long, but I wanted to get everything set up for him promptly.

And so, in between a few other chores today, I reset the office.  It use to have one longer table, but that table wasn't long enough for two computers.  

Joshua was so excited.  He promptly decorated his table with assorted Minecraft characters made out of Lego and added the creeper head to the back of his chair.  Ben and I were happy that we've hung on to some of the old monitors that we've used in the past...they're small and the color isn't great on the secondary monitors, but they work for looking stuff up as needed.  These tables also came with cupholders, but we're calling them lovie holders instead; you can see Grey Bear in the middle of the picture.