Friday: banana bread

The big plans of the day involved making banana bread this morning.  It got switched up a bit; Isaac did the wet ingredients and Joshua did dry.  Both of them did their own things with supervision and then I could clean up at the same time.  We had some for lunch, even though that tends to be frowned upon.

Isaac also had a really good time at rock climbing while Joshua is quickly becoming done with it.

I also felt really dumb today because I gave the wrong date in a text.  I said we'd come over Friday and I completely meant Saturday.  But by the time I got a text wondering where we were it was too late as Ben and Isaac had already left for something else.  We've rescheduled for tomorrow afternoon, but I'm still annoyed at myself.

Thursday: playground

 We went to a playground this morning.  The weather was beautiful: some rain yesterday cooled everything off.  The playground was also empty!  I don't think anyone else was there until the last fifteen minutes or so.  This meant that the kids could enjoy the zip-line to their hearts' content without having to wait in line.  They're fine in the line, but it is more fun without one.

Wednesday: summer

 

Last week Isaac was so sad because he had too much to do.  Today he's bored.  What am I supposed to do?

Tuesday: screen time day

We had a rather unconventional 4th of July.  Isaac had a bunch of screen time saved up from doing extra chores and wanted to use it on a day when Ben was around.  Joshua did several extra chores yesterday to accumulate a good amount of extra time, and so we added a bit of family screen time in and had somewhat of a screen time day.

It was fun.  The kids did a good job taking several breaks.  One of my favorite parts was in the evening in Warcraft a bunch of old-school druids had just happened to resubscribe for the month and we were all on at the same time.  It's been about seven years since I've been on so to have us all on at the same time was surprising.

We did get some of our chores done today too.  One of Joshua's monitors wouldn't turn on and off with the power button, so we pulled out a huge monitor from the back that we had forgotten about for him.  I cleaned the kitchen, again.  I did some laundry.  The normal stuff.

Weekend: cottage

We went to Dad and Pat's cottage this weekend. It was a wonderful trip!

We went up Saturday morning.  We got there a little bit before the Nathan and family.  We played some games and got settled.  Everyone else got there at lunch time, so we had lunch and then the kids started to play.  And they played.  And they played.  Most of the time was spent down at the beach, making water runs to catch foam.

We also taught Dad Space Base.

The next day was similar.  The kids played in the sand a ton.  There were a few additional excursions: kayaking, tubing, and fishing.  Games were played.  There was a big rainstorm in the late afternoon, after we had finished everything we really wanted to do outside for the day.

We left after dinner.  It was a very relaxing trip and the kids played together well.  It was nice to catch up with everyone too.

Friday: LEGO sorting

I put a lot of work into keeping our loose Lego collection under control.  It usually isn't very difficult; 15 min/day while watching TV often is enough.  (We also have family basement clean-up every few weeks and the kids put the sorted Lego into the correct bin.)

Joshua and I were talking about something and he mentioned that when he goes other places he usually doesn't play with the Lego because he can never find the piece he's looking for.  It takes too long to build anything.

And that made all the work worth it.  They spend so much time building (very interesting) contraptions I'm happy that we found a system that works for everyone.

Thursday: morning

Joshua and I stayed out and about for the morning.  We helped Cheryl, went to the library, and got a cookie.  We had some extra time so we wandered around downtown.  He played briefly in the fountian.

We had lunch at Centennial Park before rock climbing.  The boys ate so slowly.  Also, Grey Bear snuck into Joshua's lunch.  I expect its because Grey Bear hasn't gone on an adventure in a while.