Monday: bike

We got Isaac a new bike that involved some putting together.  I worked on it on Friday, but couldn't get the brakes to be in the right place.  After fiddling with it for too long, I called Dad.

The underlying problem was that the wheel spokes were out of alignment.  So he used his fancy tool and got them straight again.  (This made me feel so much better by the way. This is a problem that I couldn't fix, no matter how hard I was going to try.)  He also noted that the instructions didn't match the bike and adjusted all the things that I had adjusted while trying to make it work.  So I had a lovely experience with a happy ending.

I paid him in with a cup of spice tea and we both continued our rainy day.  (It rained all day.  Sometimes hard, sometimes barely at all, but all day.)

Sunday: more or less fine

Today my cold was much better than yesterday, but I was still rather tired.  We took it pretty easy today.  We finished up the game Stuffed Fables, which is a campaign-like game that we've been working through for the last year or so.

Oh, I got some pictures of Joshua's micro desert town.  It's not finished yet, but at least it's something interesting to look at.

Saturday: slightly unfine

 I definitely had a cold today.  I can't say I was miserable, but I wasn't at peak health either.

But besides that it was a good day.  Isaac did some of his extra "fun" math and went rock climbing for a while.  Joshua is working on a micro desert town and it's looking really cool.  Joshua and I also went on a short bike ride and that worked well.

I also took a long nap.  It may have been the best part of the day.

Friday: fine

 Today was fine.  One of my chores took way longer than I was hoping and I didn't really finish it either.  I did have a nice walk with Cheryl and then lunch with Heather.  

I think I'm coming down with a cold; hopefully the one the kids recently had.  It disappeared really quickly.

Isaac managed to finish the Rock Wall of the Week this week and he was pumped!  It's his second one ever.  It was made almost for kids because there were a few spots where being small was helpful instead of a hinderance for once.

Old things

 1) I realized I didn't have any pictures from the program of the black belt ceremony.  I was a bit bummed that a sentence got messed up in mine, but I also know Mrs. Galli was trying really hard to make them all correct and the computer program she was using was fighting her.

2) We got home after Labor Day and the kitchen was a disaster.  It was a bit sad because it had been clean earlier that day, but between making food and eating lunch it had devolved.  I told Ben I wasn't going to do anything about it that night, and as normal he didn't care.  And then he said, but the dishwasher thinks it's clean.  And that's why I love him.  (The pronoun was vague, but I took it to mean 'the kitchen'.)

Tuesday: back to school

Today was back to school.  The short week is nice, but things actually start this week.  Isaac had his first day of math at Hope College (PATH).  He said it went really fast.  He's learned some of the material previously though, so hopefully that will help him get into the flow.  As expected, there's a lot of work.  Hopefully he'll be able to finish a good chunk of it at school.

Isaac was a bit overwhelmed today as a whole though.  There are a few transitions to middle school that he's still getting the hang of.  I'm fully confident that he'll get into a groove, but it might take a few weeks.  (This is also completely understandable.  There are a lot of changes this year.)

Joshua took an interactive field trip to the statue of liberty and was very intrigued by it.  I heard a surprising amount about it on the way home.

I was just happy that scheduling all went ok.  There's a fair amount of driving to do and times to hit.  I travelled one stretch of road three times today.  Classes went fine too...the first class has been good about asking questions, but the second class was quieter last week.  Today they had more questions, and that makes the time go by so much faster.

Monday: Happy Labor Day

 Happy Labor Day!  This morning we did some work, but we also played Space Base.  I was convinced that Ben or Isaac was going to win, but then I got some lucky rolls and pulled out the win!  I was a bit excited.

We went to Larry and Cheryl's for the later afternoon/evening.  The kids enjoyed playing in the water and going tubing.  There was also a ton of delicious food and I ate way too much.

I'm also rather tired.  It was a long day, but my back has been hurting more than normal and I've been a bit anxious about some things that are going to work out just fine.  They're just new-to-me things and I don't have a routine down yet.