Wednesday: More water shoveling

Today was a snow day!  Honestly, it was a pretty good day for a snow day even if I'm not sure it should have been one.  I was home, Isaac doesn't miss extra school, and we had no important, or even semi-important, plans.  However, I had some personal plans for today.  I was going to carve some time out to just work on O:CtH, since it's been over a month since I've been able to do so.  I know it isn't a big deal and we still had a lovely day, but I was a little annoyed.

I expect Isaac will go back tomorrow.  He was normal for most of the day, although he decided to rest from 5-6pm which is abnormal.  So he's not completely over whatever he had, but there's been no fever.  I'm curious if there will be another snow day Friday.  One weather places says 1.5", another weather app says 10".  The snow isn't supposed to start until 8am though, so I don't know if that makes a difference.

The kids played outside for quite a while after Joshua complained that he doesn't like snow.  It was good for sledding and good for packing.  By the end of the day there were at least five snowmen in the neighborhood.

I also shoveled more water.  It was still really heavy and slushy snow.

In the afternoon Isaac did some snow experiments.

Tuesday: shoveling water

The snow of the season has just started to come, but it's been slightly above freezing at the same time.  This lead to crazy amounts of slush and standing water everywhere.

Joshua was willing to help me shovel the driveway as his exercise option today and I'm really glad he was out there with me.  We wanted to get it before it actually froze because it's going to stay cold for a while and we'd have a sad driveway.  It was so heavy and wet though.  Usually when the snow is this wet it's on it's way to melting and I can ignore it instead of shoveling it.

In other news, Isaac is doing better than yesterday but we're going to keep him home for another day because he wasn't really with it today either.  Classes started for me today.  Moodle seems exceptionally slow this semester...like click a link and wait 10 seconds.  Short enough to not really be able to do anything else, but long enough to be annoying and noticeable.  The classes themselves were fine though.  The biggest question is how someone managed to have the Euro symbol as their default currency instead of the $ when their computer settings are set to $ as default.  Still haven't figured that one out, but it isn't too big of a deal either.

Monday: a valiant attempt at normal

An attempt was made to get back to normal.

But Ben was home sick from work today.

And Isaac came home from school really sick.  Apparently he got hit with it right near the end, and had to tough out a little bit.  We got home and he curled right up in bed.  Then he went to the bathroom and curled up for the next hour on the floor.  He finally started feeling a bit better after that, although it was probably due to medicine.  

We got a new cat fountain because our old one bit the dust.  As Joshua was unpacking it he said it looked like a vault.

I forgot to talk about the Lego challenge Joshua gave us yesterday.  It was to build a microscale something.

I built a windmill.  The windmill and river was good, but the flowers are a bit too big.  I ran out of time though.

Isaac made a volcano just as it is erupting.

Ben made a tree house village.

Joshua made the white house, a city square with fountain, and two toes of a giant about to step on everything.

Saturday: mostly normal

It was a mostly normal day.  We played a game, worked on some Lego sets, and did some work.

I played a game with Isaac for his math homework.  It was one of the most boring games we've played in a long time.  It was a domino style match the percent/fraction/decimal, but there were only three options: 1/4, 1/2, 1, along with a blank.  On the up-side, we were able to speed through the game very quickly and can call it done. 

Isaac also blew up a balloon-in-a-balloon and was having a ball (a balloon??) with it.  The inside balloon often provides a suction and will stop the outer balloon from shrinking, which is not really what I was expecting to happen.  There were a lot of giggles.  He'll probably eventually knot off the outer balloon, but that hasn't happened yet.

a while ago: New Year's Eve

 Ah, New Year's Eve: 12.31.23  I keep thinking we'll run out of fun dates and then more show up.  I guess we'll run out of fun dates at some point, but then you just need to be a little more creative to get more.

We went rock climbing.  I thought the place opened at 10am, but it was actually noon.  It wasn't too big of a deal in the end though.

Evelyn and Dad bonded.  I'm not sure what they were talking about, but they looked cute.  JJ and Isaac played Dominion with me.  They even played twice during the day!

We rang in the New Year around 9pm with a ball drop (from a few years ago, but don't tell anyone that.)  The kids were pretty disappointed in the ball drop.

Cheers!

a while ago: Christmas

Merry Christmas!  It was a busy day and I didn't quite have the energy to blog when we got home.  Busy, but very fun.

Well, expect that I had to yell at the Baby Ruiners.  All the animals had finally found baby Jesus, as they were supposed to.  But then the Baby Ruiners stole him away!  That isn't how Jesus works!  Jesus is for everyone...Ruiners, SMTWRFSs, and animals alike.  We got them all together to worship.

We spent the morning at home.  I'll be honest, I can't remember what we did but my guess would be playing games and Legos and food prep.  We went over to Larry and Cheryl's for a late brunch (yum) and then opened presents.

They once again managed to get me my most unexpected present: a large canvas of me at the black belt ceremony.  (I haven't hung it up yet because it's still Christmas break, but we've figured out where it's going.)

Joshua's present theme was Minecraft, and he loved it.

a while ago: Christmas Eve

 After church, I split up the presents and the kids realized they were split even/odd.  They then had to do a small scavenger hunt to figure out that Isaac had evens and Joshua had odds.

The pictures are really in order, but it still works.

I received Minecraft as a gift so that I can play with the rest of the family.  Joshua made me a cute Minecraft bee.

The Ruiner babies showed up.  Along with some Ruiner Toddlers: bigger, but still only one eye.

Ben got several card sleeves with personalized artwork.  One was both to Dad and from Dad, because it had a picture of his Lego castle on it.  Isaac made some abstract art.

Joshua packed his box, a Lego wizard, in several other boxes with messages on them, such as "No returns" and "I am a box."

The cats didn't get anything this year, so we let them play with the tissue paper.  They probably enjoyed it more than any other gift.