Thursday: tar pit

We ended up starting a new game of Castle Panic this morning; we were going to lose the other game.

We've had a hard time winning this game, so about half way through the game I implemented a new and permanent house rule: the tar (which used to just stick a monster in place for one turn) is now a tar pit.  We quickly came up with some additional caveats to the rule: 

1) Monsters are stuck in the tar and can't move until they take damage
2) you can attack flying monsters with the tar pit, but if the tar pit is already on the ground the flying monsters can fly over it.
3) the tar pit stays in its section until moved (which doesn't happen often)

This was just the extra little bit that we needed to win the game against the monsters.  We barely won, but we won.

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We went rock climbing in the afternoon.  There was a new traverse route around the middle section that was fun and easy, but I am just not very strong.  I got about half way around in two tries.  Joshua got around twice in the first fifteen minutes.  It will be a good new goal for me.

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I also had karate this evening and my body wasn't quite working right.  There are just days it's a little off, and there's a chance that rock climbing didn't help.  It was fine, just not amazing.

Wednesday:

 We started playing Castle Panic this morning.  I needed to pause it to get a few chores done before swimming lessons, and ten seconds after we all stood up a new monster showed up and completely destroyed our castle.  (Luckily, I had taken a picture before he arrived.)

We also went to a playground with some friends.  It was a lovely day and there was some nice shade.  The kids played well and Natalie and I had a nice time chatting.

We're also getting a new furnace/AC and water heater tomorrow!  We've been talking with the company for a bit and I sent them another few questions on Sunday via email.  Imagine my surprise when I opened my email at 3:30pm this afternoon and it said that the install was set up for tomorrow at 8am.  I called them in a slight panic.  My guess is that most of the time when furnace installs are set up it is an emergency install and happens as quickly as possible.  We have just been having small problems with the furnace - enough to need a new one but not to make it an emergency so the lack of communication surprised me.  Anyway, the company closed at 4pm.  Ben and I quickly reviewed the install quote and called them up to make a slight change and get the questions from Sunday answered.  Everything looked good and so now we're getting it set up tomorrow.

Tuesday: dad joke

 Joshua had the following joke after swimming lessons.  He wouldn't let me video him, but we have an audio of it.

Ben and I went out for dinner tonight.  I almost left without feeding the kids.  It was weird, because we had talked about a dinner plan around lunch time.  But then we got home from rock climbing, did some outside chores, and Isaac wanted to play a game and Joshua needed help on the computer.  Before I knew it, it was time for me to leave!  There was no time to make dinner!  I ended up making sandwiches and Joshua finished up the sides after I left.

Monday: first day

Today was the first official day of summer vacation.  I was a bit nervous because the kids have been...excited...this past weekend.  

The morning started out well.  Joshua had swimming lessons.  This year I decided to do group lessons instead of private lessons because Joshua could swim well enough that he wouldn't be on the edge for half the time.  (Isaac declined lessons.)  It turned out that time slot I choose wasn't very popular and there are two teachers and two students in Joshua's class.  Furthermore, we are friends with the other person in his class!  Joshua said that he enjoyed the lesson, so that was a win.

We were thinking about picking strawberries and talked about it over lunch.  It turns out that we all thought that we should want to go and liked the idea of it, but no one really wanted to go.  So we didn't.  We did make a super short trip to a playground though.  Joshua asked if we could go to one rather late in the afternoon, about 40 minutes before I needed to start making supper.  I was proud of myself for saying yes, even if we were only there for about 25 min.

Dinner was a flop.  I don't completely flop dinners very often, but this one didn't work.  Everyone was nourished and has food in their belly, but I won't be making it again.  Joshua was the only one that said it was ok, so I saved a little bit for him in case he wants it later in the week instead of whatever the other option is.  Most will probably go in the compost though.  (This is really odd for me - I try so hard to not waste food.  But.)

The kids became crazy while I was making dinner.  Something about Isaac throwing a yarn ball at Joshua over the stair's banister and if it hit him on the head he needed to give Isaac a Lego skeleton.  I really wanted to tell them to stop but also didn't really have a good reason, so I didn't.

Through the years

 Joshua has made a lot of spider webs on the front porch...

Saturday: friends

We had some friends over tonight.  Unfortunately, yesterday the weather changed a bit and there was about a 60% chance of rain...and we had plans for hobo pies and s'mores.

We decided to go for our initial plan after all.  The kids all went in the lake, but didn't stay in quite as long since the air was cool.  We got the fire started, brought all the food down to under the deck, and got dinner under way.  After about half the people were served the rain started.  The kids went inside to eat while we finished up in the rain, although the deck protected us a fair amount.

We finally had all eaten and then gave up.  We picked up and went inside.  We gave the kids raw s'mores and they seemed perfectly happy with the solution.

Friday: last day of school

They made it!  The last day of school.  It doesn't feel like we should be here already and I'm not sure why - maybe it's because the weather has been on the cool side?  Maybe because Isaac had homework through the beginning of this week?  I'm not sure.  Isaac, whose backpack has been heavy the whole year because he just takes all of his stuff with him, decided not to take his backpack and it felt weird.

I got a surprising amount of work done this morning, including some summer lists.  The kids studied them intensely soon after they got home.  One is "things to do this summer" and the other is "things to do before you can tell mom you're bored".  I've been hearing "I'm bored" a lot more the last two months, and want to try and preemptively get rid of some of that.