Thursday: TreeRunner, Fiber, Craig's Cruisers

It was a busy, but wonderful day!

It started out with TreeRunner, a ropes and zipline course, for Ben, Isaac, and me.  Joshua said he didn't want to go at Christmas time but was hemming and hawing yesterday.  I looked up the ages and he wasn't old enough for the harder courses, so we all used that as an excuse for him to not go.  In hindsight, I think it was the correct decision.  Even if we had waited until the end of the summer when he could have gone on a third tier course with parents, he would have struggled.  (For perspective, we only went as high as the third tier courses.  There were some large steps.)  He will enjoy it more in a few years.

Anyway, I only embarrassed myself once by forgetting to put the zip trolley on the line.  I was just so used to doing the click-click of the safety loops that I forgot to add the trolley on the first zip line.  The staff member was more than happy to come get me though; I think it was a nice excuse to actually do something.

The zip lines were probably the best part.  The second tier obstacles were probably my second favorite part.  They tended to be interesting and challenging without actually being hard...except that the safety cable was often exactly where I needed my center of mass to be.  The third tier obstacles were mostly interesting, although there were a few that I would have been ok skipping.

Anyway, it was a lovely morning for the three of us doing something rather different that normal.  Ben hurt a lot afterwards, but we were expecting that.

We got home and found the fiber people had ended up digging a hole in our yard.  They're laying fiber down for internet, and so there have been lots of flags all over the neighborhood.  I was hoping that they'd be able to ignore our yard for the most part, but that was not the case.  It was pretty much what I was expecting even.  So we had a reasonable sized hole when we went to take our nap, but when I woke up there was a ton of machinery in the yard and they were drilling a hole (I think).  So much for being ignored.

Lastly, we went to Craig's Cruisers for Cheryl's birthday.  It was a lovely time.  I played a few arcade games, but air hockey with the kids was my favorite.  Everyone did a round of go-karts (and it was just us, which was fun).  Joshua did the bouncy thing while everyone else started mini-golf.  We joined them before too long and took charge of the scorecards.  I was going to give Joshua my second attraction ticket because I knew mini-golf was going to take a while, but he ended up having a really good time being scorekeeper for the kids so we just stayed with it and brought the second attraction home.

I was exhausted.

Wednesday: activities

Isaac has been working in a new coding language.  The families know I hate jumping games, and yet his game started out with plain levels 1 and 2.  Then he made a 'secret mom level' that, while it still has jumps, doesn't have as many or as hard of jumps.

We've been working on puzzles this summer.  This one caught their attention, especially at the end.  We played a "which mini-figure is the coldest?" or "which mini-figure is the Giraffe-est?"  It brought up some interesting discussion.  The kids then did several rounds of picking out a piece and giving the piece and the box lid to the other sibling and trying to figure out what mini figure it was from.

 

This afternoon we went to a park with friends.  Then this evening was VBS family style...I wasn't really sure what this meant, but it was a low key VBS with a few activities.  Isaac and I helped out in the craft area and left Joshua to hang out with friends, which was weird since it was family VBS.

Tuesday: 200

We went rock climbing with some friends again today.  Isaac did an amazing job working on a V4 in the cave - I couldn't believe that he held on as "easily" as he did.  I felt like I made some progress and have an idea of what to work on next time we go.  Joshua got bored rather quickly and I almost gave him permission to go get his book, but then he found a project too.  He climbed (and jumped off of) a route in the alcove (formerly known as the kids' area) 200 times.  He was a ball of sweat.

I didn't see Tornado all day until 5pm.  The kids kept saying that he was around and that Tornado had snuggled with them, but I didn't even see him.  Normally it isn't a huge deal, but we recently got them some new feeders and I wanted to make sure he was eating.  I know that if I stick his face in the feeder he'll eat, but I don't know if he'll eat without me doing so.*

*I'm writing this on Wednesday, and it looks like he at least ate some overnight.

Monday: morning zombies

First, I get a morning hug from Joshua.

Second, I get a morning squeeze from Joshua.

Third, he turns around in my hug so we're facing the same way.  He's just the right height so my arm go under his armpits, making his arms stick straight out.  We have morning zombie time, where he says "brains" and I try to find something that has a brain for him to eat.

However, he will not let me take a picture of this.

Weekend: cottage

The kids and I went up to the cottage for the weekend to see Dad and Pat and Nathan and his family.  It was a lovely weekend.  It was great to see Nathan and Liz and the cousins had a great time playing together.

We got there around 11am and the whole day was on-and-off rain.  We enjoyed being outside when it wasn't raining and enjoyed doing inside things when it was.  At one point we played a few rounds of boche ball.  Isaac threw the snitch first down a hill and it landed about half way down.  Then we threw the rest of the balls and they almost went in the lake.  We all laughed about it a lot.

Liz brought up a rubberband bracelet making kit and it was a hit.  Joshua made close to ten bracelets and Isaac made interesting creations.

We also finally got around to making quills.  It's been a project that we've been waiting for for about two years.  Joshua was given an eagle feather recently so the timing was perfect.

After Joshua was finished trying his out, I took it over.  It took a ton of ink!  Writing in cursive and print was about the same; all old documents must be in cursive because that was just the style of the times.  I also had a lot of splatter and double lines, but for my first try it wasn't too bad.  Since I had to dip the quill every word or two it took a really long time to write.

Dad needed help moving some dock sections up a hill.  The kids actually helped, Nathan and I just heckled Dad.  When he was debating if the dock section would fit between two things, we said helpful things like, "Someone once told us that taking a few extra minutes to make sure something fits is worth the time."  Or "I was taught by someone to measure twice cut once."  Or "if only there was this thing to help one figure out if something will fit through a space."

In the evening we played a game of space base.  Isaac won the game; it's been a while since he's won.  But he had an amazing strategy and ended up with 44 base income if Dad/JJ or I rolled a 3 or a 4.  

The morning was cold!  It was a bit of a shock after the heatwave this past week.  More bracelets were made, some games were played, and the kids still played outside.  They made up a game involving the swing and played it a lot.

Isaac and Joshua went tubing before lunch, but when they got out of the boat their lips were turning blue.  Pat turned on the fire for them.  The weather started to get nice just as we were about to go, but I also wanted to get home and see Ben a bit.

Friday: Terra Firma

We went to a rock climbing place in Grand Rapids today, just to do something different.  (Also, it was air conditioned and our normal gym isn't and it's hot out.)

We also met up with one of Joshua's friends.  Both kids had a great time.  They climbed for about two hours, then they left and we went to have lunch.  We went back after lunch.  Joshua didn't climb for long as he said his shoes were hurting, but he was content to read while Isaac finished up.  Isaac continued to climb for 1-1.5hours, getting in a ton of new routes.

On this route, which looked like a big rainbow, the top was at the end of the rainbow.  I suggested that he just use his toe to get it but Isaac refused.  The elation on his face when he figured out how to get it with his hands was cool.

The cave.  It wasn't tall, which was both nice and not nice at the same time.

Thursday: sink

After the new water heater, our kitchen faucet, which was already on the fritz, really needed to be replaced.  It gave us water, but in a weird way.  The instahot had also died about a month ago, so I decided to try and replace both at once.

It was a day of ups and downs.  I got a lot of things unplugged, only to have a really hard time getting a water filter out.  Joshua and I picked up some strap wrenches after swimming lessons and were able to loosen it up.  Hooray!  Everything was out!  We had lunch and I took a nap.

Things were going well and I got to installing the instahot.  I ordered the exact same unit so it could just be switched out.  Of course, that didn't quite work.  The fittings looked different.  Turns out, I needed some compression fittings.  Ok.  Off to Lowes!  I found what I needed, with some help, but the 1/4 nut didn't seem like it was going to fit.  (I carried the old instahot all around Lowes like a baby.)  It was the best option, so I bought it anyway in case the new one was a little smaller.  It wasn't.  I was on my third call of the day to Dad while Joshua filed down the hole and ended up making it big enough.  Like I said, it should have fit it just didn't quite fit.  So I was able to tell Dad that I didn't need his help...this time.

After that, I was almost home free.  It took ten minutes to get one of the screws in the garbage disposal back in, but after messing with it the screw finally caught.  A few more steps and we were done!  No leaks!

Now, keeping it real, this project did take most of the day (with the exception of swimming lessons, nap time, dinner, and karate).  The rest of the kitchen looks like there was an explosion.  I'm not all that optimistic that it'll get all cleaned up tomorrow, but hopefully at least the floor.  Obviously, I didn't put anything away because I want to watch for leaks.  Yeah.  That's it.