Tuesday: shoes

 We did our school shopping today.  We did a pretty good job of shopping the supplies that were left over from last year, so we only needed a few things.  We also took a look at the shoes, but Isaac didn't like any at Meijer and Joshua didn't like the bottoms of the one pair he was interested in.  The whole shopping trip, while long, was much better than last week's trip which was timed poorly and took forever due to a pillow snafu.

At rock climbing, we also looked at new shoes.  Both kids have mentioned that theirs might be getting a bit small.  Well, Joshua could move into Isaac's, but Isaac didn't like the size up in the shoe he is currently wearing.  So we didn't get any new shoes here either.  But there's a plan for when either of them decide they need new ones.

I also used some of my birthday tickets: Joshua made his own lunch and I got to sleep with all the lovies.  There were so many I had a hard time getting a good picture.  (Night-sight doesn't work on selfie mode.)

Monday: birthday

Today was my birthday!  The kids do such a good job being excited for me.  (Ben does too, but he is excited for birthdays like I am.  The kids are super excited.)

In the morning we picked up Aunt C to try a new hiking trail, and it didn't disappoint!  Sanctuary Woods, which had over 170 stairs, was a beautiful place.  Normally the trail would be about 3/4mi, but we took several adventure trails and went further.  The claim to fame for this trail is that you can see both Lake Mac and Lake Michigan at the same time.  This is true, and we found the place, but it wasn't well marked nor was it all that free of trees.  It would be interesting to go during the different seasons to see what it looked like.

This is the place to see both lakes.

I've found Tornado sitting like this twice in the past two days.  The first time I just laughed at him, but the second time I took a picture.

Joshua had a friend over in the afternoon.  Isaac and I played a game of Dominion, and I also took a short nap and did a little work.  Larry and Cheryl took me out for dinner - they were a little slow and it was a little cold, but it was also a lot of fun.

Sunday: screen time day

Today was the only weekend day in all of August that we were mostly not busy.  So we had a screen time day.  We usually have one a summer and I wasn't paying attention to the schedule well.  We still went to church and went to visit Great-grandma, but otherwise the kids could have screens whenever they wanted.

Speaking of Great-Grandma, today I brought over our quills and so she and Ben could try those out.  I think they were on their last legs, but they worked well enough.  And we played some Uno, as normal.

Friday: errands, rock climbing, video chat

 We did some errands this morning.  We had to delay a little bit because it was raining hard and they involved a bit of walking outside.  One errand involved getting 15 foam noodles.

We met some friends for rock climbing.  I also got a new route!  Isaac told me I needed to trust my feet on a teeny tiny foot hold and so I did and it worked!

We (are currently) having our bi-weekly video chat with friends.  We haven't talked about butter (YET!) but we have hit cheese.

Thursday: normal day

We went to downtown Zeeland today to bring some games to the game store.  There was a gigantic penguin, so of course we took a picture and sent it to Ben.  The game store was really the only thing on the docket today, so I managed to get a few chores done too.  They were boring.  I briefly thought that maybe next year I should always make sure to have one mostly empty day every week, but then decided that was a bad plan - I'd rather have fun and periodically apologize about the messy house.

Two days ago we watched assorted Olympic sailing events.  One of them ended up being, accidently, the wind surfing from Tokyo.  There was no wind, so all of the athletes had to pump their boats to get anywhere and it was hilarious.  We watched it again last night because it was so funny. 

the week: an experiment

Cheryl mentioned that there was a way to keep rocks looking shiny.  (Bake them in mineral oil at 200F for 3 hours.)  So we tried it.

It turned out pretty well, but we didn't remember what they looked like before.

Then we tried a bigger rock.

It is more obvious in this picture!  Oddly enough, the mineral oil wicked up a little bit.  I wasn't expecting that.

The mineral oil leaves a bit of a residue, so Isaac washed it in water.  It still looks good!

Tuesday: The best day ever for the lovies

We went on a walk with Cheryl this morning.  Last night Giraffe's bad part was that he didn't get to go outside, so Isaac said he could come on this morning's walk.  Grey Bear is always up for leaving the house and Snowfoot jumped in on the action too.

Really, the only reason I brought the backpack was for the lovies.

We also saw 35 turtles!  They were all lined up on a few logs, and I don't think I've ever seen that many before.

This afternoon Joshua said that he trapped Tornado, but I think Tornado actually trapped Joshua.