I did chores today. They were the boring chores too - the ones that need to be done every week. I mean, I'm glad that I did them because I had a clean kitchen for about an hour and I like having a clean kitchen.
I was refilling my vitamins and found an army man. Isaac put them all over the house and hid them in really good places. I find about one every four days.
Today was the first day of classes. I don't enjoy the first day of classes. It's probably the second worst, only behind the day before the final exam. I talk so much. It's about boring stuff too. Half the class is completely bored and the other half is overwhelmed.
I got home and Cheryl offered to bring over dinner. It was lovely - I'm always so tired after the first day.
Isaac had dev team trials tonight. It was hot. August has been beautiful and then this week has been normal August hot again. But when I picked him up he was all smiles. He thrives doing this.
It was the first day of school!
I spent a majority of the day working on Hope work. I feel like I got a good portion done, but there's still a decent amount to go. I got the "you really need to do this" and most of the "you really should do this" items done.
I got a few things checked off my home to-do list, but not many. As expected. Ben found yesterday's plot hilarious and endearing, so he showed it off at work. <3
I was rather tired after dinner but went to karate anyway. It was a good choice - it was a small class but a good one.
This morning started out with a rock climbing competition! Both kids participated, and I was so proud of both of them.
This was Joshua's first competition. Technically, he did fine. Out of seven routes he topped two and zoned two. I was super impressed with two things though: 1) His perseverance. He took a few breaks throughout the 2.5 hours, but he tried a lot of those routes a lot of times. Over and over. 2) His ability to talk to people. Several people gave him some pointers and he came away with a few new friends.
Isaac did a great job technically! It was similar to the last competitions in that he flashed six of the routes and needed a few tries on the last route. After getting those done he tried some of the other routes. I enjoy watching him because he is methodical. He also got a compliment after falling off the white #3 youth about smiling as he was getting up. I think he was happy that he got farther than the previous time, but it was still nice to hear.
My favorite pictures are when they are both on the wall though.
We had chosen the first session of the day so that it wouldn't be so busy. Probably still a good choice, but it meant we had seven hours before awards. After a snack and a small lunch (because we just had a snack), we went to the botanical gardens.
This was a great choice!! I had read there were tours at 11 and 12:45, but we just missed the 12:45 window. We stopped in the visitor center for a map anyway, and the website was somewhat incorrect. The tours are individual tours whenever you want with a docent. In a golf cart. For free. Sign me up! It was a warm day, so not having to walk the whole thing was nice. The docent was very knowledgeable and was able to tell us all sorts of things we would have otherwise been ignorant of. A kids' garden is going in and so she gave us some plants to taste and smell. We got to go inside the cow barn. It was amazing.
This got us to about 2:30, and we went back to the gym to read and rest. We found a nice cubby and relaxed for a while. We walked to dinner, which wasn't amazing, and then back to the gym. Finally...award time.
Unsurprisingly but still excitingly, Isaac got first place in the beginner category! The others had already left, so he had to stand there by himself.
Since the boys have a rock climbing competition tomorrow, we decided to come up to Traverse City a day earlier and make the trip worthwhile. We left around 9am, because I was anxious that we wouldn't be able to eat lunch and get to our 1pm appointment in time. (Spoiler alert: we had a little extra time. The boys ate faster than I expected and there was no traffic, but it was just right in the end.)
Our first stop was Wheels on Rails, where you can use special rail bikes to bike down a decommissioned railroad. Overall, I'd say it was a great excursion! Since we only had three people we also had one of the guides sit with us (they're bikes for four people), so we got some extra info about the area. The weather was beautiful. The way out was on a very slight downhill, but made pedaling very easy. The way back was a little harder, but between the four of us we moved right along. I'd say the "worst" part was that a 1hr45min trip was advertised and it was really about 1hr15min. I'm glad we didn't do the shorter one.
After some melty ice cream, we stopped at a rock shop in downtown Traverse City. It was a bit disappointing, and seemed a bit expensive for stuff. We walked around just a little bit and then headed to another rock shop a mile away. This second one was much better and the kids were excited to expand their collections.
I took a short nap at the hotel and we walked to dinner. The boys are calling it the best pizza they've ever had! It was stone fired and it was very good, but I was a little surprised by their enthusiasm. We ended the day by going to a nearby beach. There were a few rocks for Isaac to look through, and the kids played in the sand for a while.
Today was a rather busy day.
We had treats with Pat. We tried a new rock climbing game. We went to Target to look for shoes.
Do NOT go to Target for shoes. It was a mess! There was no organization and there were random shoes everywhere. That being said, I managed to find a pair of shoes that Isaac kind of liked. But then he didn't love them and we decided he didn't actually need new shoes. Sigh.
We also went to meet the teacher tonight. Joshua's room took all of about five minutes. We spent a bit longer with Isaac's teachers. His homeroom/science teacher is a rock climber too. We had to waste a bit more time because Joshua had a piano lesson so we visited all the special teachers.
