Wednesday: a good day

Today was a good day.

We're getting rid of the basement futon.  It's old, shaky, and really we just use it as a shelf lately.  However, no one wants it...I can't blame them.  I put the futon mattress by the trash can today and the trash people didn't take it, so I was disappointed about that.  However, there is a large item drop-off in a month and it should fit in the car, so I'll bring it then.  In the meantime, it'll live on the front porch.  This was the annoying part of my day, but there are still several different options for getting rid of it.

We also took apart the frame today.  Tomorrow I'll bring the metal parts for recycling.

This afternoon Joshua went with a friend to Urban Air and Isaac and I went to a climbing gym in Kalamazoo.  Joshua played hard for 3.5 hours and was dead on his feet coming home.  Isaac and I stayed significantly longer than I was expecting.  It helped that the other mom brought Joshua home and a friend brought Ben home so we didn't have to get home by a certain time.  It was a really nice gym - there were several auto-belays, tons of ropes, and two nice (albeit small) bouldering walls.  They were fun shapes and you got to climb over the top which is always fun.  The worst part was that people aren't allowed to belay until they're 14, which meant Isaac couldn't belay me.  (Maybe next year - and maybe we'll come back when we have a bit more time.)

On top of one of the walls.

Climbing up a large...doorway type thing.

They had some actually holds made out of rocks.  They were fun to climb, but colder than the rest of the holds.

They also had some zig-zag walls, which created some interesting climbing spaces.

We were getting a little bit close to done when some people walked into the gym.  (The gym had people most of the time, but it wasn't too busy.  Just enough to be nice.)  We knew the people!  Leah is the manager at Scrapyard and she came with her husband.  They were going to a concert later that night, but decided to hit up a new gym first.  It was very fun to see them.

Ben and Joshua were kind about having a super late dinner and the fact that we ended up picking up food*.  We got home at 6:30pm, and if I needed to throw dinner together too it was going to be a really late dinner.

*To be fair, people usually like take-out.  It's not something we get complaints about, although we usually don't do it during the week.

Tuesday: little things

 It was a rather easy day today.  Probably a boring one for Joshua today, but there were no complaints.  Isaac and I met some friends at Scrapyard for rock climbing in the afternoon.

We had a friend over to play Root in the evening.  I was one turn away from a quiet win but it was seen and so I didn't win.  Ben allied with Isaac who won the next time it was his turn.  I felt a bit jipped, but this was also the first time playing where I actually felt like I knew what I was doing and that was nice.

Monday: party

Joshua had some friends over for a little birthday party today.  It wasn't anything big: cake and ice cream, swimming in the lake, and hide-and-seek.  But I overheard one person saying it was the best birthday party.  It was a lot of fun listening to their chatter.  We also found out Joshua's teacher for next year and he is with Mr. Jackson, who I was hoping for.  I don't know much about him, but he has seemed cool at pickup.  He's also in a class with Jonathan, his best friend.  (The other two are also in the same class, which is nice.)

Isaac had a pretty boring day.  I'm of the opinion that a few of those before school starts are good though.  He's also getting really close to outgrowing all of his large-sized t-shirts, so he's wearing his favorites much more often.

Saturday

 I made another loaf of bread.  It looks even better than the others.

Friday: fan

When we first got the ceiling fan in our bedroom, something happened and it really scared Tornado.  Now, we don't have it on very often because it makes a funny noise.  It works well - we don't have it on, he is willing to come in the bedroom.  But he always checks the fan.  Every time.

We had it on the other night.  He stopped at the door and looked at it.  Horizon came in, did his normal checks, and left.  Tornado continued to watch the fan.  Then he loafed while watching the fan.  Ben finally came up the stairs which knocked him out of his trance and he escaped from fan watching, but he stayed there a really long time.

vacation Thursday: obstacle/cable course

 Isaac and I joined Heather for a morning walk.  It wasn't a very nice sunrise, but the clouds were pretty and it was still a lovely walk.  We saw a very dead sea turtle that had washed up on the beach.  It was huge!  There were also a lot of beach volunteers standing vigil around it, so we didn't feel as though it was appropriate to snap a picture.

Most of us went on the inflatables in the morning.  One family went to Charleston for the day, Ben and Isaac were pulled on boards off to the side, and Dusty was our wonderful photographer/videographer.

It's hard to tell, but I'm at the top of the bump with sunglasses on.

Joshua ran around the ring (bright green).  I got around the ring once, but it was tricky.

Overall, the place was a bunch of fun.  The obstacle course was large.  Joshua jumped off the top of the tall slide three or four times during the second hour.  (I elected to slide down the slide.)

Ben and Isaac were in the same lake, but on the cable course.  Isaac worked on knee boarding, while Ben did a both knee boarding and a little wake boarding.

The first hour didn't go all that well for Isaac and we almost checked to see if he could take over my spot on the obstacle course.  However, he decided to try one more run and got far enough to keep going.  He never got all the way around, as the last turn was pretty rough and he hasn't really done many water sports before.  I think he had a lot more fun during the second hour though, because at least he got most of the way around.  Ben had a ton of fun.

Ben:

Isaac:

We went out on the pier right after lunch.  We had to pay for the privilege, which was a bit annoying, but it also probably kept it less busy.  We got to pet some sharks.  They were smooth one direction and like sandpaper the other way.

On the way home we got some ice cream and Isaac's started to melt...quickly.  You can see all the drips coming out the bottom; Isaac, of course, found this hilarious.

As we were hanging out in the afternoon Marshall started asking Ben if he was worried about brain-eating aemebas (because we had been in a fresh water lake for the inflatables).  Ben said no, and Eva jumped in with "he'd have to have a brain for that to be a problem."

It was obvious that the kids were older this year.  They ate more (left overs were almost non-existent), they stayed up later, they were able to get their own food, they put dishes in the dishwasher, and they entertained themselves so well.  It was amazing.

In the evening we went back to the beach.

The pier passes were good all day, so we walked to the end again at night.  Looking over the water, it was so, so dark.

We also played a game of decrypto.

Wednesday: shoe

When we're leaving the house, Ben sits near the exit and says, "Can you please get my shoe?"  

I laugh every time.  A shoe!  Shoes don't come in singles.