Wednesday: cats

The cats stole the camera roll today.

Tuesday: blue route

It was a rather busy day.  Not the busiest, but there were a lot of things that needed to get done.

Work was fine.  The chair-to-be found me and anxiously asked if I'm planning to teach again next year.  I am!  They are very happy to have me and I'm very happy to have this job.  I do think that another section for a semester would be a good idea to get some of the backlog through so that students are taking it at a better point in their curriculum, but finding someone could be hard.

Isaac had the first of two days of rock climbing trials tonight.  That being said, today really was optional for him.  It was an open trial meant especially for new and younger athletes.  However, most of the older athletes were there too...they're all just so excited to get started and think, "Team!  Climb!  Let's go!!"

I climbed for the first half hour.  I had a very nice time.  This is probably one of the first times I've climbed by myself - usually Isaac or Joshua is also climbing and it changes things.  Anyway, my plan was to not even look at the bouldering wall.  I was just going to do the auto-belays.  I like belays the best, but I also figured there would be a ton of kids that were climbing on the bouldering walls.  Anyway, I finished the blue route!  I've been working on it for a few days and the holds are skinny.  There is still some hold to grab on to, but they aren't great jugs.  Several times I've been one hold from the top and have just run out of steam.  I tried it several times today, not quite getting there.  Then I took a longer break, chatting with another mom, and tried it one more time.  I got it!  It was a great way to end.  Oh, the level is a 5.9.  I can do 5.9 routes, but it usually takes some work before I get them.  There is also a 5.10- that I've made some progress on, but they do get harder.

I still had some chores when I got home.  They were important and I was still going so they weren't too bad to do, but I am now tired.  Good thing it's time for bed!

Monday: labor day

It was a pretty easy day.  Joshua and I took a nice bike ride in the morning.  He resisted me all summer with the bike, but once we finally did it he realized he does like it.  Anyway, it was a nice ride.

We got some work done.  

We played some more of Isaac's D&D champaign.  We fought a dinosaur this time.

I'm not very excited to go to work tomorrow.  But off we go.

Sunday: fun chores

Once in a while chores are fun.  Today the kids started taking apart the box spring.  We didn't really know what to expect inside, so it was an interesting project.

We played more D&D today.  It was good, although not as good as yesterday.  I was a horse the whole thing and just said, "neigh" once in a while when I wanted to say no.  Giraffe got in on the action when some farie dragons polymorphed some flowers into a giraffe.  We also met a unicorn.

Saturday: D&D

Isaac has been working on his own D&D champaign for several months.  He has spent a lot of time on it.  It isn't finished, but it is far enough along that we decided that we should just start.  We started last week but it was just a introduction section.

Today we went into the forest.  We met a shady character but nothing happened.  We met a wandering traveler and didn't buy his shiny rocks.  We ran into a group of goblins.  Joshua is the most charismatic of all of us (and I was a warhorse) so he decided to talk to the goblins and see if we could just go safely by them.

They wanted his shield.  (Of course not.)  They wanted his sword.  (No way.)  They wanted something shiny.  Oh no!  We didn't buy any shiny gems.  Without missing a beat, Joshua offers them the shiny wrapper of his granola bar.  They decided they also wanted the granola bar.  And, just like that, we were able to continue on our way.

Friday: no school

Yesterday Joshua came home with his baritone.  It's so big compared to him.  Luckily though, the school has enough baritones that he can have one at school and one at home, so he doesn't have to lug it back and forth.

Today was nice.  We went on a bike ride in the morning.  The weather was lovely and the road was nice and smooth.  (There have been a ton of scooters and roller blades now that the road is smooth.  It's been fun to see.)

In the afternoon we went to the other rock climbing place.  It was a good time.  There were some fun routes.  Joshua only had a medium good time, but we did a take-away and he bought himself a donut and then read for a bit.

Wednesday: road

They've been resurfacing our road.  Yesterday the ground the old stuff out and today they put the new stuff on.  The letter that we received two months ago said that we'd have access to our houses.  They lied.

Not by much, but when Ben tried going down our road today they wouldn't let him.  He said he had a broken foot and couldn't walk that far.  The construction guy was unhelpful and said he'd have to wait a few hours.  We ended up have Ben park at our neighbor's house, since their driveway is on the opposite road that was already finished.  Then he could scooter up their walkway and only needed to walk across one lawn.  There might have been others doing the same thing.  (What would have happened if I was trying to go get the kids from school during this time?  There was a work-around here, but if things are going to be closed for more than 15 minutes I feel like we should be warned.

Isaac and I went to the Tulip City Rock Group tonight.  They had a silent auction.  There were some cool pieces.  There was also a junior table, which was only for kids 18 and under.  There were only three kids there and one only bid on a few things.  Isaac came back with some really nice pieces for $23 total.  We needed to get a bag because we wouldn't have been able to carry all of them in our hands.  Also, we talked to some people this time!  It was a little less awkward than last time, so maybe we'll go again.

Furthermore, we found out that we'll get in free at the rock show in two weeks - when you consider that it is $20 for the family to be members for a year and we can go to the rock show for free, this is an activity that pretty much pays for itself.