Thursday: this and that

Today was the last day of VBS.  It went well.  I showed up because it's important.  I engaged.  And I can be glad that it is finished.

Joshua and I had a few hard times today.  He also decided to use one of his "skip a chore" coupons so that he didn't have to do his writing.  I then ripped it so that it didn't get mixed back into all the coupons we have in this house.  I came back from karate to the following note.

"Dear mom, as you can see I wrote for 10 minutes.  I taped the coupon back together.  I decided that it was not worth it to use the coupon.  I put it in my room.  It was not worth it to skip 10 minutes of writing.  After all, I only have 2 left why waste it on only 10 minutes of writing.  And this was [oris] the chore as you probably figured out.  Why did you rip it?  When you can reuse it.  From Joshua. *heart*"

Wednesday: a little work

Another day of VBS!  It went fine.  I never love VBS like some people do, but it's important and the time goes by quickly.  The kids are fun.  Joshua wore a bunch of bling from this year and last year today.

A pretty normal afternoon: nap, World of Warcraft (Joshua is getting better but still sometimes runs in the opposite direction), rock climbing.  We got home and I had to do some outside chores.  That was probably a mistake because it was so hot out.  Luckily, Isaac was helping so we got through pretty quickly.  We also have a bunch of mulberries on the ground right now and the ducks are not very afraid of us.

Joshua had wanted a weekly chore list like Isaac gets this summer, but realized today that it wasn't going all that well.  He wasn't really behind, but it does take more effort to manage a weekly list than a daily list.  So we went back to a daily list today and that really seemed to work better for both of us.  Isaac is doing a nice job staying on top of his list, although it's also only the first week of summer.

I also managed to get a few things done from my to-do list.  However, "think about dinner" was not a good choice of words.  I thought about the dinner.  How it is nice to eat.  How I should make some food.  And then I ignored it until dinner was soon and I actually had to decide what to make.  I'll be honest...I expect to say I didn't get many things off my to-do list a lot this summer.  There are other fun things to do and most of the stuff will wait until the kids are back in school, even if it drives me nuts a little bit.

Tuesday: normal day

It was a pretty normal day, all told.

It started with VBS.  It went fine.  Isaac had a better day.

The power was out for about 45 minutes this afternoon.  It went like this:
*The fan turns off*
A: oh shoot, there goes my nap.
J: ISAAC! CAN YOU GET ME SOME PAPER TOWEL*??  I'M OUT AND DON'T KNOW WHERE IT IS.
A: YOU MEAN TOILET PAPER!
J: Oh yeah.  That
I: Why can't you get it yourself?
J: The power went out.
I: Ohhhh. **

*Joshua can't seem to remember it's called toilet paper and not paper towel.  Every time.  It makes me laugh.

**I think Isaac was in a bright room and that's why he didn't realize, but I was still a bit surprised.

Monday: VBS

 VBS started today!  They shortened it significantly this year: both from 2.75hrs to 2hrs and it isn't on Friday.  It did make it feel much faster!  The group was good.  My helper is an 8th grader.  She was good but rather cute as she transitioned from being in VBS to helping with VBS.  (The adult snacks are 100x better than what the kids get!  And you can get more than one cookie!)

After that we quickly went grocery shopping.  Isaac carefully choose a new hairbrush for Ben for Father's Day.

Our total was under $100!  It seemed weird for the grocery trip after vacation, so I'm sure we missed a lot of things.  Both kids got a treat.  Joshua picked out DingDong cupcakes and Isaac chose two watermelon.

Sunday: Happy Father's Day!

It was a very nice Father's Day, although since we just got back from vacation there weren't any gifts.  We went to lunch with Larry.  

The "big" news is that we finally got World of Warcraft up and running again, and the whole family is playing it.  Isaac seemed to be doing very well.  Joshua was also doing well, but coordinating everything was a little tricky.  He wasn't that far behind Isaac though, so things were going pretty well.  I expect within a week he'll have no problems.

I did want to call out Horizon though.  He was in the rafters meowing away.  For our silent cat, it sounded like he was completely stuck.  I eventually went to go get the ladder and as I was putting it up he was watching me.  Just as I got it up he comes walking by on the floor.  Dumb cat.

Saturday: the curse

Today we had to leave.  The trip was so much fun and went by so quickly.  I was up way to early; I always am nervous of flying days.  We decided to leave at 8 and were out of the driveway at 7:58.  Ben and Isaac took a quick swim before we left and realized they were also swimming with a snake!  They saved it.

The trip to the airport was fine.  I4 has been quite backed up for us during our travels, but we were in a different section at a different time today.  We did a reserve an appointment to get through security and that was pretty slick.  (We would have been fine without it, but it was one less thing to worry about.)

We got to the gate and proceeded to have lunch at 9:30am.  It was supposed to be a second breakfast but it ended up being lunch and the boys found this rather funny in the end.  So...we were waiting for the plane and wondering if it would actually be on time when it was delayed 20 minutes.  Ok, Ben's flying curse kicked in but 20 minutes isn't a big deal and we had a non-stop flight.  Then there was lightning.  Again.  We boarded pretty late, but I wasn't really watching the time.  Maybe 45 minutes late?  Then another storm segment came through, and then we had to wait for the other 20 planes to go that were ahead of us.  I was dozing in and out at this point, but we ended up getting in 2.5hours late.  Annoying, yes.  But at least it wasn't stressful.  We didn't have a connection, we didn't have any super important plans, and we knew it was only due to weather.

We finally got home around 5:15pm, only having a small snack or two after second breakfast.  (We did pick up food on the way home, so we could eat right away.)

I was honestly rather done that that point.  I putzed through the suitcases and dealt with some clothes.  The kids were finally settled and so I went in the basement for some alone time.  

Isaac: I'm cold.
Amanda: We're at home.  You can figure it out.
Isaac: but then I'll be hot.
Amanda: eye roll

And now I'm about to go to bed super early.  I can barely keep my eyes open.

Saturday: travel

We flew to Orlando today.  As always, Ben makes traveling an adventure.

The first adventure was neat!  Larry was on our flight.

The second adventure was normal... The flight left about thirty minutes late.  Benand Joshua sat by Larry.

The third adventure was a new one!  We landed just as a lightning storm started.  We had dinner before looking for our bags.  When we finally got to baggage claim we learned that ground services was shut down.  We waited for an additional 1.5 hours as they slowly opened up.  We were the third flight to get our luggage out of about 10 in the queue.  We had small bags and so they came out quickly.  Ben had already gotten the car and so we zip zipped out of the airport.

We got to the hotel without too much effort and found our room.  It was huge!  There was an extra empty spot in the middle of the room.