Last Saturday: Chicago Day 1

We went to Chicago with some friends for the weekend!  Fifteen people with nine boys in 4th-10th grade.

We went to the Field Museum first.  I think I've been there before, but don't really remember.  I loved it!  I was nice to go with a large group.  Joshua went pretty quickly with most of the kids, I went at a medium speed but somewhat close to Joshua, and Isaac and Ben went a bit more slowly.  They skipped a few things that weren't quite as interesting to stay with the group.  It worked well.

We all showed up at the back entrance, so we went through the "shrink yourself and go underground" first.  The kids really, really liked the shrinking machine.

There was a giraffe for which you had to pump blood from it's heart to it's head.  It was pretty hard but all the kids were rather entranced by it.

I enjoyed the animals and birds.  In the bird exhibit I tried to find two birds that matched a game we recently got.  We've been calling them Cu-bird and Vanilla Wafer bird, but those are obviously wrong.  Joshua didn't take Grey Bear, so we at least got a picture with him and bears.

The boys.  They didn't have to smile, but they did have to look at me.

With Sue.  (Although I think Isaac at least enjoyed the rocks and gems more.)

After a stop at the hotel and a very short nap, we got ready to go to ZooLights.  It was super cold out - I think around 9F, not counting the wind chill.  There wasn't a lot of wind, but it probably made it a bit colder.

We dressed warmly, but the bus was also warm so we were advised to not to wear too much at the beginning and we'd find a place to finish up.  It actually worked pretty well, although it took a bit longer than expected to find a building.  Everyone was happily warm after that, although taking pictures was cold because I had to remove my gloves.

Joshua didn't get his picture with any lights, but said it was his favorite part.  There were great light tunnels and a little light show.  The light show had good lights and terrible songs....only one of the three was actually a Christmas song.  As we were leaving a forth started, but it was just a different version of one of the other three.  

There were also several building that were open so we could see a few animals.  It was a nice way to warm up too.  I felt proud of myself for keeping track of Meredith's glove: she dropped it once in a dark hallway and I saw it and she dropped it once while walking behind me and I saw it.

We got pizza delivered to the hotel afterwards.  It was supposed to show up at 7:15 but didn't show up until 7:45, somewhat reminiscent of experience two years ago.  This time we at least had comfortable seats.  I thought the pizza was delicious, but I think I was getting a bit hangry too.  The kids finished and went to the room by themselves; it is wonderful letting them do this.  They got ready for bed but didn't put themselves to bed like I had been hoping.  We didn't give them any instructions though, so I was pretty happy that they at least did that.

Thursday:

I made so much sourdough starter that it -almost- overflowed.  It didn't though.  Also, it wasn't enough to make two loaves of bread so it was an odd amount of too much and too little all at the same time.

The Christmas Ruiners are trying to get their babies out of jail.  It took me an extra day to find it, so it turns out the jail is really secure.

Other than that, it was a normal pre-Christmas day.  Spend quite a bit of time in the kitchen.  Wrap some presents.  Take a nap.  Finish the laundry.  Pick up the kids.  Wonder where the day went.  I finished two new routes at rock climbing, so that was fun.  One was a V0 but it was really interesting (and close to the ground).  The other was a 5.9 on the inverse incline.  I need to do a small, controlled jump near the top and I missed the hold the first time I tried tonight.  I decided to give it one more try before going home and got it!  ...although that meant I had to keep going up the wall.  It was not the easiest route I've ever climbed.

Wednesday: Christmas magic

 The sheep was found in the flour this morning.

I'm not really sure where the day went.  By the time I started laundry, got groceries, went to the library, and came home it was already 10am.  I started the potatoes for dinner and the eggs for potlucks on Friday.  I attempted to clean the kitchen, but half of it needed to come back out within a few hours so there was no reason to put it away.

I forgot to halve the twice-baked potato recipe, with the exception of the potatoes themselves.  I added some instant potatoes into the soupy mixture and they turned out fine.  Now we have lots of the yummy part for left overs.

Luckily, I don't have to work tomorrow so maybe I'll actually get some things finished.  Or maybe not.  We'll see.

Tuesday: grades

I finished the last of my grading this morning and put in grades!  I'm done for the semester!

I wrapped a bunch of presents.  I cleaned the kitchen.  And I took a nap.

Kristen and I met up for rock climbing.  However, there are now two routes that we couldn't really start; two weeks ago there was only one.  We watch someone else do it and they just go up-up-up.  I go up-pause-down.  It was still fun overall though.

Friday: the stuff

Once again, it was a rather busy day.

Cheryl and I went for a walk at Lowes.  However, by walk, I mean we did a bunch of errands in that strip mall.  Christmas is coming and the pets need food.  But we walked to all the stores.

I had lunch with the CS department and then, luckily, was able to pick up Joshua's coat from piano.  The building doesn't open until 2pm, but someone was going to be there until 1pm and I was able to stop by.  Joshua was not very happy that he didn't have a coat today (he had to use one that was too big and too thin), but it was his fault so there was only minor complaining.

After I picked up the kids we stopped at Target to get long underwear.  I also looked for mittens, but apparently that isn't a thing that adult women wear...Old Navy didn't have any either.  I have other options for tomorrow but will keep my eyes out for what I want.  Ideally they would be fleece-ish.

Ben and Isaac went to Magic in the evening.  Joshua had some extra screen time and then we played a game.  It went a bit longer than we were expecting, but we both had fun with it.

blast from the past: songs

I was singing our life this morning and Isaac told me it was one of my worse songs.  He wasn't wrong.  I don't remember what I was singing about, but probably something like, " Josh-u-a!  Don't forget your gloves."  (I don't know how to type notes.  Put any notes you want with it, but make sure to sing it in your head.)

That lead us to the donut song, that stayed around for a while.  I tried looking for the lyrics, but couldn't find them on the blog.  The tune, this one at least has a tune, is to head-shoulders-knees-and-toes.

Donuts go in mouths not toes,
mouths not toes,
mouths not toes.
Donuts go in mouths not toes,
but you smell them with your nose.

I don't remember the context of why we needed to make up such a song, but we did workshop it a bit before getting to the final version.

Thursday: the day

Tornado was cute this morning.

Christmas Ruiners were trying to steal Ben's present.

Christmas Ruiner babies teleported to a different container.  Joke's on them though; it is my backup jail.

This morning Cheryl and I volunteered at Kids' Food Basket.  I cut everything close...we go there just in time with just enough gas.  (ok, I still had 14 miles left.  I was going to get gas yesterday when I got groceries, but then there was a snow day and I forgot that I needed to leave early enough to do it today.)  I got home just in time to start an on-line exam.

Horizon wouldn't stop eating the Christmas tree, so he went in jail.  It was the place in the house with the easiest to clean floors in case he threw up again.  He doesn't really get along with the Christmas tree, or any greenery for that matter, but he is addicted to it.

I wrapped a bunch of presents.  They're not under the tree because they aren't for our first Christmas.

We got a surprise gift tonight from some friends!  We've been looking for an expansion to one of our favorite games, Space Base.  It's out of print and pretty much impossible to find.  Well, we were talking about it to our gaming friends and they just happened to have an unopened copy sitting on their shelf.  Since it had been sitting there for a few years, they sent it over to us.  It was probably the best part of the day.