Friday: Operation: Clean the house - shoe closet

Today I finished cleaning the shoe closet!  It was lovely to have a space only take about a month instead of a year.  I don't expect the bottom of the closet to stay clean as we all just throw our shoes in the bottom, but it also gets cleaned on a semi-regular basis.

There were several items in the shoe hanger that were really old and needed to be removed.  It also got a nice shaking out.

While the closet is still full, I got rid of several coats that haven't been worn in ages, added some bins for better storage and sorting, got rid of several pairs of toddler mittens, and will donate Isaac's sparring gear to the karate school.  It went from overflowing to full, so it's still a win.  Also, the walls were surprisingly messy so they got cleaned up.  The shoe rack and floor were unsurprisingly dirty, so they also got cleaned up.

Next up is the LEGO room.  This one will be challenging for two reasons.  1) It is large and 2) it is used a lot so it is hard to "get clean".  There are some natural ways to divide it up though, so I'll be contemplating those over the next week.  We have some cabinets and drawers, some shelves that will mostly just need a dusting, a wall area, and the LEGO bins themselves.  They will probably take more time than expected.  It also really needs a carpet cleaning, so maybe that will be part of the process too.  (If not, then we'll do it in the summer.)

Wednesday: things slowly getting done

I feel like I finally got a few things done today, including getting the table and kitchen cleaned.  It's amazing how much it makes a difference when they are clean.

A friend came over to work on a puzzle for a little bit which was nice...although it is a harder puzzle than we were expecting.  

We went to the Ash Wednesday service at church.  It wasn't very long, but that was perfect.

Tuesday: winter break

Today was winter break, but it was an odd day.  The kids only had a half day, so while I did get some things done it was odd getting the kids.  I continued to try and do one of the items from yesterday and failed twice.  I added several items to eBay and one sold within a few hours, so that was exciting.

Monday: band concert

I made more curry today.  Joshua recently decided to eat curry (it was previously his skip meal), so instead of eight batches I only got six batches.  Between that and bringing Isaac to an ortho appointment, that was about all I got done this morning.  

This afternoon I decided to work on items that were someone time sensitive, but I could only manage to get them started and not really finish them.  But that's how some things go too...

Isaac had a band concert tonight.  His band sounded a lot better than I expected.  In the past it's been a bit on the edge, but this time it sounded like they knew what they were doing.  Isaac played timpani on the first song and set on the second.

Sunday: the day

 The day was fine.  

The kids and I did preschool, but there were only three kids (and four helpers).  Isaac taught the lesson for the first time.

We visited Great-Grandma, bring the bubble blower.

Last Thursday: flights

 We were leaving right after work and school today, so my plan was to bring the kids to school and then come home and finish the last of the packing before teaching.  Before I brought the kids to school I was working on stuff and found out that there was no more kitty litter.  *Sigh*.  I knew we were low but I thought we had enough.

Luckily Meijer carries the kitty litter we use and luckily I found it before bringing the kids to school, so it was a quick stop after dropping them off.  It would have been annoying otherwise.

Classes went fine.  Natalie and I had lunch - we were both flying out later in the afternoon but on different flights.  We commiserated about getting ready.

Anyway, the flights actually went really well.  We had to walk to the next gate during our layover a little faster than we were hoping, but we had time and then that flight was delayed about ten minutes anyway.  The biggest snaffu was our Uber ride.  Ben had reserved a ride in advance, but when we were ready the ride was 40 minutes away and getting farther away.  Dealing with getting a refund from Uber was not the most fun thing, but Ben did manage it.  The next driver was there in about ten minutes, but the whole thing took about 30min.  Oh, and then at the hotel the kids and I had a hard time finding the hotel room, which was about a five minute walk from the elevators, and Ben had a hard time getting his scooter from the bellhop.

Eventually everyone was in the room though.  The kids went to sleep very quickly, and Ben and I went to sleep shortly afterwards.

Saturday: back

We're back!  Vacation posts will come shortly, or longly, but they will come.  There were a few minor hiccups, but overall everything went very smoothly.

Today was our rest day.  Thursday is always our busy day, but add on trying to get groceries and get some laundry done and it was a bit crazy.  Friday Isaac went to a mock competition near South Bend.  We decided last minute that Ben would bring him, but it still made early evening a bit more chaotic than normal.  (The competition was set up as a regional style, which is a bit harder than the other competitions he's done.)  He had mixed feelings on his performance, but Ben said the routes were really hard and he still got some points.

Ok, today.  My back went a bit crazy.  It felt as though it was really sore, but I haven't done anything that would make it so sore.  It has been like this a little bit, on and off, for the last two days, but it was really bad this morning.  We all just laughed about it, but it was rather weird.

We got a bunch of loose LEGO at Disney Springs, and so used it today for our LEGO challenge.

Amanda: A flower decoration, like you would see at a public area.  (I said mall, but that's not where you'd see it anymore.)  It is mini-figure scale, so rather large.

Joshua had several.  The first was inspired by my clear towers.

A flower mad so that he could say he used all his flower pieces.

The seasons - spring, summer, fall, winter

A rocket, inspired by Isaac

Ben: a geode.  Ben had a really hard time with these pieces and after 45 minutes of tinkering still didn't have anything.  He was trying to use the water pieces (we had a ton!) but not as water.

Isaac: a flower spaceship with water tanks.