Friday: car

The car was fixed by the end of the day.  It meant I still needed to bring Ben to and from work, but in the scheme of things that wasn't too bad.

I was going to do a "day in pictures", but then I only remembered to take three pictures.  So I guess we don't get to see that today.  

I tried a new type of sausage for our pizza today.  The overall consensus was that it was either the same or slightly better.

Thursday: today's gonna' be a good day

This morning as I was walking to class I decided it was going to be a good day.

It started off well: Ben was able to work from home so I could have the car and the car was safe in the garage.  It was really a great place and time for it to die on me.

Today I got to teach ANDs and ORs and nesting them.  It's one of my favorites.

I ate lunch with Natalie!

My second class is great because they ask a lot of good questions.  It's great.

There was a student issue that was solved in a positive way.

Joshua has extra stuff after school so I can just wait for Isaac at Hope College.  It's a lot less driving.

Ben will have his glasses fixed tomorrow!

All the driving could be done this evening rather easily.  It was a lot more driving than normal because there was only one car, but the scheduling worked out just fine.

The car started!!  Ben tried and it didn't start.  He popped the hood and as he did so I tried and it started right up.  He didn't even get the hood all the way open and it started.  Yay!  We were able to get it to the mechanic, and hopefully it will be fixed tomorrow.

I ran the dishwasher this evening.  I often don't get the dishwasher started in the evening, but it's so nice in the morning to have it ready.

Wednesday: could have gone better

*Grandma passed away early this morning.  She's happy with Jesus now, even though she will be missed here.

*It was nice and rainy today.  Our lake is higher than it's been for a while.

*I still have no idea how to log into the Health Insurance website on the computer.  I can do it on my phone, and every time I log in on the phone I create a passkey so that I can log in on the computer and it never works.

*A friend is studying for a homeopathic medicine degree and this month...I'm not sure what she was studying but I got a free massage as she was practicing some of her stuff.

*The headache that was just barely there the last few days came for real.  Some ibuprofen took care of it, but it wasn't nice for a bit.

*We had fettucine as the pasta type today.  The kids didn't really like it, which doesn't surprise me.

*My car didn't start this evening.  I think the starter is out; it isn't the battery.  It's done this twice before but it started after a few tries, so we're hoping it'll start once more to get to the auto shop.  In the meantime, we're down to one car for a while.  At least it decided to not start while in the garage and with Ben's car available.  It could have been a ton more annoying.

*We played Space Base this evening - it's been a while since we've played.  I had a bunch of cards on the "1" and no 1's were rolled.  For about the first 10 rounds.  It was absurd.

Tuesday: normal day

It was a pretty normal day.  I worked.  I was tired.  I rock climbed a bit.  There were some great thunderstorms.

Well, I tried rather hard to find something else interesting.  Thunderstorms really were the most interesting part.

Monday: life

This morning I helped out at Kids' Food Basket.  We got done packing the lunches early, so that was really nice.  I also dropped off some donations (mostly clothes), but it was nice to get several things out of the house.

Time change is hard.  We're not quite falling asleep at the right time and then I was awake for an hour in the middle of the night.  I'm not sure that's a time change thing; it's been happening more often.  I got back to sleep a little bit, but it was harder than normal 

vacation Monday: down day

Today was our rest day.  We still did a whole bunch of things, but it wasn't park level amount of stuff.

We had some breakfast sandwiches in the room and then walked through the boardwalk shops.  We found two displays with these thread bobbins dressed up as Disney characters and had a great time trying to figure out who they represented.  (For example, the bottom left is Anna, Elsa, and Olaf.)

We went to an ice cream shop for lunch.  We did have some real food - we split some entrees.  Isaac and I had more tater tots.  Then we shared some ice creams and it was all delicious and I ate too much.

We went to the pool in the early afternoon, but it was rather cool.  Not cold anymore, but not really hot either.  There was a slide, so we went down that many, many times.  We didn't stay all that long though because just being in the water was cold!

Our dinner was at Disney springs.  Oh, what did I have...shoot, I don't remember.  But I think I ate it all, which I try not to do at restaurants.  Several people had chicken and donuts, which was a big hit.  Food is so delicious.

We took a stop in the Disney store and Ben found a long sleeve t-shirt/hoodie and I found a t-shirt.  Then we stopped at the real main attraction, the LEGO store.

They had an AMAZING pick-a-brick wall up.  There were many pieces that we didn't have (or needed more of) along with some trans-blue tiles, which we always need for water.  I think we got a whole box of water.  Isaac and Joshua also snapped several pieces together so they would fit better in the boxes, and in the end I think we had four boxes - a lot more than normal lately.

I finally let the kids play with the bubble wand that we were getting for Great Grandma.  It was a lot more fun than I was expecting and made me smile a lot.

vacation Sunday: Epcot

Epcot day!  

I don't completely remember why I took this picture.  Joshua was having a hard time waking up, and he is usually the person that wakes up the most easily.

We rope dropped the park from the back, and quickly went to Remy's ride.  Well, not quite rope drop but close.  It did mean that we were pretty far in the back of the line, although we expected it to move through quickly.  Then, since we were so far in the back, we noticed the single rider line moving really quickly.  We made a snap decision to switch.  (Joshua often is the person that doesn't want to ride alone, for good reason.  This wasn't a fast ride though, so he was ok with it.)  It went so fast, and we still ended up grouped together.  The line was so fast, in fact, that we did it again and this time there wasn't a line.  We were still mostly grouped together, and everyone had a good time.

We had breakfast at the Garden Grille, a tradition when we're at Epcot.  They had a new menu item this time - steak bits.  I thought they were pretty good, but Ben really liked them.  I probably enjoyed the cinnamon rolls the most.

After the Living off the Land boat tour, we had a short amount of extra time before our next activity, which was in the same building.  We went to see the awesome planet movie, which Cheryl said she had never done before!  It's nice to find something new for her too.

After Soarin', we went back outside.  Cheryl's leg wasn't feeling great, so Isaac and I fought over who would get to push her.  I really like this picture because Isaac is trying to smile, but his eyes are trying to look forwards...as they should.

Every trip Isaac and I take a picture under the Epcot ball.  I enjoy this series of pictures because Joshua photo-bombed us while asking what we were doing.

I just looked at the other two pictures.  Isaac has grown up just a little bit!!  The kids don't sit by themselves all that often on rides, so we put them together for this one.  They told me all about the choices they made for the future after the ride!

The new test track was next.  It felt like just another work day for Ben.

Lunch time!  It was festival of the arts right now, with a bunch of little kiosks and small portions of food.  For lunch we found a grilled cheese and tomato soup and it was delicious.  Cheryl wanted a picture of the special cans that held the tomato soup, but my first try...looked like it had an extra O in the middle.

Guardians was up next, and everyone was looking forward to it.  

That was the end of the big rides.  We did several other smaller things for the next few hours.

Joshua's expressions in these are cute.  I think the first one is afraid and the second is scared.

We explored the Moana interactive water features.  They were fun.  It wasn't a hot day, but I can imagine that they are an especially lovely break when it is hot.

Then we went into the World Festival to slowly eat dinner at the kiosks and make our way home.  Joshua wanted a picture in each different country, and I wasn't about to say no.

Mexico:

Norway.  We got some delicious donut like things here.

China: we were thinking about getting some food here, but the line was rather long so we decided to keep going.

? We were going around the circle but even looking at a map I'm not sure.  Maybe Chine from the other direction?

A call-out to African nations.

Germany.  We got several foods here, and went back for seconds.  I was in charge of standing in line, so Isaac had to take Joshua's picture this time.

Italy:

USA:

Japan

Morocco: we had some really good food here too.  I think the "real" food was too spicy for me, but the dessert was amazing.  We also learned that Isaac doesn't like jiggly foods much.  He'll eat them, and sometimes enjoy them, but the idea of them is not appealing.

France: The plan hadn't been to stop at France, but I needed a bit more non-sweet food.  I'm so glad we stopped!  The cheese in a bread bowl was delicious and they had an orange chocolate dessert that was heavenly.  The line was rather long so we didn't get seconds, but I easily could have.

After France it was the turn off to go back to our hotel.  Everyone was pretty tired, so we just called it a night.  Sort of.  Joshua was interested in seeing the fireworks, so after a nap the two of us came back out to watch them.  We found a nice place to sit while waiting and then a good place to stand at the fence.  It was a little bit off the beaten path, so not too busy.   It was fun to go back out with him.

...and then we crashed.