Last Crazy Tuesday!

I am doing the happy dance as today marked the last crazy Tuesday of the school year!!  Joshua finished his gymnastics, Stephen hung out with a friend, and Abigail had her AWANA awards at night.  The awards night was the culmination for the whole day for me as they had an ice cream sundae social after the looooong awards.  I understand that it is exciting for kids to get awards but it is extremely boring when your kid gets none.  That's right - zilch, zippo, nada!  (She thought everybody would walk away with some type of award.)  My beloved Abigail.  She really was hoping that something would come her way but none did.  I don't know if I should be happy or sad for her.  Happy because she should want to go because it is all about learning bible verses not about how many awards I can take home.  Sad because she did work hard all year and got nothing for it.  (Well I guess I am supposed to tell her that she "got" to know God's word.  I just question how much she really remembers.)   Anyway, I am ecstatic that this day has come!!!!   Below are some photos that captured the day:

Warm-up time at gymnastics

Rings

Trapeze

Caught it!

Waiting for turn!

I had turned the camera over to Bill for the awards as my sinuses were in rare form again.  Needless to say, no photos of Abigail.  He was very nice and did capture photos of friends who received awards but not one shot of my girl!  

Is it a tick?

This will be brief.  I awoke at 6:15 am to these words from Bill, "Pier, can you come see if this is a tick?"   I shot out of bed put on the spectacles and through very tired bleary eyes deduced, "Yup!"  We went scrounging around for almost 15 minutes trying to locate a pair of tweezers, (Let me just say in Ohio I have 3!)  when Bill remembered that his car came with a first aid kit.  And we were victorious in locating tweezers.  (Good thing I was here - he wanted to burn it off!)  I was able to pull it off completely with a little bit of hubby's skin attached!  (Okay, I am getting itchy all over again.)  We were both on the internet trying to decipher what type of tick.  We have determined it to be a wood tick.  So he will be calling doctor's office today to see what they advise.  It is never a dull moment here!  I'll keep you posted.  But a prayer would be much appreciated.  

Bill is home so it's family movie time!

As per usual our Sundays begin with church.  This was my last week to teach for this month.   

And today in children's church we had a "field trip."   We walked over to the 5th-7th grade class and the 2nd-4th graders were presenting a bible verse, wave-style.  It was fun and a great way for the kids to get familiar with sharing bible verses and talking to others about Christ and the Bible.  

Abigail was gone from us most of the afternoon.  She left church with Rachel and family and then went off to a laser tag birthday party.  We did not get to see her until 5:15p.  She had a wonderful time.  I must say, I missed her.  She is the one that I "struggle" with on a daily basis, yet I was truly missing her.  Crazy, huh?!

While the boys and I were driving home from church, Bill called and asked if we wanted to go to lunch somewhere as he was very close to the church and picking up his car.  He had a good time at the retreat but you always seem to come back more tired from these things.  So for lunch, I came up with PF Changs.  And at 1:30p we were sitting down eating some chicken lettuce wraps (I love chose!).  It felt like a long lunch, not quite sure why.  All went well but we did eat a lot.  Two appetizers and 3 meals between us!   (Well we did have some leftovers).

Since Adam (Rachel's dad.  Who was also at retreat with Bill.  They even shared the same room.) was in the area  and he had Gabriel with him, they came over for about an hour during aforementioned birthday party.  Josh and Gabriel played some Wii sports and such.  The hour went very very fast.  Abigail had a great time and was thinking of having this type of birthday party.  I'm thinking NO!!  While I like the idea of not doing anything, they do it all, I am not happy with the price tag!  OUCH!!

Dinner was easy, Pizza!  Very little clean up for me and certainly no cooking.  After dinner, Bill and I took our walk together.  Then we came home to do our family movie time.  We bought Bedtime Stories.  Once we were able to figure out the Apple TV all went well.  We really enjoyed the movie.  Then it was off to bed for the little ones, with the big one watching an item on ebay.  Finally came time to put him to bed and all was quiet!!!

Great Day!!

Abigail and Joshua waiting for movie to begin!

Bill and I sitting together.

Here's Stephen!

Mini Golf with family!

OOOOOOh!  What a beautiful day!!!  I know we have all been looking forward to a day like this for some time now.   We had a very leisurely morning.  And then went off to Arby's.  The children love this place.  I must say I was not too pleased with the location near our home.   It took a very very long time to get chicken tenders (that's the other thing - no popcorn chicken?!?!).  And no free refills on drinks.  Whaaaat?  You charge me close to $2 for a 16 oz. cup and I can't even get a refill for that.  Yeah, I don't think I'll be going back any time soon.

  

After lunch it was over to Grandma and Pop pop's to meet with Kevin, Allison, and Jaide to go and play some miniature golf.  This place has it all.  Mini golf - 2 courses, batting cages, and cart racing.  It was very cool.  We were all excited.  Well in our excitement, we neglected some key points - like making sure we had water and some snacks.  The place was mobbed and it was very sunny.  It did help that there was lots of shade.  But our bellies were feeling the sting of hunger!  I don't recommend this for the future.  The other thing is it takes 7 people a long time to get through mini golf!  I don't think the groups behind us were too happy.  We caught on about 1/2 way through and let those that were finished go on to the next whole.  It did start going much faster.  I think it also helped that Allison had her pocketbook and was able to locate some sugary things for the kids to help with their hurting bellies!  Ahhhhh! the joys of sugar.

Here is the group ready to begin!

 This is whole number 1!

 Cool hole!

Waiting and beginning to be hungry!

Abi and Allie

There was a hole that you played that was on the inside of a 

fake mountain.

Which is where Kevin got the hole-in-one.  

Our only one of the day!

So hole number 18 was looking great by the time we arrived.  It had this slide you go down after you hit the ball.  Well only kids up to age 12 were allowed.  I was thinking about it as my 12 year old is bigger than I but changed my mind when I realized I needed to carry down my club and 3 others too.  We were so tired at this point I don't even think anybody putted into the whole.  We were officially finished.  So we returned our balls and clubs then into the snack joint to get some ICEE and a pretzel.  

It was back to my parents house after the much needed snack.  If I remember it took us over 2 hours to get through.  It was truly a fun time.  But back at Grandma's was more fun.  This is a picture of Devon, she is my brother Jason's girlfriends daughter.  She really took a liking to Stephen and he was able to have her mimic him.  It was very cute!

The girls playing outside with Chocolate.  He was not staying

still for a picture.

Testing the day away!

I decided to give the kids a little break from normal school to go through some assessments for the possibility of next year's curriculum.   Well let me just say that I totally forgot that when you pass one assessment they give you another and another and so on.  Well after 3 math tests Joshua asked to take a break.  Then it was back to work on two Language Arts test and then a break.  So we are not going back until next week some time.  I am not too sure when but I would like this completed prior to a homeschooling conference that is the end of May.  Stephen was about to take his 4th Math assessment too and then asked for a break.  He completed two parts in LA too.  My Abs is all done with Math.  Not her best subject, rather surprised with the results.  I can't wait to talk to an advisor about that.   Well there were still some tests for "regular" school that needed to be completed.  I was shocked at how quick the day went.   In the midst of all of this we had Bill working from home as he was leaving for a Men's Retreat by 1:30p.  It did put a damper on the assessment as we needed to print some items and he is in the room where the printer is.   Crazy, crazy, crazy!!!   

Abigail was itching to go for a walk so she could find some bugs for her new bug kit that she got at the dollar store over the weekend.   Surprisingly she was a little apprehensive when we came upon a web of little caterpillars.   Shocking, I know!  So I did the work.  I must admit I was very aware of where the others were and making sure my head was no where near the branches.   I did not have my camera with me but I did take some photos using my cell phone.

This was the largest nest.

This is a second nest in the same tree.

Here is Abs trying to place caterpillar inside container.  

The evening was completed with Stephen attending a youth group movie night to see Monsters vs. Aliens at the IMAX.  A bit pricey but it is more fun.  Unfortunately only 5 kids showed up.  And only 1 other boy.  He still had fun though!  Thanks, Barb!!

Park Day

The children worked hard from 9:30-12:00 in order for us to be able to go to the park and meet with 4 other families.  The original idea for the meeting was to try and organize a book club for boys starting about 4th grade.  (There is a girls only book club here - which we have not attended.)  Luckily there was another Mom who felt the same as I  - why don't we include the girls.  So the compromise was to do the same book but we would separate the kids.  The older boys would have a book discussion.  The girls, aged 7-9, will have more of a crafty project and a little discussion pertaining to the book.  Oh yeah, we plan on going through the entire Narnia series.   There will be two younger boys aged 7 that we figured could start out just playing with each other.  If that doesn't work we might be able to do some things with them.  I was thinking of having them draw some pictures about the book that we will be discussing.  We shall see because we have decided to wait until September to begin.  I know why are we meeting now?!  Well we weren't too sure as to when we could begin but since we are finishing out the year it just made sense to wait.  I could see starting if we were not doing a series, this way get the boys used to a discussion because Stephen in the only boy who has ever done a book club.  But we came up with another idea, let's meet periodically throughout the summer for all to feel comfortable with each other!   Happy Day for Stephen, he met someone his own age!!!

So this park has a creek that is way cool.  I saw that the Fish and Game stocks it with trout and you are able to fish here.  I think we need to get some fishing licenses and bring back the fishing poles and have some fun soon!  Here are some photos:

This is where we Mom's sat.  But we were moving around a lot

as we were making sure the children we not floating down river.

This is how steep the bank was.  We thought sitting close

would allow us to see the kids. Not so much.

Stephen enjoying his time.

Picture upstream

Joshua exercising great caution.  View is downstream.

Abigail picking worms out of creek!  My nature girl!

Surgery!?.... and my Mom

Bill called the doctor(and the doctor said...) yesterday about his knee.  Although it is not painful anymore he still hears the popping noise and feels it too!  So off to the Doctor this morning and I am sure you know where this is going by the title.  Yup!  surgery.  I was completely shocked when he got home and filled me in.  Meniscus - torn cartilage - is most likely floating around the knee cap and can lodge itself in all the wrong places.  He still needs to call and get it all set up.  In particular an MRI to verify what if anything is in there.   How crazy is that?!

On a separate note, my Mom came over today.  She and I had some alone time as we went out to Panera for lunch.  It was a nice hour just the two of us.  I can't tell you when that happened last.  The kids just love when she comes over as she makes sure she gets to see what each is doing.  She sits down with each of them individually and talks with them about how they are doing, what they are doing, and such!!  After our lunch we came back and played some board and card games.   Boy does the time go uber fast when you are truly having fun, fun, fun!!!