BED BUGS, family, eye doctor, hair cut, gg, woah that's a lot!

Well Hello! It's been a while! I think that was the first time I ever skipped a week. Let's jump right into it!

On March 1st, Friday, Guy woke up sick, with whatever it was that I had while in Redding. I told him to stay home from work and he quickly got worse. He spent all Friday, Saturday, and Sunday in bed, he finally started feeling himself again only a few days ago.

Jumping on the trampoline with Merek on Friday the 1st

Saturday visit to the library. I parked across the street and we took the Greenbelt tunnel to the library. A bit of fresh air.

On our way back to the car with our goodies.

Nico chose our movie on Saturday and he chose one of the Diary of a Wimpy Kid movies. Guy ate a few pieces of pizza and then went to bed while Nico and I stayed up to watch it. Those movies are funny, I enjoyed it.

Nico had told me about a STEM activity they had done in the library on Friday. On Saturday I saw pictures on Facebook that were posted of the event, and downloaded a few of them. Nico won this challenge - how many squares can you fit onto your popsicle stick without them falling over?

Practicing a magic trick

It was Sunday night, while Guy was lying in bed staring at the wall, that he saw a bug crawling up that wall, right next to our bed. He called me over and we identified it as a bed bug. Ah shucks! With a toothpick, Guy went fishing in the crack between the wall and the baseboard, and pulled out a shed bed bug skin. We slept in the bed that night, I was hoping that perhaps those two bug signs would be the extent of it. But, you know that's rarely the case.

Monday afternoon I pulled all the sheets off our beds and scoured the mattresses while sanitizing the sheets in the washing machine. I found NO signs of bed bugs on either mattress. Guy and I were casually talking about how to prevent a bed bug outbreak when he tapped lightly on the wardrobe and I watched as something fell from the spot he tapped, right onto the bare mattress. Boom. Another shed bed bug skin.

That dreadful feeling in the pit of my stomach - uh oh - they're in the wardrobe!!

We indeed found bed bugs hiding between the cracks on the back of the wardrobe.

You can only see one bed bug in this picture, but there were about a dozen scattered in the crack right here.

We decided to go professional, and we called around and found a good place that specializes in bed bugs. The treatment involves spraying a pesticide around the baseboards, then heating up the house to 135 degrees for 6 hours. Afterward, they sprinkle silica around the baseboards.

The guy (Dave) came to take a look before telling us whether he could do it, because we live in a small place he was worried about clutter, which can make the treatment harder to do. He said there wasn't much clutter, just that everything was all together in a small space. He said he could do it!  He said it would either be Thursday the 7th or the following Monday, the 11th, that he could do it.

So that night we moved out of the clubhouse and into a hotel for 3 nights. Dave asked us to remove all the clothes from the wardrobe and from our cube storage dresser and heat-treat them in the dryer and then get them out of the house. So I spent the next few days doing that. We slept at the hotel but then came back to the Clubhouse in the mornings for breakfast and school, then after school went back to the hotel.

When we discovered that it would not be Thursday that the treatment would take place, we booked another 5 days at an AirBnb close to downtown. We decided then to stay away from the Clubhouse. The bed bugs, having nothing to eat, would likely migrate. They can sense when someone comes into the room because they can smell the carbon dioxide and feel the heat of a body. If they are hungry, they can move fast to get a quick meal, even if you are standing on the floor for even a few minutes. To prevent migration, we had the door that leads to the main house sprayed with a pesticide. And so we stayed away. The only things we brought with us were heat-treated clothes, food, and plastic bags to put everything in. We left purses, back packs, bags, EVERYTHING, at the Clubhouse. Hmm... except the iPads and the Nintendo DS. We removed those the first day we went to a hotel, so we felt safe that the bed bugs hadn't migrated to them. And because the bed bugs weren't in the bathroom, we were able to bring our bathroom overnight bag filled with all our shampoo and combs.

At the AirBnb

The week that this all took place, my Aunt Liz was in town. I was able to see her on Thursday, and then on Friday there was a get together at my parents' house with Aunt Liz, and other family.

Saturday morning Nico and I researched which library we could go to to get the rest of the Diary of a Wimpy Kid books. There were four more that he needed to read. We realized after leaving that it didn't open until noon, so we drove to the park that was a few blocks away and I let him play while I stayed in the car figuring out what to do (and because brrrr it was cold I didn't want to get out!) I decided to take him somewhere as a surprise. He tried to guess where we were going the whole way there. He finally got it right when I turned into the parking lot, Lakeshore Learning. I told him he HAD to buy something with MY MONEY or he couldn't leave the store. He seemed pleased with that idea.

He chose some magnetic putty, and an archeological dig activity where he had to excavate five stones from a block of dirt.

We waited until after noon and then ran to the specific library we needed to go to, and we came home with four books for Nico to read. 

For dinner that night we chose to go to a place called Asian Cuisine, we ordered to go. Guy chose Dark Crystal for the movie. Nico mostly played with his magnetic putty and came over to see what was going on every once in a while. 

We really took advantage of the opportunity to eat out. Sunday we ordered pizza. Monday we had Boise Fry Company, Tuesday was Jimmy Johns. But I'm getting ahead of myself...

Breakfast on Sunday (no pancakes, so it was toast with peanut butter and jam. No toaster, so it was microwave-heated bread with peanut butter and jam).

Sunday afternoon we visited the park again, and then got Nico's hair cut. 

Monday after school Nico had an eye appointment. He needs glasses, so we chose a pair for him and they should be ready in a few weeks.

Green is Nico's favorite color. These glasses are green on the bottom, and slightly leopard print on the top. They happen to look a lot like Guy's glasses, but not on purpose. It was the green that got him hooked.

Nico is VERY excited about having glasses.

The heat treatment took place this past Monday. We didn't bother coming home Monday evening, because I knew there would be a layer of dust on everything and I would have more time to deal with it the following day.

The next day I spent at the Clubhouse washing sheets and dusting, mopping, etc. No sign of bugs anywhere... yay! We are guaranteed bug free for at least 30 days after treatment. We are thinking that the bites were causing hives on Nico, and that's where his hives were coming from. He's been hive free since we left the Clubhouse.

After school on Tuesday we went to visit GG and Aunt Pat. Melody (Aunt Pat's daughter) stopped by and we got a few handfuls of seeds from her! Peppers, Cucumber, and Radishes. We'd like to plant them out front. We picked up Jimmy John's on the way home, then Guy and Nico went to Cub Scouts that night. There was a magician there that showed them 3 magic tricks and Nico came home with the tricks to show me, they are pretty good!

Wednesday was the parent baseball meeting at Timberline High School. We skipped the spaghetti feed this year, and just showed up for the meeting. It was a quick and informative presentation, and afterward we met Nico's baseball coach. He is on the REDS team. Practices could possibly start next week depending on weather, otherwise they will start closer to April. The coach is very laid back.

On our to do list: Make sure Nico's equipment will still function for another season. He may have grown out of some of his stuff.

Some quick snippets of the past two weeks. We are welcoming the Grandparents Russell into town tomorrow, as Spring Break is upon us! Stay tuned!

Persistent Tummy Ache!

Last Friday while I was in Moscow, Nico and Guy went to Red Robin for dinner. I knew what they ordered because I got an email receipt from Red Robin. That was neat. Saturday they went to the library and watched the Little Prince with pizza. They wanted to watch Matilda but I am making them wait until this coming Saturday so I can watch it with them!

Aunt Mary Anne and Me!

Facetiming Guy and Nico. They were working on making a small video game.

My mom and I returned from Moscow on Sunday.

Monday morning Nico complained of a tummy ache all of a sudden, but I sent him to school anyway. The nurse called me a little bit later saying Nico was in her office saying he felt sick. He had asked her if she had oils to help him feel better.. he he. I talked to him for a minute on the phone and he told me the nurse had given him a hot water bottle to put on his tummy and it had made it worse. I asked him if he wanted me to bring him some oils or if he wanted me to come pick him up. He said he wanted me to come pick him up, so I did!

After picking him up, I did a Zyto scan on him, slathered him in oils, and brought him with me to my parents' house! I had some work to do over there. 

So the strange thing about Nico's tummy ache that started on Monday is that it comes and goes, and even when he has it, he still eats normally. He has no fever or lethargy, but the tummy ache has been persistent in its return. It went away that afternoon, but returned in force during his baseball game that night and so we left early. He was still feeling sick the next morning, he told me he wanted to go to school because he didn't want to miss PE, but I decided to keep him home. I took him with me again to Grandma's house, and the tummy ache went away that afternoon. He woke up the next morning (Wednesday) telling me he felt GREAT! So off to school he went. 

Another call from the nurse around 12:30, saying that he had been in her office three times already telling her he felt like he was going to throw up. She had the "wait and see" mentality, so they brought some schoolwork in to the nurse's office for him and he worked on it a bit in there. The nurse called me, not to come pick Nico up, but to tell me what had transpired and to ask if anything might be going on with him. She recommended keeping a food journal, so I started one. He does not seem to be avoiding school just for the heck of it, when I try to probe with questions his response is just as always. The only part of school he doesn't like is the free-write time.

The tummy ache was gone when he came home from school Wednesday, but returned shortly after eating Blue Cow Frozen yogurt that night. 

This morning I realized that the tummy ache on Wednesday morning started shortly after Chess class, where they are always given a sweet treat. So, I was thinking I had narrowed it down to SUGAR.

Tonight, Evelyn came over for an early dinner right after school, so we could head to Nico's baseball game. It was cold! But it was his last game this season. 

At one point he was standing on first as the first baseman, totally oblivious to the game, instead he was watching a bird in the sky. The pitcher threw a ball to him to make an out and he didn't see it. Everyone was screaming "NICO!!!" and the coach asks Nico, "What kind of bird to you see?" and he said "It's a red tailed hawk!" then he heard everyone yelling at him for his attention and he kept yelling, "IT'S A RED TAILED HAWK!"

It was a good last game. He had a great coach and a great team. Excited to see what next Spring brings!

Tonight while reading in bed, his tummy ache came back all of a sudden. Poor boy. Still moving forward...

That's it for this week!

4th Clubhouse Anniversary, and a RAISE!!

Last Friday Nico was able to take his microscope to school with him, the teacher said it would be ok for him to do that. He's been bringing it with him every day since, and whenever the class has time, they open it up.

After Guy got home from work on Friday they went for a walk and picked up some water to put on slides for the microscope. They collected some water on the side of the road, and sure enough it had swimming things in it.  They tested the canal water next and it was clean (I still wouldn't drink it - he he).

On Saturday we celebrated 4 years in the Clubhouse by having a pancake breakfast with Jeff & Allicia and the kiddos. After breakfast, the kiddos played together while the four grown-ups played a new board game. It was a fun way to celebrate 4 years. All of us agreed that among all the people we know, we have the best housemates. It just seems to work so well around here.

Nico had baseball games Monday and Tuesday evenings. Monday when we got home from the game, I had set up the table with two pieces of leftover birthday cake (I froze them after Nico's birthday) and then a wrapped present for Guy. We lit candles and sang Happy Birthday and Nico and Guy both ate some cake. Guy's birthday is not until October, but the present I got for him he was wanting and was planning to buy it himself, so I told him not to buy it, and gave it to him that Monday, the day it arrived. We will still celebrate on his actual birthday, too, but this was a fun precursor!

On Tuesday evening, Nico's cousin Lexie had a soccer game in the same sports complex as his baseball game, so I walked over to try to find her game. I found Jonny and Alanna and sat down with them for a while and watched Lexie play, she is an awesome goalie! After both their games were over we met up again in the field, Lexie and Nico ran toward each other when they saw each other, and gave big hugs. It was really sweet.

On Wednesday Guy stayed home from work because he wasn't feeling well, but we got a call telling Guy that he got a promotion and a 9% raise! That was great news!!! I am so very proud of him. He is a Technical Engineer II now. They told him it would be more responsibility but that he's probably already doing all of it anyway. Hehe. His boss said that when Guy called in sick he said Oh Shoot! because that was the day he was going to tell Guy about his raise. I am glad that they called to tell us :)  And Guy had today off from work and has tomorrow off too! He has been working non stop the past two weeks, evenings and weekends. He's been working on issues that were popping up at work, so his boss gave him a few days off. 

Tonight Evelyn came over for dinner. They did art. Well, Evelyn did art while Nico did a workbook on how to write cursive. After dinner they made Halloween decorations at Evelyn's art desk in the garage.

Nico wearing his new Newport, OR sweatshirt from Grandma and Papa's recent vacation. He also received a chocolate truffle from a chocolate shop. He says "All this Newport, Oregon stuff makes me want to move to Newport!"

Readathon is still on the back burner for Nico at the moment, but we have still been accruing reading minutes. He gets minutes when someone reads to him, so several hours have been spent lately reading the book Matilda. Guy reads this to him. When Guy was younger, apparently he liked this book so much that as soon as he finished it for the first time, he went right back to the beginning to start again. We are up to about 16 hours total for Readathon. 

The moment when Nico sees the swimmers in the ditch water!

Microscope, Baseball, and CHESS!

Jeff and Allicia went out of town again last Friday so we watched our Saturday movie downstairs again. It was Guy's choice, he let Nico choose between 3 things and Nico chose MST3K!

Nico had a sore throat and cold over the weekend, so we didn't do anything extravagant, except Guy did take Nico to Lakeshore Learning and Nico bought a microscope with his own money. He came home, got into bed because he wasn't feeling well, but brought his microscope with him.

Nico had baseball games on Monday and Tuesday. He was not feeling well at his Monday game, he came back to the bench from the field during an inning because his tummy was hurting. He was able to rejoin the game later. And after the game when the snacks were handed out, he was all over that. His last up-to-bat during that game all his team was cheering him on. You can catch a video of that at the end of the blog!

Evelyn came with us to Tuesday's game. Her and Nico's cousin Rory played in the huge field next to us for part of the time. Guy worked late that day so I brought him dinner, he works very near the baseball field.

On the way home in the car, Evelyn sat in the middle so she could read a book to Nico while he ate his snack.

Wednesday was the FIRST DAY OF CHESS CLUB! It was like the first day of school all over again, Nico woke up early and got dressed right away. He put on his chess shirt, but I reminded him it was picture day that day so we decided on the airplane shirt. I tried to get him to change his shorts, too, but he made a good point. "The picture won't show my pants!" True, true. So this is what he wore to school on Wednesday.

Wednesday after school, we went to the Tropical Smoothie Cafe, because a coupon had been sent home the day before for a FREE 12 oz smoothie. It was right downtown. It was a fun quick outting before dinner. He taught me a new game while we were waiting for the smoothie. It's called Sticks and you use your fingers. It was fun.

Thursday is today. Evelyn came over for dinner, we had tacos. Afterward, we all went to the church, Guy and I are part of another small group that meets once a month on the 2nd Thursday. That was tonight. Nico and Evelyn came with us. They hung out in the kids room while the group met. 

Here's the baseball video!

Library, Baseball Game

Last Friday, Jeff and Allicia and their whole crew left for the weekend. We took advantage of the extra space and watched movies and shows downstairs throughout the weekend.

Friday night we finished up a craft project after dinner - we made a bookmark for Grandma Russell's birthday. We made two and chose the best one to send to her, with a book.

Saturday morning we went for a bike ride! We suited up and rode to the library along the greenbelt. We had put several books on hold to checkout so Nico could pick one for his Book Project he'll be doing at school. We sought help from our favorite librarian, Grandma Russell!! She gave us a few ideas to get us started. He hasn't chosen one yet, and has been spending most of his reading time reading a HUGE Spongebob Squarepants comic book that he also checked out while we were there.

After the library we went on further to the post office, which is also along the greenbelt. I dropped off some stuff I was mailing, and then we rode home, stopping once to take a break.

Backpack full of books

Saturday it was Nico's turn to choose the movie and we watched episodes of Captain Underpants while we ate our pizza downstairs. Monday afternoon we watched Ponyo downstairs. It was a GREAT 3 day weekend and we got a LOT of relaxing in!

Tuesday was Nico's first baseball game. They are the Royals (unofficially the Dodgers). They got their uniforms on Tuesday, Nico chose #12 this time.

Playing 3rd base

Suiting up to be the catcher.

Snuggled up. It was warm but the breeze was cool!

Playing games after dinner on Wednesday.

That's it for this week! Enjoy the slow-motion Baseball Hit!

Baseball, Parent Orientation, Guy's Mini Vacation

Nico and I had a weekend on our own last weekend! I sent Guy away on a vacation of sorts so he could have some time to just rest. We found a cool Airbnb cottage on a cattle ranch in Ola, Idaho about an hour north of here. He stayed 2 nights and came back Sunday.

I... ahem... spoiled Nico while Guy was gone. I told him it was an every-once-in-a-while thing, so he understood it wasn't becoming the normal.

Friday night we stopped by Chipotle for dinner after stopping by a toy store and getting him some "Mad Matter", which is a really cool sand-clay substance. After he was in his pajamas that night, I took him on a surprise trip to Blue Cow Frozen Yogurt. Watch the related video at the end of the blog! Saturday morning we went to Dick's Sporting Goods to buy some things for baseball. A helmet, a backpack that holds a bat, some batting gloves, and a new pair of cleats since he has already outgrown the ones from spring time.

After Dick's Sporting Goods, since we were right next to the mall we decided to go there! We had to wait in the parking lot for 10 minutes before they opened. We first hit See's Candies, then Jake's Dry Dock. Chocolate and a stuffed animal. He spent his own money on something too.

I made pizza that night and we watched "Bolt", it's a cute animated movie.

Guy came home Sunday but had to head to the church shortly after because Sunday night was Worship Night and there was lots of prep to do. It was a great evening. Nico came with us and all the kids were able to go in the back and watch a movie while the adults did the worship thing.

Monday was the first day of baseball practice! I only snapped one picture, and it wasn't really very interesting. It looks like he's holding his backpack but it's actually hanging on the fence next to him.

Yep. I'll be sure to grab a few better ones next time!

His team is much younger than him this time, but his coach is really good. He is really teaching technique and working on specific rules and expectations. He had two practices this past week and in the coming weeks there are no more practices, only games!

Tonight was Parent Orientation at Nico's school. Allicia and I walked over there together. I got to meet his teacher and learn about some of the things they'll be doing this year. He really loves school.

While I was at the orientation, Guy took Nico and Evelyn with him to band practice. They played in the kids room while Guy ran sound, and I picked them up after orientation was over. 

We are going to sign Nico and Guy up for this robotics camp on Saturdays in September and October. We were waiting until we got the baseball schedule before deciding, since in the Spring he had games every Saturday. He was so excited about this camp that he said that if he had games on Saturdays he really didn't have to go them... ha ha... I'm so glad he's going to be able to do this camp! I told him that Guy built a robot in college that was controlled by sensors. 

Nico's surprise trip to Blue Cow!