This past week we've spent a lot of time packing. We've made quite a pile of boxes in the garage. Once we pack a box, we take it to the garage. Keeping it in the Clubhouse would be difficult.
Step by step we've also been cleaning the place up so that cleaning will not be as huge a deal later. On Saturday Guy and I cleaned the screen in the kitchen, which had never been cleaned. If you remember how grimy it was before, then this picture will shock you:
It's like we have acquired another light in the kitchen. The sun streaming through is amazing. Guy says he doesn't know why we didn't do that before.
It has been fun to think about all the things we'll have control over after we move - even the things like yard work, Guy is very excited that we will have roses in the front yard and mentioned he'd like to check out a book from the library about roses.
We also packed a lot Saturday morning, starting with the books. We told Nico to not pack the books he wanted to read. He chose to keep out 2 Dog Man books.
Saturday night it was my turn to choose the movie again, and I chose Dumbo. It was an OK movie.
Sunday after church there was a picnic at the Grandparents' Salisbury house in honor of Labor Day. Most of Nico's cousins were there. Here they all are playing Happy Salmon. The adults played this game later, too. It's fun!
The adults also played the game Pit, to win prizes.
Grandma started them all on a treasure hunt and they ran around finding clues. Each of the adults held one of the clues. For one of the clues, Nico had to read a story to everyone.
Prizes! Each kid got to choose a small bag, and then a large bag for their family.
Nico played Switch with Kai for a while.
It was a perfect afternoon! Thank you to Ma and Pa for having us over and providing the yummy food. Alanna also brought a lemon cake that looked delicious! I gave Guy a huge piece with ice cream on top and he enjoyed it.
Tuesday Nico went downstairs to play video games with the crew after school. Avery taught him how to play Bomber Man.
School picture day was Wednesday. And... nachos for breakfast?
The constant state of the kitchen. Boxes!
I'm putting together a video of our moving, which I'll post next week. Plus video and pictures of our new house.
Last Friday was the 2nd Grandma Camp day - the day the kids learned how to use a crock pot! I dropped Nico off at 8AM and he came home at 5:30 PM with a crock pot full of pot roast, potatoes and carrots. It was magnificent! And Nico made it. Nico was also required to clean the crock pot afterward, which he did diligently.
We had to rate it on a scale from 1-5. Nico gave it a 4. I would give it a 4.5. It was really good.
Saturday morning, after making pancakes, I packed up the car and drove to the downtown market to do some henna for the morning. Around 1 PM Guy and Nico hopped on their bikes and took the greenbelt all the way downtown to come see me right as I was closing up around 1:30. I gave Nico a henna tattoo and then we packed up my stuff and they helped me get it up the escalator before they headed home.
Saturday night it was my turn to choose the movie while we ate pizza, we rented How to Train Your Dragon 3 from Red Box. Good movie!
Sunday was Father's Day. We celebrated by taking naps in the afternoon :) Sunday evening Nico became very interested in figuring out how to solve his Rubik's cube, so he got out a pad of paper and watched a YouTube video on how to do it. He took notes.
On Monday we were taking care of Avery and Ivy while Allicia and Evelyn were out of town. We took them to their VBS that morning and then Nico and I ran over to Urban Air (trampoline park) to use up one of his free passes. Nico solved the Rubik's cube while in the car that morning!
We picked up the kids from VBS and came home for lunch. Allicia and Evelyn arrived home soon after.
Avery and Nico sat on our couch and talked about Pokemon for a while.
Tuesday was another Grandma Camp, for this one they got to ride horses! They went to a farm where they showed all the kids how to approach a horse and pet a horse and ride a horse. Each one had their own handler, so while they sat on the horse, the handler held the reigns and they went for a trail ride.
Tuesday has typically been mine and Guy's date day. While Nico was in school, we would meet for an hour in the afternoon at a coffee shop. So this Tuesday we were able to resume that, and we decided to hit up a new restaurant (to us) in downtown Boise called Lemon Tree. They are a specialty sandwich shop, an they offer gluten free bread.
Guy got the Massaman Curry Bohn Mi, I got the Turkey Boursin. We both got a side of tomato soup. The tomato soup was perfect and the sandwich was even better. I have a new favorite local place to get gluten free lunch! We decided we should take Nico there sometime. They had outdoor seating and upstairs seating, we chose a spot inside on the main floor near the front window.
After lunch we walked around downtown. Guy got a coffee from a local shop we'd never been in before. He said the latte was really good.
And for a treat for me we went to The Chocolat Bar and got a truffle. We also went into a specialty gift store. From the outside we saw that they had a Tardis inside (from the show Dr Who), so we decided to venture inside.
They had photo ops for other shows too, including Star Trek. We also saw Archie McPhee's rubber chickens for sale! On the upstairs level I found a fun painting of the movie The Princess Bride. That movie was the movie Guy and I watched RIGHT before he asked me to be his girlfriend. So I bought it with some birthday money.
It was the best afternoon ever.
After horseback riding, Nico and the crew went to the mall and ate lunch with my Aunt Liz, who is in town this week.
In the afternoon they once again went to the Pokemon League at the library, bringing Evelyn with them, and then they hit Pizza Pie Cafe for dinner.
Nico is graduating from Level 3 swimming lessons. After his last week of Level 3 next week, we are going to skip the rest of the summer and start up with swimming lessons Level 4 after he goes back to school. We plan to get a pass to the pool this summer and since he knows how to mostly swim now he is wanting to swim all the time.
Grandma Camp today was another crock pot meal!! Nico brought home a steaming hot crock pot full of chicken stew. Nico rated it a 5, Guy rated it a 2 (Chicken soup is not his thing, but he said it was a good chicken soup on the chicken soup scale), I would rate it a 4!
After dinner we all headed to the church for band practice. I am playing piano this Sunday in the band so I was there to practice with them. It went late and we got home with enough time for Nico to clean his crock pot before he fell into bed. Zzzzz. He fell asleep fast.
Saturday afternoon we took a walk in the afternoon and let Nico decide which direction to take us. Where the sidewalk ends!
We walked through a neighborhood on the way back, and ran into a few of Nico's school buddies. Nico said he wants to live next to them. That sure would be fun!
For pizza that night we rented Wizard of Oz, it was Nico's choice. We watched it downstairs because Jeff and Allicia and the kids went out of town on Saturday for 5 days!
On Sunday Nico and I attempted to walk to church, but turned around shortly thereafter because he started feeling pretty sick. We came home, he ate a ham sandwich, and then we drove to church. He has been trying to fill up his exercise chart before the end of November, that's why we attempted the walk. We might try again this weekend!
Monday morning bright and early Nico packed up his bags and I took him to my parents' house for Grandma Camp! He spent 3 nights there and we brought him home tonight after a day full of Thanksgiving!
They went roller skating, they went to Jump Time, they decorated placecards for everyone for the Thanksgiving dinner, and they generally had a lot of fun.
Guy had this whole week off, so him and I chose to watch the Jason Bourne movie series, since we ALSO had downstairs to ourselves the whole week! We also tried the gluten free chocolate cake that Amaru makes. It was very very good. We also went to Chipotle on Tuesday evening.
We watched two movies on Tuesday, knowing we wanted to watch the 4th, called Jason Bourne, on Wednesday, but we sadly discovered that you couldn't rent this movie on Amazon Prime, and though it was available for rent on RedBox at the Jacksons gas station on the corner of Broadway, neither of us wanted to drive over there and get it. Talk about stay-cation!! So we watched an episode of Father Brown instead.
Wednesday afternoon we also received another shipment of red velvet ribbon, so we processed it fast and shipped it off to Amazon Wednesday afternoon.
Thursday, Thanksgiving!!! We arrived at my parents' house at about 10AM. Guy set up MST3K in the living room (the new season was released TODAY on Netflix) and most everyone watched that leading up to dinner which was at 2PM.
MST3K
Picture time!
After eating, we divided up the leftovers and then started the Lego challenge. The challenge this year was different than any years past. Instead of being on teams, we each had a Lego to do individually, and the twist was that the Lego had to be put together WHILE STILL IN ITS BAG. Some of the Legos came with two bags, so we dumped those into one Ziplock.
Ready, set, Go! Myself, Guy, and my brothers Jonny and David each had the same Lego set to put together. I won between the four of us, but we were also competing with Alanna, Bambi, and Karli, who had different sets. Karli won between the 7 of us!!
The kiddos also had to do this. They each had smaller sets.
Before the next game started...
Papa gave us all a retyped copy of the Boles Family History, written by my dad's great grandfather. After giving each family a copy, he read a story from it. Bud was his name, and he was 14 years old at the time of the story. He couldn't join the Civil War because he was too young, but he followed his brothers with the troops. He said he felt safer there than at home. By himself he went back home 100 miles on his horse, over 3 days. Wow!
There are so many stories like that in the book, I'm glad to have a copy of it! Thank you Pa and Ma!
We had a Christmas Song guessing game, and then a huge present the kids took turns unwrapping. Anything you found on your way to the middle you could keep. Each kid had 15 seconds. Nico won a kitchen dish towel, and lotion bar, a kaleidoscope, some other knick knacks, and in the very middle of all this wrapping and boxes there was a fanny pack. He was the one who unwrapped it, so he kept it, inside there was a $25 Amazon gift card.
When we arrived home tonight, there was a package waiting for Nico. He spent his own money on a game and it arrived while he was gone this week. You have to build a structure based on the top, side, and front views of it. He chose this game out of a 70-page toy magazine I received.
He also received his Little Passports delivery while he was gone. He will have lots to do this weekend!
We are super Thankful for all our family, and the ones we didn't see today, Grandma and Grandpa Russell. We can't wait to see you guys next month!
We came home tonight and I ate a huge slice of gluten free cherry pie! Amen!
