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!