Photronics Phun, and Back to School Night!

A few pictures from last Friday. Nico arrived home from school with an acorn hat on his head. 

After school snack.

Saturday afternoon we watched Detective Pikachu, quite an adorable movie. We coordinated with Allicia so that the whole household could watch it downstairs. We were only missing Jeff, who was out of town. Even some friends of Jeff & Allicia joined us. We all fit just fine on their huge sectional couch. Allicia popped a bunch of popcorn for us.

Right after the movie was over, we came upstairs to make pizza. It was my turn to choose the movie, but since we didn't have a lot of time I said we could watch a Yoshi's Island speed run that Guy wanted to show Nico. I was curious about it, too, and it was fun to watch. Nico has been playing Yoshi's Crafted World on the Switch and has been really into Yoshi.

Nico had a dentist appointment on Tuesday. Nico started talking about braces right away to the dental hygienist and how he wanted them. He said "I wanted glasses, and I got glasses. I want braces, and I hope I can get braces!" The dentist told us now is the time to get the consultation at an orthodontist, so we have that scheduled for November.

Tuesday night was Cub Scouts. Guy told me Nico was the only Webelos there, and that night was the night they planned their events throughout the year, so Nico got to make a lot of decisions.

Wednesday night was the Photronics Phamily Phun Day, to celebrate Photronic's 50th anniversary.

There was a magic man there that also made balloon animals, Nico got a parrot hat.

They had catered BBQ and an ice cream truck with free ice cream. But also 95 degree weather with a trampoline in full sun, plus two bouncy houses. Nico came home a little bit heat exhausted. He felt very sick so I ordered him to lie on his bed for 30 minutes and not move. I gave him an ice pack to put on his chest. At the end of 30 minutes he was completely recovered and was jumping around asking for nachos.

Zoom!

Nachos has been the normal snack every night. He goes through bags of shredded cheese like nobody's business. And speaking of snacks and food: I was not aware of the fact that Nico had money on his school lunch account, he has never had hot lunch or bought anything from the cafeteria. I got an email last week with a low-balance alert saying his account was at a certain level. I got the same email the next day, but the balance was lower. I kind of brushed it off, but then Nico came home from school and told me he had started buying milk from school, alternating between chocolate milk and regular milk. Oh! Ok. That's fine. I reloaded the account so it should last a while.

Tonight was back-to-school-night for the parents! I think I'm really going to like his teacher. I mean, all his teachers have been good, his teacher last year was great, but his teacher this year has a different personality than any teacher he's had so far. She is outgoing, and I have the sense that she likes to have fun, and even may like to be silly at times.

Right outside his classroom window, his class has installed two bird feeders. At any time the children can look through the window and interrupt the class to report a bird sighting. Woah! That's pretty cool.

Here's the note that was on his desk for me. He never finished it, and when I got home, he couldn't remember what he intended to write.

The exciting news this week is that we SIGNED THE LEASE on the house I mentioned in the last blog! Our move-in date is Saturday Sept 7th. I can't believe it happened so fast! Thank you, God!

Nico has had mixed feelings over the matter, but I think he is on board now. After a full day of playing the Switch with the kids downstairs last week, he said, "I don't want to move out. Why don't YOU move out and then me and Dad can come visit you once a week?"

Then after we visited the house last week and we talked about him having his own bedroom, the next day he said "Actually I don't really want to move out." After some gentle prodding, he said he liked having a small space, he didn't want his own bedroom, he wanted to be closer to us.

I picked up some moving boxes today and the preparation begins...

Grandparents Russell, and Portland!

Friday the boys went to breakfast with Grandpa Russell, they went to Goldy's. 

That afternoon we all went over to the hotel Grandpa and Grandma were staying at. The pool is on the 5th floor! Guy and I hung out in the lounge chairs while Grandma and Nico swam.

After swimming we walked downtown to The Lemon Tree sandwich shop and had an early dinner. The food was very good, just like I remember.

After getting home that night we let Nico open his birthday present. We told him he was going to need it the next day. The Nintendo Switch! This boy saved up $150 to cover half of this, and we paid for the other half for his birthday.

Saturday was party day! We had 17 kids total, and we met at a trampoline park called Jump Time. We had the place almost entirely to ourselves! 

Sweaty kids eating pizza

Jason, Liz, Rory, and Lexie

When it was time to open presents, everyone gathered around him in the corner to watch.

Saturday night was pizza night, we watched episodes of a show called Corner Gas, a 90's Canadian comedy series that Grandpa and Grandma introduced us to. Nico loved it, as did we all.

Sunday we had a busy church morning and met up back at the Clubhouse that afternoon and evening.

Saying goodbye.

We said a temporary goodbye as we would see them later that week (read to the end and you'll see why and where!)

Monday was Nico's actual birthday. We bought him a small gift that he could open that day (some pokemon cards), and I asked him what he wanted for dinner that night. He said Pizza Pie Cafe, so that's where we went! At exactly 5:57PM we sang him Happy Birthday (the time he was born). That hasn't ever been a thing we do, but this year it was!

Then we drove home and cut into the cake I made for him earlier that day.

He has been playing the Switch every moment he can. We have been purposefully lax on the rules for screen time because... it's summer, it's a new game system, and, it's summer! We took the Switch downstairs several times to hook it up to the big screen.

On Tuesday was Grandma Camp! They mixed up some meatloaves, went to the Creperie, and went to see The Lion King.

At the creperie. They have gluten free crepes??!

Wednesday was prep day for our trip to Portland for Tom and Emily's wedding! We went grocery shopping, packed, and... played the Switch. Very important.

Then this morning, off we went! We caravanned to Portland because I am leaving from here to Spokane on Saturday while the boys head home. We were prepared with Walkie Talkies so we could always be in touch. Most of our chatter was, "Nico found an Alabama license plate", or, "There's a rest stop in two miles, let's go". At every rest stop, they checked license plates.

We stopped near Portland to see Multnomah Falls. We climbed up to that bridge you see in the picture, and Nico and Guy walked across it. I couldn't bring myself to. I fall over from dizziness when I'm near high things these days, so it was safer for me to stay on the side. They said you could feel the spray from the waterfall.

We arrived to our Airbnb in the evening, and then went to the rehearsal dinner. It was SO good to see Tom and Emily again.

The dinner was at a Chinese buffet and Nico tried some new things. Sushi with imitation krab, and clams! He also tried a crab leg. He said his favorite was the clams.

Tom and Emily!

We cannot wait to see them married tomorrow!

Then we went back at the Airbnb and the boys played Battleship.

Brianna and Grandma Camp

The super-secret craft we did last week was for Grandpa Russell's birthday! We made him some coasters from clay. We rolled them out, cookie cuttered them and baked them, then painted the sides of them and glazed the tops. We had enough clay to make some for ourselves, too! Unfortunately we have found that the glazed tops tend to stick to hot cups, so I've been turning mine over.

On Friday Nico and I took our friend Brianna to lunch for her birthday, at Red Robin. Nico got a gluten free kids hamburger (perfect size). He reeeally loved it. She brought him a gift for his birthday - the game CLUE! After Red Robin we went over to my parents' house for a bit and then headed home.

Saturday we went to one garage sale together and then Guy went on his own for a few hours. Nico and I hung out at home, it was a relaxing day.

On Sunday Brianna came over and hung out with us for a while. We played a game of Clue, Brianna won!

Monday was the start of the last Grandma Camp of the summer! I dropped Nico off early Monday morning and received him back this afternoon. One of their first activities was Box City, where they used boxes to create a city. Bruce and Nico actually built a robot costume! Nico was then able to attempt to break into Lexie and Rory's box BANK that they built.

Then there was Papa Time, where they built a treehouse (in loose terms), what I think they did is attach boards onto the tree so they'd have a place to sit up there! Super cool!

They also had a hula-hoop contest where they had to see if they could hula-hoop for 3 straight minutes. Bruce and Nico won. 

Twice through the week Nico face-timed Guy and I in the evening before he was heading to bed. That was really neat.

Last night Nico lost a tooth while at their house, my mom sent me this story this morning:

It was evening time, we were all comfortably sitting in our chair of choice, jammies on, pillows and blankies around us and the kids waiting to hear a story from one of the books I had written.  These are special fun times  with my grandchildren because they can relate to the people in my stories, their parents!  As I was half way through one of the stories, Nico raises his hand.  I continue reading a bit and then stop in mid story and ask Nico if his question can wait.  He informs me with a calm, “no, I just pulled my tooth out” and with a raise of his other hand he showed everyone his bloody hand with a small tooth in it!   I sat my book down, jumped into action and escorted him to the bathroom where we cleaned him up and had him rinse well.  He was quite proud of the fact he had pulled it out, and even more excited that he could leave it under his pillow.  I suggested he take it home so he could show his parents and leave it under his pillow at home.  He was quite adamant that he leaves it at our house as he had heard about how leaving a tooth at our house under his pillow will bring him $20.  Bruce and Lexie confirmed that.  I decided to stop my story I was reading and offer up a story not written in my book about how one of their parents (can’t remember which one) after losing a tooth, had put it under their pillow at night.    I then went on to explain that in the middle of the night I had forgotten that they had placed it under their pillow and so got up to pull some money from my purse. But before I could finish the story on how I accidently pulled a $20 bill from my wallet instead of a $1 bill, my storytelling came to a staggering stop!  Across the room, snuggled in her chair, happily listening to my story, Lexie jolted upright, looked at me with shockingly big eyes and exclaimed, “You gave them money, I thought it was the Tooth Fairy?”  My gut tightened and my heart sank with the realization that I had just revealed the Tooth Fairies identity.  But it didn’t stop at that!  As the others were chiming in that parents were indeed the Tooth Fairy they began to offer other revelations which sent me into a quick motion of shaking my head at them to please don’t say anything further.  But Lexie is a clever girl and the revelation of who the Tooth Fairy was gave way to her conclusive mind and she looked at me and said, “My friends told me that parents are the Tooth Fairy, but I didn’t believe them until now.  So that means that Jack Frost, the Easter Bunny”, and then looking at me with eyes that gave a complete and desperate look of “tell me it’s not so” in a question like manner…exclaimed:” my parents are also, SANTA CLAUS???!!!”   

Oh, the agony of watching a child’s balloon pop as the truth sinks in.  I let her cry.  The cousin’s tried to console.  Through her sobbing tears she said, “that means that everyone that we can’t see is not for real”!  I finished our stories early and I got the cousins to bed and then went out to do some comforting of Lexie. She was sitting in Papa’s chair, cuddled with her favorite stuffed animals and a blankie around her.  She was in shock.  I had her come sit on my lap.  She apologized.  I asked her why she was apologizing.  She said, “because I’m feeling sad about this and I shouldn’t”.  I responded, “yes, you should!!!  I felt sad when I found out!  You can cry all you want.” So, she cried some more.  After a while we talked about the happy parts of Christmas.  We talked about how St. Nicholas was a real person and he had a big and generous heart and that is where the Santa Claus story began.  I then said, do you know there is someone else that you can’t see, but is real?  She asked who.  I told her, Jesus.  She smiled and sighed a happy sigh. We finished with a prayer and silly song and she was soon on her way to a happy dream land.

Today before Grandma dropped Nico off here, they went swimming!

Guy and I watched The Last Jedi on Tuesday night, that was a really good movie! Nico face-timed us during the movie. It was an entertaining intermission. Brianna and I were able to go see Christopher Robin in the theaters on Monday. Cute movie! 

School starts next Monday... eek! Can't believe it's here already!

Here's a video of Lexie teaching Nico how to play soccer.