Watching the Kids, Painting at Rory's Birthday, The First Summer Grandma Camp,

Last Friday we awoke bright and early as the kids started to wake up - Nico and then Avery, Ivy, and Evelyn. Jeff and Allicia left at 5AM that morning to catch their plane to Missouri, and we watched the kids for the weekend. Looking back, the weekend feels almost like a blur. Friday we played video games downstairs, and then after lunch we went to the park with our bikes, so we could ride around on the dirt loop. I told them to see how many times they could lap me while I was walking.

Saturday morning, Guy took Nico and Ivy to Free Fishing Day at the church. They met there at 7:30 and from there they drove to Arrowrock Reservoir. They didn't catch any fish but they had a fun time!

Evelyn, Avery, and I stayed home. Evelyn made chocolate chip pancakes, then we played some more video games and after lunch I even convinced Avery to take a nap!

Hanging out downstairs after his nap.

Sunday morning we attempted to ride our bikes to church. I thought it was going to work well, but there were a few hiccups in my grand plan.

1 - I didn't notice which shoes Ivy had chosen. Slip on shoes. She rides a Strider bike (a bike that has no pedals, you push with your feet), and she sweetly lost her left shoe every 15 seconds. I was riding behind her and would scoop it up and drop it right in front of her foot so she could put it back on easily, but it did cost us a bit of time.

2 - On the way to the greenbelt I told everyone to stay in a line, which no one liked, so when we reached the greenbelt I told the bigger kids that they could ride ahead, but since I was the only one who knew the way I asked them to stop every time there was a choice between which way to go. So Nico, Evelyn, and Avery rode on ahead. Ivy and I plodded on behind dropping and scooping shoes. The big kids stopped at the first road split, way to go! I told them to turn right, so off they went. And went. And went. They missed the next split, and the next, and we missed our turn. Since they had ridden on ahead, there was no way to tell them to stop. They stopped a ways ahead, and once we caught up with them it was too late to turn around and make it to church on time, so instead we headed home with the intent of driving to church late. We had inadvertently made a huge loop so it was easier to head home than to turn around.

We arrived home at 10:30, the time that church starts. I contemplated skipping church but then I was overcome by resolve to not miss this important opportunity to have a bit of time to myself in the church sanctuary during the service. We hopped in the car. It was the closest I got to raising my voice during the weekend. Imagine a car full of bickering children that would not stop hitting each other and refused to buckle their seatbelts. After my stern command, Avery looked at me and said quietly "Ok, ok, I'll sit down." Zoom!

We arrived late. No surprise there. We got into the children's room, which was dark and loud because they had a music video playing on the screen and all the kids were singing and dancing along. Avery looks at me and says, "I don't want to go in there, I don't like dancing!" I told him it would be ok and that he didn't have to dance. Evelyn grabbed his hand and stayed with him which I was grateful for. As we were getting their name tags printed out, Avery again looks up at me and quietly asks, "Are you sure this is a church?" 😂😂

Ivy was young enough to be in the little kids room so I dropped her off there, she went right over to the other kids and started playing.

The church service was... amazing. I'm so glad I didn't skip it. We had a guest speaker and it was one of the best services we've had.

Sunday afternoon was Rory's birthday party. I left the other kids at home with Guy while Nico and I went to the party. Guy and the kiddos finished watching some shows and then played video games while we were gone.

Rory's birthday party was at a painting place, the theme was flamingoes, and all the kids got to paint! It was super cool.

After they finished painting the background, the kids took a break to eat cake and ice cream so the background could dry completely before painting the flamingoes over it.

It was super fun. Happy Birthday Rory!

Monday morning I created chore lists for all the kids. Their parents were returning that afternoon, and I wanted the house to be as clean or cleaner than it was when they left. Each kid had 3 chores. Despite the complaining, they all got through the chores, and were rewarded with some video games.

Right before they came home, Ivy and I were sitting on the couch, and she looks over at me and sweetly says, "You're not the boss of me. My parents are." It wasn't a malicious statement, but a matter of fact. I looked at her and said, "You are totally right. But while they were gone I was taking care of you huh?" and she said "Yep". Their parents arrived home around 3PM and Nico and I retreated to the Clubhouse, leaving them to decompress. Allicia and I caught up that night when we took a walk around the neighborhood to exchange weekend stories.

Tuesday was my birthday, I received so many text messages and/or calls, it was very sweet. Nico was the first to say Happy Birthday that morning! I drove him over to my parents' house in the morning for the very first Grandma Camp of the summer! This summer there will be Grandma day camps, Tuesdays and Thursdays most weeks.

I had told Grandma about the Pokemon League at the library every Tuesday, so she tried out bringing all the kids to the library for it, and they loved it! She was even able to pick up Evelyn to bring her along too. Afterward they went to Pizza Pie Cafe.

Wednesday Allicia took Nico again to the summer dollar movie with the kids. Despicable Me 2. In the afternoon we put together a puzzle. I'm sure we did other things too but if I don't have pictures of them then they didn't happen!

This afternoon we visited GG. We brought our new Travel Scrabble game with us and we played it. Nico won by a lot! It was fun. GG gave us one of her Scrabble dictionaries. Yay! Nico really likes to plan his words well and get the best ones possible.

There are 2 videos below, one of just the time with Jeff & Allicia's kiddos (a separate one so I can share with Jeff & Allicia), and one that has a few snippets of just Nico at Rory's birthday party.

Children's Run, Homework, and Summer!

Last Friday we made the rest of our trip back home to Boise from Yakima. We stopped at every rest stop and arrived home around 4:30pm. Before coming home we stopped to pick up Nico's race packet from Papa (Capitol Classic Children's Run), who picked it up for us on Thursday. Thanks Pa!

Friday after arriving home, Allicia offered us all food out back on the porch. She had family coming into town that night and had made a big pot of sloppy joes.

Final count on the license plate game:

• Nico: 19
• Guy: 10
• Joanna: 9

We have 13 states unaccounted for, license plates that we didn't see on our trip.

Saturday was the Capitol Classic Children's Run. While we were on our trip, all of us caught colds. Nico caught his early on and it wasn't too bad. Guy and I caught ours later, but it didn't really hit us both until we arrived home. Saturday was the worst day for us, but we powered through the Children's Run in the morning. We dropped Nico off around 9AM at the train depot just like usual.

We drove downtown to find a parking spot and then waited for the race that started at 10AM. Nico's time was 13:29, he beat last year's time by more than a minute!

Check out this great shot from one of the race photographers

All the kiddos got free TCBY yogurt, so we stood in line for that, then we headed back home. I got into bed and didn't move for the rest of the day with a fever and body aches. Guy was a little better off, but still wasn't feeling too hot. I think him and Nico played 6 games of Pokemon that day! We had no energy to make pizza that night so we delayed it until Sunday.

Sunday Guy chose The Emperor's New Groove to watch while we ate pizza. Great movie!

Nico had been asking me for a long time to do "homeschooling" where I give him work to do during the day like he's at school. So I told him Monday we were going to start the homeschooling and he was so excited he could barely contain himself. He kept begging me to let him start working on his homework Sunday night.

Monday was back to work for Guy and back to normal life! We both were functioning pretty well by then.

There's a variety of things I had planned for homeschool. He rocked it the first day and stayed super excited. By Wednesday he was done with it and told me he wanted "to have fun this summer". Ha!  Sounds good to me, so we've stopped most of it. I told him there were a few things we were going to continue doing every day (things we were already doing every day even while he was in school) like him reading out loud to me. Regarding the workbook: I told him he could just pull that out whenever he wanted to. He's already pulled it out to work on stuff. He LIKES doing the work, but he likes to have freedom to choose whether to do it or not.

Tuesday we took Evelyn with us to the library for Pokemon Club, they both had a good time. I sit right outside the room in the kids area and do work. It works out really well. They both checked out a book (they each chose a graphic novel), and then we headed home.

Tuesday night was the first Cub Scout meeting this summer. They will meet every two weeks. They talked about rocks and geology, and Nico came home with two new rocks. I think the whole theme for the summer will be geology!

On Wednesday, Allicia offered to take Nico to the dollar summer movies with them in the morning. The movie was Puss in Boots. They got popcorn. Nico loved it. Allicia said they will do it again next week.

Today we went to the Scouts shop to get his new uniform.

Nico also went to visit Merek several times this week. They are moving from their house in a few days. I'm not sure I updated here or not about the house - we re-evaluated our budget and saw that we wouldn't be able to rent the house even if she doesn't raise the rent. So we're going to look for a different place in a few months.

Looks like the only pictures I have are from the race on Saturday! How's that compared to the picture-heavy post last week? At least I have a video! Check it out - the first part is from the race and then it's what our house looks like when you come home from a trip sick and can't clean up after yourself. Ha ha.

Until next week!

Mother's Day, and Pokemon

On Friday after school, Nico's teacher texted me this picture and said Happy Mother's Day, she also said "I love this boy!" I sure do, to!

Saturday was a laid back day. We labeled some more product to ship to Amazon, and the main house had "Odd Saturday" again, where they invite friends over for games and food. Nico and Guy have been participating in that when it happens. Then they cut out early so we can make pizza. My movie choice was "Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day". It reminded me a lot of the Wimpy Kid movies, funny. It has Steve Carell in it.

Sunday Nico let me open the gift he had brought home from school on Friday. He joked that I had to wait until after church, but I convinced him to let me open it before church. It was a clay plate in the shape of his hand. I love it! I put it on the kitchen windowsill.

At church they had a photo booth for mothers and children for Mother's Day. Here's ours.

Swimming lessons on Monday. His class is much bigger this time.

On Tuesday we tried something new. We went to the Pokemon League at the library after school. They had a bunch of tables set up with mats to play Pokemon on and a bunch of Pokemon decks available to play with if you don't have your own. In the picture, Nico is playing with one of the facilitators. The rest of the kids you can see off to the right on the floor, they're going through their binders of Pokemon cards and trading them with each other. Nico didn't bring his binder, so he didn't participate. He will next time! If Nico signs up to be a "Pokemon Trainer" online, then he'll get free prizes for coming to the club at the library. We will do that! Nico and I, and Nico and Guy have been playing Pokemon at home this past week. He also brings his Pokemon bin (which holds all his decks for playing) over to Merek's house sometimes when he visits.

That evening, Nico didn't have Cub Scouts, so Guy and Nico were able to come with me to Liz's graduation (Bruce & Rory's mom). She graduated from U of I with her Bachelors. It was exciting to see!! We sat next to Papa and Grandma Salisbury, and Bruce and Rory.

Walking back from the graduation to the parking garage. Guy found some coffee at the reception so he grabbed some. Nico went for some chamomile tea.

On Wednesday I sent Nico to swimming lessons with... a bath mat. It did not do a very good job of drying him off. It was way too small. Oops. At least he's smiling. Guy sent me this picture and "Towel too small".

Today Nico had a field trip. His whole class rode the city bus downtown. Nico has been researching the US Bank building, and his classmates are all researching downtown buildings too, so they took a walking tour of downtown Boise all day today. They stopped at the Grove plaza to eat lunch. It was a mix of rain and sun, so I sent a hat and an umbrella with him. They were supposed to catch the bus back to school, but they MISSED it! The class walked all the way back to Adams from downtown. Wowza! Lots of exercise today.

I asked him to tell me a story about today:

"We went to the Zion bank and we went to the US Bank." Cool what did you guys do there? "We just looked at it and then we, the only place we went inside was Zions bank because it's really famous because it's the tallest building in Idaho."

I called the landlord of the house across the street, and she said she still hasn't heard anything about their specific move out date. She told me their lease is up at the end of June, and then she will spend the next month painting. I told her we're willing to wait for it, so she asked me a little more about us. I told her where we're living now, and that Nico is going to Adams and we'd like to stay in the district. She mentioned the rent would probably be going up (out of our price range), but she said nothing has been decided yet and to call her in the middle of June. Currently lawn care is included in rent, so I asked if she'd be willing to drop the rent if we took care of the yard and she said the owners have had bad experiences with letting tenants do that in the past. I'm hoping they will make an exception for us, but I'll wait until June to touch base with her again and talk about all that.

Still hoping beyond hope!