Moving Day!

Well this week is all about the big move! Most of this blog experience will be communicated through video, which you can watch at the end of the blog.

It was a bittersweet week with an awkward moment at the end of Saturday, moving day, when we were tired at our new house and I was looking forward to going home and going to bed. But, we were already home. It was a strange feeling to be home in our new house, but wanting to go back to familiar Clubhouse to snuggle in for the night. First night at a new place!

Saturday night we ordered pizza from Smokey Mountain Pizza and waited 2 hours for it to arrive before I called them and they said their printer never printed the order so they never received it. They said they could get it to us in 45 minutes but it was already 8PM so we cancelled the order and ate other things at home instead. To make up for it, we ordered pizza for lunch on Sunday after church.

We woke up this morning to a broken dishwasher (puddle-jumping with socks on in the middle of the night - eek!) and a broken water heater. The handy-woman stopped by today and fixed the water heater, and will be back on Saturday to fix the washer.

Now on to some pictures, then the video at the end!

Friday walking to our new house with Avery and Ivy in the afternoon to pick up our key. I told them how to recognize our house so they know how to get there in the future.

Playing Switch with Avery

Friday night after receiving our key, we went over to explore the house. Nico wanted to be in charge of pictures.

Bedtime snack, the last night in the Clubhouse

Moving day! Pile of boxes in the garage.

Emptying out the Clubhouse

Avery eating a tomato like an apple while watching the moving men load up the truck.

Movers done!

The first boxes in our new house

Discovering old treasures

 Drawer trash

This is how perfectly our corner table fits into the dining room.

After the moving men left, time to eat Jimmy Johns!

Evelyn came over to help Nico unpack. Not sure he would have been motivated otherwise. Still have a lot left to do, though!

Nico doing spelling homework at my desk.

Tuesday, Avery, Ivy, and myself met Guy at Boise Fry Company for lunch.

Nico at school helping to fill up their class' bird feeder. The Bird by Bird organization posted this picture on their Facebook page, that's where I got it.

From the school Facebook page, pictures of Nico and his classmates making dog biscuits. Nico ate dog biscuit dough that day, containing regular flour. Oops.

Now to the video!

Dog Man, First Day of School, Pirate Party

Last Friday after lunch, Nico and I went first to Barnes and Noble so he could buy the latest DogMan novel. It had just been released that Tuesday, so there was a big display case inside the store that had a bunch of copies. 

Then we went to the mall to finish up his school shopping, and while we were standing in line at Kohl's, Guy texted me saying he was leaving work early. I called him and asked him if he wanted to meet us at the mall, and he said YES! So Nico and I waited for him arrive, then we all ventured to See's Candies first to get some treats, and then up to the food court to get lunch for Guy.

We also stopped by the game store and Nico found a used Switch game that he had been wanting, and so he bought it with his leftover birthday money.

When we got home I commissioned Nico to make a crock pot meal that he received all the ingredients for from a recent Grandma Camp. Seafood chowder! He happily dumped everything in there and turned it on. Dinner 3 hours later!

Saturday morning I did henna at the market. Allicia sent me this text while I was there. Avery needed some help with a toy and Nico was helping him.

Sunday was a fun day. Long morning at church and then I drove Nico straight to Big Al's where his cousins and Grandparents Salisbury were gathered to do some bowling. He came home that afternoon and went straight downstairs where there were kids waiting for him to play the Switch. Sunday, Jeff and Allicia had friends over for "Even Sunday", which is like "Odd Saturday" except they couldn't do it on Saturday and so they did it on Sunday. Guy ran a role-playing game for everyone. And Nico played the Switch until bedtime. This year we did not do a last-day-of-vacation treasure hunt like usual. Hmm.. oh well!

The first day of school arrived. 4th grade!

It was a half day, and after school he was invited downstairs to play some Switch, so he played until dinner time. We are still taking advantage of summer rules, not quite ready to crack down on video game playing. Nico and Allicia have been playing buddy-system on the Yoshi game, it was fun to watch them play together!

Nico has been playing Switch downstairs after school every day.

Nico's report after his first day of school was that he liked it and he liked his teacher. His teacher uses an app to communicate with parents, and she can also hand out points to students via the app and the parents can see which points she gave to their kids. Points for teamwork, participation, and good-job type stuff.

Tuesday night was the first Cub Scout Pack meeting of the season. It was a Pirate Party. Guy sent me these pictures telling me that they both got "Lucky Beard" as their pirate name.

Every morning before school Nico and I have been playing Monopoly. It's not the original version, I don't know what the version is called but instead of cash money it uses credit cards. The game goes a little faster that way. Usually we don't finish before school starts so we sometimes save the rest of the game for after school.

We have officially started looking for places to move. Today we went to see a house on Bacon street in this same neighborhood. We really liked it. We're trying to figure out if we can make it work, but we're hoping it's a GO for this one. But if not this one, we will keep on looking, it could be a while yet, it's really hard to say!

Crock Pot Meals, Rubik's Cube, and Horseback Riding!

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. 

See you next week!