Last Saturday night we joined my parents for the University of Washington vs Boise State football game. They ordered pizza for us all, it was fun! Thank you Ma and Pa!
Sunday was the Christmas program at church. The play this year was very good, and the kids sang some songs as well. I caught a video of Nico singing during the practice before the service, you can see the video at the end of the blog! Sunday afternoon we went to a Christmas party at the church for all the band members. One of the women on our team made everyone personalized coffee/tea/drink tumblers. She did an amazing job and I was very touched by her thoughtfulness.
Monday morning, Grandma and Grandpa Russell arrived! Nico went outside to wait for them, we were tracking them as they got closer.
Monday night we went to the Winter Garden Aglow. We were able to take GG with us! Nico got to sit on Santa's lap and we bought some kettle corn and saw all the beautiful lights. Thanks to Grandpa Russell for some of these pictures.
GG was the designated popcorn holder.
Tuesday morning, Guy and Nico and Grandpa Russell went out to breakfast to The Griddle. Nico chose french toast.
Before heading to the candlelight service on Christmas Eve.
After the service, Nico helped blow out all the candles.
And Wednesday was Christmas!
I went out into the living room at about 6:30 and found Nico snuggled on the couch surrounded by his stocking stuffers.
Nico's new hoverboard
Opening gifts
A new Peanuts book.
After opening presents and eating some lunch, we watched a few MST3K episodes.
It was a great Christmas!
Today I took Nico over to the Grandparents Salisbury's house for an afternoon Grandma Camp! Nico brought his hoverboard.
This will be my last blog! It's been a fun run with ya'll and I'll miss having the weekly record, but it's time to say farewell.
Well Hello! It's been a while! I think that was the first time I ever skipped a week. Let's jump right into it!
On March 1st, Friday, Guy woke up sick, with whatever it was that I had while in Redding. I told him to stay home from work and he quickly got worse. He spent all Friday, Saturday, and Sunday in bed, he finally started feeling himself again only a few days ago.
Jumping on the trampoline with Merek on Friday the 1st
Saturday visit to the library. I parked across the street and we took the Greenbelt tunnel to the library. A bit of fresh air.
On our way back to the car with our goodies.
Nico chose our movie on Saturday and he chose one of the Diary of a Wimpy Kid movies. Guy ate a few pieces of pizza and then went to bed while Nico and I stayed up to watch it. Those movies are funny, I enjoyed it.
Nico had told me about a STEM activity they had done in the library on Friday. On Saturday I saw pictures on Facebook that were posted of the event, and downloaded a few of them. Nico won this challenge - how many squares can you fit onto your popsicle stick without them falling over?
Practicing a magic trick
It was Sunday night, while Guy was lying in bed staring at the wall, that he saw a bug crawling up that wall, right next to our bed. He called me over and we identified it as a bed bug. Ah shucks! With a toothpick, Guy went fishing in the crack between the wall and the baseboard, and pulled out a shed bed bug skin. We slept in the bed that night, I was hoping that perhaps those two bug signs would be the extent of it. But, you know that's rarely the case.
Monday afternoon I pulled all the sheets off our beds and scoured the mattresses while sanitizing the sheets in the washing machine. I found NO signs of bed bugs on either mattress. Guy and I were casually talking about how to prevent a bed bug outbreak when he tapped lightly on the wardrobe and I watched as something fell from the spot he tapped, right onto the bare mattress. Boom. Another shed bed bug skin.
That dreadful feeling in the pit of my stomach - uh oh - they're in the wardrobe!!
We indeed found bed bugs hiding between the cracks on the back of the wardrobe.
You can only see one bed bug in this picture, but there were about a dozen scattered in the crack right here.
We decided to go professional, and we called around and found a good place that specializes in bed bugs. The treatment involves spraying a pesticide around the baseboards, then heating up the house to 135 degrees for 6 hours. Afterward, they sprinkle silica around the baseboards.
The guy (Dave) came to take a look before telling us whether he could do it, because we live in a small place he was worried about clutter, which can make the treatment harder to do. He said there wasn't much clutter, just that everything was all together in a small space. He said he could do it! He said it would either be Thursday the 7th or the following Monday, the 11th, that he could do it.
So that night we moved out of the clubhouse and into a hotel for 3 nights. Dave asked us to remove all the clothes from the wardrobe and from our cube storage dresser and heat-treat them in the dryer and then get them out of the house. So I spent the next few days doing that. We slept at the hotel but then came back to the Clubhouse in the mornings for breakfast and school, then after school went back to the hotel.
When we discovered that it would not be Thursday that the treatment would take place, we booked another 5 days at an AirBnb close to downtown. We decided then to stay away from the Clubhouse. The bed bugs, having nothing to eat, would likely migrate. They can sense when someone comes into the room because they can smell the carbon dioxide and feel the heat of a body. If they are hungry, they can move fast to get a quick meal, even if you are standing on the floor for even a few minutes. To prevent migration, we had the door that leads to the main house sprayed with a pesticide. And so we stayed away. The only things we brought with us were heat-treated clothes, food, and plastic bags to put everything in. We left purses, back packs, bags, EVERYTHING, at the Clubhouse. Hmm... except the iPads and the Nintendo DS. We removed those the first day we went to a hotel, so we felt safe that the bed bugs hadn't migrated to them. And because the bed bugs weren't in the bathroom, we were able to bring our bathroom overnight bag filled with all our shampoo and combs.
At the AirBnb
The week that this all took place, my Aunt Liz was in town. I was able to see her on Thursday, and then on Friday there was a get together at my parents' house with Aunt Liz, and other family.
Saturday morning Nico and I researched which library we could go to to get the rest of the Diary of a Wimpy Kid books. There were four more that he needed to read. We realized after leaving that it didn't open until noon, so we drove to the park that was a few blocks away and I let him play while I stayed in the car figuring out what to do (and because brrrr it was cold I didn't want to get out!) I decided to take him somewhere as a surprise. He tried to guess where we were going the whole way there. He finally got it right when I turned into the parking lot, Lakeshore Learning. I told him he HAD to buy something with MY MONEY or he couldn't leave the store. He seemed pleased with that idea.
He chose some magnetic putty, and an archeological dig activity where he had to excavate five stones from a block of dirt.
We waited until after noon and then ran to the specific library we needed to go to, and we came home with four books for Nico to read.
For dinner that night we chose to go to a place called Asian Cuisine, we ordered to go. Guy chose Dark Crystal for the movie. Nico mostly played with his magnetic putty and came over to see what was going on every once in a while.
We really took advantage of the opportunity to eat out. Sunday we ordered pizza. Monday we had Boise Fry Company, Tuesday was Jimmy Johns. But I'm getting ahead of myself...
Breakfast on Sunday (no pancakes, so it was toast with peanut butter and jam. No toaster, so it was microwave-heated bread with peanut butter and jam).
Sunday afternoon we visited the park again, and then got Nico's hair cut.
Monday after school Nico had an eye appointment. He needs glasses, so we chose a pair for him and they should be ready in a few weeks.
Green is Nico's favorite color. These glasses are green on the bottom, and slightly leopard print on the top. They happen to look a lot like Guy's glasses, but not on purpose. It was the green that got him hooked.
Nico is VERY excited about having glasses.
The heat treatment took place this past Monday. We didn't bother coming home Monday evening, because I knew there would be a layer of dust on everything and I would have more time to deal with it the following day.
The next day I spent at the Clubhouse washing sheets and dusting, mopping, etc. No sign of bugs anywhere... yay! We are guaranteed bug free for at least 30 days after treatment. We are thinking that the bites were causing hives on Nico, and that's where his hives were coming from. He's been hive free since we left the Clubhouse.
After school on Tuesday we went to visit GG and Aunt Pat. Melody (Aunt Pat's daughter) stopped by and we got a few handfuls of seeds from her! Peppers, Cucumber, and Radishes. We'd like to plant them out front. We picked up Jimmy John's on the way home, then Guy and Nico went to Cub Scouts that night. There was a magician there that showed them 3 magic tricks and Nico came home with the tricks to show me, they are pretty good!
Wednesday was the parent baseball meeting at Timberline High School. We skipped the spaghetti feed this year, and just showed up for the meeting. It was a quick and informative presentation, and afterward we met Nico's baseball coach. He is on the REDS team. Practices could possibly start next week depending on weather, otherwise they will start closer to April. The coach is very laid back.
On our to do list: Make sure Nico's equipment will still function for another season. He may have grown out of some of his stuff.
Some quick snippets of the past two weeks. We are welcoming the Grandparents Russell into town tomorrow, as Spring Break is upon us! Stay tuned!
I was out of town until just yesterday. My plan was to return Monday but I got sick while away and couldn't drive home until Wednesday.
I asked Guy to tell me about last weekend. I transcribed his exact words below. For reference, on Saturday morning Guy took Evelyn with him to pick up Nico from the Grandparents' Salisbury house, where Nico had stayed overnight. He then took both Evelyn and Nico to Wahooz to use the tickets they won by finishing the workout challenge last year. Also, "Odd Saturday", which Guy mentions, is a tradition that Jeff and Allicia and family do on the 1st and 3rd Saturdays of every month. They invite friends over to play games and they eat dinner. We do not typically participate because Saturday is our pizza night.
It was snowing and pretty deep when we got there, I almost slid off the road, (but not in a scary way. In a very safe way). At Wahooz, the main attraction was the laser maze, which they went through several times to go avoid lasers. Then played some arcade games. Nico and I played Connect 4. And I won. And um then we tried bowling for a little bit but that didn't last very long. Evelyn wasn't interested. Then what they really wanted to do was play on the Ballocity which was like a giant play area with balls, but not like a ball pit but like a giant multi-story building that has tubes where you can shoot balls and they go in tubes and go all over the place. They disappeared in there for a while, running all over the place. Actually they were there the longest. Then it was time for us to grab our coats and go home, but Nico wanted to play on the spin-a-whirly game, like tilt-a-whirl. I thought he was going to get motion sick but he was all golden. Then when we got home, it was Odd Saturday, I played [games] and Nico watched a movie downstairs which turned into mostly rough-housing with Avery but for the most part they were having fun, and the adults were having fun. Sunday I don't remember what we did. Hey Nico what did we do on Sunday? Nico: Family Meeting. Guy: We did do a family meeting where we filled up my pills for the week. That was Nico's idea. The rest of the days were just kind of doing chores. We wrote poems.
Here is Guy's poem:
He's a poet!
And here is Nico's (amazing!) poem:
He took it to school with him to let his teacher read it, and she wrote that sweet note on the bottom. He then told me he has started writing Mrs. Kobe a poem that he's going to let her read when he's done. Here is the start of it:
We've got poets in the house!
Here are some pictures from Guy and Nico's time together:
Guy sent me this picture of Nico's perfectly square cheese, Nico insisted he wanted me to see it.
Nico spent the whole time I was away sleeping in our bed with Guy. Guy said Nico is a tornado.
On Sunday they went to see The Lego Movie 2 in the theaters after church. They were giving out these Lego sets! I'm sure they got popcorn and water too. On Sunday they also saw a Downy Woodpecker on the tree out front.
Tuesday, Nico and I were supposed to visit GG, but since I was still in Redding, Guy said he could take Nico. Allicia is out of town at the moment, too, so I was going to be watching the kids this week after school. But on Tuesday I was just going to be watching Evelyn, by taking her with us to GG's house. So, Guy and Nico and Evelyn all went together! They played Jumanji and Evelyn and Guy tied. Afterward, they hit up Jimmy John's.
Wednesday was my travel day home. I woke up in Redding with several inches of snow on the ground and no power at the hotel. I packed up all my belongings with a head lamp on, and dug my car out.
I put chains on my car before leaving the parking lot. I was so grateful for my "mountain training" when I lived with my parents before Guy and I were married. It helped me more than once on this trip - 1st in getting my chains on, and 2nd in not freaking out driving on snow-covered roads with my chains on. I had a lot of people praying me home.
As I was climbing the mountain of that first pass, I came to a bridge where there were 3 semi trucks stuck in the snow, with just enough space between them for cars to weave through. A police trooper stopped me before I passed the 3rd one, I rolled down my window and he told me if possible that I should turn around and not go any further, that the roads would only get worse from there "They have two feet of snow in Burney!" I imagined plowing through 2 feet of snow with my car. I told him I was still going to go. He told me to make sure I had extra water, a flashlight, and extra blankets, I told him I did. I saw him glance at my front tire for chains and then he waved me on.
About an hour into the trip, after I was over that pass, the chain on my left front tire broke. I had to take both chains off at that point. Thankfully, I was only 7 miles from the nearest town (Burney), and there was no longer snow on the road but just wet cement and a bit of slush. My mom directed me to the nearest Les Schwab, where I got studless snow tires for my car and another set of chains. The 2 feet of snow in Burney was true, but it wasn't on the road. They had piled it all in the middle, it was an easy town to maneuver through and they were well prepared for visitors. The ground was wet, there was no ice anywhere. I didn't have to use chains again! I went over several more passes but there was just sporadic slush. The snow plows kept the road pretty clear. It was a miracle in my opinion, after seeing the reports that the roads would be terrible. The wet roads were steaming themselves dry in front of me.
I arrived in Boise at 9:15 PM, and pulled up to the house to see both my boys outside in the pouring rain, waiting for me to arrive. They gave me a big hug and then helped me unload my car.
It's good to be home!
Here's a picture from today watching the kids after school. Guy came home early to help me out, since I'm still not 100% recovered.
Nico reading DogMan to Avery and Ivy.
All the kids had Valentine's parties today at school, Ivy came home wearing all pink and eating a pink heart sucker.
Nico's Valentine from his teacher was in his planner:
I got an email late last night from Nico's drama club teacher, they have assigned roles in the play they're doing! Nico was assigned the role of King Lobster. He is in Act 2, Scene 2, and then he plays a different character (one of the sharks) in a later scene. Here's a shot of some of his lines:
There are two full pages like this one, plus another half a page, with his lines scattered like seen here. That's a good amount! Then he's got 3 lines as a shark. The total play is 18 pages long. I think there are 15 kids in his class. His performance is on April 11th, all are invited to come!! If you need specifics let me know!
Tonight Nico is contemplating writing a comic about "Word Crimes", based on a Weird Al video that Guy showed him called Word Crimes. Nico and I watched it tonight and we paused the video every so often so that I could explain what each word crime was (for example, using an apostrophe incorrectly). Then we read Captain Underpants so that I could point out every single word crime. We found about 15 word crimes in the first 2 pages. Captain Underpants is the best book for misspelled words and grammar problems.
He has asked me to write him a story that has lots of word crimes in it, so I'm going to go do that now. Until next week!
