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!

Exam, Movie, and some Good News!

We have some great news to share this week! Guy was offered the engineering position!! We finally heard back from them last week and he accepted the offer shortly after. He will soon be moving to the day shift but "soon" is a relative word ;) They're talking some time in November the switch will take place. Guy has been on nights for 5 years, I can't believe the switch is finally going to happen! I am more than ready.

On Saturday I had some henna to do, so a friend from church watched Nico. She took Nico and her 3 kids to the Sensory Friendly Movie, they were playing Shaun the Sheep!! Nico had a lot of fun.

On Monday I had my huge aromatherapy exam. It will be 6 weeks before I hear anything about it, but I'm pretty sure I passed! Nico got to spend the morning with Papa while I was at the exam. They did legos and then walked to the park for a bit. I finished the test sooner than I thought I would, so I was back shortly after they ate lunch. Thanks for watching Nico, Papa! :)

Nico officially asked to switch to creamy peanut butter. So Guy bought some creamy peanut butter for the first time since we were married. Guy is wondering if Nico will ever want to switch back to crunchy, like Guy did when he was younger. We will see! I offered to buy them each their own kind of peanut butter but Guy said he preferred not to. He will just endure! ;)

Guy putting creamy peanut butter on his pancake. 

Nico spinning on his bottom. (break dancing) "Take a picture! Cheeeeeeeese!"

Nico had a lockdown drill at school yesterday. He told me about it as soon as I picked him up. Mommy! he said. When a guy comes in, you turn off the lights and close the door and you get in a line and you are really quiet and then you go outside (they have a door to the outside from their room).

Last night while he was in bed not going to sleep, he said "Mommy I don't want to go to school!" I asked him how come and he said "I don't want a lock down!" it turns out he doesn't like the loud noise of a possible fire drill. He doesn't like those. He asked me over and over if there was going to be a loud noise at school and I kept telling him I didn't know, but that the loud noise was good because it tells you there's an emergency. The conversation was getting nowhere and around in circles we went, so I told him we'd talk about it in the morning.

On the way to school today he asked me if they were going to do a fire drill and I said I didn't know, and that was that.

Hearing about lock down drills reminds me to pray for his school and for his safety. What a good reminder! The principal also sent an email out that day to tell all the parents they did lock down drills.

I forgot to post some pictures from last week when we climbed the Camel's Back Hill! We did it on a whim and it was so much fun.

At the TOP

Looking down the way we came

VIDEO!