A Weekend Recap

 Last week M had Swiftie Science camp. She was delighted to show us all the guitar she made.

Instead of a movie on Friday, we watched the Opening Ceremonies because we love the Olympics. We made our traditional Olympic ring cookies to celebrate. 

Here's the thing: I thought the opening ceremony was weird. I did not take offense to the "last supper" mostly because it wasn't really last supper-ish. Since we watched the recap I knew others had said it was sacrilegious and offensive but... I just didn't get that sense of it at all. 

People standing by a table does not necessarily mean Jesus. DaVinci isn't French and despite what many are saying I just got more Dionysus/Greek/Olympia vibes than Jesus vibes. I honestly don't think the intent was to insult Christians. But I also saw the recap and maybe it was edited down dramatically after the initial outrage. 

I was honestly more taken aback by the heading to the bedroom part... and the Marie Antoinette headlessness. (Like, you have all of history of your country and you went with that?!) 

We've been enjoying the Olympics though! 

Saturday M and I went to see Pinkalicious the Musical together. We had a nice time. 

And really, that's all I have to show for the weekend. We watched a lot of swimming, fencing, gymnastics and a little bit of volleyball and some other sports too. 

Now we are ready for a good week! 

Christmas in July

Yesterday was Christmas in July! We celebrated. Not particularly interestingly but we celebrated. 

We put up the summer tree. The Hawaiian decorations and flamingo lights. 

We opened presents. My kids are 12 and 9 and I am still a sucker for Little People. 

We watched a Christmas movie and listened to Christmas music. 

We also played the new game. It's called You Laugh You're Out. The rules are pretty straight forward. And we did laugh and have a very nice time. A nice little night. 

Tonight is the opening ceremony of the Olympics. I am so excited!! 

Play Ball: A Baseball Date

 Last night, C and I went on our annual baseball game date. 

Unfortunately, there was a rain delay. But we still had fun. We ate our hot dogs in the rain while we waited.

We got Dippin Dots finally. (I had told him we could get them at the Detroit Zoo for his birthday and so I owed him! Dippin Dots in a helmet is worth the wait!) 

During the game, one of our friends came to sit with us. I love this dude in orange so much! He doesn't know that his mom and I are plotting for him to take M to prom someday but in fact, he will be escorting her. 

These two even ended up on the jumbotron but I wasn't fast enough to get a pic. 

The team lost. But dang if we didn't have a nice night. C even got a foul ball so that was awesome. I am so glad to get to spend time with my guy. He even held my hand on the way to the car still. 

A busy, messy, sweaty week!

So the fun part of last week's tire saga is that my car is our traveling car. And we were taking the kids to camp on Sunday. Womp womp. 

We ended up renting a car to get them to camp. Cars man. 

But we safely made it to camp, got them all settled and headed home. 

Monday night obviously, we didn't have power. I am quite sure the kids were fine missing out on that! 

They had a fantastic time! Here are a few pictures as proof! 

While they were gone, we tasked ourselves to clean out the basement and garage. We scheduled an excess waste pick-up for Friday before leaving to get the kids. 

We ended up with 50 bags and 5 bulky waste items. (A baby gate, high chair, and some other stuff.) 

It was very satisfying to see it all go! 

And since we had to throw out everything in our fridge, we could include that grossness in there as well! We had a full Friday morning before we even left the house, cleaning out the fridge and washing all the shelves and drawers, mowing, doing all the laundry at home, packing, vacuuming, a quick grocery trip for milk and eggs post fridge clean up. 

Then we got to our kids and it was so good to see them. We waited in the outdoor chapel. Which was nice. 

We had always planned to meet my parents in the Dells after camp. Turns out that after a heck of a week for Husband and I, we were up for some time away as well. We stayed at the Great Wolf Lodge.

So we actually just got home yesterday afternoon. We did a lot of laundry and now things are getting back to normal. Which is good. 

That's all the excitement around here! 

I Got The Power!

Hello! 

So... on Monday night about an hour after my new tire was put on my car... we had a tornado. I wish I was joking. I am not. 

The green line represents the path of the tornado.

My house is directly in the path of the green line. Not even kidding. 

We knew there was going to be some bad weather patterns and as I typically do when they call for bad weather, when I got home I put some holy water on our big tree and our house. And we didn't even lose one branch. My neighbors did not fair as well. 

There was a huge tree about 2 houses up from us that blocked the whole street in fact. 

We lost power sometime around 7:20ish pm on Monday night. 

The thing that was so crazy is that the rest of town had power just fine. It was just these neighborhoods around the green line. Work was also in the path, not as directly under the green line as my house but enough that there wasn't any power and work was closed yesterday too. 

So I spent the day at the library and my friend's house, charging my phone and keeping cool. 

And just as I was getting home from my friend's house power got restored about 4:00 pm yesterday afternoon. Thank you linemen! And God! I really thrive with electricity. 

We are very grateful that we just have a fridge of food spoiled as our only damage. Easily replaced and dealt with. 

Though... it's been a pretty full week of craziness with some work news, my car and this storm, it'd sure be okay with me if we could have some calmness for a few days. 

A Middle of July update

When I tell you I haven't taken one interesting picture since I last blogged, believe me! 

Last week I spent the week at home with the kids and I'd love to tell you it was exciting but honestly, it was just super chill.

We've been working to get ahead of the game for 4th grade and that's the year of learning all the state capitals. So I made Mom's version of flash cards.

Funny enough this was enough information to keep her interest and help her remember Harrisburg. She's gone from about 12 memorized to about 25 or 30 in a week so I am hopeful we can get those into her brain early. 

C got his hair cut. And then we got McDonald's for lunch because they're in the same parking lot. 

This made me laugh. I sent it to a friend who is taking her family to Germany both in jest and solidarity. M is going through a phase where she hates all food. 

I had a show to see. It was okay. 

And really that's it for interesting. Except for my tire saga. Long story short: ended up with a nail in my tire and it couldn't be repaired. (Why is it always my driver's side rear tire that acts up? I'm going to have to start holy watering it.) 

A new tire was ordered and it came in today so this evening it will go on. That will be good. It came at a very inconvenient time though as these things do. 

More of interest soon, I promise!

July is Off and Running

I would love to tell you that July has been thrilling and fun so far... but it's been pretty low-key. Which to be honest, is more my speed. 

The Mississippi is flooding which has closed a bunch of roads downtown. It truly hasn't affected our family much though the kids took a 3 day sculpture camp at the art museum and parking was a nightmare. But compared to entire towns being destroyed by tornadoes and water that's not really a problem. 

The art camp was fun for the kids though. We haven't gotten an email to come pick up the sculptures, we have to wait for them to be fired and completed. I also didn't take any pictures of the experience but trust me they went. 

Our 4th of July looks pretty much exactly the same as our holiday has always looked. We made a flag strawberry lasagna which has been our tradition for 3 years now. 

We watched The Music Man, we had a cookout of hot dogs, grilled corn and potatoes, and then watched Macy's Fireworks on TV with our glowsticks party. 

M had a fishtail braid which held up nicely and added a lovely wave to her hair for a few days too. 

On the 5th we went to see Despicable Me 4. 

And we liked it a lot. C was over the moon excited because he's always always loved all the movies from the franchise. 

We took him to see The Minion Movie for his first big movie theater experience. Then a few years later, Despicable Me 3 was M's first big movie theater experience. We definitely saw Minions Rise of Gru in the theatre. 

I took a group of kids to see Despicable Me in the theater for a field trip back in 2010. So that means of a franchise of 6 movies total, my kids saw 4 in the theater and I saw 5. That's pretty great actually. 

We took a trip to the pet store where Santiago got himself a new floating Betta Log. Because he's been looking bored lately so we figured changing things up in the tank was a fun idea.

And we did not buy a kitten. Though 2/4 of us really wanted to! 

So that's what we have been up to. This week is low-key, we are staying on top of not ruining our minds or letting them turn to mush and working ahead for the school year.