What's Up With Us? (Spoiler: Not much.)

It's been 2 weeks. I still don't have much to share. 

We went to see Fiddler on the Roof. 

I really like Fiddler on the Roof. This one was just okay. But the Tevye was really good which made up for the okayness. 

The kids went to my parent's house for a week. I went up to join them for a few days. My heart really needed to just be home again. That sounds weird. I haven't lived with my parents in 14 years and it seems like I shouldn't still think of it as "home" and I don't usually. Nevertheless, I really needed some Minnesota time. 

We went out for pancakes. 

Then we went to Ikea. C and M, God bless them, have very different homework vibes. C drops everything and completes his homework immediately. M has a snack, wanders around, complains, and then completes her homework while sighing loudly. 

It's not C's favorite and as he's officially a middle schooler we decided it was time for him to have his own space to work instead of trying to deal with his sister at the same table. 

So we went shopping for desks. Among other things. 

Two years ago we went to Ikea and M liked this bed. She still likes this bed. I still like this bed. This bed doesn't fit in her tiny tiny room where her bed can go. 

We drove home. M took this picture. It's very Iowa to me. 

And here is C's desk all set up. This is before I added his supply drawer thing to the shelf. It has glue, tape, pencils, pens, markers and crayons. Plus a ruler. 

C had a big couple of days. He went to a workshop to audition for the state honor choir. He was called in for his first professional audition. (The picture below.) He didn't get the part but that's okay. It would have been cool but also a lot of hard work and missed school. 

Then he had another audition for a local choir and he did get into that and it starts Monday. 

M got her hair cut. This was the before picture as I was telling her where I thought she should cut her hair to. 

She had differing opinions than me and it's her hair. (And was still within reason of what I would like. Bottom line, she needs it to be able to go into a bun for soccer so as long as it could do that I was fine since it's her hair and she's 9 and gets an opinion on what she wants.) 

And she looks lovely. 

Of course she still looks lovely days later but the salon always does such a nice blowout and air drying just never looks as good you know? 

Mixed in this week was Husband and I's 14-year anniversary. We went to the Vigil Mass for the Assumption, and then I had a baptism class for a couple with a complicated situation where they're racing to baptize their baby before her dad is transferred to a care facility that's quite far away. So our very fancy family anniversary dinner was... Kentucky Fried Chicken. Which I think seems right for our stage of life anyway. 

This made me laugh. 

And really, that's all I know. It's not much. 

Funny Friday!

I took absolutely no pictures of this week. None. 

But I did screenshot quite a few things that made me laugh or smile. 

We've all been following the baby walrus in Alaska closely. You know how C loves Walruses! 

Not even going to pretend this didn't make me laugh out loud. 

This made me chuckle. Since it's obviously the thinking chair. 

This isn't so much funny as it is true for me. Pretty much sums up the last few weeks for me. 

We have been watching a lot of Olympics! And I do love the Olympics! 

I for sure laughed out loud at this one. Is this everywhere? Is the midwest laying claim to something everyone does? 

And this is also so true. 

Anyway... it's August. And that's all I really know. Hopefully something made you smile here too. If not, you're welcome for the look inside my brain today. Enjoy your weekend!

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.