Miscalculated

You know when you go to store and find the shortest line. There's a lady almost done with her large order and you hear those dreaded words '"Oh, I'm going to have to take a couple things off". The guy behind you sighs and switches lanes, but you feel stuck because most of you groceries are already on the belt. You try to look sympathetic as she looks your way and apologizes. The lady starts digging through items that have already been bagged. Her children seem to take this as their cue to start arguing about whose turn it is on the mechanical pony, and come whining to her just as she hands back the box of donuts. Her child witnesses this and cries out about not getting the donuts and how she had promised they could have them. Her other children start pushing at each other and messing around. She's trying to comfort one child, discipline the others, and still dig through her items, to reach a manageable total.You can tell she is both embarrassed by her children's behavior as well as having to void off so many items, you're thinking just get out of the store already. You see the guy who switched lanes walking out the store with his order bought and bagged; just as the lady finally leaves.

We've all been there right, behind the dreaded "Please void this" lady. How many of us have been that lady? Today that lady was me. Those misbehaving kids were mine. That stack of voided items were mine. It's a horrible feeling opening your wallet and realizing that the $50 that was there, you spent it two days ago on gas; and now you have to be the "Please void this" lady.  I can tell you I wanted to get out of the store as fast as the lady behind me wanted me out. My kids wanted to get out of the store as fast as the lady behind me wanted them out.

How to you respond when we get stuck behind THAT lady?  Do you empathize with her, knowing how she might be feeling? Are you the guy who sighs heavily and switches lanes?

Finally Skating!

We usually don't get to skate much, there isn't a rink anywhere close to our home. After attempting to go Monday the boys were really looking forward to going. We ventured back down there to skate, knowing for sure they would be open. When we pulled up there was only a handful of cars (again), this time knowing better than to assume we had the whole place almost to ourselves, my first thought was they closed today for some reason or another or I had gotten the times wrong. Thankfully when we pulled on the door handle they were open. Plus there was maybe 15 other people there. Halleluiah! We'd get to skate! After trying on many pairs of skates to find some that actually fit or didn't have the soles ripped out of them, we hit the stake floor. Jordan took off with out a backwards glance and Joey was right behind him. Jacob made his way to the partition wall and slowly worked his way around the rink. After locating and storing everyone shoes into an over priced locker, I set out to catch up with my boys. For about an hour and half I alternated between whipping around with Jordan to skate dancing with Joey, and keeping Jacob company as we made our way cautiously around. After a quick rehydration break, Jordan and Joey reluctantly  joined me in the Hokey Pokey and The bird dance. The DJ announce a girls only skate and I joined the other 6 females in looping around for the length of one really long song. My boys were kept entertained by waiting at the edge to slap me five as I came there way. Then it was boys only skating, all three got back out on the floor. Somehow remembering that wwwaaaayyy back in the day, that they used to do this right before a couples only song then it would be time to go; I got a jump on things and trade my wheels for my shoes and had the kids' shoes ready. Then a faster paced song came on and the DJ called everyone back to the floor; confused I looked at my clock, we still had an hour left. I thought my legs had already had enough skating, but the boys thought I could handle just one more hour. The nice lady who put my skates away allowed me to have them back and I headed back to my boys.

Slowly throughout our time there Jacob slowly started to inch his way away from the wall. During the last few songs he was rolling near the center of the rink. YAY, Jake!! I'm so proud. Joey learn to move with a little more speed and can sure put on a show with his "Skate dancing". Jordan made a couple attempts to learn to skate backwards, but preferred to whiz past everyone instead. We all had an absolute blast and plan on visiting again sooner. I'm so proud of all my boys for pushing themselves to try new things. (I'm proud of myself for staying out on the floor the whole time, and my legs for keeping me upright the while time)

 

Being close to Grandma's (again) we stopped by for my coffee and swimming for the boys. My kids sure do love hanging out at Grandma's and again we stayed way longer than planned.

That's How We Roll.......When We Can't Skate

Today's plan was to head down to the skating rink and spend a couple hours there, then head over to Grandma's for a quick dip in pool and a cup of coffee for me. The boys were looking forward to spending a few hours skating in circles. We pulled up and noticed the lack of cars and though "Cool, we've got the whole place almost all to ourselves!". Wrong!! The only day there are closed is Monday's! Go figure, right!? A nice gentleman opened the door to inform us that we were either a day late or a day early. He was very kind and gave us free admission passes. We're hoping to try again later this week.

Being that we were already down by Grandma's we'd head that way. First we needed to stop and get a new gas cap, it had snapped in two Saturday night (and I kept forgetting about it yesterday). Luck was on our side that the bowling alley is right next to the auto parts store. With a couple spare hours on our hands, why not stop. After purchasing a new cap and securing it safely back where it should be (I don't know what happens if you drive around without one. Maybe the car blows up, maybe nothing, but I wasn't chancing it.). Knowing my family is once again safe, we went bowling.

I love bowling with younger kids, because you get to use the bumpers. Oh Boy, do I use the bumpers! Joey was in the lead up until the 9th frame, I stayed 2 or 3 pins behind him the whole time (not on purpose, I'm just not that good at bowling). Jacob had a rough game, only knocking down 2 or 3 pins each frame. We came up with everyone had to wiggle their fingers to help his ball that bounced side to side down the lane reach the pins, that worked for a while. He decided it was the bowling alley, we usually play out by our house, if we were at the other one he'd have already gotten a turkey. Jordan maintained 3rd place until the 10th frame when he tied me for the win.

Having not gone swimming yet, and about coffee time for me, we went to Grandma's.  I had the fixings for water balloons in the back of the van, so we played Hot Potatoes with water balloons and balloon toss for a bit. Then got in the pool and really get wet. The pool thermometer lied, there was no way that water was 80 degrees, but not cold enough to turn our lips blue. I got in with the kids anyways, and they splashed and dunked be for a few hours. Grandma came home and rescued me by having donuts for a snack. After coffee it was time to go, the boys were reluctant to leave so we changed plans and ended up staying for dinner too.

I like to plan things ahead of time, but the last 13 years as taught me not to hold too tightly to my plans. I'm very fortunate that my boys are easy going and don't get too upset (usually) when plans change.

A Day with Good Company

Yesterday was Jordan's last day volunteering at the nature center at one of our metro parks. He loves helping out there and is going to reapply for next summer. He would have continued through the school year, but I want him to focus on his school work.

While we were out that way we had made plans to meet up with some friends that the boys won't be seeing at school anymore. We met at the nature center and they got to see Jordan doing his thing showing the critters to everyone. Our friends did a picture scavenger hunt while we were there, then we walked the half mile nature trail. While on the trail my boys tried their hand at photography by taking pictures of things in nature that were interesting to them. I limited them to 10 pictures so they had to be choosey about what you wanted to capture. We headed over near the newest playground to set up for our barbeque, due to it being such a lovely day it was too crowded. We found a small picnic grove a little ways down, where we had the whole area to ourselves. The boys played Frisbee, catch, and just ran around while they waited for our meats to cook. An extra bonus was that my boys friends' dad was there and the absolutely adore him. Jordan likes that he can joke around and rough house with him, he won't get into trouble for being too rough (or snotty). After dinner the kids made s'mores, then we headed back to the playground. It was starting to get later and we thought we head over by the boats to watch the sun set over the water. As we rounded up kids, we had just missed the sun on the horizon. Now with the sun down it was time to pack up and head home.

It was a wonderful day spent outdoors with great company. Although we won't get to see our friends as often now that my boys are going to a different school, we'll still make a point for more get-togethers like we had yesterday.

3 Ring Circus

So times I feel like I live in circus, today that was pretty close to a reality (but in a good way). We went to a Touch a Truck event. We have been to this event the past couple years and loved it. I wasn't really impressed with the limited numbers of trucks that were there. We however checked out the petting farm and exotic animals, where we met up with some of our friends from our neighborhood. There was a tent set up for Macomb Children's Hands-on museum, the kids did a couple neat experiments and took a closer look at some creepy critters. The museum isn't built yet, but they were getting word out about it, and raising funds for the build. (I'm excited to have a Hand-on museum closer to where we live). They also had a short circus act. Before the act the kids had a chance to try out some of the equipment. They were determined to stay upright on the unicycle; Jordan did really good, but didn't quiet manage it. Jacob liked the tightrope and after several attempts could make it also halfway. Joey floated between all the activities. being a big kid myself, of course I tried to do all the stuff the boys did; just not as gracefully. We all tried out the bike with the giant wheels. While a guy helped the boys navigate their way, he gave me instructions and sent me out on my own. It was a lot harder to pedal when you are not situated with the pedals beneath you and steering was confusing until you got the hang of it. We watched the act and if course they made it all look extremely easy. We grabbed an elephant ear (that we didn't get to have at the fair) and were headed home. Almost to the van, we stopped to watch the pig races. It was so crowded near the pig race track, that only the younger two were able to wiggle their way close enough to see anything. From what the kids told me it was so cool, they got to watch the pigs swim in the 3rd race.

 

After a couple hours of fun at the event it was back to Grandma and Papa's to run through the sprinkler and jump in the pool. They are trying to get in as much swimming as they can before it is time to close down the pool. They're in the freezing cold water with purple lips saying that the thermometer says 80 degrees, so they're good to swim

Soda Geysers...More of a fizzle

A few years ago my cousins did this really cool soda geyser. This thing shot many feet in the air. The boys and I thought we would give it a try. Even though we didn't have the neat little tube my cousin had that stopped the mints. Joey came up with using an empty pill bottle upside down with a hole cut into it. It only held 5 mints so we fit a toilet paper tube around the bottle so it would hold all the candies. Jordan made a stopper out of cardboard that we could pull out of the way with a long piece of yarn. We gather some original Mentos candies, some soda, and our own homemade tube, and headed to the park. (There was now way I was chancing having soda explode all over my yard). We set them up, Joey was first, he yanked the string and we watched the soda shoot up a whole foot from the bottle. Not what was supposed to happen. Jordan thought he'd try dropping the mints in with out using the tube. He managed to get 5 or 6 in before it started to erupt, again only about a foot high. Jake used our contraption but only put in 5 candies. His only bubbled out the top. Determined to make this work they even tried shaking the bottles with the mints that were already in there. They tried to shake up the soda and drop in a few more mints. It just wasn't happening for us.  

Although our geysers weren't nearly as impressive as we had hoped they would be, they were glad we had attempted them. At least they did something, even if it was just a fizzle. We  are going to  shop around for one of those tubes, so we can send soda flying higher than our heads. I have heard that the trick is to use Diet soda, so we will give that a try too. It may take us a couple tries but eventually we'll figure it. I'll post pictures when we finally get the good geysers going.

Helping hands

Our second attempt at volunteering went a lot better. The boys were really excited to help with filling the backpacks. They quickly fell into a pattern to efficiently fill the packs. Jordan filled the pencil boxes with some of the small supplies, pencils, sharpners, scissors, etc. Joey put in notebooks, a ruler, and folders. Jake checked to make sure everything was in them before moving them to the finished pile. They were able to fill all the backpacks that were available which was 60+. 

 

After taking a lunch break they wanted to go back and complete more. During our break time the people from the pantry went shopping for more packs. The boys made quick work of most of those packs too. They also prepped the supplies so that after a dinner break they can come back to help with more of the filling. It became too late in the evening to return, the boys are hopeful that we will receive a call tomorrow inviting them back. There is still some more work to be done, they would like to see this project through.

 

They really enjoyed helping out. This was a perfect volunteering opportunity for our family. I'm so thankful that we're able to get connected with the right people and participate with the project. This has also sparked their interest and they are looking forward to future volunteering chances.

We also had helpful hands pet sitting for a friend that is out of town for a couple days. They have gotten a taste of what it is like to take care of a dog. They have had to make sure they wake up early enough to head over and let the dog out and to feed him. Also stop by during the day to let him back out, and again at night to feed him and let him out again. They like that the dog was excited to see them (our cat could care less about when we're home and when we're not).