Intentional Outdoor Hours: 682+ hours (of 1000)
yeah, up nothing. not impressed with myself.
Reading and finishing Recursion by Blake Crouch. Mind blown, as always. I just don't even have words. Our Books&Brews book club met at The Back Door Cafe on Thursday night to eat ah.may.zang food and discuss Before We Were Yours by Lisa Wingate
Calling in the Calvary this week as we were way in over our heads with all the places everyone needed to be. B had training every day this week at St. Francis, so he had to leave at the same time as me each morning. The Garrettsons put the big kids on the bus for us 3 times this week while Abba and Chum each took a morning too (driving all the way out to our house by 7a!) My Dad (Chum) picked up the kids from the bus on Monday and kept Gem after school (which she loved) and then kept the babies all day Thursday (#schoolskippers) until my Mum (Abba) took Violet to her well-check on Thursday afternoon for me. (thank you so so much!)
Listening to the sweet, melodic sounds at Grey's recorder concert. hah. But for real, they all did good and Grey was so proud to give me the thumbs up when it was time for Hot Cross Buns (which I've been telling him is my favorite of his repertoire).
Road-tripping to Hershey to see Jurassic World Live! B snagged box seat tickets for our whole family from an opportunity with work and the kids loved it. We are Jurassic Park fans around here and so to see it this way was such a treat. And since we were in the neighborhood, we stopped by for an afternoon visit with our Gilmore cousins to everyone's delight. The girls played quietly and sweetly while the boys all played loudly and dangerously and the parents all laughed and chatted. perfection!
Laughing as the kids all jumped around Monkey Joe's on the way home from Hershey. Our kids are movers so driving 6 hours in one day was not going to cut it in those antsy bodies. We let them hop, slip, and bounce those wiggles out before heading home on Saturday. What is better than a bouncy house? A whole building filled with bouncy houses!
Feeling like an attraction when we go out as a family. We normally only all go out together if it is to a family/friends' house or a place everyone already knows us (church, school activities, sports); so it's uncharacteristic for us all to be somewhere together where there are strangers. Because #expensive and #weareloud and #wearealotofpeople. But we were all out together on Saturday in unfamiliar territory with two parents, four kids, and a clearly pregnant belly and good grief - the questions, comments, and double takes. Yes, they are all ours. Yes, we have our hands full. Yes, we are tired. Yes, we know how babies get made. No, Rusty and Violet are not twins. No, Greyson and Gemma are not twins. Yes, we are probably crazy. Like in real life, random parents with 1-3 kids were coming up to us at the bouncy house place being like, "how do you guys do it? I'm not kidding, do you have tips?" and we were like, "what? dude, it's chaos. just like at your house. only louder and messier because there are more of them. we don't know what we're doing either!" As Brandon is telling people, "the shit has already hit the fan and all over the walls - what's another diaper at this point?"
Fall Sports season closing with the End of the year banquet on Sunday. All of our planning came together and the banquet went off beautifully. The food was delicious (Flair of Country), the kids loved playing Just Dance before dinner, the coaches received lots of handmade thank you cards from our craft table, and we had enough of everything (food, drinks, gifts), and best of all - it's done!
Winter sporting. yep. on to the next. Grey is playing on two teams in the Duke Andrews basketball league. So he has practices on Mondays from 4:30-6:30p. He's obsessed. And we all wished Daddy a happy "not the first day of basketball season" day on Monday which felt amazing.
Teaching Spanish 1 jobs & places vocab as we start Somos Unit 4 and they also finished their free write on the personal interviews and they were amazing!! Their initial reactions of panic when I told them they had to be a minimum of 100 words completely flipped into impressed and confident faces as most of them wrote well over 100 words for their essays. So stinking proud. Spanish 2 started the pre-research for their next novel El Silbon while learning about Venezuela and Spanish 2 Honors worked on finishing their short spooky stories (I can't wait to read them!) Spanish 3 Honors finished La Llorona de Mazatlan (!) and started writing their short stories inspired by her legend.
Teaching additions this week - I got another formal observation in by my mentor teacher for my college requirements, registered for my Spring college courses, ordered the Spanish club fundraising from Popcornoplis, I enjoyed my favorite school lunch of the year, Thanksgiving dinner (!), and our Spanish club visited the elementary school for their monthly visit (they taught numbers!). The prom committee and I met on Friday and organized all the raffle tickets to be distributed next week and discussed caterer options too. And I received the best gift from my classroom fairy godmother, Ashley, this week - a wax warmer for my room! All year, kids have been commenting that my room smells like feet (HAH), and we think it's because I have no windows that open and all the dancing that happens in there when we have to close the door to make sure no one is disturbed in the hallway with our music. So many kids have commented this week about how great the room smells with our new wax warmer. Thank you so so much, Ashley!
Making ham & potato soup, chicken & pasta alfredo bake, using left-over pulled pork to put over mashed potatoes, eating left over chicken with mac&cheese, and chicken quesadillas. We have been doing pretty well getting one meal a week at our dining room table as a family (other nights the kids eat at the kitchen table while B and I stand -hahahhaa, most parent thing ever - or the kids eat first and then we eat together at the kitchen table. Some nights we eat as a family in front of the tv watching The Voice!)
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