Labor Day & Bak two Skool

We spent some time staining the deck on Labor Day.  Nate had already worked on it a few times while I stealthily stayed away, but I ran out of excuses.  My folks came over and my dad helped us stain while my mom kept the kids occupied.  Turns out it's as tedious and monotonous as I imagined it would be and it's still not done.

Yesterday was the 1st day of school.  Michael gets on the bus at 7 am 'cuz middle school begins around 7:30.  Elementary school starts at 8:30 so Adrienne and Nicky get to sleep in later.  They're in 6th, 4th, and 1st grades.

Zach is in a 'playgroup' for speech/articulation that meets Weds. & Thurs. a.m. so he headed off this morning for the very first time.

It seemed a bit wrong to send off someone in a little Elmo/Cookie Monster jacket all by himself.  And it was a weird feeling to walk back into an eerily quiet house.  I've done this 3 times before but always had someone younger at home.  Transitions, sniff.  I heard from the speech teacher already and she said Zach is having a fun time, so that's good...that he's doing just fine...without me...

I bet they'll never call when they go to college...

last single digit b-day

Adrienne turned 9 last week.  She demanded a cookie cake like Daddy and Nicky had for their b-days.

Lots of other exciting things happened recently too.  Nate power washed the deck.  It turned out to be a heck of a lot of work, but it made a big difference.   Now for the staining.

Nicky lost his first tooth (if you don't count the upper one he knocked out years ago).

Nate and I camped kid-less at Lake Byllesby Regional Park.  It was freaky windy all night which was spooky and had me contemplating our defenseless position.  I was a little worried we wouldn't hear it in time if a crazed murderer snuck up on us.  Not that it would have helped to see an ax murderer advancing our way, come to think of it.  What would we have done, thrown marshmallows at him? 

A swan mooned us.

A Zach pic just 'cuz.

Adventure in the Dells

Yesterday we got back from a long weekend in Wisconsin Dells.  It was the kids' & my first time there, and Nate has only vague memories of vacationing there around age 5.  We stayed in a 'Resort' that probably looked fabulous in the 80's.  Our stay included wristbands for Mt. Olympus Park that were good every day of our stay, so we went twice.  It has more waterpark-type options than our local Valleyfair but doesn't compare otherwise.  I was surprised how the Dells & surrounding area looked.  There were too many kitschy attractions and most of them are crammed right next to each other on a busy, narrow, pothole-laden road. 

We had a fun time riding the Original Wisconsin Ducks.  They weighed something crazy like 7 or 8 tons but could navigate turns and hills pretty well.  The driver told corny jokes the whole time.

The Dells view from our Duck boat

We also saw the Tommy Bartlett Ski, Sky, & Stage Show which was okay but didn't have enough waterskiing action - half of it was jugglers and random Vegas-type acts.

Lower left - some dude with a big head sat in front of us right before the show started.  Argh.

Our kids are not the strongest swimmers yet so we couldn't take full advantage of the waterpark action.  Adrienne was the biggest daredevil.  She went on one of the big ones at Mt. Olympus, but stood in line for an eternity.  Good thing they had just as much fun at the little waterslide at our hotel:

Poor Zach wanted to go on every single ride he saw.  He was content once we found the kiddie rides, though.

And just for kicks, I'll end with this goofy pic of Z.  Must have been a bumpy landing.

dog days

Summer should be hot and sunny but not disgusting, and last week was just that.  Not the greatest timing for Michael's tennis camp, but what can you do.  At least it was in the morning.

 

It was also the week of our county fair.  We stumbled around there for a few hours on Wednesday night until a cranky sweaty Zach decided we should go.  I went back on Saturday to do a shift at the MCCL booth.  Up this week:  middle school orientation/picture day for Michael.  We're hoping to cram in a family vacation before school starts, too.

So long, Mr. Rogers

The kids and I had a movie night last night.  I made them watch one I enjoyed as a kid, Disney's Swiss Family Robinson.  They mostly liked it.  It has just enough action and adventure to entertain even modern instant-gratification kids.  But during a few sequences when the characters would dare to have conversations, the kids' attention would immediately start to drift.  I had to tell them to hang on, there's a good part coming up - some animal fun, or explosions, or some pirate will fall off a cliff.

Back in my day we didn't have instant everything.  No cell phones or internet.  Microwaves were the new thing, but they took longer to cook stuff then.  These days we take offense if a web page takes more than 4 seconds to load.  TV commercials flash images in strobe-light fashion while blaring fast paced music or voice-overs.  I worry sometimes whether my kids will be stuck with the attention span of a gnat.  You can try to limit TV, computer, video game time etc., but the cultural influences are all around us.  They aren't entertained by things like good old Mr. Rogers re-runs.  He sits too still and talks too calmly and peacefully, I guess.

mi hija bonita

Adrienne now has the palatal expander in her mouth.  Her speech is affected by it, but not as much as I was afraid it would be (after reading horror stories on the net).  I have to crank it wider once a day, which causes her some discomfort.

Yesterday was Nate's birthday.  Due to limited options, he got a pre-decorated butterfly & flowers cookie cake that we had to neutralize with a little masculinity.  Who else can boast of having a hermaphrodite cake on their b-day?

Lily the cute

We are puppy-sitting Lily the Yorkie-Poo for a few days. 

On our way to the park, she hitched a ride with Zach when she didn't want to walk more than a block.

Our 12 lb. cat Bruiser is intimidated by 3.5 lbs of puppy power.  Sorry for the unfortunate reference to the most annoying dog in t.v. history:

My own future little dog is tentatively named Sophie the Ridiculous.  I have 'threatened' Nate that with the kids growing older, I might lose my marbles and get a small dog to primp and coddle.  I used to be a fan of big dogs, but after having 4 babies I find absurdly small things to be darn cute.

unwilling economy stimulators

We've been doing our part to stimulate the economy of the south-of-the-river suburbs.  Nate came home from work early on Friday so I could go to an orthodontist appointment to discuss financial arrangements for Adrienne's soon to be installed spacer.  He was also going to wait for our contractor to come pick up his final payment on the rebuilding/repair of the retaining wall that creates our side parking pad.

Nate had some news for me when the ortho appointment was over.  Our car's radiator sort of exploded just after he'd gotten home, pouring smelly steamy smokey stuff into the garage.  He ushered the boys inside and told them to go the basement, then hunted down the fire extinguisher.  He ended up just hosing it off, and called a tow truck.

Three expensive things to deal with in one weekend.  Oh the folly of having kids with teeth, and buying a house with a sub-par parking pad, and driving a car.  But, as my dad says, things are rough all over.

Altar Server Michael

Michael went through altar server training at church several months ago and finally served for the first time at Mass yesterday.  Luckily, none of the doomsday scenarios I had imagined occurred.  He didn't trip and drop the candle and light the pulpit on fire or anything.

Here he is afterwords - I thought I might get a picture of him in his alb, but it never seemed quite appropriate.

Mmm, sundae cones.

a skateboarder & a cheerleader

Michael finished skateboard camp yesterday.  He had fun while learning some new things, and even managed to avoid injury.

Adrienne is in a weekly cheerleading class through mid-August.  She was already a loud drama-queen, just needed some choreography to go with it.

Speaking of A, here are a few more of her 3rd grade journal entries.

1/7/10
If I were in charge of school lunches, I would do ice cream, just ice cream.  I have a poem called Ice cream.
Ice cream.
Ice cream.
Ice cream.
THE END
If you like the song, leave a message after the beep.
Beep.

(Date unknown)
A person part of body I admire is my finger.  I admire my finger because boys are scared of it.  And that's all I can think of.

2/11/10 - (All entries are now in cursive, oo la la....)
If I could change one thing about myself I would change nothing.  I would change nothing because mother told me to never wish I was somebody else.  Father told me that...well, he did not tell me anything.

3/15/10
Over the weekend I went on a walk, sort of.  Sort of because I rode my scooter.  Guess what?  I have bad news.  What is the bad news?  I fell down twice.  One more thing, I got my BEST pants all muddy.