I guess I'll start with this past week since my memory doesn't go much farther than that. :) Some awesome lady that I didn't know started a "running" group for homeschoolers. Not really just running, but I think she's a runner and was trying to find something for her kids to do to be active with other kids without spending a fortune and ruining ever weeknight dinner and killing family time. So she decided to start one and I will be forever grateful. It's for an hour on Tuesday and Thursday afternoons. No commitments, you just comment (on FB) if you're going to be there that day and you show up. No cost, not too long, etc. It really is so fun for the kids! And I love getting to know other homeschool families in our community. Several families from CC are also there, so it's neat for the kids to be able to continue to grow those friendships, especially since last week we just finished CC for the year.
Wednesday nights Tyler and I go to cub scouts from 7-8:30, except for when I have committee meeting and then I bring all the kids with me at 6 and Kenny comes around 6:45 to pick them up and switch me cars. They moved me from being the Bear den leader, to now being the Wolf den leader so I'm actually over Tyler. It's a fun group of boys and I'm starting to get the hang of things. They're changing the entire scouting program and how everything works, and implementing it June 1st. But it seems like a much better/organized/simpler system so I'm excited about the changes.
Kenny always has EQ visits on Thursday nights.
This Friday he had work off (which is my favorite). I took all the kids (except Briggs) to the dentist. We just started going to this pediatric dentistry and holy cow it's awesome. I never had such a lovely dentist experience when I was a kid! It's like electronics galore haha. They have 4 wall-mounted tablet things for the kids to play in the waiting room (if they're not watching the movie, of course) and then they pick a movie to watch while they have their teeth cleaned! It's a bit over the top for me, but I guess it makes their jobs easier when the kids are distracted with a movie. Anyway they're all ecstatic about their new toothbrushes and I'm ecstatic because we all walked away with no cavities again! Woohoo!
Kenny worked on building the chicken coop (for the 3rd weekend in a row). Andy and Shalee and their kids came out in the afternoon and we were so glad to have them. Andy was a huge help to Kenny and they made a lot of good progress on the coop. They even stayed over for the night and the kids think it's pretty fun to have a sleep-over. They left pretty early this morning though and Kenny spent almost the whole day finishing up that blasted chicken coop. We didn't think about it before and failed to measure the height of the garage door! So he had it all ready to go and we couldn't get it out of the stupid door. Seriously!! It was like half an inch too tall and just would not go. So we decided to take a break and took the kids swimming at the indoor swimming pool at Wasilla high school. We have been trying to go to H2Oasis since that's what their reward was supposed to be for filling up the fuzzy jar. But it's just so hard to get down there--takes a lot of time when it's over an hour away. Luckily they had a great time at this pool. I have such a hard time watching the kids struggle with swimming or just not be very good swimmers because it's what I grew up doing. Madison feels like it's a great victory when she sticks her face in the water and it's just so different from when I was that age and jumping off the diving board and swimming around no problem. I'd love for them to have more swimming/water exposure. But we live in Alaska. And so it costs a lot of money each time we go swimming in a real pool. There are a few times where they swim in the freezing lakes during the summer, but not much.
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| Briggs and I didn't go swimming because he has a cold and cough, so I didn't want him in the cold water. But here's a cute shot of him in the bath tub! :) |
Back to the chickens...Kenny had to prop the whole thing up with 2x4's and then saw off each of the leg pieces and then screw them back in, so that it brought the entire structure down 2 inches. Anyway, after many more hours and a lot of work, the coop was ready to go outside finally!!! He put wheels on a couple different times to make it easier to roll out of the garage and into the backyard, but the wheels just weren't big enough to hold the weight and they kept like busting out. It was such a headache. One problem after another. Finally, our neighbors saw us struggling big time. Me trying to push one end and Kenny pulling the whole thing up on a rope and hoisting it over his shoulders like Jean Valjean, with these crazy winds we've been having and it's gusting like 30 mph and the doors of the coop keep flying open and we're trying to tape them shut cuz we don't have latches yet....you get the picture. Luckily they were kind neighbors (the Ruff's) and had a cool dolly thing and so I was pushing that end on wheels, while the men were at the other end and we got it to the backyard after a while. :) SO now the chickens are outside and there to stay. We will get to cleaning up the garage another time.
But he did such a good job on it and it really looks like a nice thing. If we ever decide to get rid of the chickens it could easily be turned into a fun fort house for the kids, or even a shed (which is a much more practical and plausible option). I'm proud of Kenny for always tackling problems head on. He is such an incredible problem solver and just has the stubbornness of like a thousand mules. I recently re-read the book The Old Man and the Sea and was amazed at how much that old man reminded me of my husband! I was getting so frustrated with this old man and thinking, I would never do this! I would turn my boat around and go home, it's just a dumb fish! Go back when you have more help or you're more prepared. But I realized that this character did EXACTLY what Kenny would do in that situation and I had to laugh. I told him about it and how much he reminded me of that. He said he couldn't tell if this was an insult or a compliment haha! I said, "well it's both, I guess. Depends on the situation." Sometimes it drives me absolutely crazy at how stubborn and bull-headed he can be. But it sure comes in handy other times :).
Oh and when we were moving the chicken coop and our neighbors were helping, she asked if our kids were in bed and I said yeah they are. She said, "wow an 8:00 bedtime! You're lucky!" I thought that was a funny and interesting comment. I wanted to say "there's no luck about it! they certainly don't put themselves to bed!"
I'm trying to train for the Mayor's Half Marathon at the end of June. Kenny's doing it with me and he does awesome running every day during his lunch break at work. But it's incredibly hard for me to find time to run. I have to have it done before he leaves at 6:30 in the morning, or I can't go until after 7:00 at night, and even then we have stuff 3 nights a week where I can't do it. So it's been really hard and inconsistent training. But I'm getting there. I also decided I'm a fair-weather runner. I hate running when it's really dark and freezing cold or when the wind is blowing 25-35 mph. I just like nice, sunny days :). But I don't live in the right state for that, so I'm trying to suck it up and get over that. I remember back when I could just put Tyler in the stroller and go, or even Tyler and Brynlee in the jogging stroller and go for a run. It doesn't work with 5. Although, one Saturday a few weeks ago I brought Brynlee with me. She rode her bike next to me while I ran. We went like 3.6 miles and she did awesome! Didn't complain once and even had a great time. That was fun.
We stopped going to gymnastics as of last week. Brynlee decided she didn't want to go and kept complaining whenever the day came. I thought that was silly and I certainly wasn't going to force her to do it--she was only in because she loved it! But I think it was just too much structured work for her personality. She only liked "free time" she said. :) And really it took up so much time on Fridays, and when Kenny has every other Friday off it pretty much ruined our chances of going anywhere or doing anything as a family. So I thought it was good for the time we went and got us through the winter, but we're done. A lot of things are wrapping up for the year--it's a fun time of change. I already mentioned their CC class was done now, and their Mat-Su classes will be done soon, this next week is their last one.
We started a new curriculum called The Family School. It's an online curriculum put out by the American Heritage school, which my grandpa and grandma founded. They were running this special deal where you could get access to all the curriculum for only $1 a month, until the end of August and then if you want to keep it the price goes up, or you can cancel it. Right now we're only 2 weeks into it but I really like it and think it's been a great thing for our family. It's secular learning with a heavy emphasis on the gospel right alongside it, so it's been good. I realize spring is a weird time to start a new curriculum, but hey isn't that the beauty of homeschooling?! Total freedom. :) You can mix it up whenever you want.
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