Summer Break week 3
As week three of summer break came to a rainy, flash flooding danger, severe thunderstorm warning close (on Friday), I thought that I would recap it.
This was the first week of summer break that felt like summer break. The newness of break wasn't there; just the joy of not being in school. When the kids get older these summer days, whether rainy or sunshiny will be the halcyon days of their youth.
Jacob's week consisted of much of the usual- soccer training Mon., Wed., and Friday although we did let him skip Fast Twitch on Wednesday. He still went to open fields on Wednesday. He's persevering and I'm proud of him. He hung out with his usual cohorts- Malcolm, Casey, Calvin and Benji a little bit. He, Malcolm and Calvin all slept in a tent in Malcolm's back yard one evening. I'm not sure how that came to be, but I'm sure it wasn't Jacob's idea! I told him it sounded exciting that he'd be sleeping outside. Jacob was less than enthusiastic: "But I won't have a TV," he lamented to me. Someone has been spending too much time on Netflix and the PS4. Speaking of the PS, Jacob and his friends have begun to play video games together when they aren't together. They join together on the PlayStation network or something like that. I may have the gaming vernacular wrong, but they can play together when they aren't physically together.
Abby began a week long dance intensive through the Dayton Ballet and HATED it. By hating it, I mean she didn't even finish the week out! It was a five hour long daily intensive and when she complained and complained about it, I let her stop doing it. The intensive was mostly about ballet and the teachers assumed the girls had more ballet experience (all the other girls had a lot of ballet experience). Abby said she couldn't follow what they were doing. Then the jazz part of it was way too easy for Abby. She said the teacher had her demonstrate some of the moves because she could see how good Abby was doing them. Abby said she got a pit in her stomach when she thought about going to the intensive again. That's when I told her that she didn't have to go back. Summer break is too short to dislike something that much. She said she wanted to not go back but she didn't want to be a quitter, either. I told her that she isn't a quitter- she's been doing gymnastics for six years straight (never taking a session off) and dance for eight years straight (not ballet though, ha) (never taking a season off). Those aren't the attributes of a quitter! I was hoping she'd like the intensive and learn from it but that didn't happen.
Alyssa ran in her one and only track meet of the season on Tuesday! She did really well. She ran in the fastest heat in the 100 and lost against the 5th graders (4th and 5th compete together). Then her 4 x 100 relay had three fast runners and one not so fast runner. Unfortunately, the not so fast runner proved to be a huge liability for the team. I think they came in 3rd place. Alyssa went to Kings Island with Donnie on Tuesday after Futsol with Donnie. With the help of three layers of foot inserts, Alyssa was measured to be over 54 inches tall. That meant she got to ride on Diamondback. She loved it. I ended up taking her to Kings Island the next evening (long story...), and we rode almost all of the 54 and over rides. We had a good time but realized that we both didn't like Invertigo. I told her during one dizzying part that I may lose my Chick- Fil-A. "For real?" she asked. Like I would joke about something like that!! My nausea passed but I won't be riding that again soon or EVER.
Because of the not so great weather, I was able to get quite a bit done inside the house. The laundry room was stressing me out. Our shoe acquisition rate has been greatly exceeding the rate at which we get rid of shoes for quite some time. Many of the shoes we own end up in the laundry room (the garage door leads to the laundry room and I don't like people to wear shoes in the house so when a pair of shoes gets worn outside of the house, it ends up in the laundry room upon the show wearer's arrival inside the house via the garage). We have a system in place to accommodate a number of shoes (five individual bins plus a shoe cabinet) but not the number of shoes that were in the laundry room as of early last week. I counted the number of shoes that were in the laundry room and the number was 83. Eighty three pairs of shoes in a small room is way too many! I paired (get it?) the number down to 60, which is still high but the storage system can handle (barely) that number. It was a stress relief to get the laundry room looking better!
Additionally, taking advantage of being inside so much because of the bad weather, on Friday I completed my 2011 Shutterfly photo book. Yes, 2011. In my defense, I had 90% of it done in 2012 and then I just shelved the project. I decided this week that I needed to finish it. The girls have been having a lot of fun looking at photo albums and photo books and I really felt the need to get a movin' on my photo books. I've actually done several photo books since 2011 but they've been of specific events- all of our vacations and other special events. I want to do yearly photo books and I needed to complete 2011 before moving on to subsequent years.
Pictures from the week:
Waiting to long jump at the track meet...the girl in front of Alyssa is a grade ahead of Alyssa and is the fastest 5th grader in the track program!!
Alyssa lands after her first long jump
Airborne...
landed...
Alyssa and Ainsley watch some events
The are both defenders for CU Ajax
The laundry room- does Donnie need another pair of Adidas?? That whole bin is full of them. Ok, I'm just as bad as he is- I'm just not a uno-brand sort of shoe buyer.
Gotta have room for soccer bags...
...and coats, jackets, bags and things
The exiled from the laundry room shoes. YES!
Jacob, Emma and Casey. Although Emma looks uncomfortable in this picture, she was having a good time hanging out with Jacob and Casey. This picture just doesn't depict that!! This was one evening outside when I was hanging out with Emma's mom in her front yard.
Just a random picture of Malcolm and Abby~ This was taken the evening that the boys slept in Malcolm's backyard in a tent.
I took this picture on Thursday evening as Alyssa and I were leaving Kings Island.
I haven't actually ordered the photo book yet. I need to wait for a sale. I can be patient. I've waited four years for this, after all. I think I can handle waiting on a 50% off photobook sale.
In the meantime, I can look at it online (and dare to start 2012??). Here is the front cover.
This was the first week of summer break that felt like summer break. The newness of break wasn't there; just the joy of not being in school. When the kids get older these summer days, whether rainy or sunshiny will be the halcyon days of their youth.
Jacob's week consisted of much of the usual- soccer training Mon., Wed., and Friday although we did let him skip Fast Twitch on Wednesday. He still went to open fields on Wednesday. He's persevering and I'm proud of him. He hung out with his usual cohorts- Malcolm, Casey, Calvin and Benji a little bit. He, Malcolm and Calvin all slept in a tent in Malcolm's back yard one evening. I'm not sure how that came to be, but I'm sure it wasn't Jacob's idea! I told him it sounded exciting that he'd be sleeping outside. Jacob was less than enthusiastic: "But I won't have a TV," he lamented to me. Someone has been spending too much time on Netflix and the PS4. Speaking of the PS, Jacob and his friends have begun to play video games together when they aren't together. They join together on the PlayStation network or something like that. I may have the gaming vernacular wrong, but they can play together when they aren't physically together.
Abby began a week long dance intensive through the Dayton Ballet and HATED it. By hating it, I mean she didn't even finish the week out! It was a five hour long daily intensive and when she complained and complained about it, I let her stop doing it. The intensive was mostly about ballet and the teachers assumed the girls had more ballet experience (all the other girls had a lot of ballet experience). Abby said she couldn't follow what they were doing. Then the jazz part of it was way too easy for Abby. She said the teacher had her demonstrate some of the moves because she could see how good Abby was doing them. Abby said she got a pit in her stomach when she thought about going to the intensive again. That's when I told her that she didn't have to go back. Summer break is too short to dislike something that much. She said she wanted to not go back but she didn't want to be a quitter, either. I told her that she isn't a quitter- she's been doing gymnastics for six years straight (never taking a session off) and dance for eight years straight (not ballet though, ha) (never taking a season off). Those aren't the attributes of a quitter! I was hoping she'd like the intensive and learn from it but that didn't happen.
Alyssa ran in her one and only track meet of the season on Tuesday! She did really well. She ran in the fastest heat in the 100 and lost against the 5th graders (4th and 5th compete together). Then her 4 x 100 relay had three fast runners and one not so fast runner. Unfortunately, the not so fast runner proved to be a huge liability for the team. I think they came in 3rd place. Alyssa went to Kings Island with Donnie on Tuesday after Futsol with Donnie. With the help of three layers of foot inserts, Alyssa was measured to be over 54 inches tall. That meant she got to ride on Diamondback. She loved it. I ended up taking her to Kings Island the next evening (long story...), and we rode almost all of the 54 and over rides. We had a good time but realized that we both didn't like Invertigo. I told her during one dizzying part that I may lose my Chick- Fil-A. "For real?" she asked. Like I would joke about something like that!! My nausea passed but I won't be riding that again soon or EVER.
Because of the not so great weather, I was able to get quite a bit done inside the house. The laundry room was stressing me out. Our shoe acquisition rate has been greatly exceeding the rate at which we get rid of shoes for quite some time. Many of the shoes we own end up in the laundry room (the garage door leads to the laundry room and I don't like people to wear shoes in the house so when a pair of shoes gets worn outside of the house, it ends up in the laundry room upon the show wearer's arrival inside the house via the garage). We have a system in place to accommodate a number of shoes (five individual bins plus a shoe cabinet) but not the number of shoes that were in the laundry room as of early last week. I counted the number of shoes that were in the laundry room and the number was 83. Eighty three pairs of shoes in a small room is way too many! I paired (get it?) the number down to 60, which is still high but the storage system can handle (barely) that number. It was a stress relief to get the laundry room looking better!
Additionally, taking advantage of being inside so much because of the bad weather, on Friday I completed my 2011 Shutterfly photo book. Yes, 2011. In my defense, I had 90% of it done in 2012 and then I just shelved the project. I decided this week that I needed to finish it. The girls have been having a lot of fun looking at photo albums and photo books and I really felt the need to get a movin' on my photo books. I've actually done several photo books since 2011 but they've been of specific events- all of our vacations and other special events. I want to do yearly photo books and I needed to complete 2011 before moving on to subsequent years.
Pictures from the week:
Waiting to long jump at the track meet...the girl in front of Alyssa is a grade ahead of Alyssa and is the fastest 5th grader in the track program!!
Alyssa lands after her first long jump
Because running events were going on, I went to the other side of the long jump pit to take some pictures of Alyssa's last jump.. Unfortunately, I got a lot of shots with more than just Alyssa in them!!
Airborne...
landed...
Alyssa and Ainsley watch some events
The are both defenders for CU Ajax
The laundry room- does Donnie need another pair of Adidas?? That whole bin is full of them. Ok, I'm just as bad as he is- I'm just not a uno-brand sort of shoe buyer.
Gotta have room for soccer bags...
...and coats, jackets, bags and things
The exiled from the laundry room shoes. YES!
Jacob, Emma and Casey. Although Emma looks uncomfortable in this picture, she was having a good time hanging out with Jacob and Casey. This picture just doesn't depict that!! This was one evening outside when I was hanging out with Emma's mom in her front yard.
Just a random picture of Malcolm and Abby~ This was taken the evening that the boys slept in Malcolm's backyard in a tent.
I took this picture on Thursday evening as Alyssa and I were leaving Kings Island.
I haven't actually ordered the photo book yet. I need to wait for a sale. I can be patient. I've waited four years for this, after all. I think I can handle waiting on a 50% off photobook sale.
In the meantime, I can look at it online (and dare to start 2012??). Here is the front cover.
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