Busy Start to the Week

Sunday, March 18, we had our regularly scheduled dates. However, while Julie and I were at the mall, I got a call from Heath, saying that he unexpectedly had to drive up to Lakewood before the end of the day. He was going to finish what he was doing with Everest, then drop him off at the mall with us.



Julie received a Claire's gift card from my mom and was anxious to spend it. We looked at earrings for a long time, but got the text from Heath that he and Everest were going to be there in a few minutes. We hurried to the drop off point to get him, bid Heath goodbye, then headed back to Claire's. Everest was pretty good about not taking everything off the shelves and hooks. Julie got her first ear cuff, which she thought was so cool. We got pretzels afterward, then headed to the play area.






The kids had a fantastic time having an extended time to play there. I happily sat on the sidelines, listening to an audiobook version of 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea. I recently discovered that I can easily checkout quite a few titles (especially classics) from the library. They download to my iPod through an app, and delete after the checkout period. Very awesome indeed. I've found that I can stomach classical writing much easier through verbal narration than actually looking at all those semi-colons and lack of action tags.




Monday, March 19, after school, we headed to the library to pick out some new books and movies for the week. That evening, I went to Village Inn just to get out of the house and get some things done. Heath started teaching days that week, keeping him home in the evenings for dinner. Hooray!




Tuesday, March 20, we had busy day, which usually ends up meaning that we eat out for dinner. In fact, we ate in, getting Subway and bringing it home to dine while we watched a movie from the library.

Three Fun Days!

Friday was an extremely productive day for work. Everest was content to play on his own, ending the afternoon with some computer time, which he rarely gets. (At least it was a phonics game!)



The kids got to play with their friends M and A after school for a bit while Corrie and I talked in the yard. The rest of the evening went pretty smoothly, and everyone was in bed around the right time.

My Muse girls came over after 9:00. Legolas brought her sister with her, which was fun. The girls worked on various creative endeavors while I made cream cheese wontons and eggdrop soup for snacks. Nom nom.



Saturday promised to be a big day indeed. Since Julie's 9th birthday is on a Monday, we decided to do a special celebration the weekend before. Heath and Everest picked up one of Heath's friends and went to the Denver museum. Julie and I picked up her friend M and Miss Corrie and had breakfast together at Chick-fil-A.




After we took them home, Julie and I headed out to the mall, where the big event was to take place: ear piercing! Julie has been wanting to get her ears pierced since she even knew that ear piercing existed, which is many years, let me tell you. She was both thrilled and anxious--even up to the moment the ladies were getting ready to do it.



Once it was over, she kind of looked at me and said, "That wasn't that bad!" It might have been an epiphany for her about how worrying about something is sometimes worse than the thing itself.




We got an Orange Julius in the food court, then headed over to the nail place in the mall, where we both got pedicures. Oh, how lovely it was! I was in serious need of one what with all this dry weather we have been having, and this was Julie's first.




We wandered around the mall for a little while, all the time, Julie was saying, "This is the best day of my life!" We headed back home and relaxed a bit, talking about the day. Some of the neighbor kids came out and wanted to play, so Julie went outside while I got dinner started. Heath and Everest arrived after Julie and I had finished eating, and everybody went straight to bed. Even I didn't do much before turning in for the night. Heath, however, stayed up until 5:30 a.m. working. o.O

Sunday, I took the kids to church all on my own (albeit late), allowing Heath some extra time to sleep. The parenting class was canceled due to about 90% of the class being MIA. (Let's blame Daylight Savings Time.) That meant that I actually got to catch most of the service.

We were scheduled to volunteer in Julie's class for second service but I also wanted to take Everest to the kids' baptism class that hour. Obviously, I couldn't be in two places at once, so I went to Julie's class. Thankfully, one of the ladies had her husband step in for a bit, affording me time to take Everest to the baptism class.

Not sure if he really understood everything, but was definitely eager to do a baptism! We'll have to talk about it some more, and hopefully show him what a baptism looks like to give him a better idea of what's going to happen.

We went back to Julie's room because the class ended way before the end of the second service. It was just in time for crafts, where they were continuing to build the armor of God. This week, they made a breastplate of righteousness and a belt of truth. Julie had made one already in the first service, so she helped Everest make one of his own. Very cool!



By time we got home, I was feeling rather exhausted from all the running around in the morning--all this without coffee! Heath was up but still had a few fires to put out for work. I made the kids lunch, and they relaxed for awhile. Finally, we got Sunday dates going. We were only doing one since Saturday was basically an extended date. For Sunday, I had Everest, and Heath had Julie.

Everest has been wanting to go miniature golfing for weeks and weeks, but our plans have been fraught with difficulties ranging from weather to just going at a time when they were closed. At last, we made it in, and he had a fun time. We each got a hole-in-one on one of the courses, and Everest made par a handful of times. Yay!



We stopped by the grocery store for a few items for a special dinner for tomorrow, then came home. Heath was back and had cleaned the whole house top to bottom. It really needed it too! Ah, how I love the smell of bleach when I come home...

I had dinner with the kids while we watched some Busytown Adventures on Netflix, then the kids laid right down to bed. They were both asleep in less than 15 minutes--even with the time change. Guess it had been a busy last couple days!

I spent the evening folding laundry and making cheesecake for Julie's classroom birthday celebration tomorrow. In fact, I need to get those in the fridge. They have probably set up by now. Yes, I bring individual-sized cherry cheesecakes instead of cupcakes for school functions. Cupcakes are boring! XD

February 2012: Week 4

One of these days, I'll catch up to the present. Slow and steady wins, right? If you're wondering where the rest of week 3 went, well, it has been lost to the back recesses of my mind. I do, however, have two photos to prove that I was on the planet in some fashion:




Sunday of Week 4, we had our dates with the kids. We took off from church to take each of the kids to lunch. I had Everest with me, and we hit up KFC, his favorite place. (It's combined with an A&W.) After lunch, Everest was lucky enough to accompany me to the grocery store. He was actually quite helpful too.




Since it was pretty late by time we got back from the store and put everything away, I took Julie out after Everest went to bed. We stopped by a store to which she had a $5 birthday certificate, then had dinner at Chipotle. We walked over to the movie theater afterwards to see The Muppets. She loved it!




Monday there was no school due to President's Day. Julie helped Everest build a "shield of faith" like the one she'd made in Sunday school the day before. They are going through the armor of God (see the book of Ephesians) and creating a new piece each week.




I'm not entirely sure what happened specifically on Tuesday, but we definitely made it to the gym and also to my mom's store for lunch, as evidenced by the following images:



Wednesday of that week, Everest received a very special package in the mail: his first big set of real Lego bricks! He's had the bigger ones (Duplo, I think they're called) for awhile, and we even got him a small Lego kit once, but this was the real deal.





The rest of the week until Saturday is completely lost to me. Though apparently we had hot chocolate one afternoon. Good Heavens. How would I remember anything without my camera?

February 2012: Week 3

Now we on to the week starting with February 12.

That Sunday, we were scheduled to serve in Julie's class at church, and I took my turn so Heath could do preschool later in the month. The lesson was on the Heart House. (Not sure if this is something only our church does or if it is well known in kids ministry.)



The gist is that we allow Jesus into our hearts to "run the house," but sometimes we allow bad people inside (e.g. Mr. Mean, Mr. Selfish, etc.). Jesus is the only one who can kick them out. Something really clicked for Julie, and later for Everest. I wrote an article about it for the church's online magazine.

We did dates with the kids after church, each of us taking them out to lunch, then to another special place. Everest and I ended up at KFC and the new bookstore, where we did the exchange of kids after awhile.




Julie and I went to World Market to wander a bit. She'd been there before a long time ago, but not recently. We had a fun time looking at all the imported candies and foods. I found some items (Vegemite and Marmite) that reminded me of my friend Linda, who was a world traveler as a missionary and exposed to all kinds of different international foods.




Monday, I have no recollection whatsoever of the day. How bad is that? But the kids must have made a fort or something because I have this picture:



Tuesday was Valentine's Day. Everest had a party at school, which I attended. I didn't have any of the ice cream sundaes because we headed to the gym afterwards. But it's always fun to go to his class and see him interact with his classmates. In that second image, Everest's art is the one with the figures on the far right.





After we picked up Julie from the bus stop, we went to the little Korean market near our house to get wonton wrappers. I have been promising to make the kids some cream cheese wontons at home, but we could never find the wrappers at the regular grocery store. They definitely them at this market though--along with quite a few other interesting items.




After Heath got home from work that night, I went to Chili's to pick up our Valentine's dinner. We watched a few episodes of Breaking Bad and ate our dinner, but otherwise, it was pretty uneventful. Ah well. I guess we have celebrated enough V-days that it has ceased to be a big deal. :oops: