So Cyndie had her last night of sailing tonight. She walked into the house a couple of minutes ago and told me the good news ... team "Second Wind" (the name of Jack's boat) won the season trophy for their division of the Wednesday evening races. Yeah Cyndie, Jack, Joan, (and others).
Cyndie had a really good time learning a bit about sailing (and also getting a break once a week from whiny kids). Unfortunately it's hard to sail when it's dark, so the sailing season is drawing to an end.
Wednesday, August 27, 2008
Edging Ever Closer ...
to school. Last night was the Woods Hotdog Cookout*. This marks just another line along the way in the progression to school starting next Tuesday. We went in the school, hung out in Emma's classroom for 5 or 10 minutes looking around. On our way back out we saw Emma's teacher who was very friendly and knew Emma and talked to her and complimented her on her hair. We also saw several of Emma's friends from school. We had our hotdogs with Hannah, who was one of Emma's better friends, and saw several of the families from our neighborhood that we've gotten to know. Emma also got to pick up her school supplies which we had ordered through the school as a fundraiser kind of thing. She was very excited about those. They came in a cardboard box thing with a handle kind of like a suitcase.
*This is a misnomer since the only outdoor activity that took place was going out to play on the playground. The rest of the time we were inside the school.
After that we went home and Emma wanted to unpack the school supplies and look at them all. It's fun how little things like that really make her excited ... just paper and folders and pencils and stickers with her name on them. We talked to Hannah's mom a bit and I think the feeling of excitement/nervousness is pretty common in many of the first graders. Emma was very hyper/excited/nervous and didn't end up falling asleep until around 10p. She's a real thinker/worrier who will stay awake pondering things in the dark ... I think she did a lot of that last night.
Today Cole (1st grade) and Olivia (3rd grade) are over to play. They live a couple doors down the street. Tomorrow Emma's good friend Olivia from her class is coming over. Things are moving ever onward!
*This is a misnomer since the only outdoor activity that took place was going out to play on the playground. The rest of the time we were inside the school.
After that we went home and Emma wanted to unpack the school supplies and look at them all. It's fun how little things like that really make her excited ... just paper and folders and pencils and stickers with her name on them. We talked to Hannah's mom a bit and I think the feeling of excitement/nervousness is pretty common in many of the first graders. Emma was very hyper/excited/nervous and didn't end up falling asleep until around 10p. She's a real thinker/worrier who will stay awake pondering things in the dark ... I think she did a lot of that last night.
Today Cole (1st grade) and Olivia (3rd grade) are over to play. They live a couple doors down the street. Tomorrow Emma's good friend Olivia from her class is coming over. Things are moving ever onward!
Tuesday, August 26, 2008
Zones ... part deux.
Okay, here's part two of the "Zone Visit" post. There are some that are out of order here because I'm working from pictures from Jim's camera and ours, so bear with me ...
Maddi, Caitlyn, and Emma putting on a show in the basement.
Caitlyn and Tim in the rocks at the Covenant Harbor playground.
Ems going off the slide at Covenant Harbor.
The girls waiting very patiently to take a ride on the pontoon boat at Covenant Harbor.
On the ride.
Maddi doing one of the fun things at the water park.
A partial overview of the water park.
The Zone fam.
Maddi staring down the chickens at Farmer Katie's.
And she made a friend.
The kids welcoming Maddi and Caitlyn to WI.
The guys rocking out to Guitar Hero.
Timmy being Timmy.
More boat ride.
Eating at Culvers.
Tim at the water park.
Emma discovered that her head band matched her swim suit!
More water park.
So that's it! I hope you enjoyed today's edition of "catch up with some pictures".
Maddi, Caitlyn, and Emma putting on a show in the basement.
Caitlyn and Tim in the rocks at the Covenant Harbor playground.
Ems going off the slide at Covenant Harbor.
The girls waiting very patiently to take a ride on the pontoon boat at Covenant Harbor.
On the ride.
Maddi doing one of the fun things at the water park.
A partial overview of the water park.
The Zone fam.
Maddi staring down the chickens at Farmer Katie's.
And she made a friend.
The kids welcoming Maddi and Caitlyn to WI.
The guys rocking out to Guitar Hero.
Timmy being Timmy.
More boat ride.
Eating at Culvers.
Tim at the water park.
Emma discovered that her head band matched her swim suit!
More water park.
So that's it! I hope you enjoyed today's edition of "catch up with some pictures".
Wrapping up some pictures ...
I'm trying to get out some various picture sets I've promised, so here are some random ones ...
Here's Anna Holte, Emma's good friend, getting baptized at the lake.
Emma and Timmy trying to play Guitar Hero!
Cyndie and the kids with Lee during his visit.
Making a slip and slide with Lee and the kids.
A little water aerobatics with Emma.
Here's Anna Holte, Emma's good friend, getting baptized at the lake.
Emma and Timmy trying to play Guitar Hero!
Cyndie and the kids with Lee during his visit.
Making a slip and slide with Lee and the kids.
A little water aerobatics with Emma.
Cold?
As in "burrrrr", not "achooo".
It's been pretty cold the last four or five nights. Down into the fifties. It is 10:21 am as I write this and, granted the windows are open, I'm cold sitting here in my shorts and t-shirt with sweatshirt over the top and slippers on. Weather.com says it's 76, but with the wind, it's definitely chillier than that! I'm not sure when the weather starts to get colder around here, but we've definitely seen the days start to cool off. There are no more high 80s with humidity days ... at least there really haven't been for the last several weeks. It has actually been very pleasant . I think we've only run our air conditioner* two or three days out of the last three weeks.
*Bad news on the AC front. We actually discovered this when Lee was here ... actually he discovered it ... but the pan that sits under our coolant coils is leaking. We're going around and around with Peck and Weiss, with whom we have our AC and heater coverage plan, about how to deal with it. It looks like it could be as little as $100 or so dollars (replace the pan) up to $2800 (replace the AC)! The problem is two fold. First, the coils/pan were installed right on top of the heater cavity where the flames and heat and everything is. Over time, this melted the plastic condenser pan under the coils causing the leak. The complication is that the AC is old enough ... 1994 ... that the manufacturer is not going to support parts for it after 2010. Peck and Weiss is looking to see if they can find just a pan to replace that, which would be our ideal situation!
So Cyndie and the kids are at MOPS this morning and I'm pounding out the code. The excitement for last night was a trip to the library and then to Culver's for ice cream. This all came as part of playing school ... which Emma has really been excited about lately. The trip was a "field trip" and I (the teacher) even made her have a signed permission slip to go!
That's it for now.
It's been pretty cold the last four or five nights. Down into the fifties. It is 10:21 am as I write this and, granted the windows are open, I'm cold sitting here in my shorts and t-shirt with sweatshirt over the top and slippers on. Weather.com says it's 76, but with the wind, it's definitely chillier than that! I'm not sure when the weather starts to get colder around here, but we've definitely seen the days start to cool off. There are no more high 80s with humidity days ... at least there really haven't been for the last several weeks. It has actually been very pleasant . I think we've only run our air conditioner* two or three days out of the last three weeks.
*Bad news on the AC front. We actually discovered this when Lee was here ... actually he discovered it ... but the pan that sits under our coolant coils is leaking. We're going around and around with Peck and Weiss, with whom we have our AC and heater coverage plan, about how to deal with it. It looks like it could be as little as $100 or so dollars (replace the pan) up to $2800 (replace the AC)! The problem is two fold. First, the coils/pan were installed right on top of the heater cavity where the flames and heat and everything is. Over time, this melted the plastic condenser pan under the coils causing the leak. The complication is that the AC is old enough ... 1994 ... that the manufacturer is not going to support parts for it after 2010. Peck and Weiss is looking to see if they can find just a pan to replace that, which would be our ideal situation!
So Cyndie and the kids are at MOPS this morning and I'm pounding out the code. The excitement for last night was a trip to the library and then to Culver's for ice cream. This all came as part of playing school ... which Emma has really been excited about lately. The trip was a "field trip" and I (the teacher) even made her have a signed permission slip to go!
That's it for now.
Monday, August 25, 2008
Cousins, Vomit, Construction
Pretty much in that order!
Cousins
So this weekend was our turn to have the Caspari kids over here and Dave and Amy to have 24 hours to themselves. They got here at noon and we basically killed the afternoon and evening with playing (in and outside), swimming at the pool, dinner, a movie (All Dogs Go To Heaven), and baths. Everyone went to be okay ... Kristi had a little problem staying in bed, and Emma had some issues*. But for the most part it went pretty well until ...
Vomit
The middle of the night ... Timmy woke up and threw up. He continued to do so off and on from then until Saturday night. At first we thought maybe he had just overdone it what with the cousins and food and playing, etc. But nope, he was sick. So Cyndie quarantined him to our room where he basically spent the rest of the day laying on the bed and watching movies. That kind of like would kill Emma, but for Tim, it really was a pretty good day ... throwing up aside! After breakfast of pancakes (Sarah is the only kid I know who does not like chocolate chip pancakes!), I took the healthy kids on a driving tour of local parks ... thanks for the inspiration Auntie Jane. We hit six ... the Dragon's Lair (we think that one counts as a "full-fledged park"), Emma's school, the Cobb Park off McDonald, the Tot Lot near the water tower, and the two Elementary schools in LG. We had several more on the list that we just didn't have time for. Then Emma and I drove the Caspari kids down to Crystal Lake. We stayed for lunch and an hour or so of play, but that was it. The rest of the day Cyndie and the kids laid low but ...
Construction
I hit the outside of our north wall to remove the siding. The deal we're doing with our friend the contractor is that he's going to charge us his "friends and family" rate hourly. Basically he uses these kinds of things to keep his guys busy between jobs or while waiting for inspections, he's not making much money. So he pointed out a few things like taking the siding off that I could do to save us a few bucks. It took about 2.5 hours. So now we have a big tarp on the side of the house. In the evening we watched a bit more TV.
Sunday Timmy seemed pretty good, though he and Cyndie stayed home from church. After quiet time he was pretty perky and was participating in our marathon "school" session. I was the teacher, Emma the student, and Timmy and Cyndie the Principals. We did classroom work and pledges (of allegiance) and had homework and took field trips (a bike ride) and had gym (cornhole) and art class and music class (learning a song from church complete with actions). It was fun, and took most of the later afternoon and evening.
Unfortunately Timmy was feeling a little yucky by bedtime ... maybe we over did it. Anyway, he threw up again in the middle of the night. He's a bit pluckier today again and ran some errands with Cyndie, so hopefully he'll be back on top of things again before too long.
*Emma for some reason decided that she had to go to the bathroom literally 10 - 15 times within a half hour of going to bed. I think it was actually a bladder infection with kind of confused her, but she really over dramatized it and made life miserable for Cyndie and I for an hour and a half after bedtime on Friday and Saturday nights. Oh well, I think Cyndie and I learned some more about how to help her and deal with her when that happens again.
So now the week is upon us. It is the last one before school starts. We're looking forward to a couple of play dates, Auntie Jane's visit this weekend (and seeing cousins), Grandma and Grandpa D return home, and, of course, school starting ... Emma on Tuesday and Timmy on Thursday.
Cousins
So this weekend was our turn to have the Caspari kids over here and Dave and Amy to have 24 hours to themselves. They got here at noon and we basically killed the afternoon and evening with playing (in and outside), swimming at the pool, dinner, a movie (All Dogs Go To Heaven), and baths. Everyone went to be okay ... Kristi had a little problem staying in bed, and Emma had some issues*. But for the most part it went pretty well until ...
Vomit
The middle of the night ... Timmy woke up and threw up. He continued to do so off and on from then until Saturday night. At first we thought maybe he had just overdone it what with the cousins and food and playing, etc. But nope, he was sick. So Cyndie quarantined him to our room where he basically spent the rest of the day laying on the bed and watching movies. That kind of like would kill Emma, but for Tim, it really was a pretty good day ... throwing up aside! After breakfast of pancakes (Sarah is the only kid I know who does not like chocolate chip pancakes!), I took the healthy kids on a driving tour of local parks ... thanks for the inspiration Auntie Jane. We hit six ... the Dragon's Lair (we think that one counts as a "full-fledged park"), Emma's school, the Cobb Park off McDonald, the Tot Lot near the water tower, and the two Elementary schools in LG. We had several more on the list that we just didn't have time for. Then Emma and I drove the Caspari kids down to Crystal Lake. We stayed for lunch and an hour or so of play, but that was it. The rest of the day Cyndie and the kids laid low but ...
Construction
I hit the outside of our north wall to remove the siding. The deal we're doing with our friend the contractor is that he's going to charge us his "friends and family" rate hourly. Basically he uses these kinds of things to keep his guys busy between jobs or while waiting for inspections, he's not making much money. So he pointed out a few things like taking the siding off that I could do to save us a few bucks. It took about 2.5 hours. So now we have a big tarp on the side of the house. In the evening we watched a bit more TV.
Sunday Timmy seemed pretty good, though he and Cyndie stayed home from church. After quiet time he was pretty perky and was participating in our marathon "school" session. I was the teacher, Emma the student, and Timmy and Cyndie the Principals. We did classroom work and pledges (of allegiance) and had homework and took field trips (a bike ride) and had gym (cornhole) and art class and music class (learning a song from church complete with actions). It was fun, and took most of the later afternoon and evening.
Unfortunately Timmy was feeling a little yucky by bedtime ... maybe we over did it. Anyway, he threw up again in the middle of the night. He's a bit pluckier today again and ran some errands with Cyndie, so hopefully he'll be back on top of things again before too long.
*Emma for some reason decided that she had to go to the bathroom literally 10 - 15 times within a half hour of going to bed. I think it was actually a bladder infection with kind of confused her, but she really over dramatized it and made life miserable for Cyndie and I for an hour and a half after bedtime on Friday and Saturday nights. Oh well, I think Cyndie and I learned some more about how to help her and deal with her when that happens again.
So now the week is upon us. It is the last one before school starts. We're looking forward to a couple of play dates, Auntie Jane's visit this weekend (and seeing cousins), Grandma and Grandpa D return home, and, of course, school starting ... Emma on Tuesday and Timmy on Thursday.
Friday, August 22, 2008
Official construction!
It looks like the door project is moving right along. We talked to the contractor friend who will actually put in the door and we're on for "Wednesday or Thursday" ... which means that tomorrow afternoon and/or Sunday afternoon will be filled with taking off the siding on the outside of the north end of the house up to a height of eight or so feet. Good stuff!
Yesterday afternoon a friend of Cyndie's from MOPS came over with her three kids, so the afternoon was pretty full. Other than that, we tried to play it pretty low key. Emma and I did go to Target to get her a "first day of school" outfit. She ended up with some jeans with butterflies stitched on them and little jewels around them with three sparkly belts and some new shoes. She went for the extra belts instead of a new shirt because she wasn't totally sold on any of the shirts and she just opened up a whole bunch of new shirts in a hand-me-down box recently. She is just hilarious when shopping, especially for clothes. She loves to try them all on and look at herself in the mirror ... I think Target made the "mirror on three sides of the dressing room" configuration just for little girls like Emma!
This morning will be cleaning up a bit and getting ready for "cousin weekend". Since we got the Friday to Saturday off last week, this week Dave and Amy are off and we have Benny and Sarah and Kristi. It should be fun, although it's been a bit rainy so our activities may be somewhat restricted.
We have one full week left before school. Emma starts the 2nd and (I think) Timmy the 4th. We're looking forward to that (although I think Emma is a little nervous too*) and to having Grandma and Grandpa D back in town after three plus months away. There's also a chance Auntie Jane may come through over Labor Day which would be exciting!
*Toward this end, we're going to try to have at least a couple of play dates with school friends for Emma next week to try to ease her back into that realm of her life. We're also going to try to go up to the school to walk around a bit and peak in her classroom.
Yesterday afternoon a friend of Cyndie's from MOPS came over with her three kids, so the afternoon was pretty full. Other than that, we tried to play it pretty low key. Emma and I did go to Target to get her a "first day of school" outfit. She ended up with some jeans with butterflies stitched on them and little jewels around them with three sparkly belts and some new shoes. She went for the extra belts instead of a new shirt because she wasn't totally sold on any of the shirts and she just opened up a whole bunch of new shirts in a hand-me-down box recently. She is just hilarious when shopping, especially for clothes. She loves to try them all on and look at herself in the mirror ... I think Target made the "mirror on three sides of the dressing room" configuration just for little girls like Emma!
This morning will be cleaning up a bit and getting ready for "cousin weekend". Since we got the Friday to Saturday off last week, this week Dave and Amy are off and we have Benny and Sarah and Kristi. It should be fun, although it's been a bit rainy so our activities may be somewhat restricted.
We have one full week left before school. Emma starts the 2nd and (I think) Timmy the 4th. We're looking forward to that (although I think Emma is a little nervous too*) and to having Grandma and Grandpa D back in town after three plus months away. There's also a chance Auntie Jane may come through over Labor Day which would be exciting!
*Toward this end, we're going to try to have at least a couple of play dates with school friends for Emma next week to try to ease her back into that realm of her life. We're also going to try to go up to the school to walk around a bit and peak in her classroom.
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