A Week in Review (October 15-21)

A Week in Review (October 15-21)

Watched: Just my regular shows, but it was so nice to take a break from the drudgery of moving and have a show to watch. 

Read: Not much.  I was so exhausted that picking up a book and engaging my brain just wasn’t going to happen. I tried a couple of times but it just didn’t work. Hopefully next week will be better. 

Listened: To good stories about Jack.  We had his conferences and both his classroom teacher and his TAG math teacher had good things to say about him. What was amazing to me was that he was in the top third in his class for writing.  Writing has been a struggle for him since 1st grade. His second grade teacher really let him slide in this area and Ms. Coomes worked hard to help him regain where he needed to be in third. In fourth grade, we are finding that his tenacity is helping him out as his peers struggle to adapt to writing 5 paragraph essays, he is doing better.  He still has plenty of room for improvement, but I’m so glad to see him bring up his skills!

Made: A trip to go see the Liberty wrestling room. Due to weirdness with our last rental, they will not let us continue to rent out that space.  So we have been trying really hard to come up with a plan that will allow us to not have to use our current place 5 days a week.  Plus, I’m super invested because I don’t want a M/W/F practice schedule. We were told if we rented Liberty, we would have to roll up the mats.  Our head coach wasn’t sure we could do it because of their weight. Luckily, they are the ventricular mats that are easy to roll up. Due to the size of the space, we will have to move our big kids over there as generally their parents don’t stay at drop off.  However we now have space for our kids and can continue to just offer T-Th practice!  Go me. :)

Felt: Overwhelmed and thankful. On Tuesday night, it just kind of hit me about how much stuff I needed to move by Thursday morning to have everything ready to go for the movers. There was still so much to move. Jack doesn’t understand why life can’t be like it usually is and I kind of freaked out on him when he didn’t get it. On Wednesday we had dine out night at Freddy’s and then wrestling practice. After practice got over at 8pm, I knew we still had at least three more loads to go. Jack mentioned something to Rylan at practice and Rylan said he’d come help. I was so desperate for help, I’d take the kind even an 11 year old could give me.  Even though Ryan should have continued to work, he came and brought his truck and helped me.  It was nice having another strong, hard working adult to help me. When he saw the new place, he saw that we needed stuff done and he came the next night and helped too.  It was great that the boys didn’t have school on Thursday or Friday so we didn’t have to worry about bedtimes. 

Planned: On this move being easy. I mean I knew we had lots of little stuff, but I didn’t realize how much we had until I pulled it all out. As you can tell by the theme of this blog, this move has been really hard on me.  I also thought I could just bring the little things over and put them away. I didn’t account for the fact that this house has an entirely different layout and things wouldn’t just fall into place.  Hopefully we don’t move for at least 8 years and I can forget this lesson. 

Loved: Having movers to move the big stuff from our home. As mentioned above, I’m really struggling with all the work the move brings and these guys just made it look easy.  If you ever have to do any sort of a move, a highly recommended looking into the cost of movers. These guys were even nice enough to stay and hook back up the electronics so that Jack could play Xbox and it could feel instantly more like home to him. 

Here are the pics for the week:

A Week in Review (October 8-14)

A Week in Review (October 8-14)

Watched: Snow fall!  Snow!!!  It hasn’t even been 5 months since it last snowed. The weather tanked and was just really cold and wet. Luckily none of it stuck around, but it didn’t make a great day for wanting to be productive.  I know the upcoming time will be busy so taking a day off to recharge my batteries seems okay.

Read:  I tried to read The Bone Clocks, but it's just not calling to me.  It's a pretty deep science fiction book and it just doesn't call to me right now.  Hopefully I will be able to get more into next week as I am falling behind Sarah. 

Listened: Kids work on their Math Facts.  Jack's teacher has made me a math fact checker and I just love how excited the kids get when they get to pass from one set of facts to the other.  It's super exciting for them.  She doesn't seem to need me in her room as much this year (and I know this happens more and more as they grow), but I am glad that she makes a little niche for me.

Made: The house officially ours. We closed on Friday afternoon. With Jack’s last game being on Saturday followed by a banquet, watching the KU game, and car diagnostics, we didn’t get the house really moved into. We did get the carpets cleaned and that had a nice fresh scent. I know next week will be almost solely about getting our stuff over there. Good times!

Felt: Lucky to be able to join Jack and his classmates as they rode the cog railway to the top of Pike’s Peak. To think that we were riding on some of the original track laid over 120 years ago was incredible. Enjoying the scenery that inspired America the Beautiful was amazing too. I was worried about it being really freezing at the top, but must have bundled up because I could have spent the entire time outside. 

Planned: To use my village to get Jack to and from football practices. On Tuesday, I had wrestling while he had football. Thursday, I had PTA while he had football and Friday, we were closing on the house.  Coach ended up canceling practice on Tuesday, so that made my life a bit easier.  The other two days, my village came through.  All my days of paying it forward have come full circle.  It’s so nice to have people who care enough to help my boy and I out. 

Loved: That Kyle and Jess were able to drive down for Jack’s last game.  It was a good thing they were able to get out a bit earlier than they thought because their car ended up breaking down just about 5 miles away from the house. So around 11pm, I headed out to pick them up. Jess went up to bed and Kyle and I stayed up and chatted. We hoped it wa something that maybe was caused by the car getting too warm so we headed out there to try again. No luck!  We woke up a few hours later and watched Jack have a great game for his last game of the season. He got to play every single play. His only break was halftime!  They did end up losing by two points, but the team had good energy. After the game was over, he needed to conduct a science project that he created for school which was based on who could throw the baseball the furthest. His hypothesis was that Tio could and he was correct. We had just a few minutes before the banquet so they played a bit of two hand touch, Dad and Jack vs Tio and Aunt Jess. Then we headed to Fargo’s for the banquet. It’s definitely not a place I’ll be returning too. However, Jack’s coach had some nice things to say about him. You can see it HERE.  After the banquet, we headed to the car. It took a Fair amount of trial and error to figure out that it was the transaxle that had went out which was causing all the problems. Thank goodness that Firestone had the parts in stock and that it was a reasonable fix. We got the car over there.  We had some dinner and debate followed by a hilarious game of HeroQuest. At the end of the night (2:30am), Jack was going to play Tio in chess while everyone else was going to bed. Apparently Tio took too long because, not even 5 minutes after the game started, he fell asleep at the chess board! 

Here are the pics for the week:

A Week in Review (October 1-7)

A Week in Review (October 1-7)

Watched: Butterflies flit all around. I couldn’t believe how many painted ladies made their way to town. So many came into the area that they actually showed up on the weather radar.  I’m hoping that they all successfully finish their migrations before our day of projected snowy weather. 

Read:  I finished up The Lying Game.  Definitely the best Ruth Ware book that I have read. It hooks you from the beginning. I didn’t think that there were really any big surprises, but it was a good story nonetheless. If you like suspense novels, I’d recommend picking this one up for a quick read.  Next, I checked out a book on a Rapid Read system called Eleanor Oliphant is Completely Fine.  This book is absolutely delightful. Great characters and character development. A bit of a mystery to pull you along as well. If you were a fan of either The Rosie Project or A Man Called Ove, I’d highly recommend that you pick this book up!  I am starting on a buddy read with my friend, Sarah, called The Bone Clocks.  I didn't get very far into it as it is very long and Nick got home so I enjoyed my time with him.

Listened: To some Dr Seuss books. Jack was looking for some books to read to practice his oral fluency and found his collection of Dr Seuss books.  While they are way to easy in terms of vocabulary, they do an excellent job encouraging expression while reading the text.  It’s also good to see that he’s finally making huge strides in nonsense words. They used to really fluster him. 

Made: My first couple of deposits for the wrestling team.  It's been interesting being a team mom and being in charge of funds that are so critical to so many people.  I think I am more detail oriented than the couple of people have been before me.  We are talking about wanting to create a detailed report to parents of where their funds go and I know it will be easier to account for things now than go back in late February and try to remember what each item was for.

Felt: Grateful to my village. With Nick not at home, I’m really reaching out to my friends for help with getting Jack and I to and from all the places we needed to be. Wrestling and football practice really overlap and I feel I need to be there at the beginning of the season to get started on the right foot.  It’s been amazing to have people who are so willing to help out our family. 

Planned: Outfits for both of Jack’s October events-his musical performance and Halloween. He has decided to use the colors in the Italian Flag as inspiration for his musical outfit. They are singing songs in other languages and I’m guessing the Italian one is favorite.  For Halloween, he has decided to go as Greg Heffley, the main character from The Diary of a Wimpy Kid novels. I think we have come up with a pretty good costume. I’ll make you wait until Halloween to see. 

Loved: Flowers delivered from Nick to brighten my day. We really miss each other over these long days. We are starting our fourth month of him traveling frequently, where we don’t communicate often when he’s working, so I really love these little reminders that he is thinking of me and misses me like I miss him. 

Here are the pics for the week:

A Week in Review (September 24-30)

A Week in Review (September 24-30)

Watched: All the series premieres.  I did enjoy the the opening of This is Us, although not as quite as much as I would have liked. Modern Family didn’t wow me either. They lost the truly awesome power of being in the eclipse.  I did really enjoy the new Law and Order that focuses on the Menedez Brothers and their story. True crime is usually pretty interesting and especially when it’s stories that have captured the interest of a nation.

Read:  I finished up Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet.  The title really sums it up. This book is both bitter and sweet. There isn’t a lot of action or climax in the story but I enjoyed hearing the story of Henry and Keiko. I’d recommend any historical fiction fans pick it up.  Next, I started The Lying Game.  While I am enjoying it, I just can't seem to commit myself to spending the time to make a good dent in it.

Listened: To Jack practice rolling his r’s. In the beginning, it really sounded like there was no hope that he would get it. However, he just kept on trying and trying and he finally figured it out.  The whole week he did it at least once an hour. I guess he was just so proud of himself that he had to keep making sure he could do it.

Made: A long checklist to help prepare for the Fall Festival.  A new person has stepped up to shadow me and I think she will really lighten my load. I am so thankful that we have parents who are eager to take on new tasks. I don’t really want to leave the school scrambling when I’m not there to do projects anymore. 

Felt: Thankful that I have a village to rely on with Nick working out of town so much.  I said that I would be around to help with registration for wrestling. Well it totally conflicts with football practice. And my normal backup is having her conferences and was hoping I could help her out.  Luckily Katie said she would help me out and also help my friend out too. 

Planned: The schedule for carpet cleaning and movers for the big stuff. I’m so comfortable in our home that it’s hard for me to imagine moving, but I don’t think that stops it from coming. I don’t really plan on boxing anything up for long term. I plan to load up the car with stuff, drive it to the new place and find a home for it. I envision having totes of stuff that I’m not really sure where it belongs that we will slowly sort through. I am thankful for our slow moving schedule so that way I can do it in a less hurried style. 

Loved: That someone is taking over for the Fall Festival.  We put out a call for committee members to help with events and we have had some people step up. It’s exciting to see parents getting energized and involved in the program again.  It’s sure the saying that more hands make light work and we get people who have new ideas and can leave their mark on things.

Here are the pics for the week:

Grabbed this good picture of my mom and Jack before she got on the road on Sunday after her visit