A Week in Review (June 3-9)

A Week in Review (June 3-9)

Watched: The cousins fall into a rhythm like they have always been together and it hasn’t been six months in between seeing each other for most of them and almost a year since they were all together. We went to Cow Town at Keegan’s request. It is a replica 1860s era Wichita. I’m not sure why he wanted to go, but he did and so he convinced everyone else to go too. We spent a couple of hours and I can’t say anyone loved it, but at least it got them out of the house doing something that wasn’t battling each other in Super Smash Bros. Of course, we had to stop at Braum’s. They also played a bit of football and then spent the night at Rachel’s. I think they had a blast over there too.

Read:  I continued to make progress on Other People's Houses.  It isn't drawing me quickly, but I am still liking the story.  I did decide to start on the audiobook of King's Cage and for whatever reason, it just struck a cord with me.  Sometimes books are just there for you when you need them to be. That was the case for me for this book. It just hit a spot I needed. It isn’t particularly great writing or all that wonderful of a story. It is slightly better than the last two because there wasn’t the constant repetitiveness of sayings. I’ll be picking up the next book in the series although probably not any time soon.  I decided since I had read every other book in the series, I probably should add the two novellas to my list and I started working on them, but didn't make it very far.  

Listened: To both tears and laughter when we tried out Exploding Kittens. Angelo was playing with something called TacoCat and when I asked where it came from, I got introduced to the game Exploding Kittens. I knew it seemed perfect for the cousins and so we played it on Saturday night. It is a great game. I think you need a large group of people to play it with for it to be really fun.  We actually had to use two packs since there were 8 of us playing. It made for a nice ending to our trip. Even though it was almost midnight by the time we wrapped it up, the cousins still decided to squeeze in a game of Catan.  I love that they all like to play board games too. 

Made: The trip to the water park on Saturday night. Poor Angelo didn’t enjoy the water at all. Luckily he was able to get a nap in. The big kids all seemed to have a good time. I liked the lazy river best.

Felt: So happy getting to love on my littlest nephew. He’s such a happy little guy who is always smiling and giggling. He snuggles when he’s sleepy and I even got to rock him to bed one night. There is something so peaceful about having that heavy weight of sleeping child snuggled in against you. Jack really enjoys playing with him and making him smile too.

Loved: Watching Jack at his scrimmages on Monday of his Bill Self camp.  It was weird that they put the hoops on nine feet as you could tell most of the kids were used to the 10’ hoop. The kids were amazed with all the players walking around and Jack even got to take his picture with DeSousa. According to the roster he is 6’9” and that makes for a very tall kid.  We dropped him off at the camp after walking around campus on Sunday. He and Nick took a picture by the brick we gave Nick for Father’s Day a couple of years ago.  We picked him up on Wednesday and watched some more scrimmages where his team won the tournament that was running that day. We also picked up his picture with Devante Graham and he chose to spend some of his camp money on getting leg wraps.  I think he did okay away, but he wasn’t a fan of 6:00-6:30 wakes up he was given after an 11:00 lights out.

Here are the pics for the week:

A Week in Review (May 27- June 2)

A Week in Review (May 27- June 2)

Watched: Jack do the floss a lot. He’s getting better at it and it’s kind of becoming a victory dance of sorts. He wasn’t ever able to use it at knockout because he always lost the games, but I think he still enjoyed playing them anyway.

Read: I finally finished up The Handmaid's Tale.  After I finished up I was trying to figure out what just happened. Did I really commit 11 days to a book to have no idea what really happened? I don’t mind having to guess a little, but it seemed like the book dropped off at the climax. I thought it was crazy how many of the points still rang true, so many years after writing it. Maybe it’s a sign that level headedness will continue to prevail even if it seems like the extremists get too much talking time.  I then took on a book of short stories entitled What We Talk About When Talk About Love.  I’m not sure how this was up for a Pulitzer Prize. I’m not sure how it rates so high on Goodreads. I’m not sure how it ever got on a list of recommendations that I trusted. I made it through the whole book and basically just wondered what the hell I had wasted my time on. Not a book I would recommend to anyone.  Next, I started Other People's Houses.  I read another book by this author and I really liked it.  I am hoping this one doesn't disappoint after my last two books. 

Listened: To a lot of classic Mario sounds. Jack is intent that he will conquer it this summer. He said he wishes he grew up in a time when video games were simple. It made us watch Pixels because it feautured a lot of those early games.  We downloaded the original Donkey Kong too.

Made: A plan for trophy for the baseball season. I didn’t want another boring trophy, so I ended up going with a baseball holder that each kid will sign and then will go inside the holder. I think it will be a lot of fun.  Now it’s just getting parents to respond which is always the trickiest part. 

Felt: Sad leaving Nora for a couple of weeks. I am thankful that my Alliance family could pitch in to watch her.  With us not coming back to Colorado Springs, they offered to take keep her.  I also got lucky in that Comicon was in Denver the weekend of the 15th and so they offered to drive her home to me too.

Planned: On not liking the game that I bought many moons ago for a gag gift for my brother. We had went in to get him an Xbox and didn’t want him to open it early so we gave him a lot of other things from the thrift store. The game Ringzz was one of them. It’s been sitting on a shelf in my mom’s basement for over a decade.  We all ended up liking it and sent it home with him because it’s one of those rare two player games that doesn’t need modified to be able to play.

Here are the pics for the week:

A Week in Review (May 20-26)

A Week in Review (May 20-26)

Watched: Jack have a great time playing with my family. We decided to go to Alliance for a little over a week. The day we arrived he conned Grandma into a game of Wet Head. It was refreshing after the long drive. She also claimed that her cup had a hole in it and it drained her drink, but we couldn’t see evidence and thought she just hadn’t gotten enough sleep. We went on a nature A-Z walk in town too. We realized then that we didn’t have a football, so we had a to right that situation the next day. All the cheap ones just felt gross and weird, so we went with a nice junior size Nike one. I was surprised they had such a nice football in Alliance.  We also spent a couple mornings in town playing basketball and racquetball at the Rec center and getting Zestos.  You will see a picture of my mom cracking up with her finger on her cup. It turns out that hole was there after all. Even though she continued to use it for a few days, one night we were playing games and it sprung a giant hole that arched like a water fountain. We all got a good laugh out of it. Later that night I asked for some pepto. She brings out a bottle that was best bye March 2008.  We all laughed hard at that too. I actually decided to go ahead and try it. As you can tell, I’m still standing and it seemed to work somewhat effectively too.

Read: I continued to work on The Handmaid's Tale, but I couldn't force myself to get through it.  I am surprised that there is a popular TV show based off it.  

Listened: To the coach beg for a team mom for baseball. I wasn’t going to do it, but since no one else signed up, I guess I am in.  I did get a free T-shirt and hat out of the deal, so there is that.

Made: My mom’s annual Mother’s Day present. I love this tradition as it is fun to see how much he changes every year and what he likes at the moment.  Since I’m so behind in blogging, I am actually able to post the picture that we used since she already has it.

Felt: Proud of Jack for having an awesome 4th grade year. He continues to grow in his academic skills. He has stayed a kind kid with a generous heart. We are really going to miss his teacher as she is taking a job in another district so that she can become a Talented and Gifted Teacher. They are lucky to have her. We celebrated the end of the year by picking up his friend Luke, having slurpees, and playing Wet Head. I played 6 rounds with them and then I let them go at it.

Planned: On painting the fence quickly so that we could get into compliance with our HOA before we left on our trip. It was anything but quick. It was messy, full of spills and drips, but thanks to my friend Gretchen and our neighbor, it was done in one night.  I will admit, it does look much better now.

Loved: Attending Jack’s end of season football party. His coaches always have such nice things to say about him. This season instead of being given trophies, the coach had jerseys made for them. I thought that was really cool.  They also got to play a lot of dodgeball, including a couple rounds of kids vs parents. I got a couple kids out each time before I was taken out.  We also received his pictures that day and I thought they turned out really well too.

Here are the pics for the week: