Hmmmm…. I think that’s a good thing

On Mondays I volunteer in Squanner’s class.  First of all let me say that kindergarten teachers are saints.  If I had to deal with all the whining, incessant questions and unchecked energy that goes on in class, I would be insane. 

As I walked down the hall to her class yesterday, Squanner was in the hall walking back to her class after she got a drink.  When I called to her to say hi, she turned and looked at me and in her put-out, I’m annoyed with you voice, said, “Mom!!  I’m not done yet!!”  I think I’ll go ahead and take that as a good thing that she wants to be at school, not that she wasn’t happy to see me.  Because my children are always happy to see me!  Right?!?!

Who says parables only happened in Biblical times?

When I dropped Squanner off at kindergarten today, the parable of the 10 virgins came to mind when I looked around me.  Maybe you might think that I am a Bible scholar and examples of parables present themselves to me on a daily basis.  Well, let me tell you, I’m not and they don’t.  Maybe it came to mind because I had to read Absalom and Achitophel for school this week which is a veerrrryy looooooong and drawn out poem that draws an analogy between King Charles II and King David of the Old Testament and bible analogies were already on my mind.  Also I have school tonight and we’ll be discussing this very long poem.    Did I mentioned that it was a very long poem?  Because it is.  Like, over 1000 lines long.

Anyway, I’m sure we all know the parable of the 10 virgins.  Let me paraphrase; there were 10 virgins waiting for the bridegroom (Jesus) to come and they didn’t know exactly when he would arrive.  They all had lamps and only 5 were prepared and brought extra oil and they other 5 didn’t, so they were left out in the cold, so to speak when Jesus finally came.

Now I know you’re all asking, “What on earth does this have to do with kindergarten drop off?”  Or maybe those that know me well already know where this is headed.  Let me start by saying that today has been a rainy day off and on.  When we were driving to school the rain had stopped and the sun was sort of threatening to break through the clouds.  But I’ve lived in Utah long enough to know that you can never really trust the weather to stay one way.  I had dressed Squanner in jeans and a jacket (it was only about 50 degrees today) and had her bring her umbrella.

When we were waiting for the teachers to come out and get them (catch the foreshadowing here?) I looked around at the other children that were waiting.  About half were dressed appropriately for the weather, about half were not.  I saw flip flops on otherwise bare toes, there were bare little arms sticking out of short sleeve shirts, not to mention the younger siblings that were there, some that were babies in shorts with no shoes or socks on and parents in tank tops.  I’m looking around thinking that these people have to be at least a little chilly.  Then to top it all off, it starts to rain again.  The teachers still hadn’t arrived at the door yet, so all these under-prepared kids and their parents had to wait in the rain.  I bet they wished they had been a bit better prepared and brought some extra oil with them for their lamps!  Or in this case, maybe a jacket!

I swear, sometimes people just amaze me.  If you are an adult and want to go around in a tank top in the rain and 50 degree weather that’s your business.  But maybe, for the sake of your child, look out the window and try to prepare for what might lie ahead.  Because you just never know how long you are going to have to wait.

Seriously?!?!

How did my baby boy go from this…

 

to this…

in what, I swear has only been maybe 5 years.  Tops.

TRMinator started Junior High yesterday.  He has entered the realm of bells ringing to signify the end of the period instead of recess, lockers, and changing for gym.  I’m just not quite sure how this has happened so fast!  On the bright side, he still likes me enough to let me drop him off in front of the school instead of a block away.  I guess I’ll just have wait for high school for him to be properly embarrassed of me.  At this rate, that just might be in another 6 months!

Random Friday

It’s been a busy week, so I think I’ll make it a random day so I don’t have to tie everything together!

First off, we had a funeral last weekend.  Hubby’s grandma died last week, so her funeral was on Saturday.  It was nice to see everyone and celebrate her life since we know that she is happy and is with her family that has gone on ahead of her. 

Hubby, his two sisters and I sang a song during the service.  We know that Squanner thought that it was a boring song, because she loudly proclaimed as much to the people that were sitting around her during the song.  (The things you can get away with when you are 5.)  I pitched in because they needed another voice.  I’m not sure why, but I don’t really volunteer to sing any more.  I used to sing in church all the time growing up and sang in choir at school, but for some reason I don’t anymore.  I guess it’s one of life’s mysteries because it’s not that I don’t enjoy it, I guess I just don’t want to put forth the effort.

The funeral was in Heber Valley, and those of you who aren’t familiar with that area- it’s beautiful, so you know there will be pictures!

Hubby’s grandma had a barn that he has lots of memories of playing in as a kid.  It’s falling down now, but I still had to get some pictures of it.

You really didn’t think that I would have shots of just the barn, did you?  Of course my kids were in it too!  (hmm… I really don’t line them up that way, they just do that themselves)

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Then a couple of days ago my dad had a birthday.  His is only the second in the long list of August birthdays for our family.  We are going to have this birthday party thing down by the end of the month.  Anyway, whenever you ask him how old he is, his response is always, “I don’t know, I was born in ‘48, figure it out.”  Ahh, my dad is such a jokester.

My parent’s neighbors always bring him a cantaloupe for his birthday as kind of a joke.  My mom hates cantaloupes and my dad likes them.  I don’t know if he really enjoys the cantaloupe so much as he enjoys my mom’s reaction when he eats them.

Since I had my camera, and since my mom makes their back yard a mecca for hummingbirds, I had to stand there and take like 100 pictures to see if I could get a good one of some hummers.

Turns out, I could!

I had it in sports mode and just snapped away!

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Starting next week I am going to have all 3 of my children in school!  I’m not quite sure how I feel about that.  Although I am going to be in school myself, so maybe I won’t have time to ponder my feelings about being home alone.  I guess I will find out soon enough!  Wish me luck!

Wordless Wednesday

We had to fend for ourselves!

Ever since my parents moved to Utah 7 years ago, it has become a tradition that we have dinner at their house on Sunday evenings.  Well, this Sunday they let me down and made me make dinner for my own family!  All because they were in Arizona for my nephew’s birthday.  Come on!  Don’t they know that they have me trained now that I don’t have to cook on Sunday?!  Sheesh!

I managed to survive making dinner, (we had scones) then we needed to come up with something to do for the rest of the evening.  So we, along with half the town, decided to go to the park.  Of course, this was a perfect opportunity to take pictures with my new camera!  I don’t use it to it’s full capabilities, but I still have fun with it.

 

I suppose we fend for ourselves pretty well!

Where oh where has the time gone?

I’m not sure if I feel this way every year, but for some reason this year’s summer break has seemed to zip by.  Could be that we are on year round school and we didn’t get out till the first week of July and our summer is only 6 weeks long.  Hmmm, that might have something to do with it. 

Regardless, my youngest two start school next week, so we went to Boondocks yesterday as a sort of last hurrah for summer.  So of course, I have to post pictures!

This was the first time we had gone there when it was warm enough to do all the rides outside.  First up!  Bumper boats!

It was kind of hot, I was about ready to jump in that pool!  I bet I would have have gotten kicked out!

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Next up, the go cart race tracks. 

TRMinator was big enough to drive on this track.

 

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They had another track that G-man was tall enough to drive by himself.

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After that, a few rounds of miniature golf.  I must say, G-man is about the fastest golfer I’ve seen.  Of course his methods may not be completely by the rules.

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While the boys were driving the go carts around some more, Squanner (that’s what I call the Princess in real life, so that’s what I’m changing her name to on my blog!) decided that she wanted to go on the bumper boats again.  She was big enough to go by herself, so she did.

This is how she spent most of her time.  The boats also could squirt water.  She HATES being squirted with water, so she ducked down to avoid getting wet.  Of course by this point, she knew that the boats could squirt water, and that chances were great that she would get wet, but she still wanted to go on it anyway. 

She kind of floated out to the corner and stayed there because she didn’t have the whole steering thing down.  When time was up and they were supposed to come in, she wasn’t quite sure how to do that.

So the guy that was working the ride had to jump on someone else’s boat then climb onto hers to steer her back to the side.

Maybe I should have been concerned that my daughter was stuck adrift in the middle of the bumper boat pool, but I thought it was kind of funny!  I was actually more than willing to dive in and go rescue her.  That water looked sooo tempting!

We had lots of fun.  Now, I guess it’s time to start school, and the joys of homework!  Uggh!

The dirty, stinky, and possible wet camp report

TRMinator is home from camp!  He and Hubby got home Saturday around noon.  Hubby is the assistant Scout Master for his troop, so he was up there with the T-man for the second half of the week.  They got home tired, dirty, sweaty and stinky, but they had fun.

One of the features of the camp they went to was the horseback riding merit badge.  TRMinator was pretty excited for that one.

He earned 5 other merit badges while he was there, one of which was basket making.

This was my first experience with one of my kids going to an extended Scout camp.  We’ve done day camps in the past but never a week long one.

I’ve learned several things from this experience.  The first is, boys don’t like to shower.  They will only do so when strongly encouraged (forced- however you chose to look at it) to do so.  Second, they don’t really change their clothes.  If they wore it yesterday and to sleep in last night, it’s still good enough for today, right?!  Third, don’t ever wear white shirts.  Because when they come home with at least 2 to 3 days of grime on it like dirt, sweat and fish guts, they don’t really come clean.  Even when you bleach them and run them through the 2 1/2 hour stain cycle on your washing machine.

I must say, I expected TRMinator to be dirty and was prepared for it.  The thing that I didn’t expect to see so dirty was this:

I have never, in the life of that car, seen it that dirty! Hubby could only take it for so long.  He waited till that evening when it cooled off and went out to wash it.

Now here’s where the story takes a bit of a twist, you might say.  It didn’t matter that there were storm clouds in the sky and it looked like it might start raining any minute.  His car was filthy and it had to be cleaned off!

Yep.  He washed his car in the rain.  It wasn’t too bad at first, just a few sprinkles.  When it really started coming down you would think that he would be done.  Nope!!  I sat in the garage and laughed at him while I took pictures to document his insanity for our posterity.

And I thought I had seen it all with the lengths he would go to to keep his car clean.  I was mistaken.

I love it when a deal comes together

I realized the other day that school starts for me in about three weeks (EEEK!!) and that I should try to see if I can figure out what books I need, preferably online. 

I found the bookstore’s website and they had a place where you just put in what class you had, picked your teacher and BAM!!  There’s the books you need with a convenient spot to order them.

I need two books and each one new was $41.  They were out of stock new, but they had used ones available for $33.  I was about ready to order them, when my Amazon buying brain kicked in and I thought, “Hmm… I wonder if I can get these off Amazon?”

I took the ISBN numbers of the books from the bookstore’s website and plugged them into Amazon, and da duh!!  There they were for a fraction of the bookstore’s price!  I got both my books for under $18!  Can I get a “Woot!  Woot!!”

This kind of getting good deals technology wasn’t around the first time I went to school!  I love Amazon.  It rocks.