Homecoming

We made it through another week with the new schedule.  I’d say it was a little easier and definitely more normal.  The kids came to my office Monday and Wednesday and they behaved and did their homework.  They went to afterschool Tuesday and Thursday.  I don’t think Will is loving it.  He says he doesn’t know any of the boys.  He knows plenty of girls but you know – they’re girls.  We talked about him maybe having to introduce himself to the boys or ask them if he can play with them.  He said most of the boys play football – and he is not going to do that!  Friday we came home and they played while I finished working.

It was spirit week at school.  Monday was funny hat day.  Apparently we don’t own funny hats.  Will wore a Wake Forest hat and Lindy decided not to wear any hat at all.  Tuesday was clothes inside out day.  They both took part in that.  I thought that was kind of boring.  The insides of their clothes were pretty plain.  Wednesday was silly sock day.  We don’t own very silly socks either!  Lindy wore some heart socks and Will wore some old yellow baseball socks.  Thursday was favorite team day – they both wore Wake Forest.  Friday was school shirt day and they both wore their school shirts.  They had a pep rally Friday afternoon to wrap up the week and Lindy saw the Deacon and some cheerleaders.  Her vision teacher took a picture and texted it to me.  Lindy told her vision teacher she ‘adores herself when she is with the Deacon and the cheerleaders.’  That girl is crazy. 

We had a very rainy weekend.  It has rained since Friday with very little break.  I don’t know if it actually ever stopped.  It’s been light, but there has been a mist or actual rain all weekend.  Will was supposed to have tennis practice on Saturday morning but it got rained out.  He has been so disappointed that his practices have been rained out.   We were also supposed to have a Wake Forest football game at 12:30pm.  Saturday was also GrandBob’s birthday and we were going to celebrate at the game and afterwards.  The old man decided he didn’t want to sit out in the rain and we knew we didn’t want to take the kids so we had a change of plans and we headed to Charlotte instead.  We picked up BBQ and headed down to celebrate at their house.  We watched the game there and Drew and I actually ran to IKEA.  We returned a couple things and got another cabinet.  It actually worked out pretty good.  It was a nasty day to travel but we had fun celebrating Old Man Bob. 

Today was a fun day – homecoming at our old church, Palmyra UMC.  Homecoming means they invite an old pastor back and then you have a big potluck!  It was fun to head back there after being gone for 5 years.  Drew and I lived there for 7 years and we loved our time there.  Pre-kids we hung out with the older crowd on Friday nights, playing dominoes and cards all night, and it was awesome!  The kids spent their first 3 years there – although they don’t remember much about that time.  They remember people because we have kept up with quite a few people.  It was great to go back and see everyone and share a yummy meal.  We drove by the old house as well.  The rest of the afternoon has been errands and chores and getting ready for another week.

Not too many pictures of the week but here is what I have. 

Silly sock day


Lindy with her bestie, the Deacon.

Happy Birthday, Old Man!

Today, after church, at Palmyra. 
Just for fun!  A pic of the kids when we left Palmyra!  Wow have they changed!!

Changes

When it's time to change, then it’s time to change
Don't fight the tide, come along for the ride, don't you see
When it's time to change, you've got to rearrange
who you are into what you're gonna be.
Sha na na na, na na na na na, sha na na na na
Sha na na na, na na na na na, sha na na na na

(That’s lyrics to a Brady Bunch song, if you didn’t know!  ha)

Monday September 14 brought changes galore for our family.  Drew started his new job as a Hospice chaplain.  Of course, he’s also serving part-time as the pastor at Cherry St. UMC, so now he’s working two jobs.  One full time job out of the house is different in and of itself because he always had a full time job but his office was at our house and he had all the flexibility he wanted.  This afforded us the luxury of him picking the kids up after school, getting their homework done and fixing dinner.  Man, I had it made!  With the advent of the new job, things all shifted.  I’m now picking the kids up every day.  They have started an afterschool program two days a week, two days a week they will come with me to the office after school and one day a week I’ll finish my work day from home.  I’m fortunate to have a flexible, understanding boss.

We tried this new schedule out but actually it wasn’t a normal week.  I had a meeting with Lindy’s teacher after school on Monday so we just came straight home after that.  Tuesday was their first day at afterschool.  Lindy loved it and Will thought it was okay.  My dear, sweet boy told me that at one point he had a lump in his throat because he was a little homesick.  They have gotten to go home with a parent everyday after school so this is a new experience for him.  Wednesday was an early release day so I had to take a half day off to keep them.  I took them to play putt putt and arcade games so we were able to do something fun.  Thursday was afterschool again and Friday was working from home for my last hour.   I’m now responsible for getting homework done and supper cooked – oh how the tides have changed.  It’ll definitely take some getting used to.  We made it through week one so we’re off to a good start.  I won’t lie and say it was easy and I wasn’t tired but we made it. 

Friday we got home and got our things packed up and headed over to meet Drew at the Bryants’ house.  We headed off with the kids and dog, with the Bryants following behind us.  We stopped in Statesville and my sweet, dear, saintly parents took our kids, the Bryants’ kids, and our dog and headed to their house for the night.  We hopped in with the Bryants and fled like the wind to Asheville for a little getaway.  We went up to see one of our favorite singers, Pokey LaFarge, in concert.  He put on a great show, as usual.  We stayed up later than I’ve stayed up in a long time but it was a fun night.  We spent the night at Katie’s parents’ mountain house at Lake Junaluska.  This is where we normally stay every year at annual conference.  Except this year the kids and I didn’t get to go.  So at least I can say I made it up there once this year and it was nice to go in the fall for a change.  We slept in and hung out on the porch enjoying the fall morning before getting ready and heading out to Asheville.  We checked out downtown Ashville for the afternoon, ate an early dinner and headed back to my parents’.

My parents babysat all the kids for the night for us.  THANK YOU!!  My kids loved having the Bryants there to play with.  Sadie loved having Aiden there to play with.  Win win for everyone.  (I guess maybe not my parents! ha!)  They did get to swim for awhile Saturday, even though the water was much colder.  We got there around 6:30pm and got everything and everyone loaded up and headed home. 

Lindy had been complaining about her right ear hurting all week when I put her hearing aids in.  I figured there must be a little cut or something but I couldn’t see one.  She took her hearing aid out at school and told her teacher it hurt on Friday.  I decided to just leave it out all weekend to see if we could let the air get to it and help it heal.  Friday night my parents said she was up a couple times saying it hurt and they said she just didn’t act like she felt great.  Her cheeks were red when we picked her up and when we got home she had a fever.  I gave her Tylenol and she slept fine last night but woke up and immediately started talking about her ear again.  She was mopey and crying this morning so Lindy and I stayed home from church.  I called and got her an appointment at 2pm.  She had a fever again this morning and she got another dose of Tylenol.  We got to the doctor at 2pm and he said she had swimmer’s ear.  He said that’s what they call it when there is an ear canal infection.  He said it probably started out as a little cut but then it got infected.  She got ear drops and an antibiotic and we’ll hopefully get it cleared up soon.  We’ll have to see how it feels tomorrow to decide if she wears her hearing aid to school.  She needs to but I don’t know how much it will hurt.

That, my friends, gets me caught up on the blog.  Yippee yay yay!  I want to thank my faithful follower, Martha, for all the support.  She knew I’d get caught up and she was right!!  It’s much easier to do it each week than to have to catch up, so hopefully I’ll be back on track.  I’ll try at least!

Drew on his first day of hospice work. I should have made a sign for him to hold that said, “My first day of hospice work”  ha ha!

Putt Putt on the early release day

Putt putt  & yoga

Pokey LaFarge!

Our tired pup.  He is always exhausted after playing with Sadie!

Short week in September

Four day weeks seem great but I actually just spend the week confused on what day it is. 

It was a pretty quiet week.  Both kids started homework this week.  Math sheets, reading logs, spelling.  Nothing too awful but just takes some time to get back in the homework groove. 

Will lost his 6th tooth on Wednesday at school.  He was happy to wake up to money from the tooth fairy Thursday morning. 

I am on the PTA board this year as the special needs liaison so I had a meeting Wednesday morning.  Thursday night was curriculum night at school.  It was actually my first time ever going.  I had work events on the last two years of curriculum nights.  Drew has always gone and he always picks Lindy’s class so it was nice to have someone in Will’s class this year.  What was hard was childcare.  I asked Katie if she could watch them but they had open house at Micah’s school.  We ended up sharing a babysitter at their house.  We dropped kids off with the babysitter and Micah and Claire and then when we picked them up Kris and Katie were home.  We had a PTA meeting at 6:30pm, curriculum night at 7pm and then a meeting about the 2nd grade testing they do.  It ended up being a late night getting home.

Friday we went and ate lunch with the kids.  Will eats at 12:25pm this year and Lindy eats at 12:40pm.  Much later than last year for both of them.  Will picked a new friend Bowen to eat with him.  He seemed like a nice boy.  Lindy picked a new friend McKayla to eat with her and she was interesting.  She seemed cute till she would do this crazy person laugh.  We’ll have to get to know her better!

Friday night I took stuff to my mothers of multiples consignment sale.  I had to help set up and then I got to shop.  Will was supposed to start tennis lessons Saturday morning but it rained about 10 mins before his lesson so they ended up cancelling it.  He was super disappointed.  I ended up mowing the yard (cause the rain didn’t last long) and after lunch we headed to Winston for the Bookmarks Festival that Aunt Jamie organizes.  We saw Mimo and Jamie’s mom and sister.  We checked out all the tents but because of our timing we missed listening to any authors.  We left and went to pick up my consignment sale stuff and then headed home for a lovely evening of nothing.  Just getting stuff done around the house and I ran to the store for some groceries.

Sunday we had church and then we cleaned the house from top to bottom.  Thankfully it’s not too hard since we downsized the size of our house.  It’s good to know it can be done in one afternoon when we both work on it.  Not fun but always nice to have done. 

Not too many pics this week so I’ll share pics of our new house. 

He’s on a roll lately.  Catching up with Lindy.  He’s still down 2 teeth but getting closer to her.
Lindy’s bedroom – she picked her bedspread.  It was fun to do a more girly room!  I’ve already washed it once when the dog got up on her white bedspread with muddy paws – grrr.
She has a bathroom off of her room.  Will uses it as well. 

Will’s bedroom. 
He loves that we created a loft for him.  He plays under there all the time!

He loves his pennant collection! 
This is the main bath – the one we use and Will uses too.  A door on the right leads to our bedroom.

Our bedroom

The dining room – which is actually where we eat dinner.
The den.  This room is right when you come in the front door
Other side of den.
The kitchen.  The kids eat breakfast at the bar stools and do homework here.

Looking into the office and library.  We can’t figure out what to call this room!

Another view from the kitchen.  Dad built the two long and tall doors that we still need to paint. 
The office area right next to island.
Drew’s favorite part of the house.  His beloved books.
I found a girl hiding behind there!

Hey cute girl!

Area across from office area.
One side of the backyard
Other side.  It’s huge!  But fenced in and awesome!
Lindy was on the house tour with me and asked me to take this picture!

The back patio
The front of the house.

That’s it folks!  I still need to hang pics and the garage is a disaster.  But inside is doing good!

2nd week of School – Labor Day

The first week of September went by without too much fanfare.  We settled into more school and got another 5 days out of the way.  Two fun events happened that week.

Martha came over for dinner on Wednesday, Sept. 2nd.  It was good to see her since we’ve missed her a bunch!  She got to see the house and the kids (and us too!) which was nice.  We just had pizza but it was good and easy.  Unfortunately it took her almost 40 mins to get over here.  We do wish it was closer but we’ll just have to keep making plans to get together.  We’ll have to pick a special place to meet her for dinner, like we do with Mike and Janice from Palmyra.  The ice cream shop is our spot with them so we’ll have to find our Martha spot! 

Thursday night was the beginning of Wake’s football season.  It started off well with a win over Elon.  It was a 7pm Thursday night game so we didn’t take the kids.  We had Miss Victoria come over to babysit.  They were excited to see and play with her.  She graduated college and is looking for a real job but we hope she’ll still babysit for us!

Friday afternoon I got off of work early and I met my parents at my house.  Dad had a few more things to work on so they came over.  He made and installed some doors on the built-in bookshelves and they look awesome.  Since we have four bookshelves in the same room we didn’t need these.  What we did need was a pantry so he made doors and we have a pantry!  You’d never know they haven’t been there all along!  Mom and I rode over and got the kids from school and then we came back for dinner.

Saturday afternoon the kids and I headed over to my parents’.  We ended up going out to dinner and to Walmart that evening.  Sunday morning the kids and my mom and I went to Target where they spent some birthday money they had gotten.   That afternoon Drew and the Bryants arrived at my parents.  The kids all immediately went swimming and swam the night away.  Mom and Dad made a delicious dinner and we just hung out talking that evening.  Monday morning we got up to a cool morning but we loaded up and went for a boat ride.  Everyone but Mom, Dad, and I went tubing.  Even though it was chilly you could just step in the tube so you didn’t have to get wet.   They all had fun.  After the boat ride we headed back to swim.  We all ended up heading home around 5pm.  It was a fun weekend with our buddies.

Pics of our weekend -

Helping Papa with the horseshoe pits he built
Riding in the back of the truck down to the dock.
Boating with buddies!

Tubing with your sister
and your buddy Claire.

Drew went tubing with his buddy too!
Chilaxing with Sadie Jo.