And since we’ve been home, we’ve had a dozen
doctor/physical therapy appointments, more than a dozen sporting events, nearly a dozen church-related functions, five repair appointments, Caelan working
regularly, the boys pet sitting, half a dozen music and choir lessons, art
lessons, countless grocery trips, and even company (my college roommate Rissa and her
family stopped by for dinner). Also . . . the bra-wearing chicken died.
“Turkey” is no more :(
I’ll try to hit some of the highlights here, so you feel all
caught up . . . because I may never feel caught up again :)
Graysen’s birthday happened to be our very first fun event
upon returning home. He went to bed a vacationing 10-year-old and woke up the
next day a whole year older :) His breakfast plan: chocolate chip waffles and
sausage. His lunch plan: Panda Express (ooh, orange chicken). His dinner plan:
chicken tenders (because I said we wouldn’t be able to get wings together that
quickly) and several other yellow-colored foods. Which, actually, fit the Green
Bay theme his siblings chose to decorate the house with for him . . . after we
unloaded the van from our trip. That’s about what life feels like lately.
Finishing one giant adventure to drop directly into the next.
Like going to the hardware store—when you’re not home for a
couple of weeks, your hay box might blow its lid in a storm. Super fun
adventure for a birthday boy ;)
Also, we didn’t have enough time between all
the running around we were doing to actually bake a cake, so Buck and I bought
Graysen a birthday pie from Fareway. It was in the freezer section, so I think
it counts as ice cream cake :) He certainly enjoyed it!
Before we ran Caelan to work, G$ opened gifts. He was pretty
excited by all of his new treasures, including a snap together Ford Raptor
(like Aaron Rodgers drives in the commercials), but the rookie Rodgers football
card exceeded all expectations. I just might have to post that video : )
His birthday maybe wasn’t as exciting as we usually try to
make it, but if you’ve been reading any of what I’ve been trying to get posted
for the past several weeks . . . we were just recovering from more excitement
than really anybody should have in that short of an amount of time. Whew! I
still think our special kid had a good birthday, so glad he’s part of our crew!
(Pictures--opening gifts from Grandma J after our mail hold was delivered and the monster truck that he's been wanting for a year, purchased with his birthday money from several sources :)
Back to school a.s.a.p., Buck took the girls to a pond to gather water and microscopic critters for their biology experiments that week . . . oh, right, and it SNOWED! A lot. (But it's all gone now :)
When the snows melted, the boys wrapped up their flag football season--after
missing about half of it. Their last game was fun to watch; good team work,
lots of “tackles” (flag pulls) by Graysen; Brennen was quarterback quite a bit
and had one run three-quarters of the way across the field for a touch down! He
smoked everyone with his wheels : ) They didn’t win any games their first
season, but somehow they managed the cold and learned a bunch about football.
Now there are regular games in our backyard with the neighbor kids, made all
the more challenging by the “land mines” planted by Chauncey, lol.
In the realm of karate, the kids had their next round of
testing at the same time on the same day as that final football game/awards
presentation. So, we arranged to test early with the lower ranked black belts.
It was a huge testing class, and we were watching that clock anxiously as it
moved closer and closer to the time we had to jet to get to football across
town on time. Buck wisely suggested we bring all the football clothes, extra
coats, etc. to karate, just in case we couldn’t stop home first. He also
suggested we drive two cars, so he could leave with the boys (figuring they
could change from karate clothes into football clothes during the drive).
This is
exactly what happened. They gave their final high fives to the judges at 3:09;
they had to be out the door at 3:10—seriously!! Buck, again wisely, had run to
the grocery store and bought the boys Gatorades and Power Bars (something he
used to eat between athletic events) and jerky, I think? Apparently he’s done
this multi-exhausting-sport thing before : )
One week later, we were back for the annual tournament at
our local karate club. Three of our crew participated in the higher level
combat sparring. Participation was kind of low this year, and no one signed up
in Caelan’s age category (she’s in the 16 and above since they base
participation off of age by 12/31). So, she automatically won first place, but
as we’d paid for her to participate, she was set to spar the winner of the
younger bracket’s top finisher.
You’ll never guess who the finalists were for combat
sparring—Brennen and Graysen! They fought an intense battle (I was thinking how
strange it is that we pay money to give our kids opportunities to hit each
other with sticks, and that we cheer them on while they’re doing it!). Time ran
out when the score was 8 to 9—Graysen won! So then Graysen combat sparred
Caelan. He did a really good job, and again they battled until time ran out . .
. this time 7 to 8 with Caelan winning her already promised first place medal.
Both matches were very exciting, and Buck made it home from work in time to
watch and cheer—you can’t go wrong when all of your children are out there at
the same time :) Gabby doesn’t like combat sparring, so she was helping judge
the younger sparrers. Actually, all four kids helped with judging, score
keeping, timing, and official paperwork. ACTUALLY even I was called out onto
the floor to help with score keeping for sparring matches, apparently my orange
belt (you know, one step up from white) qualifies me. My score-keeping match
was for Brennen and Graysen regular sparring. Thankfully, this tournament is
just for fun and practice, otherwise it would have been too intense for me to
do my job, ha!
Let’s see, Caelan ended up with first in combat sparring,
regular sparring, and forms; second in weapons. Gabby took first in weapons,
and second in sparring and forms. Brennen had first in sparring and forms, second
in combat sparring, and didn’t do weapons. Graysen was first in combat sparring
and second in regular sparring and weapons. Basically, with the small pool of
competition, our kids took the top spots in every match in which they competed
often only being out-placed by each other. Tournaments are a lot of fun, if
they weren’t so expensive and generally far away, we’d likely do a lot more of them :)
After the tournament, we came home for just a couple hours
(if even that). I swapped laundry loads like a woman on a mission, and then
(the story is long and complex, I will save you the details of fighting with
Amazon and fast forward to where our missing box is mysteriously delivered
containing the chicken “medicine” I needed) I worked on mixing up a batch of
chicken food with diatomaceous earth. This crushed crustacean meal apparently
is super healthy for their digestive systems and can eradicate any issues with
worms they might be having. We’ve never noticed any issues, but a chicken lady
Buck found on youtube said that any animals that live outside probably have
worms and with chickens this could affect egg production. Well, with our seven
remaining chickens we only have been collecting three eggs a day. This isn’t
cool! So, we ordered diatomaceous earth (which is super fun to say out loud, by
the way) to try to fix any potential problems we may have. The funny thing is,
as soon as I put my special concoction in the food box, I checked the eggs and
there were NINE in the nest! This means either that stuff works by proximity
(since no chickens had eaten any yet), the now-patched hole in the fence was
access for a non-chicken killing, but egg-stealing creature, or the kids forgot
to collect eggs for a few days. I guess we’ll see what they produce today!
Sorry, I’m easily distracted by chickens. Back to the karate
stuff . . . we only had this short amount of time between the tournament and
the two parties our kids volunteered to help with that afternoon/evening. Buck
helped Graysen put together a police officer costume (since Graysen’s first costume plan hasn’t yet come to fruition) and the girls helped Brennen put the final
touches on his LEGO Guy costume (hot glue, oh yeah! Actually Buck helped with
this too). Gabby put together Scottish girl accessories to join her birthday
kilt, and Caelan decided I am terrible at applying Egyptian make-up to her
face. “I look like a raccoon.” Well, yeah, I’m more of a chicken person ;)
We finally made it out the door and to the event, only about
10 minutes late. Buck, in the meantime, ran to the hardware store to buy our
pastor a pair of axes for his birthday (which Gabby wrapped before we left).
Then, he planned to nap while we were at the karate parties, so he could go to Qdoba
with the guys for dinner. It has been a long time since Buck went out with
friends . . . like California long . . . for dinner or birthday festivities. He
said it was him, several guys from his “cohort” (we started attending a six-month
“school” at church; a training for leadership that reads books, writes
papers, and meets monthly for discussion), a couple of elders, and some pastors
from church. It was so odd to come home to him being out, but I’m glad he’s
finding a good crew of guys to connect with (by the way, we’re also completing membership requirements in preparation to join this church; my we’re busy people!)
At the party, I helped our karate teacher’s wife judge the
costume parade (I’m kind of an expert because I helped out last year, hee hee :
) Caelan wrangled kiddos, and then each of our four picked a game station and
ran carnival-type fun for the three-to-six-year-olds and next the
seven-to-twelve-year-olds. Actually, Graysen decided to join this group, but he
had trained a young lady to take over his “tape the smile on the skeleton”
station. Gabby helped kids bounce eyeballs into cups taped to the floor, Caelan
did the ring toss for pop and water, and Brennen did suction cup throwing stars
against the mirrors. They are all so good with younger kids! I overheard
parents saying, “This was a blast!” I told our crew that they helped make it a
fun, safe event for the families who came, and that’s really neat! They always
have fun doing things like this.
Okay, this has grown long. I’m going to switch to a new post
for the rest of my updates!
No comments:
Post a Comment