Escape Artist

A couple of days ago, we barricaded Muri into the laundry room with Chauncey--she was locked in her kennel, Chauncey was blocked by a baby gate and an oversized ottoman. We came home to both dogs running freely through the house.

We thought maybe it was a fluke . . . nope! Today, Graysen and I went to run some errands at the post office and grocery store, and who greeted us by running down the stairs from the living room when we arrived back home? Little Miss Puppy Face.

So when we left altogether this afternoon, Brennen put a c-clamp on the opening of her kennel. As you can see, she would have been out again, because she popped the latch and lifted the door . . . somehow. She was pretty bummed that she didn't get to break free.

You can probably also see that she is dripping wet. We've been trying to solve this mystery for weeks. I think it is anxiety and she drools absolute puddles!! We put some t-shirts in with her to soak up the water, and you can see they are indeed soaked. I think we were gone an hour? Poor dog. I'm not sure what to do about that. She's a mystery--worms, ear infection, bladder infection, attached ticks, eating poisonous pinecones and vomiting for hours, drooling herself silly in the kennel . . . her health problems alone have been a challenge (and expensive for Caelan). 

But as you can see, she's growing! Not quite the same little bundle Caelan could carry so easily a few weeks ago :) Oh, but she's smart! The kids were catching me up on their welding class this afternoon and we were all ignoring her. For the first time EVER, she rang the service bell we've been training her with every time she goes outside. "Like the kind at Hobby Lobby, when you want to buy cloth," thought R. Yes, exactly like that. She's smart, and has quite the sense of timing :)

Welding Camp

Our local community college offers summer learning opportunities to high school aged students in our area. We've never pursued these before, but when we saw there were some neat, hands-on, practical skills they could explore, we decided to sign them up! And what's fun for three (G$ isn't quite high school aged yet) is fun for friends, too! Together our kids, our pastor's oldest son, and our NGF's oldest son composed 50% of the class. And originally we were expecting our NGF's same-aged uncle (and my nephew's doppelganger) to also be in the class, but he's already pretty much an expert welder and, also, he had driver's ed. The class bounced around all over the summer, as covid changed policies, procedures, and campus availability. Initially, we hoped to dip their toes into welding, and if it went well expand to construction, robotics, and more! However, class got bumped to the end of the summer list, so welding alone it is :)

The first day, our pastor dropped off his son at 8 a.m. Whoa is that early for a carload of teenagers! We'd spent the previous morning at the zoo with our NGFs (and lunch at a local restaurant with epically weird commercials), but the kids hadn't seen Curly C for weeks! I got to talk to my NGF after dropping off the Crew plus one. Her son R planned to spend a night or two with us, which saved her big time on driving back and forth. The other six kids were not thrilled to be in the mega-van at 8:30 in the morning. Thankfully, all the parents are okay with Caelan's driving skills, so she's did all the driving to and fro ever since.

From the reports I've received so far . . . the class is fun, the professor is nice, the welding tools are heavy, the VR simulator was cool, the vending machines are empty, and cafeteria lunch from a box is terrible. Ha, welcome to college! Also, our crowd gets along so well that the teacher thinks they are all siblings. R has decidedly darker features than the other four, so the kids weren't sure how he fit in. I pointed out that he could have been adopted. I told R, "I would adopt you." And he said, graciously, "Thank you!" Ha! That was hilarious. And when he later offered to help Graysen fold laundry so they could watch a movie before Buck got home, I'm pretty sure he earned an honorary family member certificate of some sort (we do hand those out on occasion :)

On day two, we thought it would be fun to have Curly C over for the afternoon so G$ could spend time with his buddy, too. I texted Caelan letting her know that I was contacting C's mom to see if this plan was okay. Caelan texted back, "Well, he brought his sleeping bag to class . . ." So apparently, Curly C thought R's plan of staying the night was such a good one, that he decided to join the fun! I laughed so hard. His mom texted back a forehead slap emoji. "These kids and their plans." Ha!

So, while they were welding away, Graysen spent some time at our neighbors' house playing LEGO with his buddy Isaiah. Today, they switched and Isaiah came to our house to shoot bb guns, play video games, and build more LEGO while the older kids were at camp. This freed me up to help a friend edit an article she's writing for a job interview, and to work on a magazine article my real estate lady asked me to write for an upcoming publication.

By late afternoon, Caelan and her carful were back, Isaiah was still here, and the house was filled to the brim! I posted a chore list on the window, and was very impressed that all seven pitched in to get the jobs done quickly.

I made dinner while they worked (and played video games), then Caelan made a yummy cookie (very similar to the skillet cookie at ESPN Zone in Downtown Disney) for dessert. It's super hot and muggy, so the boys abandoned football, and instead went on a walk with the girls and Muri. Last night the plan was laser tag at dusk, and that's what time it is now, so we'll have to see what the plan is for the rest of the evening. The house is currently completely quiet and I am typing all the words. Ha!

Hair adjustments are near constant in this age group. I got 4 out of 6 in just two pictures!

I'll save this post until they come home with their finished project tomorrow :)

And we're back! Caelan answered a trig question that no one has answered correctly in the teacher's 15 years of asking . . . and her unfinished box had more leaks in it than almost any the instructor's could remember in 15 years of teaching kids to make metal boxes. You win some, you lose some, lol!

Gabby took a bunch of pictures during welding, which she said was really hard for her and for Caelan (the welding, not the picture taking) because the gear is designed for grown men, not petite teen girls. But, the boys pitched in and helped them--sounds like the camp built a lot of camaraderie and though neither girl would go into welding as her profession, are glad they learned more about it.

In good news, lunch was better today! Good enough, even, for a photo text from Caelan :)

Oh the selfies :) All the selfies! But at least I got some pictures from their experience. 

Caelan (Mother Hen) arranged all the welding class students, including Math Girl (Gabby), Fuzzy Wuzzy (their friend C), Bandana Boy (R), Sweatpants (Brennen, but only once), into neat rows with their boxes for a group picture :) The instructor made "our" five keep their masks on for their photo, protocols and all. I took my own photo of the kids when they got home, but they were soooooo tired that smiles were hard to maintain. Maybe it was because they sat up on the hill talking til 11:30 PM last night, and then another hour inside while Buck called out a countdown, "15 minutes until bed. 10 minutes til bed. You have five minutes to go to sleep in a bed."

Looking forward to next year to see what  other new skills they can explore!

Backyard VBS

Like many other churches around the world, our summer vacation Bible school program needed a redesign for pandemic season. Caelan was excited to give the new format a try and signed up to host backyard VBS in our neighborhood :)

We invited a lot of kids . . . like all of our friends' kids, in addition to the neighborhood kids. But, it turned out to be a super busy travel week, so she ended up with two little VBSers. Graysen helped a bunch, and Caelan ran the show! Our super-organized children's ministry team put together gear packs with all the supplies needed (seriously amazing!) Most of the lessons were fun videos the kids would watch while they had their snacks. 



Our two guests seemed to have a lot of fun, got to visit our chicken farm, and hopefully learned more about Jesus. At three and four, they are definitely the "little ones."





Caelan is hoping to do another, single-day session for the kids who were traveling. That group would be closer to nine, but she'd have some big sister help in those families. We hope it works out, because I'd get to hang out with the moms and the kids would get to hang out together :) I'll keep you posted (pun intended ;)

This and That

I have a few specific blog posts I want to add, but the pictures to support them are in Caelan's phone and she's not home :) So here are a few miscellaneous pictures in the meantime . . .


Buck brought me home this "little" sunflower plant (it's like three feet tall) as a surprise. It didn't quite fit on the kitchen table in my usual flower display spot, so I put it on the deck. But then Muriel kept eating the petals, so I put it on the outdoor table, where I can see the happy, yellow flowers from the kitchen sink window. 

Technically Muriel can also get on that table to eat leaves and petals, but so far she hasn't :)





We had a hairstyling day . . . this time for the boys. Caelan decided to curl Graysen's hair, which may have resulted in more near burns than curls ;) Brennen asked me to trim his hair, and that hilariously took nearly an hour with adjustments, putting the equipment away, getting it back out, trying different styles, and finally getting the thumbs up. Whew!





The kids continue to make excellent meals (the pizza was for lunch, not for Buck)! Buck has lost 18 pounds and got to cut his blood pressure medicine in half (because now his BP is almost too low!) Hopefully he'll be off of that and the cholesterol meds in no time. Yay for less meds! Way to help your dad, kids!


A little backyard Robin Hooding :) The deer target is no longer safe on the hill between our house and our neighbor's. I pictured live deer peeking out of the woods watching Buck's accuracy and deciding whether or not it will be safe to continue eating my cherry trees ;) Let's hope they were impressed enough to keep their distance! Caelan has been regularly watering the trees for me, and we dust them with bug powder frequently. Two of three look pretty healthy . . . the other is struggling. But, if they've lasted this long, I think they have a chance!


Mr. Fashion on his way to church :) Gotta love that Graysen style! The shirt has bananas, the shorts have pineapples. It was tropical fruit salad day, and it was awesome!

Reorganizing

When you don't move for a few years, things start to pile up! It seems like relocating is a natural time to go through sheds, garages, closets, and storage nooks deciding what goes along to the new place, and what does not. With no moves on the horizon, and our spaces filling quickly (again), we decided to start the process of clearing out some stuff. You really have to think through the end result and work backwards to find a starting point. And then you have to consider the weather, which has been sweltering, and decide if your starting point could maybe be inside in the air conditioning vs. outside in the muggy sunshine.

We chose inside, ha! The boys helped me start by clearing out the kitchen . . . Graysen set out all our spices, looking for duplicates--there were not many! (except Alum which was for a school project, that clearly never got completed, lol!) Gabby arranged them back in the cupboard neatly. She also took a run at the wardrobe in the girls' room . . . viola!







Buck and I set out on a mission to replace the pooped on/puked on/peed on/chewed up area rug that has protected the "new" carpeting underneath from all of the above. We also added a matching runner for the hallway, since that is a very high traffic area. The pattern is "Venice" which is almost my middle name; made in Turkey which is a place I enjoyed visiting. So many reasons to buy new rugs, ha!



And also to find storage. My storage hunting date is cuter than your storage hunting date, hee hee :)


We found a decent option that ended up being $15 less than that sign on top says. Brennen and I went back the next day to get another. Into the first went ALL the collapsible lawn chairs we've somehow collected, plus the canopy, and the additional lawn chairs and table the company sent us because part of the canopy was broken. Baseball gear also went into this mini shed, so it really made a nice little space for us to start working in the garage.



Up on the hill we set the second storage container behind the chicken coop. The boys built a level base, and into this one goes all the chicken food, chicken supplies, buckets, etc. etc. which made a nice little space for us to start moving things around in the "barn."





Going through tubs and random bags of clothing that haven't really found a home, we did discover a few "treasures." Graysen was amazed that he was ever small enough to fit into the Espana shirt Grandma J and Mr. R brought back from their Spain trip. And I was amazed I was ever small enough to fit into the high school formal dance dress that Caelan said is back in fashion and she would add to her collection of dance dresses :)



I spent hours and hours cutting up bags of t-shirts I've saved over the past half dozen years to eventually make t-shirt quilts again (the last ones are pretty small compared to the kids' current and more permanent sizes :) We also tossed or decided to donate about six bags of clothes that would have gone in "the pit" (I think that's what they call the giant fireplace at the cabin). We just don't know when we're going to get there, and the kids are outgrowing all the clothes I saved anyway :) That created quite a bit of storage tub space in the barn. Shuffle, shuffle!





We added the shelf next to the treadmill to hold our impressive stock of suitcases. Some of these will be left in Africa (are still in fact packed for Africa), but needed some organization until then. We worked REALLY hard to clear the exercise space again, especially since Brennen got his Chuck Norris approved workout machine :) I would have taken a "before" picture of the garage, but it was not something I want to remember, lol!


Once we had that lovely cleared space in the garage, we filled it up with things that we'd pulled from other rooms in the house which were temporarily filling the living room. So, now all of that is awaiting "what's next?" I think we can donate a bunch to the foster care closet at our church plant. I'm going to try to talk our pastor's wife into doing a church parking lot garage sale; I just don't like strangers coming to my house. Ew!

Outside we had a pretty massive toss pile. Our neighbors were on vacation (Graysen was watching their pets) and I asked if we could use their extra trash and recycling space to kind of divvy up our big pile into piles the trash company might actually pick up. They said sure! As did our next door neighbor. We still have quite a bit, but waaaaaay less than before. Meanwhile, we had a burst of rain, so Buck felt it was safe to burn those 60 plus evergreen trees we'd cut off of our prairie hill--they were tinder waiting to happen! I was downstairs checking summer school work, so Gabby snapped these pictures of the burn . . .



Buck was sure the fire department would get a call--and funny enough, after the fire was out, an engine did scoop our neighborhood, perhaps "just checking." We threw a bunch of cardboard and other burnables on the pile, so we're making progress! We still have several rooms of the house to go through, and we need to move all the stuff we decided to rehome from the barn to the garage, but as the weather and our energy levels permit, we're making progress.