Spy Academy

I know my vacation posts will be out of order, but if I can get some of the *fresh* stuff typed out, I'll remember it better :) It's Vacation Bible School time in our neck of the woods! I'm teaching Graysen's class, Caelan is the Worship Dance Squad (all by herself, as the MC pointed out this morning :), Gabby is loving her second year on skit crew (and all the funny comments by the little kiddos, "Are you real?"), and Brennen--well, fashion-wise, Brennen is Academy ready and looking smooth.

Rewinding to yesterday--the girls had rehearsals after the third church service, so we attended that one instead of our usual time. This meant Buck couldn't go to church with us, but it was kind of neat, because one of the girls' friends was baptized during the third service, so they got to cheer her on :)

After church, we ate lunch with the set up crew and then spent about three or four hours helping transform the church into an International Spy Academy :) For me, this meant carrying a ladder for most of the hours, so my kids could safely remove and rehang ceiling decorations in the music/Sunday school room. Feel the burn! Ha! But we did lots of other odd jobs, like stocking the classrooms with Bibles and hanging up goo bags for fingerprint identification at each door.

When we arrived home, I sat down on the couch and  . . . fell asleep for an hour. I woke up to make dinner and then back to church we went for the official training meeting! Busy day! And the week will be the same, with hundreds and hundreds of kiddos learning to detect the truth from lies, the One True God from the religions established by *The Deceiver*--good stuff!

Here are a few photos to kick off the week:



Okay, two. Apparently I didn't upload the other ones I thought I had . . . so, you get to wait in suspense to see what else to your wondering eyes should appear :)

I Can't Put My Finger On It . . .

. . . but one of the kids looks different today . . . :)




Gabby has volunteered to be the *special guest* at an upcoming Tiny Tiger graduation. Today we went to class a little early, so she and I could practice transforming her into Michelangelo. Should be a fun appearance! I've never been the handler of costumed critter before, and she's been looking forward to Turtle-hood since before the parade gig got cancelled last month :)

Cousin Time

How many people can you cram into one house? Well, the pioneers could host impressive loads in one room cabins, so hopefully our accommodations slightly outdid that arrangement :)

This is going back in time a bit. Sometimes I start blog posts and then just save them. So many other things happened this week, that they got put in place before I could get these posted!

Buck's cousins, uncle, and aunt stopped by on their journey east for a family graduation party. We'd already planned a trip north, but were glad our respective travel dates allowed a visit at our home. Buck was able to get home from work a little early, which turned out to be a good thing, since we needed to squeeze in another karate class and our guests arrived before we returned.

After visiting for a few hours, we worked on getting everyone a place to sleep . . . an air mattress in the upstairs living room, a spare bed in the classroom/pet room (for the brave cousin, lol), and a giant teddy bear for a mattress in the girls' room. Everyone seemed to sleep fairly well, because we were all ready to roll to our respective destinations by 9 the next morning. Even the dog got to take a vacation, though he wasn't quite as excited about it as the rest of us :)

On the Banks of Plum Creek

When we left, Graysen wasn't feeling great. He had forgotten to take his allergy meds the day before in all the excitement of family coming to visit--plus our usual music lessons, karate, etc. schedule. We were working on getting his lungs back to healthy and brought our whole stash of oils, OTC's, and prescription inhalers. It's a good thing we did, because the cottonwood seed population quadrupled the farther north we drove and by mid-afternoon Brennen and Gabby were a mess, followed even by Caelan and to some extent, me! Buck was already on meds for a suspected sinus infection and these gave him intense heartburn (all I had to help was children's Pepto Bismal, he took handfuls :) Let's just say, it was a rough night for the Crew . . . but during the day, we did have some fun. Here's our visit to yet another Laura Ingalls Wilder historical sight!

The museum also covered area and American history--eclectic :) But, I thought this was a very clever way to remind children to pray for our war heroes!

Since the original dug out alongside Plum Creek caved in 100 years ago, the museum built a replica on their grounds. I guess Laura's childhood perspective was very different than what it might have been for her Ma--walking into a dirt room the size of our laundry room, maybe? That was a family of five; and I complain about not having enough space . . . at least we don't have dirt floors and bugs literally crawling through our walls!

Pa, Ma, and the girls :) There were several buildings we could wander through to see artifacts from Laura's life and also some from the TV series. The kids liked the rooms set up to be old fashioned stores and banks etc. Overall, this one wasn't as cool as other ones we've visited, but I can check it off in my Laura tourist book, all the same :)

So, there it is--the hole where Laura's dugout used to be (see it there under the rectangular sign in the background?) They say the community did not realize that their Plum Creek was THE Plum Creek Laura wrote about . . . until illustrator Garth Williams showed up to sketch for cover art. Then all of a sudden a tourism swirl descended on their town and they had nothing to show people! Eventually the museum sprang up, the family that owns the land the dugout was on set it up for come and go traffic, and most recently the society purchased the original Masters Hotel (looks like somebody's house) for renovation and restoration.

Where Laura nearly drowned playing on the wooden plank when the creek flooded, where Pa hunkered down during a winter storm and ate all the Christmas goodies just a few yards from home, where Laura and Mary led Nellie into a leach-filled mud shallow during a party to repay her for her snobby attitude . . . Plum Creek :)

We took a short hike around the area on trails provided. It was fun to see some of what Laura might have seen, to imagine Pa building the "Wonderful House" out of boards on some of the flat land nearby. It was not fun to scare up a million mosquitoes, have Graysen discover three ticks crawling on him, and see the kids' allergies puff them up to watery-eye stage. Sigh. You win some, you lose some on family vacations :)

Woohoo! We arrived at Uncle C and Aunt L's in time for a delicious bbq dinner with mac & cheese and a super fresh salad. Uncle C taught the kids a board game, while we enjoyed the newly installed A/C and watched The Amazing Race finale with Aunt L :) We were blissfully unaware of the night we had ahead of us--which included poor Brennen coughing so hard that he started vomiting. See those white-carpeted stairs in the background . . . all the way down the stairs to the lower level bathroom. Oh the scrubbing! I just realized what the bright pink was!! The frosting on the giant 4th of July-inspired cookie Uncle C brought home for dessert!! It all makes sense now :) (BTW, L baked a lovely fruit crisp, which Buck said he very much enjoyed; the cookie was an extra bonus--and unfortunate for the carpeting ;) 

Decisions, Decisions . . .

I think you never fully understand the intensity of gigantic decisions unless you're living in the midst of them--actually, I think that is fairly true of any stressful life experience; it's hard to commiserate with someone else, and it's hard for the someone else to explain what they are experiencing.

So, here's a look at our world: we met with the first sunroom fellow. His quote for our complete, everything-on-the-wish-list four-seasons room: $49,500. GASP!!! Okay, so let's knock off 6 feet on one end, one foot from the length, ditch the pretty gabled roof, remove the electrical package, remove the heating and cooling system, we do demo, install our own stairs and concrete pad, and . . . $26,500. Well . . .

Recap: Sell house! Don't sell house. Build school in backyard! Don't build school in backyard. Build sunroom! Don't tie up finances for the next four years in what was going to be an additional 264 square feet, but is now 176. So, what's next? Build a BARN!!!

Yes, on yet another night of just four  hours of sleep, perhaps the idea that is going to best fit financially and stress-level-y presented itself. And it's funny how God works when you finally get it right :)

Buck had been thinking, I had been thinking, and in the morning we shared our thoughts with each other. As we decided to go out and do some "window shopping," a new Lowe's card showed up in the mail. Now, we've had a Lowe's card for probably close to a decade, but only use it for buying appliances, etc. at zero interest. We were going to Lowe's anyway to look for a large storage shed (but less than 120 feet because then we'd have to get a building permit with the city). To our surprise, the sheds were on special and they had a cute little wooden barn 10x10--but with an additional loft to provide 40 more feet of storage space. This means--we get a 140 square foot storage space, but don't need the permits! Having Lowe's install it added $1000, BUT they build the floor, supply the shingles, and like four other things we'd have to buy on our own to complete the project. How's this for numbers: sunroom addition 176 square feet--$26,000; barn 140 square feet--$2,600 . . . that's quite a savings on those last 36 feet :)

We realize this doesn't fix our floor space issues as neatly as an addition would, however . . . with the garage cleared of storage bins, kid stuff (toys, soccer goals, bikes in the winter, etc.), lawn equipment (mowers, snow blower) . . . we can use part of the garage for all the exercise equipment currently taking up floor space, there will be open karate space for the kids to practice, they'll have a place they can actually build their with their giant blocks without jamming up the downstairs or their rooms (we'll get some of those squishy floor connecting pads probably), Buck will have his work space back, and we can even park two cars in there sometimes if we want/need to.

Here's another cool thing--all purchases get an 11% gift card back. Buck is going to replace the deck himself, and ordered all those supplies yesterday. Between the barn and the deck, we'll already get back almost $400 for other projects.

In the meantime, we also pursued the idea of replacing all the carpets in the house (original upstairs, as far as we know, from the time of building). In some places, the pad is so worn out that we can feel the tack strips when we walk on them! In addition to the 11% back, Lowe's has a special going right now--they move all your furniture, rip up the old carpets, haul them away, recarpet the whole house (including the stairs!!), put the furniture back, and all you pay is the cost of the carpet. All that installation, haul away, and furniture moving is free! We also had another giant company come out to measure--they can't even come close to a deal like that (for the exact same carpet). We've had the house measured, we've chosen the petguard (seemed like a good idea :)stainmaster carpet plus pad we want, and now we're just waiting for the numbers to come in (but have a decent idea from the measurements the other company did :)

And since we're moving all the furniture anyway . . . :) I think we're going to repaint the upstairs. It's still that not-so-lovely "Builder's Beige" in most areas. This is still in the thinking stages, but I'm excited to get rolling. Our room will also get a paint makeover for the first time in who knows how long? I don't have any extra of that from the previous owners, so dings and scuffs are just there waiting to be disguised.

Summary: build a barn, clear garage, move big stuff to garage, rearrange furniture (we found a great deal on a bunkbed with futon couch and wardrobe for the girls' room; their big bed goes to the classroom for guests), recarpet, repaint, tear down old deck, build new deck, use old deck material to fence off garden next to barn!

AND on top of all this, I saw last night a young lady we know from church breeds bunnies and will save us four from her next litter (possibly this fall), so we can get bunnies as the kids were hoping. AND we can put a chicken coop on the back of the barn sometime down the road too (if we are not overwhelmed by our current farm community :)

The nice thing is, we have a do-able budget that can be paid off completely with Buck's fall bonus as a back-up if the refi comes back differently than we expect. Right now, we're feeling like God kind of paved this path for us, and was just waiting for us to try all the others before stumbling on to the right one. The shed is ordered, the deck supplies will be delivered this week, and I'm hoping to get the carpet decided today or tomorrow (just waiting for them to call). The kids are excited to help with the temporary packing process, and with all the painting and building--we'll get the family summer project I was hoping for!

Now--we just have to turn our focus a smidge, because VBS starts, basically today with meetings and practices, and will take us through the next week--which is going to be a busy one with karate testing, Father's Day, and deck building at the other end (how convenient that Buck just happens to have a 3-day weekend, good timing or God timing? :)

Fun with Pets

These little critters are very entertaining :) They are going to keep the kids busy this summer--I never know what kind of animal might be, well, pretty much anywhere in the house at anytime, with any child who happened to pick one up. Current count: one hamster, one hedgehog, one fish, one dog, and two guinea pigs!!

The babies like each other!! Aww, cute babies :)

The babies also like watermelon :)

Peek-a-boo Nutterbutter!

A face only a mother can love????

2017 Street Hockey Champs

Street  hockey season seemed to fly by this year! Maybe it was because everyone was on one team and we didn't half live at the rink :) The boys were Cougars this season, the girls their coaches (along with two other friends). Caelan developed a chart system for rotating players fairly--she also came up with a diagram and rules booklet for all the players to peruse--Gabby did the graphics and helped with the composition.

The only game they lost this season was upon our return from Minnesota--we were literally home long enough to unload the van and change into hockey gear. They were so unhealthy, low energy, allergy overwhelmed at that game--and it was hot. There was not a lot of energy from anyone on the team, and that day they played the team who had only lost to them. So, they lost to each other and that was that.

At their last game--one kid showed up for the other team! (It was the last day of school, so maybe that was a factor?) Throughout the season, our team has been the most consistent, attendance-wise--at that game, we had more than a dozen players! So, our team played . . . our team :) Half of them were "Moose for a day" (along with the other two or three Moose who showed up after the game started). Easy win and super fun because everyone got TONS of time on the rink!

This turned out to be good preparation for play-offs. Cougars got a bye (buy? by?) because of their record. Our first game was at noon--full sunshine and hot, but a lovely breeze. The kids played the team that only lost against and only beat them; this was the true championship game in my opinion, as far as match-ups go. It was a close, fun game to watch! The parents in front of me said, "I've got goosebumps!!" I put my arm in with theirs and said, "Me too!"

Part of the excitement came from not being able to see the scoreboard, which they kept in the announcer's booth--you couldn't see it in the bright daylight, anyway. So, we were sometimes guessing at the score, because some goals are worth two and some just one point. At the end of the third period, they didn't announce the score and we weren't sure, though we thought we were in the lead. Sure enough the buzzer rang out and the Cougars won 10-7!!

That meant the championship game at 2!

We popped home for water, snacks, and to cool down--we were driving the no a/c vehicle. The kids were jazzed, but settled when we returned to the rink. The game ended up being a blow out--the other team actually had more coaches than players. The five kiddos who were there put up a good fight in the first period, but then our score just grew and grew. By the second half of the second period, we didn't even put in a goalie--or for most of the third period. Final score: 23-6.

Brennen rocking out with the music between periods :)

Though they've played in the championship game in previous years, this was their first win! Happy crew! Even happier crew, when they were handed a $5 ice cream shop gift certificate--EACH! So, since this particular ice cream shop is like a minute from our house, we stopped by after the game . . . and then another player, and another, and our friends the E's, until eventually most of the team was there using their gift certificates and celebrating their win! Fun times with friends :)