Saturday, May 27, 2006

SATURDAY

The day began with Mike helping John and Melody with their move. I made some waffles for the kids and then took Josiah to work. Jamin was out doing a lawn. When he returned home I drove him over to Mike and Charly’s to weed their flower bed. He made $100 in the last two days. Yippee…he’s almost earned ½ of his trip. I’m so very proud of the way the boys have tackled this. We really thought we’d end up paying for their missions trip since we don’t have a “church” backing us. Back at home, we tackled a few jobs around here. Jared had been mowing the yard – his first time solo. Mike and he then trimmed some tree branches that were scratching on the roof.

Another mystery book showed up in my mailbox.

I had a host of goals for the kitchen today…didn’t reach them all but did keep busy. I got 4 more “waffle mixes” made for next week. I froze another tray of grapes. Frozen Grapes are an awesome summer treat. They are 100% natural popsicles. I also throw them into smoothies. We got a load of apples drying and threw some kiwis in too. I made 3 kinds of salad dressing and a double batch of granola. Jamin ended up watching over this as I ran to the store. Mike came in and suggested a trip to the pool.

You got it – we bought our family pass and spent a couple of hours at the pool. I thought it would be very crowded but it wasn’t bad at all. In fact during the last hour it was just us and one other family in the pool. {G} We chuckled when one of the female lifeguards said, “Alex, I remember you!” Another pool funny… a little girl who looked to be about 9 years old was fascinated with Stacia. She asked, “Can I touch her?” I figured that would be o.k. Then she said, “Is she real?” after touching her. THEN she asked, “Are you her grandmother?” THIS is why I dye my hair and don’t care if it is blonde. :::snort::: BTW contrary to Adrienne’s dire predictions my hair has not turned green yet…but I’m just waiting for it to do so. LOL

Alex (Zander) had a great day today. He’s been “clean” for 6 days now and has been steadily getting more and more “fun, loving and disciplined”. He began it by climbing into our bed for cuddling. He told us he loved us. When we drove Cy to work he told Cy he loved him. He didn’t have meltdowns. He worked the apple peeler/corer/slicer and was proud of the trays of apples. He patiently waited at the pool for me to show up with the passes. He listened and obeyed well at the pool. He PLAYED WITH a new friend, Lilly, in the kiddie pool. I wish I could capture the day.

We rounded out the evening by watching “March of the Penguins” which we got from Netflix. We tried to watch it last night but it kept stopping. Mike discovered it worked fine on our $30 player and so he brought that out and hooked it up to the projector so we could watch the movie. We are really enjoying being able to order movies from Netflix. Last week we watched “Newsies” – a wonderful movie. We have quite few movies in our que.
The Pool is Open!

Base pools opened yesterday! This signals the true beginning of summer. There are two pools on base and one out at the rec camp on the lake. We chose the lake. This pool has a small kiddie pool that is 1 ½ feet deep…..then it has a big pool that starts at 3 feet and goes to 8 or 10 feet. There are two slides in the big pool for the kids to play on. The best part is that the seating area and the kiddie pool is under a car-port type shade. Yesterday was also the last day of school so the pool was fairly quiet. It was a good day to go and let the lifeguards get reacquainted with us. I’m praying we can make it through the year without getting kicked out. Of course, that only happened once last year and I suspect that that female will no longer be working….we’ll see.

The a.m. was produce co-op. For some reason we ate less fruit and veggies the last couple of weeks. I’m not sure why. I’ve had several days of eating nothing but fruits and veggies’; I would think our consumption would be up. I ordered a bit less this week. As soon as we were done with co-op I raced to Academy to find suits for Zander, Jared and myself. Charly, a local friend, had called Thursday while I was online ordering from Lands End. She told me that Academy had sports tank top things and tennis skorts that worked well for a suit…and cheaper too. We had about 3o minutes to find the suits we needed. Some of you will remember my swim suit lament from a few months back so I won’t repeat it…..I’ll just say that when I did the Land’s End measurements I needed a size 6 top and a size 12 bottom and frankly I couldn’t quite figure out which size to order…either size could cause problems. :::snort::: The size 14 I bought a few months ago still has TAGS but it is NOT going to work. Mike told me yesterday that it was far too big and saggy (not his words) on top. If anyone wants a modest, 2 -piece, size 14…black with pink piping, swim suit…let me know. OH – the same day that Charly called, Adrienne & Porshe (her daughter) dropped by. Porshe had some racing suits for me to try that no longer fit her. I was sure they wouldn’t fit…but they did. They are a bit “sleeker” in the tush area than I wanted so I needed to either find the suit that Charly was talking about at Academy or a pair of shorts. With 30 minutes ticking down the pressure was on. I wasn’t sure I was finding the tops that Charly was talking about…not sure that anything I was seeing would work. Jared found a suit. Jamin found a suit for Zander and we were down to 10 minutes. I took the tennis skort that I had found in and decided if it worked I’d buy it to wear over the racing suits and I’d try to find another 2-piece type thing later. The shorts I took in to try on were too big. The skort looked cute…until I twirled and bent and realized it was NOT a skort and did not have built in shorts with it….oops. I grabbed a smaller size of shorts on the way to the checkstand and we were out of there, home and on the way to the pool in no time.

It was a fun day at the pool. Kelly, Heather and Adrienne were there with their children. Mike was helping John and Melody move. Yippee – they are getting a 4 bedroom home. I realized I’m going to need much more in the way of pool snacks this summer. We almost downed a 5 lb bag of peanuts in the shells. I have the shelled – no salted kind but at that price I don’t plan to go through 5 lbs of them at the pool. I tried to find more in the shell at Sam’s last night and they were out. Carrots work well for the pool too – they stay crisp. We also had cheddar bunnies and banana chips…..anyway it was a fun day. I was able to get in the water and make some memories with the little ones. We were able to visit and the children played. While I was in the pool I noticed and always pad in the filter. I wasn’t sure of what I’d seen so called Heather over to look. She went and told the lifeguard and the poor young man had to clear the pool and remove said trash. Then we all had to sit for 30 minutes…I think next time I see something like that I’ll wait for the scheduled pool break to say anything. {G} The summer season is off and running.

Jamin has earned $50 mowing yards this a.m. I need to get going and take him to another friends house. He’s going to weed a flower bed for her. Jared is going to help him. Josiah is at work – until 10:30 tonight – another 10 hour work day. Mike is helping out with the move some more today…..

That’s our day so far.