Giant Beatles

This was our last week of school and the kids finished well.  In science, we finally finished our book about the the stars and planets.  For the next semester we're doing the physical world - energy, force, work, momentum.  Way more fun in my opinion.  We started the book early and have been learning about potential and kinetic energy, perpetual motion, force, and friction.  One day we learned about tensile strength, which is the amount of tension that a material can withstand.  They happily tested this on thread, string, and rope.  I knew they could break the thread by pulling on both ends, but I was surprised that they all pulled the string to the breaking point as well.  Obviously there was no chance with the rope.  This should be a fun semester with a lot of cool experiments.


As a review game one day, Henry picked Jeopardy and set to work.  He wrote the whole board up, complete with dollar amounts and daily doubles.  His hosting skills were not too shabby either.  He kept us on task.  In the end Josiah won the game because he got the daily double and, though he only had about $5000 in his bank, he bet $10000, got the question right, which gave him $15000 (Henry doesn't totally understand the whole Daily DOUBLE thing, but I wasn't going to explain it).  At that high of a score it was impossible to catch him.

Earlier in the week I was able to go out two nights in a row.  The first night was meeting a friend for dinner, which was really nice.  The second night was a CC meeting, but it was still at a restaurant with five other moms.  Still a nice time.  The next morning, Caroline woke me up and started right in on me.  "Do we have to do school?  Why did you stay out so late?  What were you doing?  Why do you always go out?"  Yes/8:45? Late?/Chatting/Always? Really?  I hope she appreciates these same questions asked of her in ten years when she goes out with friends.

One day this week Josiah met up with a couple of our CC friends and they delivered Christmas cards to one of the assisted living facilities.  They were supposed to go up to each resident, hand them a card, and say, "Merry Christmas."  Many residents tried to chat with them, which was great.  We saw some smiles on their faces which was wonderful.  Josiah said he loved doing it.  I kept asking him, "Did you say Merry Christmas?"  Oh I forgot, he'd say.  I continuously reminded him to speak loudly.  Speak louder than you think you have to!  He had a lot of fun and it was with two good friends which made it all the better.

Friday was our last day of school.  We finished our lessons early (yay!) and then headed into Houston.  Our main objective was to pick up an erg, however a few blocks from that warehouse Todd found a Giant Beatles Statues landmark.  We stopped, hoping to get Josiah a picture with them, but quickly realized that the statues were part of a brewery.  So we did our best with pictures from the other side of the fence.  As we were walking around trying to get all the angles, I asked the kids if they wanted a picture with George.  No.  Poor George.  Only Caroline took a picture with him.

George

Ringo

On the other side of the Beatles there was a We 💓Houston sign so we took some pictures there, too.

The erg was what brought us into Houston and on Saturday, Todd and I spent some time putting it together.  There was a lot of confusion while we put the parts together, because what the instructions did NOT tell us at the start was that we were putting it together in the folded position.  So the foot pedals looked off, the screen you look at was at a weird angle.  Finally after it was all assembled, you pulled this knob and it went into the flattened position and it all made sense.  Our beautiful rowing machine. Todd likes to make fun of my rowing "abilities" and yells out Power 10 whenever he can.  By this time next year we'll be unrecognizable we'll be so buff.  The kids love it, too, I think mostly because the seat is on a slide.  But maybe on those rainy days we can let them get some energy out.  Todd and I are going to challenge each other and try to row across a body of water.  He looked at some distances (the Atlantic, D.C. to N.Y.C.), but they all seemed awfully long.  Maybe we'll start small and do some local waterway.  Maybe start with a creek just to build our confidence.

We were able to get the tree decorated this week.  Caroline had the privilege of putting the star on this year.  To figure out whose turn it was, I went back through all our pictures over the years.  In the process I came across this gem.  Josiah throwing a fit that Henry got to put the star on in 2015.

This year the roles were somewhat reversed and Henry was throwing a fit that Caroline got to put the star on.  The funny thing is, it'll only be a few more years until none of them will want to put it on.

Probably the biggest highlight of the week, however, was the delivery of our brand new dishwasher.  It has been months and months (and months and months) without one and though I did not mind washing dishes, it has been so nice to reclaim the sheer amount of time it took to do them.  Plus, my dry, cracked hands are appreciative.  When the delivery man first came in the kitchen, he measured from our floor to the bottom of our countertop.  He said that we were 1/8" short and that the machine we bought was built like a box.  He asked if I wanted him to try to fit it in anyway.  You betcha.  He did a great job and was able to get the 1/8" too big machine in our 1/8" too small hole.  I was super appreciative for his efforts and have been enjoying it ever since.

The kids are excited for the week ahead.  It should be a good Christmas week.