Possums, Playgrounds, Pizzelles, & Proofing

Over the past two weeks our trees have filled out with new leaves.  Every year, there always seems to be a branch that hangs a bit lower than the others.  And every year the kids take advantage of its low height to swing like Tarzan.  

Another backyard adventure occurred this week.  Benson got a possum.  It was still early morning time.  We were just starting school and I looked outside and saw Benson trotting around with something in his mouth.  A baby possum.  Oh, no.  Todd had stayed home from work that day, so he was sent out to wrangle Benson inside.  Benson dropped the possum, but he had no intention of being caught by Todd.  He raced back and forth all over the yard.  After a good bit of time (and a lot of frustration), Benson was in.  Todd looked at the possum and it was dead.  Not playing dead, but dead-dead.  When he went to dispose of it, Todd thought it looked like it had drowned.  So, we're not sure how it met its demise.  We did keep an eye on Benson all day though.  He seemed fine.  Next year, I surely hope the possum mother finds a new shed to shelter under despite the fact that I love their eating bunches of bugs.  

Josiah has been asking to go to a playground for a while now, so we decided to make a day of it on Saturday.  We went out to eat, browsed Half Price Books, and then headed for the playground.  We ate at Willie's Grill & Icehouse.  Our table was outside and from her seat, Caroline could see the sign at the front entrance.  She read icehouse and was excited because she thought it meant they had ice cream.  I don't know about ice cream, but they do have a wide variety of beer.

We didn't need any ice cream anyway, because we've been making pizzelles this week.  I mixed up a batch of anise flavored pizzelles mid-week using Claire's recipe.  As soon as I made the mix I thought it smelled quite strong, but the dough had a good consistency, so I figured it must be right.  Then, when I tried a bite of the anise pizzelles I thought they had a much stronger flavor than Claire's.  I reasoned that it must be that they lose some of their flavor when she ships them cross-country to us.  I finished making them, all the kids and Todd were eating them.  I cleaned up the kitchen and had gone on to another task when it dawned on me.  I put in 5 tablespoons of anise extract.  The recipe called for 5 teaspoons.  So they were strong.  Today, Josiah helped make mint chocolate pizzelles.  They turned out well.  They are a fun dessert to make because each batch cooks for only 42 seconds, so it is a really quick process.  There are never any left over either.  Henry is our lawman and counts out how many there are and how many everyone gets.  Our favorites are the soft ones when they first come off the press.  

At the playground, the boys discovered that they had no trouble crossing these monkey bar wheels that twist as you try to climb across.  This used to be something they really struggled to cross, but they've gotten a lot taller and stronger since we were last at this playground (pre-COVID).  Caroline enjoyed the climbing wall and Josiah went down the slide very slowly many times to get his hair all staticky.  He has entered into a no-hair-cutting phase.  Right now it looks like a very '70s style. 

We had perfect weather this weekend.  Benson got a bath.  We got some yardwork down and the kids came out to play with Henry's new water balls.  After a while they asked to wash the cars.  There was water, there was soap, and there were three kids.  By the end, the cars were halfway clean (maybe?) and the kids were mostly dirty.  

Henry is in the midst of his CC end of the year proofing.  Each year the kids have the opportunity to go for Memory Master.  It entails memorizing 24 facts in each of the six subjects as well as singing the Timeline song (which has 161 historical events mentioned).  The proofing typically takes about 90-120 minutes so it is a lot of memorizing.  Henry passed his parent proof this week with six errors.  Tomorrow he has his peer proof in which he's allowed one error per subject.  Next week is the Tutor Proof in which he is allowed zero errors.  Typically Todd has done the peer proof in the past, but this year another mom asked if we could peer proof each other's kids.  So tomorrow we're going over to their house to do so.  This is Henry's good friend from CC, so he's pretty excited to be able to go to his house.  Too bad he'll be hanging out with his mom for an hour and a half reciting memory work.