Christmas Eve

A week and a half ago, the kids and I flew out to Virginia to see Grandma who has been having some health challenges.  When we pulled into Hampton, Todd surprised us.  It was wonderful to visit with family again.  Sitting around, laughing, and telling stories from years past always makes for a wonderful time.  

The kids were so excited to finally meet Grandma & Grandpa's dog, Maggie, too.  Not only that, but they got to go to the famed dog park where everyone knows Maggie because she is super friendly.  So friendly that she likes to give drive-by kisses on the lips to all the people there.  

The kids really liked the hotel for two reasons.  One, the gym.  They are big treadmill fans.  Especially the fancy ones that allow you to 'walk a trail' so the incline changes.  Every time we entered or left the hotel, they wanted to stop by and burn a few calories.  

They also loved the hotel for their pancake maker.  All you had to do was wave your hand by the sensor and it plopped down two dollops of batter which you could watch cook.  They tasted pretty good, especially with their fixings bar of sprinkles, chocolate syrup, and regular syrup.  

Halfway through the week, I drove Todd and the kids back to Grandad & Nana's house so they could visit a few days there.  We stopped at the Scenic Overlook and got a picture with the Blue Ridge Mountains in the distance.  The kids were very big fans of Staunton and the mountains.  There was even snow on the side of the road when we drove, which made it all the more enticing.  

After a week, we flew back to Houston.  Amazingly, Caroline made it through both flights without getting sick.  I had a pack of 50 throw-up bags in my backpack just in case, but a nurse friend recommended that I give her Dramamine the day before the flight and then again the day of.  It worked.  She did fine during the flights and only started to feel yucky when the plane descended in preparation for landing.  We will forever use this trick.  

We had an early morning flight, so we were able to pick up Benson that afternoon.  When we originally dropped him off at the kennel, he did not want to go in the back.  We had to escort him to the door so he would go in the right direction.  So when we picked him up, he was quite happy to see Caroline and me.  I set up my phone to take a video of him on the drive home.  We got some good close up shots of his happy face.  Whenever he comes home from the kennel, he drinks a lot and then sleeps for a few days.  I imagine the stimulation of other dogs doesn't make for very restful sleep.  We did, however, encourage him to make a friend while he was there so it would be more fun.  

Later in the week, when Todd got back into town for Christmas, Benson got to see him for the first time in several months.  He was very excited!  

This week has been filled with game nights.  We've played Clue, Guess Who, Connect Four, Hangman, Battleship, and our new favorite - Telestrations.  We don't have the actual game Telestrations, so we play by our own rules, but it is quite fun.  We each have a white board.  We each take a card from Headbandz which is usually an animal, an object, or an occupation.  If it is an astronaut, then I'll draw an astronaut on my white board, but along with it, I'll draw a rocket ship, an alien, the moon, stars, and the earth in the distance.  Then I pass my board to the right.  When I get the person to my left's board, I have to figure out from their picture which picture is the one from their card (they picked their own card).  If I think it was "hamburger" then I erase their picture and write the word hamburger.  Pass the boards.  I get a board with just the word, so I erase the word and draw just the picture of that particular word.  Pass the board.  Erase the picture and write the word that the picture was. Pass the boards. By that time we should each have our own boards back and see if they got our card/word correct.  Josiah is tough because he draws a snail or an alien in every picture and several animals and several food items.  It could be any of them.  

Here is "goldfish."  

Josiah earned his solid grey belt this week.  He was really looking forward to getting it close to the time Todd arrived.  When you get a new belt, you get to go out to a restaurant to eat.  (A new belt is essentially 144 classes.)  Josiah has been craving Outback Steakhouse, so when Todd flew in, we hit it up that afternoon.  Josiah ordered his beloved chicken fingers with a double order of fries.  His arteries thanked him.  At least that'll keep him on the mat to work it off.

Henry has been working on his science fair experiment over the break.  He was interested in how drinks stain our teeth and which drinks stain the most.  He had 7 types of drinks - coffee, Coke, tea, pickle juice (pickles are a thing in his class), Powerade, grape juice, and our control, water.  He put eggs in each glass and then checked them at 6 hours, 12 hours, and 24 hours.  We were actually quite shocked by some of the results.  What we learned was that you better brush your teeth after drinking grape juice!    

With Todd home, he's been doing a few projects that will help us with the move later.  One thing everyone helped with was taking the other half of the banister off in our stairwell.  Even Benson was in the mix because it looked so fun to hang out on the stairs together.  

The evening of Dec 22nd Caroline asked me if I had all her Christmas presents yet.  Well, Christmas is in about two shopping days, so did you make changes to your list?  Her original list had 'ripped jeans' on it.  We went a few weekends back to try on jeans.  We found a pair that fit, but that particular day Caroline said she didn't think she would wear them.  I said Are you sure? a bunch of times.  She was sure.  So we didn't buy them.  But Dec 22nd at 8pm, those ripped jeans were looking pretty good.  So, Dec 23, we went back to the store in hopes that they still had them.  Success.

Because Christmas Eve fell on a Sunday this year, our church had their normal morning services as well as afternoon services.  All of them were going to be the same, so we stuck to our normal morning routine.  It was a very nice service and at the end we got to sing Silent Night in the candle light.  It is always a peaceful song and a beautiful thing to see the whole church lit up with candles.  And then I had Henry next to me repeatedly saying, Look, my candle has a pimple.  Thank you, Henry.  

This year, the kids are all sleeping in Henry's room for Christmas Eve.  They rotate rooms and he spent the afternoon getting it all set up.  Josiah still has the same giddiness that he has had every year at this time.  He's a celebrator!

Parties and Performances

Josiah had a very fun start to his week.  His friend had his 15th birthday party Monday evening and it was a Murder Mystery party.  They had a murder and clues to solve who did it.  They got it right just before the party ended.  

Mid-week, we went to our church's Christmas Blast.  Our first stop was the hot dog stand and, as we ate, Josiah's friends came over to eat with him.  They went off together for the next few hours, but we did pass each other periodically.  Henry and Caroline did not want to do the sledding this year, but I encouraged them to do it just once so I could take a picture in the snow.  They complied, but emphasized to me that they only wanted to slide just once.  I kept an eye on them as they progressed through the line.  There were three sets of slides, and I followed them to the far slide.  I had my camera all ready and then this kid came down before them and he lost his flip flop in the middle of the slide.  I was watching the events unfold as to who was going to get this kid his shoe when Henry walked up to me.  I missed him going down.  I quickly looked up to see Caroline reach the bottom of the hill.  Sorry guys.  You need to go again.  They begrudgingly complied and the second time I got them.  

Then we moved to the Carnival Games.  The first game we tried was bowling with giant blow up pins and a giant blow up ball.  Henry's friend was running the stand and he said, "Do you want to do hard mode?  You can double your prize?"  Well, yeah, Henry was going to try hard mode.  Henry got the pins down and was handed two full size candy bars.  That was how the games were - if you got all the footballs in, or all the rings on the pins, you would get two full size candy bars.  Later on, however, Josiah told us a story of when he and his friends did the bowling.  They had played.  His friend won.  Then they passed by their LifeGroup director, JP, who also works at the church.  Josiah's friend, Brayden, showed Mr. JP 3 full size Snickers bars.  Mr. JP congratulated him on his three wins.  No, Brayden said, This was 1 win on a doubled-up-hard-mode with a time bonus (for throwing all the balls in a certain amount of time).  Mr. JP then walked himself over to the Carnival Games and told the kids running them, "no more hard mode."  The teen workers had made up the whole thing and the winners were loving it. 

The kids did many of the Carnival Games, but stuck to the games where they were giving out the candy they preferred.  Caroline crushed the football challenge and got many Hershey's Cookies and Cream bars as a result.  The last time she went up, the woman running the station said, You look familiar.

We lit marshmallows on fire and ate popcorn.  

We did a train ride.

Towards the end, Henry finally found some of his friends and he went off with them for a while.  While it was just the ladies, we went to get pictures in the Texas snow - a bubble maker.  

And at the end we got our picture in the gift.  

The following day was Market Day at CC.  This is the day the kids can sell their homemade goods or crafts.  Nearly everybody participated, so there were many tables of cookies and bracelets, ornaments and crocheted animals.  We sold a few things that we needed to get rid of - more of a house purge than a homemade cookie table.  Josiah wanted to do a Penny Challenge like a YouTuber that he watches.  He started out with one penny and had to buy something with that penny.  Josiah bought a pen.  Then he used that pen to trade up at different tables.  By the end of the day, he had collected 20 Pokemon cards, a cupcake, a Funko Pop figure, and a wooden airplane.  All from trading.  His friend Bobby did the same and ended up with a nice Lego kit that he could sell to his store for about $20.  So they did well and they had to hustle and make deals all day long.  

Henry was not feeling well that day, so he hung out in the chair a lot or tagged along with the penny-challengers.  Caroline hung out with her friends, but neither of the two youngest purchased anything.  Caroline had a tin whistle concert before lunch.  Her class is the oldest one in Foundations, so they played very well.  

They also displayed the Essentials students' Chart Projects, which represented one of their Essentials Charts (The charts are on the different parts of speech).  Caroline commissioned Josiah to help her draw her Interjections poster.  Caroline had the idea and sketched it out, then Josiah brought it to life.  Josiah sketched it on the posterboard, Sharpied it, then added the coloring, then the words, then he signed Caroline's name at the bottom.  Caroline did contribute the word "Interjections" and its definition.  

The start to our weekend was quite busy.  Birthday parties for everyone.  I dropped Josiah off at a friend's birthday party.  Then drove straight to another birthday party for Henry's friend.  Then Caroline and I rushed to get to Awana on time.  

Josiah's birthday party was for a friend from jiu-jitsu.  Since it got warm again (75°), they made it a pool party.  Henry was sad to miss out on this party, but he had his own climbing party to go to.  His friend from church was turning 13 and this friend is really into mountain climbing.  Henry had a good time, but when he came home that evening he kept moaning, My muscles hurt soooooo much.  

Caroline had a Happy Birthday Jesus party at Awana.  They all ate cake.  

On Saturday, we went to see Henry's classmate who skated in Nutcracker on Ice.  While I knew the ice skating rink was at a mall, and while I knew that visiting a mall on a Saturday in December would be nightmarish, I did not plan on enough time to find a parking space.  By the time we found a spot we did a lovely speed walk to the rink.  This was a huge mall and we parked nowhere near the rink.  The seating was bleachers style.  The only row empty in our section was on the front row, literally 18 inches from the ice.  That suited us just fine.  We were sweating and hot from our walk in.  We sat and enjoyed the refreshing coolness.  The first half of the performance was about 45 minutes.  It was all children performers and they were doing really well.  By the end of Act 1, our bodies had cooled down and were starting to get really cold.  The bleachers were actually on the ice.  We were in the rink with just a thin carpet separating us from the ice.  So, our feet, which were resting on the ice, got quite cold.  By the end of the second act, our feet felt completely frozen.  That's why the front row of the bleachers had been left empty.  Henry's classmate skated at the beginning of the second act.  She was "Chinese Queen" which was sort of funny because she's Filipino.  She did really well.  She has been skating for several years and has been working her way towards U.S. Figure Skating.  Last summer she received gold at a National Finals in Austin.  Her goal is the Olympics, so it'll be neat if she makes it some day and we can say we knew her when.  

The weekend finished out with Caroline sharing a testimonial of her time in the hospital.  Her old 4th grade teacher at church had asked her a few weeks ago to come speak to that class about her time in the hospital.  The lesson of the day was trusting God through hard times.  Caroline went to her regular class first to tell her teacher where she would be.  She gave her story to the 4th grade class and when she got back to the 5th grade room, that teacher asked her to share her story as well.  I'm grateful she's had weekly public speaking practice at CC.  It certainly made what could have been a daunting task not so nerve-racking.  

So ends our week.

Singing Through the Holidays

Henry started his week out with some game time fun.  His Latin tutoring class was over for the semester and they had a game day to celebrate.  He was there all afternoon playing Trivial Pursuit, Headbands (Latin words edition) and Bang!  When he got in the car, he commented on how hungry he was.  

I thought they had food?  Did you eat anything?  

Yeah.  Four slices of pizza.  

That ought to tie you over.  

Concert Season has begun here.  On Monday evening, I was treated to three performances by three different artists.  Henry rapped Weird Al's Amish Paradise.  (It is a very funny parody.)

Caroline followed up by belting out Frozen's Let It Go.

And Josiah finished things out with Shake Your Booty.  He had a few back-up dancers that thoroughly enjoyed their roles.  

We've had other songs throughout the week as well.  Mostly solo performances by Josiah.  He has found a karaoke app and enjoys it a lot.      

Tuesday we all headed outside to get some yardwork done.  It goes much faster and much smoother with four hands on deck.  Many hands make light work.  Josiah mowed the front.  I did the weed whacker.  Caroline and Henry did the blower and swept.  It was great.  As I was trimming the shrubs in the front, the kids had fun with the blower.  In the homeschool world, the mowing would fall under Life Skills/PE Class.  The blower, however, would be Physics.  We witnessed Newton's Laws of Motion as they shot garden gloves off the end of the blower.  There was family bonding to be had.  It was a three for one.  

We did some baking this week as well.  In Henry's CC class, they were bringing in food from the country of their origin for their final day.  Henry chose German soft pretzels.  It has gotten a lot cooler here, so our first test batch of dough did not rise as well as we had hoped.  We also later realized we didn't use enough yeast.  We got things corrected for the second batch and they turned out a lot better.  On CC day, Henry never emerged at lunch.  He just hung out in his class and ate all the good foods.  He had empanadas from Columbia/Venezuela, a Filipino cake, Filipino vegetable and rice noodle dish, African roasted turkey necks, and Chinese potstickers.  He loved it all.   

Both boys had their blue book assessments this week.  Henry was very nervous going into it, but at the end of the day said they weren't as bad as expected.  He had to draw and label all North and South America as well as Europe.  (countries with their capitals as well as all the U.S. states and their capitals)  From memory.  He did well!

Josiah did his tests/essays in the morning, while in the afternoon he read his Tom Sawyer paper and did an Escape Room for Science.  Josiah situated himself between two smart friends (knowing they would be in teams of 3).  Josiah felt he could help the one friend who he knew hadn't read the chapter (he'd been out of town).  But he also chose these two friends because they would work hard to win.  It paid off and his group was the first to finish successfully.  

Caroline's classes celebrated the end of the semester as well.  In the morning, her class had a pizza party.  In the afternoon, her Essentials class had their annual cupcake party.  She enjoyed her first cupcake and then went back for a bowl of sprinkles to reminisce when she did that many years ago at Sweet Tomatoes.  This time, however, her belly did not appreciate the influx of pure sugar and food dye.  She came home with both a bellyache and a headache.  

Friday morning we had our pipe replaced in the front.  First came the digger who dug a perfectly rectangular hole.  Exposing the pipe revealed there was a complete break.  It was replaced and the rest of that line was fine.  cha-ching!

This weekend Caroline made peanut butter oat balls.  She discovered an old kid's cooking book and tabbed a few pages of recipes to try.  She liked them a lot, as did Henry.

During the Sunday morning service today, Caroline sang the Christmas songs with her WAM group.  She told me ahead of time she was not going to do the hand motions.  She told the truth.  I told her I expected to see her belt it out like she did Let It Go earlier in the week.  She did sing it out, but maybe not with the same gusto.  During the second service, Josiah and his friends sat in the second row, so she got a good shot of them.

Caroline is in the red long-sleeve shirt with her hands firmly at her sides.  🡇

We're finally getting weather cool enough for Benson to enjoy the sunny spots on the floor. 

This coming week is full of birthday parties and Christmas parties and a special ice skating performance.  Even though CC is over for the semester, school continues as well.