Project Time

Josiah worked on many projects this week.  At CC he was able to present on two of them.  And, because he wanted to be ambitious, he created and completed a third project - a slideshow for his Final Math Problem.  He has to present a math problem to his class every three weeks.  This would be his last (ever) so he wanted to make it memorable.  He included his CC journey from kindergarten.  He had a picture of his kindergarten class with him and three other original kids from our campus. When he got to the end of his presentation, he had a slide with this written, "What does this have to do with math?"  The next slide said, "Nothing."  Then he proceeded to do a problem on the white board.  He just wanted to take the time to share his CC journey.  

Later in the day he presented his Cost of Living project.  He started it off by asking the class if they were ready to sit through 76 slides of PowerPoint.  He had a lot of fun with this project.  He ran through his college education, his career path, and how much it would cost to live.  He covered his apartment, utilities, insurance, car payments, food, tithe, and any other expenses.  One thing all the kids in his class included in their expenses were the streaming services they intended to purchase.  Netflix.  YouTube Premium.  Spotify.   Priorities!

Josiah also presented his Individual Event, or in this case, a Quad Event.  His group of friends acted out the SNL skit.  Josiah was the German-accented philosophy major security guard.  His first and best line, "I ahm zee security gaard."  He maintained the accent for the entire skit.  

He got the thieves to turn on themselves.

We tried out Crust Pizza, which is a new pizza place around here.  The kids were fans.  I was a bit confused by the name Crust pizza, because I expected there to be a hearty crust.  It was a bit flat.  It was the type of pizza that needed to be eaten with a knife and fork, which they did provide, so that was nice.  We got a good picture under the sign.  

Josiah also saw that Dude Perfect created their own shake at Smoothie King.  Not just a DP shake, but it came in a collectible DP cup.  Josiah was all in.  And to make it even more enticing, there is a new collectible cup each month.  Josiah is the type of consumer all marketing people love and target.  Henry and Caroline wanted to try Josiah's shake first before getting their own.  So we'll see what April brings.     

Friday, Josiah and I drove out to pick Todd up from the airport.  Before going home, we stopped at an appliance store.  The location was a little sketchy from the outside, but inside we met a very nice older gentleman who knew his appliances.  This guy had been in the industry for 40+ years.  We ordered ourselves a new washer and dryer - speed queens this time, because I'm tired of them always breaking.  We've been without a dryer since November, so we're looking forward to soft clothes instead of the stiff, hard, air-dried clothes (and towels!).  

The kids were dead set on going to Gringo's for a late lunch with Todd.  It did not disappoint.  Their Tex-Mex is amazing.  We were so hungry, we went through five baskets of chips.  That just meant we got to bring more of our meals home with us, so really it was a win-win.  The part the kids loved was the free (self-service) frozen yogurt machine on the way out.  Josiah got himself a small cone.  Caroline got herself a small cone.  And Henry walked out with the biggest cone he could make.  He saved a take-home bowl so he could drop the yogurt in there and eat it with his cone spoon.  

With Todd here, we all got outside and did yardwork together Saturday morning.  I gladly passed off my edging duties.  He also spent an evening doing the taxes.  We have been talking more about the new house and together we made a list of Definites, Would Be Nice, and Don't Want.  The kids all agreed that having their own bedroom and bathroom should be on the Definites list.  Your own bedroom?  Definitely.  Your own bathroom? That Would Be Nice.  They want two stories, high ceilings, a long driveway, garage, basement, a big yard for Benson, a fenced-in yard, gas stove, no HOA, and a good location for school, work, and church.  Caroline checks the mileage to each whenever she is house hunting.  

Our church does Saturday Easter services to offset the crowds that come Sunday morning.  We headed to one of those Saturday services.  The music was amazing.  Even Josiah said he got the biggest goosebumps he's ever gotten during a song.  We took pictures at our tree.  

We still did an egg hunt around the house.  

The boys have played a lot of basketball this week.  This weekend they broke out the baseball equipment.  They play with a heavy sand-filled ball so it doesn't go far when hit.  

Tomorrow Todd flies back and it is business as usual for the kids - back to the school work and finishing all the papers and projects for the year.  It feels like the end is rapidly approaching.

Africa, Cake, and the Truth Weekend

Henry had his 13-year well visit at the doctor's office.  He was most proud of his height: 5'3.31".  He has been measuring himself almost daily.  He measures his height against mine hourly (no joke).  Some day very soon he will surpass my height and he will be one happy teen.

Benson woke me up at 5:00 a.m. one morning barking his head off.  I investigated out our front window and saw some skunks, fighting maybe?  It honestly looked like sibling skunks annoying each other because the one skunk was sticking his hind quarters into the other skunk's face.  They were constantly walking, but the one was always putting his butt in the face of the other.  I watched for a while, but had to get ready for CC.  I would check on them periodically.  At one point, two other skunks walked across the street to check out what was going on.  One left soon after, but because I had to keep getting ready, I never saw where the other three went.  Poor Benson had to wait to use the facilities til they were gone.  I don't have time to get sprayed by a skunk!

The kids had a good CC day.  Caroline did her presentation on the Rodeo.  Josiah presented his Shakespeare Project with Bobby.  They shared their video of Good Morning Greece and retold a scene from The Taming of the Shrew.  

Henry has been memorizing Africa for Cartography.  He says it has been the hardest continent yet.  He did break out the capital/country matching system that I created for Josiah when he was doing Cartography.  Josiah got very good at naming the capitals, and Henry said it has helped him, too.  On Friday, he drew all of Africa from memory which was a big accomplishment.  He prefer I not show it because it was not to scale.  His Africa was a bit squatter, but everything was there.  I think all he has left is Australia and Antarctica (and a few Pacific islands), so the end is near.  

Throughout the week, Josiah has been practicing his IE (Individual Event) with his friends and running lines with us. They have to present a fully memorized, published piece.  The four young men chose a SNL skit.  Three thieves are breaking into a vault to steal gold, while a philosopher thwarts their plans using his words.  Josiah is the professor, to which he gives a very proper, studious accent. I did try to determine if SNL skits were 'published pieces' but could not get a definitive answer, so they were able to use it.  The skit is a funny one and I'm eager to see the finished product.  

Josiah was invited to Truth Weekend with his friend Bobby.  It is similar to our church's Caring For Katy project, but this church takes all their junior high and high school kids and they work throughout the weekend.  Actually, they do one service project and they also do a lot of Bible study.  Josiah was very excited to go, and his excitement only grew when Bobby said they would be sleeping at a rich person's house.  When we picked him up Sunday morning, he said playing hide and seek in a rich person's house was very fun because it was such a big campus in which to hide.  They played many games as a group - Squid Games style but without the killing.  He had a lot of fun with the college kids who drove them around.  Josiah got to stick his head out a sunroof while driving slowly around the neighborhood (that's how he tells it).  He came home with 3 rubber chickens.  Just because.  There were only six high school boys, so it was a smaller group, but they seem to have gotten along very well.  Josiah said the preaching and teaching was very good, too.  Next, he's hoping to go to the Rio Grande with Bobby's church for a mission project in the summer.     

With Josiah gone for the weekend, Caroline had a challenge for Henry and me.  We had to make a cake, but she would be blind, I would be deaf, and Henry could not speak.  My headphones muffled the words, so I just ignored everything the kids said, which was kind of fun.  I could hear them asking me questions and I just went along with my business because I couldn't hear.  The cake was made.  Henry wanted two circle cakes, which was fine, but we had no icing, so we just stacked dry cake upon dry cake.  Caroline wanted me to get some icing, but with my headphones on, I didn't hear that.  Hahaha.

Benson spent a lot of his weekend outside.  The weather turned beautiful and he soaked it up.

These next few weeks are very school intense.  Josiah has many end of year projects that he is working on.  Over the next 5 weeks, he has to memorize and present his IE, debate the affirmative in his Team Policy Debate on the Electoral College, write a 10-15 page science research paper, finish his Stock Market Project, present his Cost of Living Project, complete a project for his LifeGroup, and, his very favorite, keep up with math.  His days are very, very full.  One hour at a time.  That's how we work it.

Rodeo & Roller Skates

Spring Break started with a sweaty Henry.  He went to a junior high boys hangout at church.  They played a lot of games that involved kicking or catching a ball.  He came back to the car very sweaty, but happy.  The next day, Henry got to go to a friend's house for the entire afternoon.  It was a beautiful day and they played football outside.  There were light saber battles and VR games.  His friend's mom took them to Sonic and later to Chick-fil-a.  They had a very good time together.  

While Henry was hanging with friends, Josiah was working on a project with a friend.  Josiah and Bobby are doing their Shakespeare Project together.  It is a pretty open-ended project in that they can use any creative method to share something from Shakespeare's time period.  (They are reading The Taming of the Shrew in class this semester.)  Josiah and Bobby reinvigorated their Good Morning Greece set and went back to Shakespeare's time.  They have kept a lot of it secret from me, hoping to just share the final product.  I do know it has something to do with the character Biondello, because that is who Bobby reads for in class and he gives him a very unique accent.  While they worked inside the house, I got to raking the front yard.  It took several hours, but I raked the whole thing and got nine very full bags of leaves.  I also got a sore back and legs.  

To stretch my aching muscles, we headed to the Rodeo on Wednesday.  Josiah had two friends ride with us and we met up with more of his friends when we arrived.  Things were a little different this year - we had to pay to get in (usually Family Wednesdays are free, but only Caroline - under 12 - was free this year), and the rides did not open until noon.  We got there close to 10, so the kids scoped out the rides they wanted to go on, we got a good group picture, and then we headed into the livestock area to see a lot of pigs.  Not only were there rows upon rows of pigs, but they were judging a brown variety as well.  They were so much larger than expected.  Many pigs were napping in their pens and quite a few napped with their snouts sticking out of the bars.  Josiah was the catalyst to visit the pigs, so he got a picture with the backside of one.  We tried for a picture of Caroline, too, but the cage bars blocked the pig.  

At noon, they were ready to ride.  All the rides were fast and spinny.  I tried to film them while simultaneously not looking at the actual ride.  They hadn't gone on too many rides before they tried to meet up with another friend.  It lead to a lot of wandering and a lot of, What are you near?  

Henry and Caroline were tired of the endless friend search and were quite hungry as well.  One more ride and we had lunch.  No one had anything exotic this year - Josiah got his typical chicken tenders and fries, Henry opted for the giant turkey leg, and Caroline wanted a burger.  The best part was the fresh squeezed lemonade because we were hot and very sweaty from walking around.  

After lunch Josiah and his friends did more rides, while Henry and Caroline found the carnival games more fun.  They tried the balloon popping game because they thought it had the best odds and it had the prizes they wanted.  When Henry tried it, his first attempt only garnered him really small prizes (Christmas ornament size).  Caroline wanted a go of it.  You needed 5 pops for a large prize.  It cost 37 tickets for 5 balls to throw (!!).  Caroline took the balls and Pop! Pop! Pop! Pop! Miss.  She bought one more ball and Pop!  She got a large prize - an elephant.  Henry then wanted to show he could do it, too.  He bought 5 balls and got all 5 in a row.  He picked out a Squirtle stuffed animal for Josiah.  Later Henry tried it again when he saw a Texas Longhorn prize and he won that, too. He loves that cow.

 

We were looking for another booth with the balloon pop game so Caroline could get a second prize, but as we were walking, I asked if we could check out the pig races.  People were already filing into the tent.  In years' past, we've never made the pig races because the tent has always been incredibly packed.  We ended up being 40 minutes early for the next show, but we sat.  Within 15 minutes the entire tent was packed with people.  The pigs raced for an Oreo cookie in a dish at the end of the track.  They came out of the gate a little slow and curious of their surroundings, but when one decided to run, the rest followed.  They were very cute and I was very happy we got to see them at last.  They also brought out an eight week old piglet, Swifty, that was going to swim across a water tank.  They are taking it up to Sioux Falls next week to compete in the Guinness Book of World Records.  When they put the pig on the platform, however, it took the longest pee I have ever seen from such a small animal.  When that was over, we started chanting for Swifty, who then decided to empty her bowels as well.  When that was over, Swifty swam swiftly.  

By the time the pig races were over, we met back up with the boys and finished out our day.  We were all very tired.  Knees and feet were aching.     

Thursday was a far less productive day.  Josiah attended a boys high school hangout at church.  They only played basketball.  He said he played one game and then watched.  When we got home, Caroline very methodically filled the goodie bags for her very first birthday party.  Each sticker, each candy was picked just for that person.  She wanted to have a party with her friends before we move.  She opted for a roller skating party with her CC friends.  Her old CC friend who moved to Louisiana happened to be in town, so her family got to come along as well.  It was a great way to finish the week.

The party was at a rink we had never been to before, but it was the closest one for everyone in the party.  It was nice and big and had clearly been there for many decades.  All roller rinks look like a blast from the past.  There was pizza and cake and lots of skating.  Caroline had a good time with her friends.  The boys skated a lot as well.  They were happy they were able to rent inline skates.  At one point they had races and Josiah came in 4th in one and 3rd in the other.  

Henry wants a birthday party as well.  We tried to set up an Escape Room with his CC friends this week, but half his class was out of town, so it had to be postponed til the end of the semester.  It is hard to believe that this coming week is the final countdown - only six more weeks of CC for the boys and only four for Caroline!  The reality of Monday morning is going to hit hard.  

In the downtime, Henry made a beach picture using paint samples from our trip to Home Depot.  We needed an outside light bulb.  Henry came along.