Adventure Thursday!

The rest of the pictures from today are here.

It was Adventure Thursday! Woohoo!

The first thing we did, i warned the kids that i'd never done it before, and it would probably be fun, but we might fail. (Katrina later reminded me that we DID actually do it once before. Unsuccessfully.) I'd searched and searched for someplace nearby that seemed likely to lead to success, which brought us to East Grand Rapids.

We followed the clues and found the spot where the first package was supposed to be hidden among a whole bunch of reeds. Houston dived right in and started hunting around, until suddenly he started leaping around and shouting that there were thorns and it hurt. While he was jumping around, i was all, "Well here. I'll hold these pokey leaves back, and you guys can look around them." Zane and Katrina halfheartedly poked around a bit. And then all of us started feeling the pain. And then we all broke out in hives and started itching like crazy. (There was no package anywhere.) Our next clue took us past the library, so we stopped in to see if we could figure out what we'd been digging around in. Houston talked to the librarian and was all, "I think we might be poisoned!" She googled something like, "itchy plant landscaping horrible hives," and the first thing that came up looked exactly like the whatever it was. And now we all know what stinging nettles look like.

Ultimately, we found the exact spot (and knew we were in the right spot!) and searched them all, but didn't find anything. Sigh. The kids all said that it was lots of fun nonetheless. Even with the hives. "It was an adventure!" said Houston. We went to McDonalds for ice cream to distract from the itching. (Though honestly, the itching had mostly stopped already....)

We stopped home and ate some lunch, picked up Juanito, and headed out for Adventure Thursday Act 2. The kids had gotten coupons for free giant cookies from the library summer reading program (possibly last year, though....), so we went and got those. They all agreed that they were completely delicious. And then we went to a park to play. Unfortunately, it had rained like crazy last night (So! Much! Thunder!!!), and apparently kept raining to the southeast of us, because the playground was totally wet and covered in puddles, but the kids totally had fun nonetheless.

Next we used a gift card to watch a movie - The Secret Lives of Pets. It was really cute, and my kids laughed SO HARD. They absolutely loved it.

And then we went to Pizza Hut to use their coupons (also from the summer reading program) for free personal pan pizzas.

So we had lots and lots and lots of fun, and all we had to pay for were some cheap ice cream cones and a pizza for Juanito and me. Yay!!!

A Very Back to School-type day

This morning was orientation for City High. High school!!!

I obsessively checked and rechecked and re-rechecked the list of things we needed to bring with us to orientation. I'm way more nervous about Houston starting at City than he is! But i'm happy to report that i did manage to bring everything we needed. Birth certificate - check. Immunization record - check. Proof of residency, medical form, receipt for the photographer - check, check, and check. I had everything filled out and the money for his locker and activity pass and the PTSA all neatly clipped together and ready to go. And then we got there and went to the new students meeting, and i watched all of the other parents filling out the paperwork while the principal was talking. I might be a bit overly anxious. Or i'm just organized!

The very first station we went to was for locker assignment, and they totally didn't have Houston's name. We went to the photographer, who ALSO didn't have Houston's name. Thankfully, the office did have his schedule, so we know that he IS actually registered! (Of course, his schedule will be changing, because he's switching from band to art, but still! He's registered!) (Also, he's taking Honor Physics! PHYSICS!)

This afternoon we went to Target for school supplies. School supply shopping! The kids have been asking me when we would go ever since literally the first week of summer vacation. This year, of course, Houston's at a new school, and he wasn't given a list of needed supplies, so for the first time, we had to wing it. Katrina and Zane's teachers gave them lists, some of the things completely reasonable, like pens and pencils and notebooks and folders. Some of the things seem unnecessarily picky, like Katrina's "Mead 5-Star 8 1/2 X 11 notebook." And some of the things make me sigh a little bit, like "At least 10 large glue sticks." (They NEVER use all of the glue sticks! Never!!!) Nevertheless, the kids are all supplied up and ready to go!

While we were there, we looked for new school outfits too. Houston's uniform is black or khaki pants and a blue, red, black, white, or grey collared shirt, so he picked out a red polo shirt and some black pants that he liked. He tried them on and then was waiting by the dressing room to show me, and a lady came by and asked him, "Can i try these on?" Houston was all, "Um, sure?" And then, as he explained it to me, "I was really confused about why she'd ask me, and then i looked down and realized what i was wearing...." She totally thought he worked there.

Tonight was book club. Yay! Beth and i went out for dinner together beforehand, and it was fun to get to hang out with her. The two of us don't get much time with just us very often. Book club was fun - we had 6 of us there, which is a good number. There was some discussion of the actual book (The Storied Life of A.J. Fickry), and much laughter and talking about everything else under the sun. It was a good end to the day!

Sunday and Monday!

We had a long, fun day today! We left in the morning for church and didn't get home again until about 11:00 at night. (The rest of the pictures from today are here.)

It was a surprisingly chilly day, except for when the sun was shining, and it rained a touch, but it was lovely overall.

My cute nephew Harrison's birthday party was this afternoon. The party was at my kids' favorite park - Hager Park! It's everyone's favorite park! - so all of the kids under 15 were off playing and having fun for most of the party. There was pizza and cake and presents and lots of awesome people.

After the party we went to my sister Jackie's house to go swimming. Or rather ... we went to her house so the kids could go swimming. It was way too cold for any adults to want to jump into the pool! They loved it and swam for ages, until their teeth were turning blue and they were shivering.

We went straight from Jackie's house to Grand Haven, where we met up with Beth and her niece Emily. We walked down to the lighthouse and watched the sun set, and then walked back to watch the musical fountain. We've been going to see the musical fountain at the end of summer for the past 3-4 years, so it's totally become a tradition at this point. (On the way to Grand Haven, Zane was all, "So this is the week that has the musical fountain?!" Because he was totally under the impression that it was only a once-a-year thing. I blew his mind when i told him that it happens every night of the summer.) It was fun and cheesy and totally great. Both Katrina and Zane fell asleep on the way home, totally exhausted.

Today was supposed to be a lazy day with nothing planned.... But that's not entirely how it ended up. I needed to get Houston's immunization records to bring to registration for high school tomorrow. And Katrina was overdue for the second of three shots. And so i broke the news to her (Seriously. She was beside herself. She brought both of her blankets and a stuffed pillow guy in the car with her so that she could hug them on the way too and from the doctor's office.) and we headed off to the doctor's office. Katrina is a million amazing things, but being tough in the face of pain is not one of her strengths. She wept through the shot and the immediate aftermath and continued to be fairly miserable until we started playing with Snapchat, at which point she was distracted enough that she forgot to be miserable.

We stopped on the way home for a doughnut and then stopped at Goodwill to look for flipflops. We didn't find any flipflops, but we did find a million other things. Juanito and the boys met us there, and we ended up getting coats for the kids and me, shoes for all of the kids, a couple of sweaters, and a few other things. Yay!

We survived a tornado.

Yesterday my sisters and i went to my grandpa's house to help clean it for a bit, and then we headed down to the beach to let the kids swim a little bit. And then we all went out to lunch with my grandpa. The kids sat at one table and the adults sat at another, and it was great fun for all of us. We talked about lots of random things, including the story about how my grandparents met and which provinces in the Netherlands all of our ancestors (on that side) came from. (Friesland, Friesland, Krampf, and wherever the city of Apeldoorn is located. But looking at a map of the Netherlands, i can't find any provinces that look remotely like "Krampf," so now i'm confused.) (Apeldoorn is in Gelderland, which makes me - as someone who liked the movie "A Knight's Tale" - very happy.)

The waves on Lake Michigan were huge, and they all loved leaping around in them. I remember being little, and absolutely loving the days when the waves were giant. Now that i'm the parent, i'm actually quite nervous about it - undertows and all that - so i'm a mean mom who only lets the kids go a short distance out into the lake, both because it's dangerous with the undertow and because it's so insanely loud that if they get any farther out, they totally can't hear me. They had fun, even though they had to stay close to shore.

In the evening, we went to a movie at our church. They showed "Zootopia" in the parking lot, and it would have been awesome, except that they forgot that there were giant lights in the parking lot that came on as soon as it got dark, so it wasn't actually terribly dark out there. As a result, we could only actually SEE about half of the movie - the half that takes place in bright light - because everything that happens in dim light was completely dark for us. Afterwards, Zane said, "It was too bad we were sitting so far down, because we couldn't see as well." Because when you watch a movie on a computer and it's tilted wrong, everything looks dark.... Cute little child of technology.

Today was going to be a completely boring day, filled with sleeping and reading and lounging, and it started out that way. At about 2:15, though, the sirens all started going off, and i looked it up to be sure, and yep! There was a tornado! We all headed down to the basement (Except Emma, who refused, causing the children all kinds of worry. But the basement steps are scary, especially for a dog.), and i started "The Great British Baking Show" on Netflix to keep the kids' minds off the tornado. While we were down there, my dad called to make SURE we were down there, because the tornado totally touched down and was headed straight for us. Upon hearing that, Zane crawled under a nearby end table and started crying. This is part of the problem when your favorite genre is "books about the most dangerous things in the world," because then you know exactly how dangerous tornadoes can be.

After about an hour, we were given the all-clear, and headed back upstairs. We did drive around a little bit this evening, and about a mile from us had lots and lots of downed trees and power outages and closed streets. We saw one tree that managed to take out part of a house and a car. So it might be the tornado that has touched down closest to where i've been. 

Adventure Thursday!

It's a Thursday! The perfect time for Adventure Thursday! (More pictures here.)

My mom joined us today, which was extra fun. The plan was to go to Dutch Village in Holland. We picked up my mom on the way there and followed the directions from Google Maps...and got a bit lost. Or, as we told the kids, we "took the scenic route." When we knew we were fairly close, we stopped at VIPets to ask for directions - it's the perfect place to stop, because...animals! This particular VIPets had a box full of adorable puppies, and all of us spent several minutes cooing over the cuteness. So! Cute!

Eventually we dragged ourselves away from the puppies and chinchillas and several dozen other cute animals and drove the remaining half mile to Dutch Village.

The kids each got coupons for free entrance to the park as part of the Summer Reading Program through the library. So only my mom and i would have to pay ... except when we went to pay, the lady behind the counter was all, "Some people came in with Groupon tickets, and they had to buy 4 but they only used 2," and she totally let my mom and me in for free too. It was SO nice!

The kids and i had been there before, though it had been a couple of years, but my mom had never been there before. We went on the Ferris Wheel (twice) and the kids and my mom went on the swings. We petted lots of animals and tried on lots of wooden shoes. We browsed shops. It was totally fun!

And, when we were all tired and hot and sweaty and thirsty, we headed across the street to Steak 'n Shake for half-price shakes! (Zane: "What if the 'n stood for 'in'?! Steak in shake!") We had a very nice, but incredibly slow and somewhat ... inexperienced waitress. And so, rather than taking about half an hour, we were there over an hour. And she forgot to put the brownies in Katrina's and my shakes. But! Katrina batted her eyelashes at the waitress, and she brought a whole brownie for Katrina to bring home. Bonus!

And that was pretty much the day!

Three weeks of summer left!

Today was the day we had to go to school to sign anything that needed to be signed in person, to make sure we'd finished all of the online forms, and to avoid getting roped into all of the volunteering ever. It also marked the "exactly three weeks until the first day of school" day. No one is ready to go back to school. Myself included.

My kids all wanted to get swim masks, and we hadn't gotten them yet, so after going to school, we stopped at Meijer to get some. Initially, i asked a couple of the girls working there if they had any swim masks, and they were all, "Nope! They're all gone. It's all lawn care now!" Disappointment reigned. I decided to check anyhow, and there, in the very back corner of the store, we hit the jackpot! Lots of swim masks! Three different kinds! In all different colors! Life is exciting!

Seriously, that's about as exciting as life got today. We bought groceries. And another chicken in case Emma's gets lost or destroyed, because she loves it SO MUCH. Katrina left for a sleepover with another friend of hers. We watched the Olympics. There was reading and drawing and lots of chicken-throwing for Emma. So it was a good day, for those of us who are introverts.

Olympics and other stuff

The past several days have been filled up thus:

- Watching the Olympics. I love the Olympics - especially the summer Olympics - and so i get a little bit obsessed. And i'm kind of passing that love/obsession on to my kids. Everyone's favorite is gymnastics; the uneven bars is the favorite favorite.

We all wish that NBC would show more variety. There's fencing and shot put and javelin and equestrian and synchronized swimming and archery and diving and all kinds of other interesting sports, but we really only get to see swimming, track, and gymnastics most of the time. I feel like, when i was a kid, we saw all kinds of different events during the Olympics, but that could just be me remembering things that didn't exist...?

- We tried to go blueberry picking today, but the orchard was closed. There were many sad faces in our car. So instead, we went shopping for school clothes. I feel like i don't want to actually buy many clothes for my kids right now, because all of them have been growing like weeds. Weeds! Houston grew something like 2 inches just in the past 2 months. Buying pants just seems futile! And yet, i supposed i can't just send my kids to school in their underwear....

- I went out for pizza with my mom and sisters to celebrate my younger sisters' birthdays. We sat and talked and laughed and ate delicious pizza. I love my family!

- Katrina had a sleepover with her friend Alex. Between sleepovers and the Olympics, Katrina (all of the kids, but especially Katrina) is getting farther and farther behind on sleep. Everyone is so tired!

- Our friend Keren came to town to visit, and we all went to Beth's house for pizza and Olympics! Beth made cute decorations! And got patriotic glow sticks! And candy in the colors of the Olympic rings! And Keren came up with games to play! With medals! It made the Olympics even more fun!

- Keren and Beth and i went out for pizza for lunch. And then Keren and Beth came over for dinner. It was fun and i love my friends!

- Keren gave Zane a box of slime-making stuff for his birthday, so Zane and Houston spent a long time yesterday making all kinds of slime and gross substances. They thought it was awesome.