Pizza-Movie night!

We have been working our way through the Twilight movies, mercilessly mocking them and talking through large portions of the movie. Every half hour, Juanito exclaims, "I mean, he's one hundred and twenty! It's so inappropriate!" Tonight was number 4, which meant that we had to fast forward through a few scenes (honeymoon), and it meant that it was the one where she had to drink blood. So Beth ordered these blood bags online, made red juice, and POOF! We all got to drink "blood" and be as gross as Bella.

The kids didn't have school today. They have an extra-long Labor Day weekend, which meant that we only have 4 days a week for the first 2 weeks of school, and that's actually kind of nice. The kids were all pretty tired by today, especially Houston, who again slept until 2:00.

I spent the afternoon switching out most of my summer stuff for winter, because we live in Michigan and it's now September, and already the end of August was chilly, so i expect that it's going to be fall weather soon. Sigh.

Happy birthday to my sweet grandpa!

Today is my grandpa's 98th birthday. Ninety-eighth. He was born in 1919, during the Prohibition, before women had the right to vote, when Woodrow Wilson was president. It was the year that the first rotary dial phones were introduced, pop-up toasters were invented, scientists in England split the first atom, and the word "bagel" was added to the dictionary. Stamps cost 3¢, a loaf of bread cost 9¢, and you could buy a new house for an average of $5,600.

98 years is a long time, is my point. When i stop and think about all of the things that have changed in the world since he was born, it just kind of blows my mind.

Anyhow. I'm really happy that we get to still have him in our lives.

In other news, we've just finished up day 3 of the school year, and it's been going very well so far. Obviously we're still totally in the early "Let's have a great school year!!!" stage, but everyone is really happy with all of their teachers and all of their classes. Katrina has been decorating all of her notebooks - one is all Doctor Who-bedecked, and one simply has a pineapple on the front (for "Psych," obviously), and she has plans for at least 2 more. They're super cute, and i guess having a happy notebook is one way to make school more fun. 

First day of school!

It was the first day of school today!

Houston started his sophomore year at City. He texted me halfway through the day, saying, "I just learned that i am in middle school lunch again, so i'm trying to rearrange my classes so that i can be in high school lunch." And then he went to the counselor and took care of it all by himself, and now he is both in lunch with his fellow high schoolers AND he has the Spanish teacher he had last year who loves him. I am just super happy to see him taking the initiative to just take care of it all on his own. GO HOUSTON! He's super excited about all of his classes and his teachers, so that's awesome.

Katrina is an 8th grader this year. She came home from school with her pile of papers to be signed all organized for me to sign and a couple of notebooks to decorate like a Tardis and "something else cute." She also came home starving because the poor girl can hardly eat anything right now, partly because her face hurts and her teeth hurt when she chews, but mostly because there's a gap between the metal expander and the roof of her mouth, and everything even the slightest bit chewy gets stuck in there. She's been kind of living on jello and yogurt and air.

Zane is in 6th grade, and is very excited about being a middle schooler. The first thing he told me when i picked them up was, "I totally went to the wrong class today!" He was totally cheerful about it, completely unconcerned that he'd gone to the completely wrong classroom. Also, he was completely thrilled about his lunch table and being able to sit with friends. A promising start to middle school.

Dahlias!

Today was the dahlia show at Meijer Gardens, so Beth and i went, because...dahlias! Both of us started out saying, "This year, i am not going to take a million pictures, because last year it was ridiculous." And i DID take less pictures than last year, but i still took way more pictures than i meant to, because they were all so beautiful and so different from each other. I mean.... That one up there is a dahlia. This one?

 ALSO a dahlia! Also? This next one - dahlia! HOW are they all the same kind of flower? It makes no sense!

ANYHOW. 

Today was the last day of summer vacation. We skipped church and slept in a little and just enjoyed not having any homework or anything we needed to be doing. Katrina and i did a Jigazo puzzle, and we all watched some Doctor Who, and i read a lot of both books that i'm reading to them, and we ate ice cream, and it was all lovely. And thus ends summer. Sad.

Birthday party!

For the past two days, the kids have been over at my parents' house, playing with cousins and eating my parents out of house and home (Seriously, they are bottomless pits.) and having all kinds of fun. Meanwhile, Juanito and i have had a couple of date nights, where we ate out and binge-watched "The Good Place" and just generally enjoyed having a kid-free house.

Today, the entire family - aunts and uncles and cousins - all went out to my grandparents' house on the lake to celebrate my grandpa's 98th birthday. Ninety-eight is an impressive age, and he is an amazingly healthy 98-year-old. Besides his being in a wheelchair now, you'd never guess that he was over 80. (Unless you knew him when he was 80. That might have been about the age that he and my grandma stopped playing tennis daily.)

It was the first time we've seen my cousins, maybe since last year. Usually we see them when we all go to the visit Grandpa and play on the beach, but Grandpa moved to a nursing home this year, and there is not much of a beach to play on, and it hasn't been a terrifically hot summer, so none of us has been there much. So it was fun seeing everyone and catching up. Yay!

Procrastination!

I am nothing if not an excellent procrastinator, which is why for the past two days i've been making sure my kids all have clothes for school that are hole-free and actually fit. Zane, especially, needed jeans, as he had about 5 pairs of jeans with giant holes in the knees and a few pairs that were inches too short.

In my defense, they have all been growing like weeds, so if i'd bought them clothes at the beginning of the summer, there's a good chance they'd have already outgrown them. Yesterday i got home from work at 2:15 and had to wake Houston up. He'd been asleep for 16 hours, and i'm pretty sure he grew an inch or two overnight.

So i made a trip to the store with Katrina yesterday (boys don't need to come along for bra shopping) and made another trip with the boys today, and everyone is now completely ready for school. Yay!

We haven't ONLY been shopping. Yesterday was the "come to school to meet your teachers and get your schedule" day for Katrina and Zane. Today Zane spent the afternoon at the beach with his friend Justin. We've had Frostys and read a few chapters of Harry Potter and had lots of snuggles. None of us is ready for the summer to end.

Tomorrow the kids are all going to my parents' house for the next couple of nights, which means that they'll have loads of fun with cousins and grandparents and Juanito and i will get to have a couple of nights with just the two of us, which is all awesome. But it also means that my summer with the kids is finished. Sigh.

Eclipse day!

Today was the eclipse, and we thought it would be more fun to experience it with other people, so we headed out to my sister Jackie's house, along with my parents and my sister Chellie and her kids. We were all worried that we wouldn't be able to see anything, because the clouds were rolling in shortly beforehand, totally obscuring the sun occasionally.

Once it started, however, it was a wee bit cloudy, but the eclipse was totally visible and really cool. The kids swam throughout, coming out every once in a while to check on the moon's progress. The adults spent more time actually watching the sun and playing with the shadows. Jackie brought out her strainer, and we had fun watching the holes become eclipses in the shadow. Chellie pulled out her old pinhole box from the eclipse that happened when we were in middle school, and while it was fun to see, i realize now why that wasn't more exciting at the time. It just doesn't compare at all to looking up at the actual thing.