1. Our hot water heater was leaking water on the basement floor on Sunday night. The good news was that Paul "happened" to go down to the basement before all 40 gallons were deposited on the floor. Also I had recently done a lot of work organizing and purging in the basement, which meant that the boxes that used to be on the floor near the water heater were on shelves in another part of the basement. Nothing was ruined aside from some empty boxes. It could have been MUCH worse. The first plumber who came out on Monday morning gave us a quote of $2K, but then Lowe's said they could replace it for $700. We had hoped it would last until we had to move, but after a quote of $2,000, $700 was a relief. I'm also thankful we had the money for the repair. When the installer came on Tuesday morning, we found out that the hot water heater we had purchased was not the right one for our house, but they were able to install the correct one Tuesday night (for $1,270 which was still a savings of $700 over the first quote). We are very glad to have our hot water back!
2. Last night the new year of AWANA began. Ian had his first night in Sparks, Nadia started her third (and final) year in Sparks, and Oliver had his first night in Cubbies. Now to get back in the habit of working on Bible memory verses at lunch every day. This will be the very first time Oliver has memorized any verses. The first one Ian is to memorize is John 3:16. Four neighbor kids are in this AWANA program (and we live in a very small development). I didn't have choir last night, but starting next week Paul will be in charge of taking the kids to and from AWANA as I'll have choir rehearsals on Wednesday nights. Since I didn't have choir last night, Paul and I went on a 2 1/2 mile walk together while they were in AWANA. Oliver looked so cute wearing an AWANA vest for the first time. He was in Puggles last year, but they didn't have any uniforms.
3. Oliver had his third appointment with the pulmonologist yesterday, and this time we were told he doesn't need to come back for six months! The doctor said he had sinusitis and an ear infection so
he started him on an antibiotic. I had already been giving Oliver breathing treatments. Before his appointment I ran into the consignment shop in that town and bought Nadia a pair of cleats (size 1) as her size 13 ones were getting tight. Her feet hardly grew at all the previous year, but it seems her feet are in a growth spurt right now as she's already outgrowing size 13 even though she just recently switched to that size. I was able to get her a bright pink pair of soccer cleats using $5 of my $100+ store credit from bringing items in previously.
4. Ian is showing a lot of improvement at his soccer practices! He also is doing really well with his school work - particularly with his scissor skills, reading, and spelling. He's also been doing science and handwriting. The next subject I plan to add for him is math. It cracked me up because when Nadia heard Ian reading she said, "I had better start reading longer chapter books or Ian is going to catch up to me." Ha ha!
5. Although I am not looking forward to getting all the apples off our apple trees (still a million to go it seems), we have been enjoying eating many apples. Two days ago I made a delicious apple french toast dish for the kids and I (Martha Stuart
recipe). Yum!
6. Today we had our first field trip for the new school year (and I have two other field trips planned for the next two days). Today we went to Fire Safety Day at Camp Susque. The kids played on the playground for awhile and then we were divided into three groups (I think there were more than 100 homeschoolers present). The group we were in went first to the smoky cabin station. The firefighter talked for awhile and then the kids crawled through a dark cabin filled with theatrical smoke. They were supposed to follow the fire hose out. Oliver went with an older girl the first couple of times, but then even he did it by himself. The kids loved it and went through it umpteen times before it was our turn to move to the next station where we studied pictures to identify fire hazards and wrote out escape plans. The last station was at a fire engine, and after the fire fighter showed us various tools and gear (ex. the jaws of life, pick head ax, etc.) the kids were able to climb up inside the fire engine and try on some of the gear. They loved it!
7. The grocery store in our town had some great deals this past week on things like peaches, grapes (99 cents a pound), bananas, Pepsi (88 cents for a 2 liter), Doritos, etc. I stocked up!
6. Today we had our first field trip for the new school year (and I have two other field trips planned for the next two days). Today we went to Fire Safety Day at Camp Susque. The kids played on the playground for awhile and then we were divided into three groups (I think there were more than 100 homeschoolers present). The group we were in went first to the smoky cabin station. The firefighter talked for awhile and then the kids crawled through a dark cabin filled with theatrical smoke. They were supposed to follow the fire hose out. Oliver went with an older girl the first couple of times, but then even he did it by himself. The kids loved it and went through it umpteen times before it was our turn to move to the next station where we studied pictures to identify fire hazards and wrote out escape plans. The last station was at a fire engine, and after the fire fighter showed us various tools and gear (ex. the jaws of life, pick head ax, etc.) the kids were able to climb up inside the fire engine and try on some of the gear. They loved it!
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