BMX, Parachutes, and more

Nadia, Ian, and I were home very little on Saturday. The kids and I were out the door at 7:50AM because the teams were having their pictures taken by a professional photographer prior to their game, and the Panthers were scheduled for pictures at 8:15. Paul was actually home sleeping in our bedroom while the kids and I were eating breakfast and getting ready to leave. He had left the house at 2:30AM, but he only spent one hour at the plant, which meant he was back home at 5:30AM. Driving two hours to spend one hour there seems a little crazy to me, but he was really tired and didn't want to stay any longer than he did. I was very confused when I heard noises downstairs and was relieved it wasn't an intruder or one of the kids getting up super early. I wasn't expecting him to get home until after 8AM. Paul's parents were there for both games, and Paul arrived a little after the boys' game. The Panthers lost, and the Chargers won, which means the boys' team is 1-2 and Nadia's team is 2-1 thus far this season. Ian played center quite a bit. They threw the ball to him once when he ran a wide receiver route, but the QB really overthrew the ball, and he couldn't catch it. Ian rushed the QB sometimes when he was on defense, and he pulled the QB's flag once only to find out they don't allow that in the K-2 level. Oliver doesn't really help his team at all. On defense he's often lined up as the nose tackle, but in reality he pretty much just stands there during the play. He pays more attention to his mouth guard than what is happening on the field. Nadia never touched the ball this week. She did rush the QB. She never was able to pull his flag, but I think she caused him to throw the football sooner on more than one occasion. She said if her team had score one more TD the coach was going to let her try to rush for the next extra point.

After the game we went to Sears so Paul could drop off his car. The first 11 years of our marriage I was the one responsible for taking car of both of our vehicles, meaning I took them for the annual inspections, tire rotations every 5,000 miles, oil changes, etc. The last five years Paul has been in charge of taking care of the Prius, but it's something he doesn't think about on his own, and since I rarely drive his vehicle it's hard for me to keep track of when the Prius needs an oil change or tire rotation. When I drove the car once last week I realized it was very overdue. It had been 16,000 miles since the new tires had been put on the car, and the tires had never been rotated. Not good. So on Saturday his car got a long overdue tire rotation and oil change while we were at the Balloon Fest.

In 2014 and 2015 I had put the Balloon Fest in our calendar, but both years it ended up being rainy weather on the day the event was held so we didn't go. Last year they took a year off from holding the event. I remember enjoying going to air shows when I was a child, and I wanted our kids to experience that as well. In the future I want to take them a Blue Angels show to be specific. This Balloon Fest is held at the same place where we go to the Lycoming County Fair each year. It cost $26 for the five of us to get in. Nadia enjoyed a magic show with Paul. Naturally she was one of the volunteers in the show. We also saw a puppet show and a 15 minute BMX show. The BMX show was the part that was most impressive to Paul and I. The boys played with some really large cardboard boxes. We also watched the 3:00pm air show. We had seen four airplanes flying in formation a little before noon as we dropped off the Prius at Sears (the end of the 11AM air show) but sadly they weren't included in the 3PM air show. We did see three men who sky dived down to the ground and another pilot who did tricks in the air with his airplane. I'm not sorry we went as we did see some things we had never seen in person before, but I doubt we'll return to this particular air show. They also were giving hot air balloon rides (the tethered ones were MUCH cheaper), helicopter rides, etc., but everything else (including inflatables) cost extra so we skipped the rest.

I used a coupon to get something for $3 at Sears in connection with picking up the Prius, and then we had breakfast for dinner at home. After dinner, Paul stayed home with Oliver. I took Nadia and Ian to Bloomsburg to see a production of the Diary of Anne Frank. Had I known it was almost 2.5 hours long (including the intermission), I probably wouldn't have taken them, but I figured it wasn't appropriate for Oliver, and I would have had to take him if I had gone to a week day matinee performance. Plus this performance was "pay what you decide." It was a little after 10:30pm when we got home. We all went straight to bed. The show was very well done. Aside from church on Sunday, we stayed home sweet home all day long, which meant I was able to get caught up on some cleaning, laundry, dishes, cooking, etc. Today in addition to homeschooling the kids I've been doing some grading for the university.