Names

Backwards/mismatched day at Good News Camp!

Nadia got to pick the name of her character in the musical she is working on at theater camp. Their performance will be on August 17. She asked me what names I had wanted to use for her that Daddy didn't like. I told her some of them (Megan, Nicole, etc.), and then she started compiling a lengthy list of girl's names. In the end she chose Sky. I can say with assurance that is a name that neither Paul or I would have picked in a million years. If Nadia had a sister, her name would have been Deborah Marie (Deborah after Paul's aunt and Marie was my mom's middle name). She got Sky from a book we read recently (Edge of Extinction) in which the main character's name is Sky. I signed up for a 3 month subscription to Kindle Unlimited on Prime Day because it was 99 cents total for 3 months. The first Edge of Extinction book is included in Kindle Unlimited. Sadly the second book isn't, but I have requested it through inter-library loan as we were definitely left hanging at the end of the first book. We will definitely get our 99 cents worth over the three month subscription, but I do plan on canceling it when our three months are up in October. Similarly, I did a one month free Audible membership in June. I did it primarily so we could listen to the final Incorrigible Children of Ashton Place book. I got two free books in that first free month, and I went to cancel it at the end of the first month and then they offered me a much cheaper than usual price for the next three months so I decided to do that; I assume I'll be cancelling in three months. The nice thing is you can buy Audible books without being a member and sometimes an audiobook costs less than $1. Audible and Kindle are both through Amazon.

Years ago we used to subscribe to Netflix but somewhere along the way we switched to Amazon Prime. It was cheaper than Netflix and in addition to being able to watch things on TV it included free two day shipping. Many times I decline the speedy shipping in exchange for a $1 credit towards a Kindle book, and those credits can be stacked so I frequently get books for the Kindle for free that way. In 2015 I started taking advantage of Amazon Prime Music (when I got my first smartphone). Nadia and Oliver use it far more than I do. I don't usually shop on Amazon Prime Day, but I did this year, and one of my purchases was a set of two Echo Dots. It was $50 for the two of them, and that was definitely a purchase I am glad I made. I gave one to Oliver for his birthday, and I plan to give Nadia the other one at Christmas. If you are at our house you might start thinking that we have a new family member named Alexa because her name is said OH so many times a day these days. The dot is programmed to respond to that name (and has very good hearing - you don't even have to be in the same room as the dot). I hear things like "Alexa, how many presidents have there been in the US?" to which she says "44" or "Alexa, set a timer for five minutes" (which she immediately does) or "Alexa, let's play a game" and then she asks how many people are playing the game and what game do we want to play (Scattergories, Jeopardy, etc.). Most often I hear requests for Alexa to play a particular song. You can just specify an artist,  a particular album, a specific song, or you can say something like play Christian contemporary music from the 1980's. The kids usually either request Christian songs or Disney songs such as ones from Moana. Alexa sang Happy Birthday to Oliver several times yesterday. You can send text messages through Alexa, order things on Amazon by talking to Alexa, etc. If we had more smart devices in our house then we could use Alexa to do other things (turn off the lights, lock the doors, etc.).

Nadia sewed a ripped seam on her bear today.

If you are looking for a gift idea for someone in the future, you might consider an Echo dot! It's a tiny device, and there's no screen involved and it can provide hours of entertainment (music and games) and also be useful in a variety of ways (alarm clock, timer, and much more). Nadia loves asking it random questions like - "do you prefer cats or dogs" or "what is your favorite color". We received a free 3 month subscription to Amazon Music Unlimited with the purchase of the Echo dot. Once that subscription is done we could go back to just using Amazon Prime music (which is free since we already pay an annual membership for Amazon Prime) or we could pay $4/month to access Amazon Music Unlimited on one dot at a time (if we wanted to use Unlimited on more than one device at the same time we'd have to pay more per month). I'm leaning toward splurging on the $4/month because the three kids and I have been enjoying listening to music that's not included in Amazon Prime. When I was single I used to buy CDs several times a year, and I haven't done that in a long time. I figure $48/year for music is not unreasonable if we aren't buying CDs. Although I hate to see shopping malls become a thing of the past, it's not hard to see a few reasons why Amazon is such a successful company.

Sometimes birthday celebrations are rather spread out. Oliver's was compact this year - two days (three if you count the fact that Aunt Janet called him today to wish him a happy birthday as she was in the hospital yesterday). We scheduled his party for Monday because we thought we'd be in Pittsburgh on Saturday/Sunday and at the National Night Out in Lewisburg on Tuesday. We didn't go to Pittsburgh because of our basement flooding, but we also didn't have time to have a party either of those days as they were spent putting the house back into order. Monday was a good day for Aunt Millie as her bakery is closed on Mondays. It was raining (with some thunderstorms) last night which wouldn't have been ideal for being outside and throwing water balloons. The price we paid for being outside on Monday was getting eaten alive. I'm guessing it's due to the excessive amount of water lying around everywhere, but the mosquitoes are REALLY bad this year. Ian and Oliver don't usually get too many bites. They like Nadia's blood the best. But even the boys have quite a few mosquito bites (although Nadia still wins the prize for having the most). Oliver really wanted to go to the National Night Out even though it was raining off and on. So after we picked Nadia up from theater camp we drove to Lewisburg and bought him two mylar birthday balloons at the Dollar Tree for $1/each, dropped off some things at Goodwill (I probably donate things at least once a month as I am a big fan of purging whenever possible), and went to the library. It started POURING while we were in the library, and then Oliver changed his mind. The kids have enjoyed National Night Out for many years, but we skipped it this year due to the rain. We had four slices of pizza left over from his party so the boys each had one and Nadia had two. Then they watched a DVD from the library while eating popcorn. The boys had some birthday cake, and I also made some brownies.

Last week I had purchased string cheese, goldfish crackers, apple juice, and chocolate milk all as treats for the birthday boy (I only buy goldfish crackers twice a year). Nadia has been using the jump rope I gave Oliver for his birthday as she has to jump rope in the musical and it wasn't a skill she had mastered thus far. Oliver said the kids sang Happy Birthday to him at camp yesterday, which meant a lot to him. Grandpa and Margie called him, and Tab, Micah, and Isaiah sent a video in which they were singing him the Happy Birthday song. I think he had a good birthday! I am relieved. Nadia has a spiritual birthday in October, but those are a lot more low key. I get a little stressed about birthdays because they look forward to them for so long, but now we have four months until Ian turns nine. For the next four months my kids are 6, 8, and 10 years old!