Thankful Thursday

Photo credit - Nadia (and Ian was holding a reflector for her)

1. Nadia is attending a fair this evening with her friend Evanna (and Evanna's mom).

2. My dentist appointment went smoothly on Tuesday. Since Paul's 6 month appointment would have taken place during the lockdown, he's going to end up going a full year in between appointments because they are so backed up right now. I'm thankful the kids and I didn't have an appointment during the time the dentists weren't allowed to conduct routine appointments. Did you ever think there would be a time that the Governor wouldn't permit people to get their teeth cleaned?!? Nadia was very thankful I had a dentist appointment because that meant she earned $5 for babysitting Oliver.

3. Last week Nadia wanted to go to the thrift store. I pushed it off a week. Nadia wouldn't mind if we were on the go every single day. That's not my preference. I am very content with the pace of our life over the past month. We don't stay at home every day of the week like we did during the lockdown, but I'm also being more careful not to add too much to our calendar. The thrift store has most things on sale for 50% off on Wednesdays. Yesterday we finished our schoolwork around 1pm. Ian had a tiny bit of math left to do, but he brought it in the van. Nadia would get motion sickness if she tried to do math in the van, but Ian doesn't get motion sickness. We went to the library, Community Aid (huge thrift store), Aldi, Dunkin Donut (breakfast sandwiches for our dinner), Goodwill, and Walmart before dropping Nadia off at church at 4:30. Last week I had the kids try on pants so we would know what to put in their dresser and also what they needed. I made a shopping list for our trip to the thrift store plus this coming weekend our borough is having their annual community yard sales. I thought those might be cancelled due to COVID, but they are taking place! We stopped in the thrift store 3 weeks ago on our way home from Hershey, and I saw they had many snow pants for sale. I almost got some but wasn't sure what sizes we already owned. Yesterday Nadia selected some long sleeve shirts and shoes for herself. I got myself one pair of pants, a pair of brown Clarks, and a pair of Nike sneakers.  The things for myself were on my list. I really needed a new pair of sneakers as I had bought a pair online during the lockdown which ended up being too small for me. Thankfully they didn't go to waste as Nadia has been wearing them. They only had one pair of snow pants available yesterday. It was a size we needed (10/12) but had a hole in the one knee. I ended up buying it anyhow as #1 I figure I can sew it as it's on a seam and #2 I figured a hole in a pair of snow pants really isn't the end of the world albeit I usually won't buy something if it already has a hole in it. Their selection of pants for boys in size 8 or 10 was extremely tiny, which again was shocking as this thrift store is the size of your average Walmart. I wasn't able to buy Ian any jeans. However I did get each boy a couple of pair of pants between the two thrift stores we visited yesterday. Hopefully I'll be able to get Ian more pants at the yard sales this weekend. If not, I'll be placing an order on Children's Place's website. 

4. Earlier in the week I got gas for $2.18 a gallon at a brand new Sheetz. The typical price in our area for gas lately has been between $2.45-2.55 per gallon so that was definitely a good price! 

 5. Awhile back I bought some inductive Bible study workbooks for kids at a library book sale. Since we finished Core 52 (our church had been working through that for a full year) and i am n (which we had been reading this summer), we started a study on prayer this week. Neither Core 52 or i am n were written for kids in particular, so I'm thankful we are back to using something more "kid friendly" for our family devotions. I am looking forward to working through several ISB workbooks over the coming months with the kids.

6. The AWANA program will be resuming next week by Zoom. I decided we would wait until they resume in person. Since Nadia is memorizing the book of Matthew this year for Bible quizzing, I decided that the four of us would memorize Matthew 5-7 (Sermon on the Mount) together. Ian was a bit overwhelmed at the thought of memorizing three chapters (I think it's about 110 verses altogether), but I'm confident he won't have trouble. Last year Nadia's Bible quizzing team consisted of her (6th grader) plus 3 seventh grade girls. Only two of those girls are still doing Bible quizzing this year, but two fifth grade girls joined. At the moment their team consists of two fifth graders, Nadia (7th grade) and Ava (8th grade). Nadia was lobbying for Ian to join this year as fifth grade is the youngest age that can participate, but since he's too young for youth group which meets right after Bible quizzing, I've decided he can wait until next year to join Bible quizzing. Next year they'll be memorizing Romans and James. So although I was disappointed that AWANA isn't taking place in person this fall, I'm really looking forward to memorizing three chapters together because with AWANA each child was almost always memorizing different verses each week.

7. One week from today our vacation will begin (Lord willing), and at this point it still seems like we will actually be able to go! In a year when "cancelled" is one of the most commonly used words - right up there with "safe," "social distancing," "masks," and "touchless thermometer," I am very grateful.  The kids really like their new face shields. I'm leaning toward sticking with my mask.