Thankful Thursday

1. Nadia and the rest of those who traveled from our church to Oklahoma and back had a safe trip. Ironically their biggest delay was on I-80 shortly before they arrived back on Monday evening, so Oliver and I were hanging out in the van for about 90 minutes wishing we had brought books or something else to do to pass the time. I'm very thankful for all the volunteers who worked with the team throughout the year, for the volunteers and parents who drove all the way to OKWU and back, for the friends Nadia made, for all that she learned from the book of Matthew, and for the college scholarship she won.

2. The boys and I enjoyed a one hour production of Alice in Wonderland on Friday night, a program with a biology professor on Saturday afternoon, and a parade in our town on Saturday evening.

3. I've been appreciative of not needing to wear a mask. As of this past Monday, I am considered to be "fully vaccinated" since it's been more than 2 weeks since my second shot. After seeing that more doctors and organizations are now not recommending children receive this vaccine, I'm also grateful we chose not to have Nadia receive the COVID vaccine. I'm also very, very thankful that our state's mask mandate will be completely lifted this weekend. Wahoo! In reality once they said those who are vaccinated didn't have to wear a mask, that pretty much ended the mask mandate because most people stopped wearing them whether or not they were vaccinated. It's so, so much better to take pictures of the kids without shields or face masks on! It's so nice to have thing getting so much closer back to what was normal 16 months ago.

4. Nadia, Ian, Oliver, and Jill had a great time at Montage Mountain water park and Sky Zone trampoline park yesterday. Pop Pop also joined us for the day. The weather has been rather erratic lately. For example, it was in the 90's on Monday and raining and in the 60's on Tuesday. The boys enjoyed swimming for a couple of hours on Monday when it was very warm out. The pool was closed on Tuesday so we stayed home that day. It got up to the low 70's yesterday which wasn't ideal for the water park, but at least it was sunny and a little warmer than Tuesday. Pop Pop and I decided it was too cold to get wet, but the kids had fun getting wet for almost 5 hours. At the trampoline park there favorite part was playing dodgeball with some other kids. 

5. I used a gift card at Subway yesterday for our dinner (Nadia's pick), and we're having dinner at Bonanza tonight (also Nadia's pick). I don't mind doing a bit less cooking than usual.

6. Nadia received a new large bookshelf from my Dad and Margie for her bedroom. She loves it!

7. Paul typically comes home from work sometime between 8-9pm, but he came home at 5:45 last night for Milo's sake. Milo was in the crate for 7+ hours yesterday, which was the longest we had ever left him at home alone. He didn't have any accidents! He was grateful when Paul came home and also very grateful when the rest of us came home four hours later. 

8. Pop Pop came up and met us at church on Sunday and then spent about 6 more hours at our home with us. We are so thankful we can finally spend time with him again after barely seeing him at all for 17 months. He's going to join us on our vacation in September also! When we travel just as a family of five, we only get one hotel room, which means one child (usually Nadia) sleeps on the floor. Since Pop Pop is joining us, I've begun making reservations for two rooms that each have two beds. The boys will share a bed in Pop Pop's room, which means Nadia will get a queen size bed to herself on the trip as she'll stay in the same room with Paul and I. The longest vacation we've ever had before with Paul's parents was 2 weeks long. The kids are very excited about spending 24 days with Pop Pop in September!

9. Paul enjoyed watching a new episode of The Chosen last night. The kids and I will have to watch it in the near future. The boys enjoyed seeing the new Tom & Jerry movie using a free rental from Redbox, and the boys also enjoyed watching Luca, a new movie on Disney+. Tomorrow we're planning on watching the first two episodes of The Mysterious Benedict Society on Disney+. We enjoyed the books. We shall see what we think of the show based on the books.

10. We've really enjoyed using Hoopla through the Philadelphia Free library over the past few years. Unfortunately they are discontinuing offering that service at the end of the month. I went through the list of audiobooks that I had planned for us to listen to in the future through that service. Some were available through Audible's "plus" catalog. We've had an Audible membership at various times though the years, but honestly I've never used their "plus" catalog because the books there that I wanted were also available through the library through either Overdrive or Hoopla. Thankfully through Prime Day they had a special of paying less than half of the usual fee for four months. I signed up not just for the four credits I would receive but also so we could access the plus catalog for four months. I created a list of 20 books from the plus catalog for us to listen to together. We've started on the first Arlo Finch book this week. Also, Audible had ALL of their audio books on sale (between 40-70% off). I bought a bunch of books for us to listen to in the future. Of course Hoopla was free, but if we can't access that any more, I'm thankful to at least get the books for less than $7 each (and some for free through the plus catalog). There are currently 27 books in my Audible wish list. Hopefully over the months and years I'll find ways to get many of them for less than $8 each. We do really enjoy audiobooks!!! 

11. Today the kids participated in a free seven hour event at a campground 12 minutes from our house that included swimming, fishing, and kayaking. It was a sunny day with temps in the 70's which seems perfect for fishing and kayaking! Milo was very happy when I came home after dropping the kids off and picking up donuts for our breakfast tomorrow. I was SO torn as to how to spend these hours at home alone. I considered reading, working on learning more Spanish, working on the videography course, blogging, editing photos from yesterday, weed whacking, working on lesson plans for the next school year, taking Milo for a long walk, or making hotel reservations for our vacation in September. I will have about 20 hours next week to myself while the boys are at overnight camp and when Nadia is at theatre camp for 4 hours a day so the things I didn't get to today hopefully will happen next week. I love my kids ever so much, but I also enjoy the rare moments when I get some time to myself. The downside of the fact this was a drop-off event was I wasn't able to take pictures of the kids kayaking or fishing, but Milo was very happy that I came home!

12. I'm so very thankful that Nadia became part of our family thirteen years ago!!!