Stream-of-Conscience

Today at our un-air conditioned church everybody was making fans out of their bulletins and using them to cool themselves.  It made me think of the church scenes in the show Little House on the Prairie.  They were always fanning themselves...am I right?  Also, they sang "Bringing in the Sheaves," like, every Sunday.

Since I'm talking about Little House let me go on to say, in case you don't know, that the show and the books it was based on were completely different.  In fact, about the only resemblance between the two was the names of the main characters, and even that wasn't kosher.  The show added all kinds of people who were never in the books.  As soon as the original kids on the TV series started to grow up, they would just have Charles and Caroline adopt some new ones.  Scouts honor, there was no Albert in real life.*

Today's a pretty relaxing day.  I'm gonna clean the house.  The boys have youth group.  Baylee and Rachel bought balloons and are hosting a neighborhood water balloon fight for all the little kids.  Mike ran sound at church this morning, and now he's taking it easy before work tonight.

filling all the balloons with the help of little Chudiere...

*And even if there was, I can guarantee you he never would've gotten addicted to morphine.  I mean, COME ON!  What did they take us for???






 

Mad Dog

The other day Zach showed me this video which, frankly, is hilarious.  It's from an Australian news show, doing a piece on some dogs that had been terrorizing local neighborhoods.



Is that great or what?!  That guy really gets into his stories!

Anyway, seeing that reminded me of something that happened to me when I was a kid...

I was around Baylee's age and I was playing in our front yard by myself.  Suddenly a large greyish-white dog (looking back I think it was a husky) came out of nowhere and ran right at me, barking furiously.  I wasn't normally afraid of dogs, but this one definitely had me in his sights, so I ran to our house and jumped up on one of our front porch pillars.  (Our porch had a couple good-sized pillars with cement bases.  I climbed up and stood on one of those bases, which put me above the dog's head.)  The dog paced below me, barking and slavering, waiting for me to come down.  Of course, I wasn't about to do that, so I stood up there and stood up there and STOOD UP THERE, probably for about 10 or 15 minutes.  Finally the dog lost interest in me and started to wander away up the street.  When it got to what I thought was a safe distance, I made my move.  I jumped down and started to run all the way around the house to the back door.  Of course, as soon as the dog saw me trying to escape it was hot on my heels again.  Somehow, though, against all odds, I made it and was able to slam the back porch door literally in the dog's foaming, insane face.  I leaned back, gasping, thankful for my life, then I went through a second door and into the house.  My mom was right there in the kitchen.  "Mom!" I said, "There's a crazy dog out there!  It chased me!"

"Oh, come on now.  I'm sure it's friendly.  It probably just wanted to play."

"It's not friendly!"

My mom decided she had to see this for herself, so she opened up the porch door I'd so carefully locked and peeked her head out.  "ARRR ARRRR ARRRR!!!"  [slobber! teeth! claws! deranged eyes!]  Now it was my mom's turn to slam the door just in time.  We were finally on the same page.

I told her all about being stuck on the pillar and her response was, "Well, why didn't you just come in the front door?!"  (The one that was about 3 feet away that whole time.)

"Because!  You and Dad said that's just for guests!"


The End

Slice of Life

Ever since Baylee got her new iPod, she's been acting like her life is a reality TV show.  That is, she goes around videoing herself and narrating.  She does it for her own entertainment (and possibly Rachel's) as nobody else is watching these things.  It's a little annoying and I hope it's a phase that passes soon, but in the meantime...enjoy!

Wordless Wednesday

Random Bits

Argh.  I feel weirdly ambivalent about this blog lately.  On the one hand, I LOVE having an ongoing journal/scrapbook of our family.  I can't tell you how many times I've looked back at past years and laughed and remembered.  It's priceless to me.  On the other hand, I don't know if it's because it's summer or if I'm burned out or what, but I'm not itching to write here like usual.  In fact, for the last few weeks I've felt sort of tapped out.  I've been doing this for a long time now, and everything has to end somewhere.  *shrug*  Who knows.  (PS:  This isn't a swan song.  I'm just thinking out loud.)

Yesterday we went to the waterfront to have lunch.  Baylee got a big kick out of feeding the seagulls french fries.  They'll take them right out of your hand.

This huge ferris wheel is new as of last summer.  Isn't it cool?  One of these days, when the sun is out and the view is great, we'll ride it.  It's pretty dang expensive, so conditions have to be right, you see.

Baylee and Rachel walked the neighbor's dog together on a rainy day last week.

I got an email yesterday which confirmed that Drew has been "cast" (that's how they always put it) in two songs for the show at the grand opening on Saturday.  He's doing "Won't Get Fooled Again" and "Who are You."  We're excited!

Zach goes to two karate classes a week:  one for all levels and one for higher belts.  Last night he was at the one for all levels, and he said there was a new girl who looked to be around fifteen.  You know how it is when you're brand new at something and your body isn't used to it yet?  You feel clumsy even under the best of circumstances.  This girl, though, had an extra challenge in that she was overweight.  That should've been fine, as Zach's class is encouraging and helpful, but the girl's whole family was there watching on the sidelines, and one of her sisters spent the entire time openly laughing at her.  Isn't that sad?  Zach said his teacher even stopped and said something to the laughing sister, like, "Hey, you, be quiet.  She can't focus, " but it didn't really help.  What kind of lame parents would allow one of their kids to act like that?  Anyway, I hope the girl who joined the class doesn't get discouraged and quit.

"me with Gum"

Baylee is really, really enjoying her new iPod.  Here's something silly she made by herself today, using an app called "Splice."

 

Summer Stuff

Today we're winding up the school year!  Woo hoo!  Zach took his last test, art, yesterday, and Drew is taking his last two tests, English and algebra, today.  (Even world geography isn't looking so bleak anymore.  Drew's been working hard on it and will finish next week.)  Since I'm not so bogged down in homeschooling anymore, I'm able to look ahead to some of the stuff that's happening this summer.

For one thing, Baylee will be swimming...a lot!  In the summer the pool does lessons daily, instead of once or twice a week like they do during the school year.  That means an entire session of lessons is completed in 5 days.  She starts her first session of level 6 on Monday.  I'm sure she won't pass it after only one time through, but hopefully she'll be able to move on to level 7 at some point during the summer.

All the kids are going to camp in July!  This year is extra fun for Baylee, because Rachel will be going with her.

I got roped into invited to help with VBS at our church, so I'll be doing that.  I'm not involved in the skits this year, but instead I'm dressing as a Bible character and telling stories to the littlest kids...the preschoolers.  I love that! I'm actually really looking forward to it.  Baylee and Rachel (and possibly Rachel's passel of little sisters) will be going as VBSers.

Drew decided not to be in a SofR show during the summer season, saying he needs a break until fall.  For now he's very happy to only be doing lessons.  Zeke, his teacher, decided that they'll spend the summer learning how to play "southern rock."  That means lots of the Allman Brothers, Lynyrd Skynyrd, etc.

Oh, speaking of Drew and his guitar, he gets to do a couple Who songs one more time!  The school just moved to a different part of Seattle, and to celebrate their nicer, bigger location they're having a Grand Opening with music from the last set of shows.  That'll happen at the end of this month.

I made arrangements to have Zach's senior pictures taken next month.  We're meeting a photographer at a place called Richmond Beach at 9:30 in the morning when the light is (hopefully) good.

Zach is still working at the bike shop, but in addition to his usual time there, this summer he'll also be going in one day a week for an unpaid internship-type thing.  I think he'll be learning about fixing bikes and stuff.  He's pretty happy about that!

Finally, today is a banner day, because after saving all her dog walking and dog poop picking up money for months and months and months, Baylee finally has enough to buy herself an iPod Touch.   Mike has her out at Best Buy right now.

Oh, I almost forgot I've got some pics on my camera to show you.  Yesterday Drew watched a video on YouTube about making homemade ice cream in a baggie, and he asked me if he could try it.  I was like, "Okay, but you've done that before when you were a little guy.  Don't you remember?"  He didn't.  Can you believe that?!  Since I went through all the trouble of doing "hands-on" homeschooling stuff with my kids when they were younger, the least they could do is PRETEND to remember it.  I'm sure it was very time consuming and messy, too.  Anyway, so Drew started to make ice cream, and pretty soon Zach wandered by and he decided to make it, too.

Baylee wasn't home when they started, and there weren't enough of the right ingredients left anyway, so she missed it.  You can see how happy she looks.  LOL  (The boys each gave her some of theirs.)

  

News

Big News!

• Today is our 20th anniversary.  Can you believe that???  It sounds so...respectable!  Mike got me chocolate and flowers, and we're going to do something fun and special this weekend.
• Baylee passed level 5 of swimming!  I looked back on the blog and figured out it's been six whole months in that level.  I'm so proud of her for persevering!  She can now do a very good crawl, back, breast, and butterfly.  Her happy face after finding out she made it to level 6...

In other news, the electrical in our staich is on the fritz, and now the speedometer doesn't work some of the time.  That means I'm driving by feel.  "Does this feel like forty miles per hour?" I wonder and hope, for instance.  I'm worried that one of these days I'll be stopped by a police officer, he'll ask me if I know how fast I was going, and I'll reply, "Not really, but it felt like around twenty-five."  Mike is our trusty vehicle fixer, and I'm so thankful for that, but he says this electrical stuff is tricky.  We just have to take the car to the shop ASAP.  Sigh.  I guess I can't complain too much, seeing as how our trusty staich is completely paid for and has lugged us across the country and back...twice! 

Conversation Between Two Tired, Irritable People

Zach took his last chemistry test today and did very well on it, but before that, while he was still studying and I was trying to help him study, we had this conversation...

me:  Don't bite your nails.

him:  It helps me think.

me:  Well, stop it.

him:  I can't.

me:  You have to.

him:  Why?

me:  Because I don't like the sound.

him:  What sound?

me:  The sound of you getting pinworms.

him:  My nails are clean!

me:  I'm sure that's what everyone who gets pinworms thinks.

[cue glaring at each other]

Only 3 more days until the boys are finished.  I will survive!

Catch Up

I've been a lame blogger lately, but I have a good excuse:  It's summer.  =)  We're very close to being finished with school; the boys have a few tests to take and that's it.  We're not going to talk about Drew's geography, which he'll be doing for the next month.  Anyway, the point is we've all kinda slacked off, but with my extra time I've been exercising more, doing some deep cleaning, and reading like a fiend.  I discovered two things recently:

1. Goodreads.  Have you seen this website?  It's awesome!!!  It figures out your interests and then makes all sorts of suggestions to you of other books you might like. I take those suggestions and go over to the local library website to order them on interlibrary loan.  I've got about ten books queued up.
2. Kindle!  I know, I know.  I'm the last person on earth to hop on the electronic book bandwagon.  I'm not sure why I held out for so long, but I'm onboard now.  Yesterday I spent most of the day devouring an entire book on my iPad.

Let's see...

I've got this pic to show you.  Baylee snapped it while she was sitting on the couch, reading a book.  (Yeah, she's got bunions, poor thing.  It's my grandma's legacy.)

And a couple days ago Drew and I were sitting in the living room going over his algebra assignment, and we came to this review question:

"The Pythagorean Theorem states that the square of the length of the _____________ of a right triangle is equal to the sum of the squares of the lengths of the other two sides."

Drew didn't remember so I told him the answer, but I guess I made it sound like he should've known it himself.  He did this impression of me that made me laugh.

PS:  I did not say "it's obvious."

Zach's Birthday

Yesterday was Zach's 18th birthday!  He wanted steak, "Robert Redford" cake, and money towards nice headphones.  Easy!  What's harder is believing I've got an adult child now.  Weird.  I mean, seriously, it's weeeeird.  It feels like he was a baby just yesterday.  (That's so cliche, I know, but it truly kinda seems that way.)

Mike posted this picture on Facebook yesterday, along with the words, "Today my oldest is 18.  He is humble, wise, kind, very funny, and growing into a man I admire.  Happy Birthday, Zach."

 And I took these during dinner.

After the meal was over and only Drew, Zach, and I were lefting sitting at the table, Zach ended up telling us a story that made us laugh.  Somehow I talked Zach into telling it again on video...a rare occurrence!

Make a video - it's fun, easy and free!
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"Okay, I think it's time to put Grandpa in a home."

Pet Peeve for Today

Do you know there are actually people (who are often related to each other) who fight on Facebook?  I've seen it on a couple occasions over the years, and each time it happens it's weird and completely inappropriate.  Do these people realize or care that we can all read what they're saying?  It's like they're having a raucous argument in the middle of Grand Central Station.   Why would anyone do that?  What do they hope to gain from it?  If they think they're discrediting the other person they should think again, because, really, all they're doing is making themselves look like an idiot.

Another thing about it is they almost never use good grammar and/or spelling.  Basically there's a lot of, "Why you be all up in my bussness!  Ain't nobody never axked you!"  Oh, and there's usually profanity sprinkled in for good measure.  Listen, if you're going to fight on Facebook, you already look like a moron.  Try not to make it worse by coming across as an English class dropout.

More Who

Here are a few fun parts from some of the other songs Drew was in.  First, though, I want to tell you about a really neat compliment Drew got after the show yesterday.  A man came up to him and said, "Listen, whatever you do, don't quit.  Absolutely do not quit.  You're better at 15 than I was at 24."  Cool, huh?  Drew has no idea who that guy was. 

Make a video - it's fun, easy and free!
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The Who Show

The Who show is finally over after all these months!  It was so much fun.  Here are the pics I took and video of a couple of my favorite songs.

The place they performed this time was called Nectar, in the Fremont section of Seattle.

 

Our family (sans Drew, who had to be dropped off really early) arrived a bit early, so we took the opportunity to be sightseers for a half hour or so. 

For some weird reason, Fremont has a huge statue of Lenin.  I have no idea.

Finally it was time to line up for the show.  All these people are waiting to get in!

We were joined by a few other friends who came to support Drew.  Here are Zach and Kian.

Zach, Kian, Nick, and Drew

Mike and Patty

Our good friend Dan

Our friends from church, John and Suzy

A very exited little sister, showing off the stamp they put on her hand when she came in the door

The whole band on stage for the last song

The Who is English.

Drew rocking the jaw harp 

Finally, here are my two favorite songs.  This first one is called "Love Reign O'er Me."  I'm not showing the whole thing, because it's long, but I've picked it up right before Drew's solo part.  And the second one is called "Who Are You."  For that one I'm showing a bit more, because Drew is featured through much of it.

Make a video - it's fun, easy and free!
www.onetruemedia.com

Make a video - it's fun, easy and free!
www.onetruemedia.com

Jaw Harps and Neighbor Kids

Last night Drew came out of his rehearsal beaming.  One of the songs they're going to be playing, "Join Together," involves the jaw harp, but in all these months Zeke never assigned that coveted part to any of the kids.

(You should watch at least the beginning of this.  It's fun.)

Now, a couple days before the show, he finally did.  None of the kids knew he was going to do this, but he turned it into an award, which 3 kids won.  Drew was given a jaw harp for being the most prepared.  Luke (the kid on the keyboard who directed) was given one for having the best arrangement knowledge.  And Miranda (the singer you saw) was given one for...something.  Drew doesn't remember.  Maybe best spirit!  Anyway, Drew's very excited to be doing something so different and crazy up on stage for that one song.  The show is tomorrow!

And this picture is just for fun.  All these kids were in our front yard yesterday, playing a game they made up called "talent show."

(Baylee called her by her African name, Chudiere, but she called herself by her American name, Tiffany.)

Night Weirdo

I'm reading a book right now called The Maze Runner.  It's...eh...nothing to write home about.  Anyway, that's not my point.  My point is that last night I woke up kinda sick with a bad stomach ache.  You know how sometimes you eat something and then later your body is like, "Okay, no.  That's got to go."  It was like that.  So I was in the bathroom, except right at first I was still more than halfway dreaming.  I knew where I was, but I thought the pain was test of my endurance made by the maze creators.  It took another minute before I realized it was just plain ol' stomach cramps.

Something else weird:  A few days ago I went to bed without a big bruise on my foot and woke up with one.  What in the world???  Did I get up and walk around during the night?  No idea.

Flowbee Files

Baylee has been working like mad to finish school.  She did hours and hours of science one day last week, hours of grammar yesterday, and today is dedicated to finishing history.  She says maybe tonight she'll finish Bible.  At this rate she'll be starting her summer break tomorrow or the next day!

The boys, on the other hand, are taking the slow boat and steady approach to the end of the school year.  All I know is that the thought of having to homeschool for another week or two is sucking my will to live.

Tuesday

"I'm not going to the bathroom!  I just like the way this sounds in here."

Monday

I probably shouldn't be blogging, because I'm tired and not entirely sure I have anything to say.  Hmm.  Bullet points it is!

• Baylee and I went to the library today and she entered the summer reading contest, as she always does at this time of year.  If she reads for 1000 minutes she gets a prize.  The problem with Baylee is that reading that much is like falling off a log.  Last year she did it so quickly that the library hadn't even stocked up on prizes yet and she was totally finished.  They were probably secretly wondering if she cheated.  I always feel like I have to explain her with, "Well...we homeschool..."
• I walked 10,000 steps again today, including the 3 mile walk.  The thing I noticed today during my walk was that it wasn't quite as much fun.  That feeling of, "Woo hoo!  I'm out walking!  I'm enjoying the fresh air and sunshine and getting some exercise to boot!" was kinda gone.  (Hey, that reminds me of that scene in What About Bob where he's tied to the mast and he's yelling, "I'm sailing!!!  I'm sailing!!!"  Haha!  That was a great movie.)  My legs were just tired.  I pushed through it, though.  It helped that I got a "playaway" book from the library to listen to while I was out there.  It also helps that I go with Zach, because he pushes me to walk quickly.  (I've been going on walks with Zach now and then for about a month or so.  Sometimes Drew comes along, other times Baylee, but often it's just Zach and me...and Gibbs.  Usually Zach and I talk together and I've loved that, but this time we both decided to use technology to entertain ourselves.)
• I ran across this pic the other day.  It's Drew and Baylee when they were little.  Drew was helping her put her gloves on right. 

Sunday

I started using a pedometer to track my steps.  My goal each day is 10,000 steps, which is about 5 miles.  There's almost no way to achieve that with just the regular walking around a person does (unless you're a waitress or a mailman or something, I suppose), so that means you have to supplement somehow.  I got my extra steps in by taking a pretty brisk 3 mile walk today with Zach.  In fact, I overshot!  It's almost 9 at night and right now I'm just shy of 11,000.  I'm going to try to do this every single day.  I read that walking 10,000 steps (or 5 miles) is the baseline of recommended exercise that every adult should get in a day.  In case you're wondering, I'm still counting calories with Livestrong, too.

Baylee sang in church tonight.  She did a version of "The Lord's Prayer" that was beautiful.  A couple people got teary.  I had a huge doofus moment, though, when I got her there with 10 seconds to spare before the service started.  I have no idea why, and to not double-check is COMPLETELY unlike me, but I thought evening church started at 6:30.  Turns out it starts at 6.  The elderly lady slightly older woman who happened to be running sound was visibly irritated with me, because 1.  Baylee had no time for a mic check and 2. I handed her the accompaniment CD and said, "The song is number twenty-four.  Would you like me to write that on a sticky note for you?"  In my defense, I was trying to make up for my lateness by being helpful!  But she was like, "No, I've got it.  I'm not THAT senile yet."  Err...oops.  Anyway, the whole point is I'm usually the prompt mom.  I'm the mom who gets there a half hour early (which, incidentally, is what I thought I was doing).  Like I said, though, it was fine.  All's well that ends well.

Baylee's Camping Trip

I've got some cute pics of Baylee on her camping trip to Lake Chelan.  They were taken by a guy named Mike, who goes camping with the group every year and takes tons of pictures...like hundreds.  Then he sends the ones with you or your loved one in them to you.  Isn't that nice?

Here are a few of what he sent us...