I’m not sure which is which in this scenario, actually. Nick and the boys went off to a Winter Family Weekend and did this all weekend:
I drove home and spent time putting things away from our week at Grandma’s house and then went off and did this:
Category: Friend Time
I had hoped to include a video here, but I can’t get them to play the sound, so all you would see is dancing, which is cute, but not as funny as the singing going along with it.
Nick is in the shower and the kids are digging through the spoils of last nights party, so I might be allowed a few minutes peace to write this post (edited to add: nope, my eldest came in a minute later with “alien ears” he made for me out of a ruined slinky). Here’s what’s happened since the last update:
April 12th I went to the doctor & got unwelcome news (posted about here). After the appointment, my friend Tanya brought me a couple loaves of bread as part of her “5 Little Loaves” project (she brought bread to 5 people a week for about a month – 1 loaf to eat & 1 loaf to share; this was serendipitously my day). God knew that I needed a friend to talk to that day. She brought the bread in, chatted with me a bit, gave me a hug, and then we had to speed out of there to piano lessons. But it was so good to have an actual person there in the room with me to talk to.
Thus sustained, I was able to make it to the big kids piano lessons.
Wednesday the 13th my friend SJ and her little ones came over for coffee. They brought me a lovely coffee/saucer/spoon chime set as a thank you for all our lovely coffee mornings. 
Such sweet friends. All the little ones played together nicely, regardless of the smallest one’s having just learned the word “no.” 🙂 That afternoon another family came by and carried David off on bikes for a playdate. He loved that! 🙂
Thursday the 14th we had my friend HM & her son over for coffee (finally! a much rescheduled gathering due to illness and other things). T & Greg rode scooters, jumped on the trampoline, and built miles of train tracks while us moms got caught up (we had both been being hermit-like during the winter).
I gifted her a water bottle with a globe on it in celebration of her new business (I’m posting that so later when I can’t remember who I gave it to I’ll know)! 🙂 I was glad to hear that she and her family are doing so well in their new endeavors. Greg went to MDO after they left and I spent the day tidying up in preparation for deleavening for the Days of Unleavened Bread.
Friday afternoon we went over to Nana & Pa’s house for dinner and haircuts.
Nick’s mom and I worked on our duet, too, and tried out a few other pieces to see what we might like to do later on. The kids all got mini-pizzas in several different flavors to try out (some of those little 89c ones are so yummy!). Nick stayed home and worked on deleavening the rest of the living room and dining room.
On the Sabbath my parents were in town, so we visited with them before going to church. After church (& piano practicing & media copying & snacks, etc) we headed out to another little town for Nick’s co-worker/friend’s retirement party. 
There was bbq and cookies and fishing for the kids. 🙂 
Sunday morning we visited with my parents again before they left town. D had a friend come over unexpectedly (apparently D had invited him over for Friday and then we weren’t home, which was …well, rude on D’s part), so they had an impromptu playdate. 
B and I ran off to get D’s birthday party invites and to have a Mama/Boy Date at Andy’s Frozen Custard. Mmmm. 
We got home just in time for Nick to get ready to go to the Passover service at church (only baptized members of their church may attend and while I’m doubly baptized -both sprinkled as an infant and immersed by choice later on, it wasn’t at their particular church so it doesn’t count to them. Which makes me wonder what God thinks about all this, but He isn’t saying a thing on the subject.)
Monday the 18th was a weird day all around. Nick had arranged to be home for the day because we were originally going to have people over for Night To Be Much Observed, but instead we were going elsewhere, but the day off was already arranged, so he took it. So we headed off to Fresh, which was fairly empty, but still stressful to me, as Nick let Greg have charge of a mini-cart. We stopped and chatted with friends in the cheese section and thereby were introduced as friends to the Cheese & Olive lady for the store. Score! We spent the rest of the day getting stuff ready to take to dinner, which we were having at my in-laws in-laws house. (Stop there and think that out: Nick’s sister’s husband’s parent’s house. There.) Once we picked up the kids and got them all tricked out in nicer clothes, we headed on over. 
The evening was hosted by Nick’s sister’s husband’s sister and her husband, whom we love (we spent time with them at the Feast last year) and they made delicious filet mignon and lamb and twice baked potatoes. Others brought green beans almondine, various unleavened breads, cheeses, olives, wines, etc. 
It was a very filling and fulfilling night, we got to see lots of people we hadn’t seen in ages (KATE is practically a grown-up now!), and all the kids got along marvelously, even if they weren’t interested in the videos we brought for them. 
We left from there veryvery late and spent the night at Nick’s parents house down the road.
Tuesday morning was my littlest niece M’s 4th birthday. 
We got together for our traditional First Day of Unleavened Bread brunch. M started out the morning yelling “I am grown bigger now!” It was excellent! Lots of good food, fancy-schmancy cards for the birthday girl (her family doesn’t do presents so we find fabulous cards with games or stories inside), and lots of kids running round and round (they’d brought T over for D to play with, too).
D and I got our birthday cards, too. That afternoon we had church and I got to play with The Ensemble for the first time. It was a very small ensemble, but I think we played pretty well, especially since we hadn’t practiced together at all. 🙂
This is getting very long, so I’m splitting it into two parts. 🙂
This last week was our spring break from school. I’ve already told you about Monday and Tuesday, so I’ll start today’s story with Wednesday. We didn’t make any big plans for Wednesday, since that was the day that we were swapping out D for B at Nana & Pa’s house, but it turned out to be a big day anyway. My parents came up to town and told us that they’d decided not to make us wait for a month to get our new van (which is their old one), they were going to sign it over to us right now. 🙂 And so we began our day long journey to get the car retitled, re-registered, and in all ways made our own. We ended up visiting the registry twice, once with just me and my dad and once with both of us, my mom, and two of the kids as well. By the end of the day we’d gotten it done. G and I spent the rest of the afternoon emptying out our old van, then vacuuming it out, scrubbing it down inside and out, then cleaning all the windows we could reach, all so Nick could start driving it as soon as he came home. (D spent the afternoon catching up on three days worth of Animal Crossing.)
Thursday morning we visited with my parents a bit, then went home very quickly for D’s early playdate with his best friend C. They had a great time playing video games, riding bikes & skates, and wrestling on the trampoline.
While the kids were playing, I once again worked on some jewelry (a post on all of that coming soon). That afternoon my mom watched the kids so my dad and I could also go out and check out a netbook at Best Buy, which they did not have in stock, and to buy a camera, which they did have. We spent some time updating his regular laptop and getting it set up with the camera software and then learning the new cameras ways before going home for the evening.
B came home just before dinner, bearing sundaes from McDonald’s. My in-laws got a tour of the new van and all it’s shininess before they left.
Friday morning B’s friend A came over for a playdate. I made some more jewelry. They spent quite a bit of time playing the Wii, but we also had a picnic in the backyard, since the weather was beautiful for it. We experimented with playing baseball/tee ball in the yard.
After he went home, Nick and the kids and I went out to the bookstore to get the kids their celebration books for having great report cards (and we may have picked up a couple things for ourselves as well. maybe. possibly. what? we never ever do! Leviathon & Behemoth by Scott Westerfeld and Good Eats: the Middle Years.). D got the second Percy Jackson book, B got three Magic Treehouse books (#20, #21, and a research guide about Knights and Castles), and G got two Barbie books (one 3 Musketeers and one Fairies) and an audio book about the movie Toy Story. Then we headed out to tour the big new exciting store in town: our local markets version of Whole Foods.
It’s called “Fresh” and wow, was it packed with people. It’s a beautiful store, filled with lots of things our regular stores don’t carry: lots of organic, whole grain products and a huge array of cheeses, meats, and ready-to-eat foods (for which there is a balcony seating area outside).
We amazingly managed not to lose any children, nor to knock down any displays, though we did pick up a lot of stuff that was knocked down by the little old lady near us, as she had a large purse and was trying not to hit my kids with it, and since we were behind her in the herd (seriously, it was so packed that you pretty much followed the same people all through the store) we did the picking up. We eventually made it back home and Nick and the kids tidied up there while I went over to help my dad with his new netbook, which he’d picked up that morning. I did all my computer magic over the course of a couple hours and got him hooked up with all his software and file needs and headed back home to start reading my book. Bwahaha. Nick went over and spent the evening hanging out with my dad.
Saturday we hung out with my parents again in the morning before we left for church. The kids climbed ropes and played on the swings. Nick and D and Dad played chess. It was a good morning. We went to church, listened to our new pastor (who was a fabulous speaker, lots of discussion of Greek words, loved it), and then kids had snacks while my m-i-l and I practiced our duet on the big piano (which has keys that are very hard to press compared to my piano at home). We headed home, I changed clothes, and headed out for Girls Night Out. Nick and the kids stayed home and did whatever boys do when their mama is away (hung from the ceiling? shot themselves out into space in rockets? who knows! It was Boys Night In!). I had a lovely time with my lady friends and this time we managed to get a photo of all of us together (something we’ve never managed in the two years we’ve been meeting).
Came home and couldn’t sleep, as I am always excited after a night out, so I stayed up late finishing the book I was reading (the second Percy Jackson book; trying to keep up with D), never realizing that the clocks hadn’t already been set ahead for daylights savings time.
Yesterday we all got up unreasonably early. The day turned out to be one of those ones were everything goes wrong. G ran into my room yelling that D was throwing up from atop his bunk bed, B was asleep below, mercifully, or there’d have been extra mess. I got up, cleaned up the mess, got the boy into the bathroom, then looked at the clock: 5:45am. My husband, who was mysteriously in the kitchen and not at work (he’s been working a lot of overtime lately), hugged me and told me he’d reset all the clocks already so I didn’t have to. I tried to go back to bed, but couldn’t since I had a snuggly, wiggly boy (G) in there with me. So we all got up, ate breakfast, then sat around reading until it was time to leave for the last basketball practice of the season. David and I stayed home because of his icky tummy. He played more Wii and I wandered here and there doing chores and trying to finish up another necklace. The laundry that I thought was clean was mysteriously dirty, the necklace that I “finished” I turned out to have left a bead out of.
After the other kids came back home, we tried to go to the zoo and got verbally assaulted by the director of said zoo for bringing in a check that wasn’t signed by me — it was a gift membership from my in-laws, which I had filled out paperwork for and brought in with me, but he refused to listen one word I said, no matter how polite I was. It was a disaster all around, so I decided to take my children elsewhere. We got to the frozen custard place and discovered that my two-for-one coupons had been left in the hallway when we were swapping stuff around between the vans earlier in the week, but by then I decided to just make the best of it and we paid full price. The custard was perfect and by the time I’d finished venting to my husband, my best friend, and finally to my mother-in-law (who is going up to talk to the zoo about their communication skills today) I was feeling much better. We had a movie night with the kids, watching an old Valerie Bertinelli movie about a robot dog, which they loved. The movie ran late, so the kids ran late getting into baths and storytime, so it was nearly 9:45pm before they went to bed. I made their lunches last night and set out clothes for them so they could sleep in this morning and it’s just now time to get them up so that’s the end of this post.
I realized the other day after the fact that when I posted about President’s Day that I still had a week or so of posting to do and now it’s been a couple weeks since that and I have A LOT of posting to do. I’ve been doing that thing again where you start a post, realize that you need to have your calendar close by or your photos already uploaded and since you realize that you’re woefully unprepared, you close out of the post unsaved and promise that you’re going to post TOMORROW. Well, I have a lot of “tomorrows” to post for and who knows how long I’ll manage to stay awake at this point, so this may be more summary than actual posty goodness.
We’ll start will February 18th, as that is the first day on the calendar post-15th that I have a) something written on and b) photos for. In the morning, G, my mom, and I hit Lowe’s for the second time in a week, this time in order to buy those fabulous kid-size-but-very-sturdy gardening tools that we’d seen earlier in the week. We also scored some Gerber daisies (two varieties, it turned out), which we later planted in a small grouping in the front yard.
That afternoon we picked the kids up from school, drove out to my in-laws house, and prepped & decorated for a family dinner.
The next day we got up, got ready for the day, and then G and I headed up the hill for his best friends birthday party at the local community center. Fun was had by all, including me (I got to talk at length with an interesting woman who’d held a similar ministry position to mine back in the day)! 🙂
After that we headed out to church, then back to town to visit with my parents. Sunday was, again, basketball and more basketball, followed by Nick working overtime and the kids and I cleaning up the house and catching up on laundry and such. Monday was President’s Day, which I already blogged at length about in my last post. Tuesday was my appointment with the rheumatogist, which I blogged about here. In case you don’t follow that link, the long and short of it is: new meds and I have to see another doctor about my pre-hypertension. Yay. I spent the rest of the day cleaning and taking kids to piano lessons and Greg got to spend the night with his Nana and Pa.
Wednesday I hung out with my parents a bit, which was weird all by myself. I went home and cleaned house until it was time to pick up kids. Around 4:45 we met up with some other scout parents and took a group over to the Lady Apache Basketball game (well, I took the kids, but Nick and his dad and G eventually showed up there). 
Thursday I had my appointment with my PCP, wherein I found out that due to family history, I needed to start on a beta blocker and watch my health more closely. Yay. Friday was a normal day with kids going to school, homework being done, chores, etc. We drove down to CS Friday afternoon/evening. Saturday the kids played ping pong and watched movies. My friend Sarah and her new baby came over to visit, which was lots of fun.
G loved playing Peek-a-boo with little Serenity. 🙂
Sunday the kids went fishing at the park, then we drove back home in the afternoon.
Monday was a regular day for us, with the kids at school and later B had scouts. Tuesday marked Nick and I’s 14th anniversary of our first date, so we had the babysitter come over after piano lessons, so we could go out to Sonoma Grill and the bookstore afterwards.
Wednesday, March 2nd, the car wouldn’t start, as we’d miscalculated the gas mileage (our gas gauge does not work). I walked the kids in to school, a 45 minute round trip. This, of course, put us in the marginal zone for being late for our 2nd glass appointment (the replaced glass from last week having cracked once we tried opening the window). They said that the guy was running a bit late anyway, no worries, he’d be there by 11am. Well, by 11am we had a friend lined up to help us fill our gas tank. The glass guy was, of course, terribly late, so while we waited we had a playdate at our house.
That family left after lunch. The glass guy, despite being only “45 minutes” away at 10:30am, showed up at 2:35pm. Needless to say, we won’t be doing business with the Glass Doctor again.
Thursday the 3rd all the kids went to their various schools & I had lunch with my friend Em and her daughter H. We discussed the Wii game Animal Crossing in great detail, as my whole family is obsessed with it, and H. is an expert player. That evening I went out once again with B’s Tiger Cub den (and one other), this time to tour the local TV station during the evening broadcast, which we were supposed to appear on, but due to scheduling and technical difficulties, we did not appear on. Ah well, the tour was interesting and the kids had a pretty good time.
Friday, March 4th. we went over to my friend JP’s house for a playdate. G loves her daughter K, so all was well there.
Afterward we spent the afternoon cleaning up before hosting a family from church for dinner. We had a fabulous time with our friends and the kids loved making a movie “show” and videotaping it for our later viewing pleasure. 🙂
Saturday was a church day, then afterwards Nick headed out to Men’s Club while the kids and I headed out to Pizza Hut with Nick’s parents and sister and her girls. Sunday was yet more basketball, Nick working more overtime, and us cleaning more of the house. Monday was the first official day of Spring Break. D has spent several nights at his Nana and Pa’s house. 
The younger kids and I made a picnic lunch and toured Mrs. Lee’s Daffodiil Garden before heading our to our friend’s house in Gladewater for the afternoon. We played at their house, then played over at R’s school playground before coming home for the evening. 
Today we spent the day playing video games and hosting a playdate with one of Ben’s friends 
and missing our D. Tomorrow he comes home, though, and B will get his turn at Nana and Pa’s house. 🙂
That’s it. Hope that was coherent enough for you. More photos can be found at flickr.com, of course.
- 8:01 am: Had a funny lunch out yesterday with Emily: the first three places we tried to go to were all out of business! Finally ended up at Casa Ole. #
From Twitter, imported by moi.
- 11:51 am: Small world: the Daily Science Fiction magazine story in my inbox this morning was written by my friend from high school’s brother. Weird! #
From Twitter
We’ve had about 5 Thanksgivings this year. I am full up to the brim with turkey and may die if I have to have it again this year.
Our first Thanksgiving was on Nov 17th at Nick’s work. Greg and I were only bringing stuff up to Nick, but we got invited to stay, so we did. There were lots of non-Thanksgiving-like foods (7 layer taco dip, mac&cheese, broccoli/cheese casserole) there, so we mostly got some of those, so as not to kill ourselves too early in the series.
On Nov 18th was G’s MDO Thanksgiving event. I admit here that I totally missed it. I completely forgot it was happening. Really all they did was watch Charlie Brown Thanksgiving and eat popcorn, so it’s not like I missed much. Here’s a picture I took afterwards of him in his “Native American” vest.
Nov 19th we spent washing & packing for our trip to Austin for Real Thanksgiving(tm) at April’s house. We drove down first thing Saturday morning and spent the day there eating and eating and then watching the A&M vs. UNL game (it’s very trippy to watch that with someone who formerly worked at UNL and now works at TAMU all while in Austin, it really is). I have zero pictures of that event because I still didn’t have my camera cord in yet. I took tons of photos on my sisters camera, but she didn’t have an internet connection to upload to, so the photos are stuck there until Christmas. *sigh* Sunday we got up, ate a really huge breakfast, divvied up the leftovers, then hit Whole Foods for more goodies before heading back home.
Nov 22nd-24th it was just me and all three kids at home. We cleaned out their room, top to bottom, including all their dresser drawers and closet messes. We weeded out anything that was stained or had holes or just wasn’t loved. We ended up keeping only about 1/3 of G’s clothes, 1/2 of B’s and nearly all of D’s (he had the least). One day we spent literally half the day at the zoo.
Another day we picnicked in the living room.
Actual Thanksgiving Day we got up and played Macy’s Parade Bingo while watching said parade. Around 12:30pm our guests arrived. We’d asked at church who didn’t have anywhere to go for Thanksgiving and so we ended up hosting a nice couple that we hadn’t met before. They weren’t able to visit family because of work and their family that was supposed to come was unable to due to recovery from a car accident, so we all had the meal together. Nick fixed his favorite new recipes from all those Thanksgiving shows that we’ve watched over the years. 98% of it was great. The remaining 2% was edible, just a bit watery. We had a fabulous time and now have two new fiends at church. 🙂
Friday we stayed home. The kids watched movies and played outside. Nick watched football games. I cleaned up messes and did laundry and played with kids. It was a good day, too. We ended the day with the house just as clean as it was before the guests arrived and I’ve managed to keep it up that way every since. Saturday Nick taught Sabbath school to the younger kids.
That night we had yet another Thanksgiving type meal at Nick’s parents house (though we call it the Holcomb Anniversary Dinner). The kids had fun running around with their cousins and roasting marshmallows on the fire. The rest of us had fun talking and eating. We had a family picture taken of just our little family and another one of the extended family (although not on my camera; I need to get a copy of that still).
Sunday we spent recovering and eating yet more leftovers. Now it’s the last day of November and I refuse to eat any more leftover Thanksgiving. Bwahahaha.
Tonight was the Box Car races at our Scout Pack Meeting:
Tiger cubs line up with their fairly large cars for the parade around the cafeteria. B was very excited to be an official racer this year after a few years of just racing the other “babies” at the meetings.
A webelo helps G put a tire back on his box. Apparently I picked up the wrong side of velcro when gluing and affixed two scratchy sides instead of one smooth & one scratchy. The tires had to be velcroed on because there was a rule that the tires needed to be taken off and put back on by each scouts “pit crew” in between laps of the race. There wasn’t any other younger kids there for G to race this year, but he did get to run around with the older kids after the official races were over, so that made him very happy.
The Webelos line up with their cars on stage for picture taking. Notice how most of theirs are tiny? That’s because after 3 years of scouting they’ve figured out that a smaller car means a faster racer. The kids with bigger cars are new to scouting.
Outside just before the race started. We were pretty sure the instructions called for lighted headlights, so our boys glowed out in the darkness. All the racing photos came out as a blur.
- 2:33 pm: Busy day: friend for coffee, made ballerina skirt for G’s friend, helped w/ TG lunch @ Nick’s work, ran errands for box car stuff. So tired.
- 8:08 pm: is having to have an awkward conversation w/ her older son about texting etiquette & why it’s wrong to borrow a phone to text random people.
Lisa Holcomb 