March 29 - April 19

Oh, how easy it is to fall out of the habit of blogging. Let us take a trip back to the beginning of April...

We did not have school on (western) Good Friday. Since it was also not our Good Friday, we were able to relax and catch up on things around the house. Matthias went to a friend's house for half the day while the girls and Theo entertained each other.

On Saturday we went to Columbus to visit Bryan's sister and her family. Actually, his whole family except his dad was there for the weekend. The kids enjoyed seeing their cousins and playing games. They also made Chopped Junior Easter houses, made more exciting by the fact that none of our kids have ever seen Chopped Junior. Before loosing them on their ingredients we watched an episode together for inspiration. We all went to the Easter Vigil together on Saturday night. I got to sing a few Easter hymns, which always makes me happy. They used the wrong tune for At the Lamb's High Feast, but they did have Jesus Christ is Risen Today. :) On Sunday morning our family attended Orthodox Palm Sunday at Josef and Angelina's church. I texted them to let them know we'd be there, but Josef didn't see the message, so I got to witness his surprised face at the chanter's stand when he noticed us. Euphemia was excited to sit with us in church, but disappointed that we didn't bring Margaret with us. After the service we went back to Keshia's house for an Easter egg hunt and more cousin time.

Monday was another day off of school, but Bryan had to work and I had to teach violin lessons in the morning. The kids slept in and played and in the afternoon there was a return to track practice.

Orthodox Holy Week was more full of church than the kids would have preferred (no surprise there). There is something to be said for the children growing up, though. Every service was so much more peaceful and manageable than I remember from years past. Olivia and Gretchen especially are getting old enough that they remember the seasonal hymns from year to year. We still don't have a permanent priest, but we did have a visiting priest who was able to come in on Wednesday and stay through Pascha. The girls' first track meet, originally scheduled for Holy Saturday, was canceled at the last minute, giving the whole family the opportunity to go to the Saturday morning service.

On Saturday afternoon I finished up my bread and a crockpot breakfast casserole to share. The kids decorated eggs and Kaitlyn and I went shopping to get her a new dress. I even managed to slip in a run, although my stomach was displeased with the order in which my eating and running had to occur.

Saturday evening we had five kids get out of bed and get dressed independently and willingly. Theodore brought a pillow and blanket to church and immediately curled up on a pew. Kaitlyn slept on the floor for large portions of the service and Gretchen rested her eyes at times, although she claims she did not sleep. Olivia made it through the whole service and Matthias was a bleary eyed server. Everyone made it to communion under their own power (it was close with Gretchen, though -- her legs had fallen asleep so she was struggling to stand) and after the service they wandered over to the rectory basement for the feast. We did not stay overly long there before heading home to our beds.

Sunday was bright and beautiful and we had a nice lazy morning. The kids are all running in the Healthy Kids running series again and had their first race Sunday afternoon. Theo took off like a shot in his quarter mile, but lost steam halfway through and came in fourth. Matthias has worked up to a nice, steady half mile. The three girls are all in the mile. Olivia and Gretchen are used to the distance and paced themselves well. Kaitlyn is still working on stamina. She is very determined, though, and ran the whole mile. Afterwards we went to the park and then to get ice cream. Happy bright week.

Monday was back to life as usual, but without fasting. Except for me. My half marathon was on April 18 and flooding my system with meat and dairy in the last week seemed like a bad plan, so I ate up the lenten leftovers for us. On Tuesday we went as a family to see Super Mario Galaxy in the discount theater. It was quite popular.

On Wednesday I started my carb load for my race (473 g of carbs per day for 3 days). Halfway through the day, I got an email saying that the race was being postponed until the end of May. In retrospect, I was most annoyed that the cancellation came after I'd already ingested 200 g of carbs. What a waste. It turns out that last year this same race got cancelled the morning of due to lightning. This year's weather reports were looking similarly bad, so the organizers cancelled and offered all participants the option to run on the postponed date or defer for a year. May 31 is not great for me or my training partner, so we are deferring. I did spend some time looking for alternate races for the weekend, but I strained a muscle in my very last tempo run, so I decided to be smart and not push it. As it turns out, the cancelled race was good for me, because my plan was definitely to run on the strained muscle (I'm sure it will be fine!) and deal with the fallout afterwards. Because historically that goes perfectly for me. I have been a little adrift the rest of this week, unsure what to do now that I'm all trained up for a half marathon. My Saturday run was a light three miles and my leg did bother me, so I guess I'm knocking down to minimal mileage until I heal and then building again for... something.

Our blue van is in the shop for a few different things. We should be getting it back on Monday with new tires, new rotors, a new sway bar, and a fixed DRL wire. Our red van only seats six (one seatbelt was missing when we bought it) which is inconvenient given that there are seven of us. Luckily, most of our local traveling is minus at least one person. Today I gave Bryan a ride to his church and then he walked home while I took the kids to liturgy.

I have only two pictures for this post. I'll have to look to see if there are more floating around somewhere for next week.

Pictures:

March 22-29

Jacque and her kids came to visit last week. They spent a fair amount of time alone in our house since we had school, but after school the cousins were happy to visit. Julian and Matthias played Pokemon and video games together. Theodore and Samuel played with cars. There was plenty of outdoor and downstairs play and one visit to a playground. Lenore happily acknowledged the existence of the girls and was even willing to engage with them sometimes, much to their delight. Kaitlyn was often able to convince Lenore to adventure with her while Jacque was busy doing other things.

Jacque and I were able to visit in the evenings and -- side benefit -- I got my Christmas cards addressed, stuffed, and stamped while we chatted. Jacque may have helped. :) Those should be arriving soon if they haven't already. I remembered a few people preferred digital letters, so I've uploaded those to the Christmas Letter discord thread.

Olivia and Gretchen were also able to sneak in a couple of games of Villainous with Jacque while she was here. Their track schedule was different this week (Jacque on Tuesday night: "I just watched all of your complaints about track play out in real time!") which gave them some unanticipated free time. They put it to good use.

Kaitlyn turned 11 on Friday. As is the custom, she received a laptop for her birthday. Bryan helped her set it up and created a discord account for her at the same time, so some of you may be receiving friend invitations. We had church on her birthday, but managed to sneak in a dinner beforehand and cake afterwards. I also had the realization that we were at the exact same point in the liturgical cycle 11 years ago, because I remember hoping that all of the prostrations on the 5th Thursday of Lent would jump start labor. They did, and Kaitlyn arrived early Friday morning, one week before Catholic Good Friday and two weeks before Orthodox Good Friday.

Olivia's high school application and placement test are all complete, so now it's time for scholarship applications. I don't remember high school being this much like college, but it is. Luckily for her, there's one main scholarship application that covers about a dozen scholarships and only requires one 250-300 word essay. She was intimidated by it and worried about the length and accidentally wrote a 650 word essay. She and I slashed and tightened last night to get her down to the limit and today she's submitting the application and getting that off her plate.

We had to borrow a scale before we flew to Florida in order to weigh our suitcase. Of course, everyone hopped on out of curiosity. For posterity, our post-beginning of Lent, pre-vacation in Florida weights. Our children are going to have some strange ideas about the proper protocol for weight secrecy as they age. These were written on our fridge for two weeks before I copied them down.

Bryan 188.2

Johannah 129.8

Olivia 105

Gretchen 78.4

Kaitlyn 73

Matthias 64.6

Theodore 52.2

Next weekend we'll be in Columbus visiting Bryan's sister for Easter, so I'm not sure if I'll get the blog up on Sunday or not.

Pictures:

March 15-22

The remainder of our trip to Florida went well. Sunday afternoon was a trip to Gator Mike's for bumper cars, go-karts, and bumper boats. The girls attended karaoke night on Monday and loved it. They discovered that Mamma Mia songs are well received by the snowbird crowd and also that karaoke tends toward the original ABBA version rather than the soundtrack version, so some words are different. Murry and I discovered that when Kaitlyn sings “I fought the law and the law won” she affects quite a southern twang.

Our flight out on Tuesday was very delayed because of cancellations the day before due to weather. We didn’t find this out, of course, until we were already at the airport. Security lines were the longest I’ve seen them in the past 5 years and when we arrived at our gate the whole area was so packed full of people that we ended up retreating down the hallway to find a place to sit on the floor. By 1:00 we were able to find floor spots at our gate and Kaitlyn checked in with her teacher for the remote learning day that Ohio was having. At 2:00 our 11:45 flight finally boarded and we were in the air at 3:00. Alison had a warm van and dinner waiting for us in Detroit when we landed. We had planned to visit for a bit before leaving, but that didn’t work out, so we just headed straight home and finally made it gratefully to our beds around 9:45.

The rest of the week was a lot of catching up on homework, but everything got turned in by Friday so that the kids could relax and enjoy their weekend.

Kaitlyn and Olivia had Music Evaluation Day on Saturday morning. This is something the piano teachers in our area do and each student is tested at their level (1-5) on various music related things. There’s a solo portion, sightreading, technique (scales, chords, harmonization, etc), ear training, and a written theory/history test. Both girls did well and received their plaques.

Last night we had friends over and today we’re headed to Bargliokiewicz, which is a three family get together that we have about once a month. Well, 5 of us are headed there. Theo isn’t feeling well and a parent has to stay home with him. I’ll probably volunteer as tribute so that I can get my lesson plans for the week done.

Theodore has developed marker opinions recently. I have some paint pens at school that I use to mark seat spots. Theo uses them to draw pictures on the days when he comes to my room after school. He wanted a pack for at home, but I hadn’t been willing to buy them. He dug through all of our markers and managed to find six acrylic brush pens (I’m not even sure where those came from) and they are now his treasured drawing markers. They do have unique colors and are very vibrant.

Jillian and Caleb were here at the beginning of the month for card club. Jillian sent me a couple pictures of her playing games with the girls, and also one of a drawing by Theodore.

Theodore: Annemarie is learning cursive at her school. Or Japanese.

Pictures:

March 8-15

Thursday night we drove up to Detroit to stay overnight with the Ortegas. The living room was a party bed pit which the kids loved. Early on Friday I got everyone up and Alison drove us to the airport for our flight to Florida.

We've had decent experiences with Frontier over the years, but this year they set out to prove us wrong. First my checked bag tag wouldn't print because the kiosk was sure my flight had already left. Since my flight had not left, I got in line to talk to an agent and she was able to print my tag for me. Once we boarded the plane we began to taxi but then stopped because snow was coming. They decided we needed a de-icing treatment. I'm not upset about the safety precaution, but we did sit there for about 45 minutes while they did that. The pilot said that we were hoping to take off before the snow and didn't make the window. I would like to point out to Frontier that if they hadn't pushed our flight back from the original 6:45 to 7:00 then maybe we would have made the window. Regardless, we sat. Once we got to Florida, we couldn't get into the gate because another plane had beat us there. The pilot came on to say that we would have to wait an hour for that flight to take off so that the gate would clear. When I booked the tickets, we were expecting to be at Steve and Murry's house by 10:30. As it was, we arrived at 12:30. Other than a lot of extra sitting in the plane, the flight was fine. Theodore was very excited to see Florida from the air and marveled over the water and houses and tiny cars.

As we listened to updates on flight times, I decided that flights are kind of like instant pots. Just like you can have a roast done in 45 minutes, but that doesn't include warming up or cooling down, the pilot will say that a flight is 2 hours and 20 minutes, but that's only air time and doesn't include any of the taxiing pre-departure or post-landing.

It sounds like we missed an exciting day in Ohio on Friday. Alison said an ice storm came through Detroit a few hours after we left. St Charles had flickering power for a few hours until it went out completely around 1:00. I can't say I'm disappointed to have missed out on the experience of a basement classroom full of first graders when the power went out. The winds in Lima got pretty bad (we've heard 70-80 mph) and debris was flying off the school roof during pickup. The high school gym has a new sun roof, courtesy of the storm. I texted our neighbor to ask about our shed and she sent back a picture of a bunch of stacked plastic tubs with a mangled heap of metal in the background. We have no way of knowing for sure, but based on the "remain calm" and "thank you for your patience" texts and emails the electric company has been sending out, it's quite possible there is still no power at our house. They are estimating that some places could still be without power until Tuesday, although estimates on our side of the state are generally for sometime later tonight.

We remain warm and cozy in Florida until Tuesday mid-day when we will fly back to Detroit. The kids have been enjoying the pool and golf cart rides. They are decorating the golf cart for the St Patrick's Day parade and looking forward to karaoke tomorrow night. Bryan and I have been enjoying relaxing and visiting with his parents. He bought them a new tree, a cocktail tree that grows both lemons and limes, for their backyard. All Bryan's dreams of growing citrus are realized in Florida.

Pictures:

March 1-8

Sunday we had friends over (but just the kids, because the accompanying parent was sick) and went roller skating to celebrate some church birthdays.

Big news on the track front: We have a schedule AND it has been communicated to us. Will wonders never cease? It did take a few false starts, with miscommunication of both the meets and practices (in separate occurrences, of course) as the powers that be struggled a bit over who was most powerful and who had which information. And then when they got that straightened out inquiring mothers who just want to be places on time were told that there was never any problem at all, which is bologna. But inquiring mothers are taking deep breaths and practicing patient acceptance and being grateful that it only took a week and half to get correct information. Addendum: I wrote this paragraph on Wednesday and then on Thursday the kids finished 15 minutes early with no warning. Close enough, I suppose.

The kids get along amazingly well for a magical half hour or so at bedtime. Once a week or so Bryan or I will tell the kids to get ready for bed and they will instead sit down for an exceedingly cordial game of some sort. If we let it go too long, they get overtired and testy, but for the first 30-45 minutes it's calm and quiet and happy memories are being made, so we tend to let it happen and hope we don't suffer for it in the morning.

Bryan caught whatever has been going around on Wednesday and was confined to bed on Thursday and Friday. Whatever he has involves a fever and is likely viral. He also has theories that the diet change of Lent contributes to his poor immune system and makes him more susceptible to germs. It's possible that Lent just coincides with things being passed around. Saturday he was up and about more, although still wearing his sick hat and taking naps. We are hopeful that the rest of us don't catch it, especially since we are supposed to leave for Florida this Friday.

Wednesday night Bryan supervised a large scale (is 30 people large scale?) play test of his newest game, Ninjamboree. He wasn't feeling great at that point and came to bed after I was asleep, so I was able to ascertain that it went well enough, but no more. If he wants more details in the blog book for posterity, he will have to leave a comment. Anyway, the game wasn't broken, but it also isn't quite ready for launch. He has big hopes for this game and is ready for the years of work to be complete so that he can release it into the wild.

Friday night was our annual Happy March card club. Bryan was still down for the count, so the amazing team of Olivia and Gretchen filled in for him. They alternated games and ended up winning the whole thing! One thousand apologies to various adults later, they are the proud co-owners of a mug. Their euchre skills are great, but their trash talk could use some work.

We had several of those sticky ninja wall climbers to put in valentine cards and one became adhered to our kitchen ceiling back in February. It finally fell on Friday, after 20 days on the ceiling. The kids have tried to reattach it, but it has run out of stickiness. It remains the undisputed champion, having easily outlasted the second place ninja's measly 24 hours. 

It was Right to Read Week at school, which means out of uniform days. Thursday was dress as a book character day. Pictures below.

I finally got my Christmas letter written. Hopefully I will get it in the mail before we leave for vacation. I am accepting guesses for how many signature pages I had to print before we managed to get 7 successful signatures.

Some funny observations by Theodore this week:

He was looking at reptile books at the library. One had a frog, and he asked if frogs were reptiles. I said no, they are amphibians, and he told me they must be reptiles because they're in the book. This led to the examination of the cover, and we discovered that the book was actually called Reptiles and Amphibians. He promptly gave it back to me, saying, "I don't want this one, because I only want to learn about reptiles. I don't want to learn about amphibians."

One morning Theodore asked if we were ever going to move to a new house. I told him we had no plans to move anytime soon and wondered why he asked. He said it was because a new house would not be so dirty. Clarification elicited the understanding that "dirty" means "messy." I suggested just cleaning up the current house, noting that all of the things and people would accompany us to a new house. Then he sat me down and very seriously told me that now that no one was two or three years old anymore we should be able to just keep everything where it belongs after using it, provided it starts in the right place. Apparently the easiest way to do this would be to move.

Pictures:

February 22 - March 1

This week was a doozy. We didn't do very many exciting things, but we did have a lot of demands on our time.

Sunday was Forgiveness Vespers, but at 12:30 because we had a visiting priest. This is one service the kids remember, so that makes it one that I appreciate more. Once we made it home for the day, we had nothing else planned.

All the other nights of the week, though, were filled with services because of the first week of Lent. Now we decrease to just Wednesdays and Fridays until Holy Week.

Track suddenly started this week. Yes, I placed my modifier correctly. Track's communication since we've been involved has been ... lacking. We found out through the grapevine around 4:00 on Monday that practice might be starting. At 5:15 I texted the team mom who ran all communications last year and found out that practice had indeed started. The girls did not make it. Allegedly an announcement was made at school (at 3:00, for a 4:45 practice), but six Barhorsts did not hear it, so I am relatively certain that the school dropped the ball on that one. The girls were able to attend practice the rest of the week. At this point we know practices as much as one day ahead and we are supposed to be grateful for that extremely advanced notice. 

Gretchen got shin splints on day two of track, likely caused by running indoors (a theory not tested, but based on the fact that she did not suffer during cross country, nor have any of our off season runs bothered her). The new junior high coach gave her two pages of stretches and grounded her for a few days, which is more than anyone did when she sustained injuries last year. It seems unlikely that they will move training outside before the weather warms up more, so I guess we'll take what we can get.

Friday we had to go to the library to turn in winter reading sheets. We don't go to the library much at all anymore, preferring to read on kindles, but the boys wanted a chance at prizes. Now we have library books that we'll need to remember to return again.

Saturday I spent at a Mothers' Retreat with a friend. It's a Catholic retreat in farm country, Ohio, and I always find it refreshing and edifying.

I'm preparing for a half marathon in April and the training plan that I'm following has me ramping up the weekday miles, which is fun to try to fit in. I'm also starving all the time, but never hungry for anything, so that's great. In a related pondering, how much do we think I need to run to pull ahead of Dad's all time mileage? He put in more miles in high school, ran in college (which I did not), and trained for one marathon. Plus any other running he did just because. But this is my 7th half marathon build, so I feel like I have to be gaining on him.

Pictures:

February 15-22

I've always harbored a pet theory that given everything we know about the proportions of human bodies (mostly learned in art class), we should be able to more accurately predict heights. There are holes in my proportion chain, though, a notable problem being that even though eyeballs are the same size for your whole life, there is no way to reach inside a baby's head and examine the eyeball size. I was explaining this to the kids one day, and Gretchen thought maybe irises would also stay the same size. You know, since eyeballs do. Brilliant! We all latched onto this very scientific conclusion and set about measuring irises in the most precise way imaginable: We stared into each other's eyes and hollered about staying still. All the male irises in the family are visibly larger than the female irises which clearly means we're on to something. The family now believes that Theodore will be the tallest. The girls are all, as closely as we could measure, about the same as me.

One of the girls (probably Gretchen?) received the board game Villainous for Christmas. Olivia and Gretchen, and some others, have been enjoying playing it approximately twice a month since then. Their biggest obstacle is that it is a longer game, so by the time they finish explaining it to a friend they only have about 20 minutes left to actually play and don't manage to get very far. Yesterday Bryan played with them, and then told them to create their own villains to add to the game, which provided some interesting discussion and kept people busy. Olivia is creating Bowser and Gretchen is working on Dawn Bellweather.

Side note, the previous paragraph was made more difficult by the fact that the children of the household have completed the cot/caught merger while the adults have not. Don and Dawn sound the same coming out of Gretchen's mouth.

We had no school on Monday due to President's Day, and it ended up being more busy than anticipated. Olivia and Kaitlyn performed piano at a local nursing home for service hours. Kaitlyn played mini golf on the oculus with Opa. Olivia and Matthias went to a friend's house for a game of Kid Magic (just magic the gathering, but all kids playing). Olivia played chess with Opa. I'm not sure what Gretchen was up to. Probably homework and riding her bike. Theodore was also around, but didn't have any engagements.

Speaking of riding bikes, Olivia and Gretchen have become quite independent and will frequently take their bikes down to the subdivision to ride for a while. It started as a way to get exercise without running as the weather warmed up, but Gretchen especially has really taken to bike riding as a way to get a little break outside between other obligations.

Now that the weather is warming up, fog days are back on the table! These were a huge surprise to me when Olivia first started school. With the number of kids coming from the country, though, I guess the fog is a problem. Monday was actually incredibly foggy, even in downtown Lima and on the freeway as late as 9 am. That would have been a canceled day for sure if we didn't already have the day off. The administration is reluctant to cancel anymore this year because we're out of calamity days and have to do virtual learning during cancellations, which is inconvenient for everyone. As a result, a moderately foggy Thursday morning ended up being just a 2 hour delay.

Matthias is unintentionally and reluctantly becoming better at cleaning up. He had made butter at school and wanted to try at home as well. Unfortunately, when he got tired of shaking the jar his arm got a little to low and he managed to smash the bottom of the mason jar on the counter, sending cream all over the kitchen. He had to wipe up the cream, sweep the floor, and then mop. Many tears were shed, but he did a good job and when he spilled something the next day he was much more willing to take care of it.

Kaitlyn made slime yesterday, which obviously led to Matthias making slime as well. We didn't have food coloring, so we just have two large balls of white slime. It was painless and easy and doesn't even seem to be unbearably sticky, which I appreciate. They still are not allowed to have it on anything fabric.

Theodore would like to know how many reptiles you can name without looking them up. Bear in mind that alligators and crocodiles apparently count as the same thing, and all reptiles within the same genus count as one. You are permitted to separate orders and (probably) families.

Pictures:

February 8-15

I was rushing to fit in a few quarterly unbirthdays this week before we reached Meatfare Sunday. Last week Olivia had mexican chicken and oatmeal raisin cookies. Gretchen had grilled chicken sandwiches and candy. Theodore picked breaded chicken tenders and cotton candy, which was almost difficult, but luckily stores sell cotton candy around Valentine's Day. Bryan wanted pulled pork sandwiches and stretchy India ice cream. ... He got the pork. I'll hopefully get to the dessert this week before Cheesefare next Sunday. Bryan wins the prize for most creative (read: labor intensive) unbirthdays.

We had a few haircuts around here: Matthias got a buzz, Gretchen refreshed her pixie cut, and Kaitlyn chopped off about 8 inches in what felt spur of the moment to me but was probably well thought out. She's at shoulder length now and much less reluctant to comb her hair than she once was.

On Friday I had the opportunity to play with the Adrian Symphony, which is always a delight. It was the Valentine's Day concert, so we had an afternoon rehearsal and an evening performance. The whole concert was Broadway love songs. It turns out maybe my favorite thing to play is pit music.

While I was gone the boys built a fort in the living room. It's still mostly there, although they only got to sleep in it the first night. On Saturday we made sure to get some pictures in the fort with Flat August so that we can send him back to his school on Monday.

Saturday was my day to spend with Kaitlyn. We went ice skating in Findlay and then watched a movie. My ankles are not up to the challenge of skating for 2 hours, although I'm getting a little better each year that we do this. Kaitlyn mostly doesn't skate with me, instead preferring to say hello as she laps me yet again. Sometimes we just stand off to the side and admire the better skaters. Kaitlyn would really like to learn how to do the sideways ice-scratching stop that the hockey kids use. Our movie this year was Avatar: Fire and Ash. In 3D. I have seen zero of the previous Avatar movies, but followed along well enough once the main plot got going. Kaitlyn filled me in on all the missing lore as we drove home.

The Olympics have been featured on our television several times this week. I remember watching with my mom sometimes, and wanted to have a similar experience with my kids. I'm not sure it's working, especially since most of the watching happens after bed time. I do find it exceedingly convenient that what I want to watch comes on automatically after whatever regular sports event Bryan is watching earlier in the evening. Kaitlyn has been consistently slipping out of her room at night to quietly watch with me. Olivia emerges about half the time. Sometimes we just look up whatever specific event we want to see (figure skating, mostly) on youtube. I do think Kaitlyn is mostly in it for the potential falls.

And a conversation I had with Theo this week. Unfortunately, I do not have a photo of the handwriting in question.

Theo: Can you help me with my homework?

Me: What do you need me to do?

Theo: You could write this for me.
Me: Your teacher would definitely know it was me.

Theo: But my handwriting is beautiful.
Me: I know, that's why she would be able to tell.
Theo: Why, is your handwriting terrible?
Me: No, my handwriting is good. This is my handwriting. *gestures to note on the table*
Theo: ...Eek.
Me: Eek?! What's wrong with it?
Theo: *laughing* Look at it! The e is touching the e. And the e is touching the d. And the f is touching the i. And the t is touching the j!
Me: That's a u.
Theo: *more laughter* I guess it's pretty good, but it's all touching.

Pictures:

February 1-8

Jake gets 15 points for snack house guesses. Opa gets 4 points. Now I have to go figure out how to update my points balances.

Last week our friends from church, the Millers, came over to visit after church. Matthias and their boys had a good time roughhousing all over the basement. Kyle has been invested in ukulele lately, so he and I talked shop while Bryan and Tara pretended to be interested in ukulele. My uke skills have only had to stay ahead of one six year old I’m teaching, so having Kyle be excited to discuss chord patterns actually increased my current knowledge by about 15%. We’re going to put together a duet of Pachelbel’s Canon sometime. Probably.

Basketball season has ended, hurrah. We should have a week or two before track season fills the void.

Living Room La Comedia is alive and well. Some years I do better than others getting all of the scheduled shows in before Bryan gifts me a new season for Christmas. We had two left over from last year and fit them in on January 31 and February 1. We also got in the first show of this season on February 5, so we’re kind of La Comediad out right at this moment. Last Sunday was our very first family show. We watched Peter Pan with the kids and they loved the experience.

Friday we dropped the girls off at the Miroglios’ and then Bryan and the boys and I headed up to Michigan to visit my former roommate, Danielle, and her family. I don’t know what all the girls ended up doing, but they had a good time. The boys enjoyed discovering different toys at a different house. Bryan got to play some poker and we all watched India beat the USA in cricket. Watched might be too generous… Bryan and Wilson watched. Danielle and I were in and out between cricket and the kitchen. Mostly the kitchen, but I saw enough cricket to know some things about cricket now.

On the way home last night we took a 9 minute detour to drive by Zion and the Detroit house. I remember little about the neighborhood, which is unsurprising given how much we did not wander around the neighborhood. I did point out the parking lot across the street where we used to ride bikes and roller blade on occasion. I did not remember to emphasize the stoop next to the church steps that is apparently excellent for jumping. Sorry, Jacob and Jillian. The house we grew up in is the only house left on the block. Everything else is parking lots for the church and the charter school.

The boys were much more interested in seeing the ambassador bridge on the way home. They liked knowing that they were so close to Canada and asked several times if we could just go into Canada and then immediately turn around and come back. They settled for knowing that half the bridge belongs to Canada and claiming that they could see Canada (kind of true, but also it was dark). We have Flat August with us for this week, so I took a blurry windshield picture of the bridge to send back to August’s second grade class with Flat August, International Observer.

Today should be a quiet day and it will be nice to have an afternoon to reset before the busyness of the week begins again.

Pictures:

January 25 - February 1

Church was virtual last week. I heard traffic on Allentown and sent Bryan out to check. He shoveled a trench to the end of our driveway, noticed that Stevick looked the same as our driveway, and came back. Also, given the depth of the trench, our van did not look like it was going to make it out. As we decided that we probably wouldn't make it, the Sheriff upped the winter roadway advisory from a 1 to a 2. We gathered the children in the oratory and cosplayed Sunday during early Covid.

I tried to bribe the kids into shoveling the driveway. Matthias went out for a little while and, bless his heart, shoveled snow into the garage. ... Bryan did a much better job with the length of the driveway on Sunday afternoon, and I took care of about half the back portion on Monday morning. We have a snowblower, but it doesn't think it knows how to turn on. It makes a lot of noise but never catches, which as you can imagine is very useful for a snowblower.

It was our week to bring food to coffee hour, so when church was canceled we were left with enough Sloppy Joes to feed the whole block. Bryan promised to have parking spots available if our friends the Miroglios and Misiakiewiczes came to visit. We sent all the kids outside to play and then let them take turns in the hot tub to warm back up. It turns out that I am no longer as prepared for outdoor winter play as I once was. Theodore has boots. Matthias and Kaitlyn share a pair of boots. Olivia and Gretchen share MY boots. Snowpants are a similar story, although I think we're only one pair short on those. Luckily the Misiakiewiczes brought a spare pair that Kaitlyn could borrow. I am very prepared in the glove department, so we had enough gloves for everyone to wear two pairs plus a waterproof pair over the top. And when the under pairs got wet we were able to swap them out.

School was, of course, canceled on Monday. We even reached a level 3 roadway advisory sometime Sunday evening. My favorite part of school being canceled might be that after school activities tend to be canceled as well. School was also canceled on Tuesday. And on Wednesday. On Thursday we had a two hour delay, and then, finally, on Friday, we had to go to school for the whole day. The monsters. It was actually a sad week for the kids to miss school because it was Catholic Schools Week and there were a lot of fun activities planned. Olivia was legitimately disappointed when Tuesday was canceled because that was student appreciation day -- pajamas, popcorn and a movie, and no homework. She recovered well. The days at home were pleasantly relaxing. We read books and played games and the kids built with Legos.

On Friday there was the annual Staff vs 8th Grade volleyball game. It took 3 matches, but 8th grade eked out a narrow win. Olivia was happy because 8th grade won. I was happy because I acquitted myself well. Matthias was unhappy because the gym was incredibly noisy, so he spent the better part of an hour looking miserable with his fingers stuffed in his ears.

My running this week has been frigid. I have a treadmill in the basement, but if I run outside then I only have to be mentally strong for a few crucial turns rather than for 40 whole minutes. I have enough layers, a lighted vest, and yaktrax, which are basically snow chains for my shoes. The runs themselves have been pleasant enough, and I have learned that the feeling of frozen eyelashes is a strange, but not altogether unpleasant, sensation. 

Last week Bryan decided we were making Raw Apple Cake. It was a bit of a tag team effort, and when it came out of the oven something tasted off to me. I went through the recipe and between the two of us we were sure we'd put in all the right ingredients. Then I thought maybe my recipe was wrong, so I hunted through my loose recipe papers for the one from mom. It was the same. Maybe I just don't know what raw apple cake is supposed to taste like? A few days later, I had an epiphany. The recipe calls for 1/2 cup of warm coffee. I asked Bryan what kind of coffee he used. It was cherry coffee. Word to the wise, cherry coffee make the raw apple cake taste different. :)

At Olivia's request, I am reposting the snack houses. Useless points shall be awarded for correct guesses. 3 points for being the first comment to correctly guess each house, 2 for the second comment, 1 for the the third comment. Each house is on its own point system.

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