An Excitingly Eventful Friday

On Friday we had new internet installed. For years the only option in our area was Spectrum and they would raise the price every year and could never do anything about it if you called. A policy that they had, which just seemed like rubbing salt into the wound to me, was that they didn't have promotional prices. Fair enough, except that if you went to their website they DID have promotional prices that were half the cost of the regular prices, but only for new customers. Lots of companies do that, but it's extra annoying when they tell you they don't. Anyway, we finally have options in Lima, so I asked around and we switched to Brightspeed. Faster internet and a whole home extension for under 3/4 of the price. The tech came out to get everything installed, but didn't do the whole home part. He told us to try out the base internet and let him know if we really needed the extender or if we could skip it and save money. As a result, I was wandering to different points in the house with my phone to test the connection. 

When I was in the furthest corner of the basement watching a video, I heard a dripping sound. There, in the middle of the playroom, was a giant puddle. How I managed to walk past it without noticing or stepping in it is beyond me. A glance upward revealed a ballooning ceiling tile. The biggest mystery was what was above the ceiling tile. Generally a water spot on the basement ceiling is directly correlated to a bathroom on the main floor. This tile was not under a bathroom. I ran upstairs, decided it must be under the washing machine, grabbed a bunch of towels and a bucket, and ran back to the basement. The boys followed me, eager to see what was going on. Our ceiling tiles are difficult to move because they are so close to the I-beams, but I managed to get a nearby tile out so that I could see that there wasn't actually any water in the balloon, just a very wet, very saggy tile. I knocked it down and the boys helped me pile the broken wet pieces onto the firm dry half and then they carried it outside. We wiped up the puddle on the floor and positioned our bucket. I called a plumber and was told that they could be out on Monday. Our bucket is large and we can empty it, so Monday seems fine.

The rest of Friday was busy. I baked several loaves of prosphora for upcoming services. I took the girls school supply shopping and they picked out everything they needed. We loitered in the auto center for about 15 minutes waiting for an employee to help us get a car battery (a story for another day) before giving up on said employee and heading toward the checkout with our purchases. Then we went to pick up a couple of Wey kids to come play at our house. The boys told me that while they were playing downstairs they had to move the bucket because the drip was in a slightly different spot. More towels and some minor bucket adjustments. After dinner it was off to church for a service (and returning the Wey kids). I tried to pick up a prescription for Gretchen after church, but CVS had run it with our insurance instead of with our GoodRx discount card, so I had to go inside to wait while they rebilled everything. I was able to get them to redo Kaitlyn's prescription as well, although for some reason her notifications go to Bryan's phone number instead of mine, so I was only guessing that it might be ready. When I finally made it home, I noticed that the basement light was still on.

When I went downstairs to turn off the light, I remembered my bucket. I headed over to check that everything was okay. The bucket was not too full, which was my primary concern. As I got closer, intending to double check the placement, I discovered a new primary concern: There was a mouse in my bucket. I panicked, I looked at the ceiling for an army of mice waiting to jump on my head, I panicked, I texted Bryan to come downstairs, I panicked, I sent a Marco Polo to Justine (which is really the best way to experience this whole story). I watched the mouse happily paddling around in my bucket. Or perhaps not happily, perhaps it was stuck. Who can say? Kaitlyn's hamster can scale vertical surfaces pretty easily, but one would think that if the mouse could get out then it would... But also, maybe it was enjoying its swim. I looked around the basement for evidence of mice. We haven't had any indication that there are mice in the house. Except for, you know, the mouse in our house. Tiny details. Bryan was equally surprised. He did not expect a mouse when I summoned him to the basement. He took the bucket upstairs and dumped the mouse onto the driveway (Side note, why? Won't it just come right back in?) and then brought the bucket back. I sent more Marco Polos to Justine. Now every time I go downstairs I very cautiously peek over the edge of the bucket in case there are more mice.

We looked it up Friday night. Apparently mice in buckets of water placed beneath drop ceilings are more common than you might think. Mice get into the ceilings, look around, find nothing worth staying for, and leave. But if you remove a ceiling tile, there's a hole in their exploration. Mice aren't completely stupid, so they don't fall through the hole. But they do try to cross over it using that very conveniently placed pipe. Unfortunately, the pipe is wet and slippery, so they lose their grip and fall. Right into the bucket. So probably that's what happened. Bryan placed some traps just in case, though, and we've caught two more ceiling mice (not counting the one in the bucket) since Friday. Boo. We are telling ourselves that they just really like coming in and looking around, but that they always decide to leave afterwards.

The mouse that Bryan dumped on the driveway shivered in his puddle for probably 15 minutes. We examined it from a couple feet away and decided it really couldn't get out of the bucket, because it looked quite exhausted. I showed the boys the videos and they wanted to see the mouse, so we went and looked at it through the window. I showed the girls the videos and they wanted to see the mouse, but by then it was gone. Probably back into our ceiling tiles.

The best way to experience this story:

https://www.youtube.com/shorts/LwagtPtu9dg?is=-IXx6VvnNlo2qtdn

Mouse in a bucket:

June 29 - July 12

We got to see everyone in my family over the last few weeks. I picked up Jacob and Rachel and kids from Josef's house on Tuesday (the 30th) and then we all set out for KOA camping in Indiana on Wednesday. Everyone was able to make it except Jillian, and we also saw Grandma, Aunt Jan and Uncle Greg, and the whole Ted Aufdemberge clan. :) It was miserably hot for the four days that we were there. We were very grateful for the pool, the air conditioned cabins, and the little spray bottles that Donna handed out to toddlers. Olivia managed to harvest that toddler energy to keep herself regularly misted (picture below). Despite the heat, we had a good time and it was wonderful to get to see everyone.

After camp ended on Saturday, most of my family came back to Lima to visit some more. Jacque's family had to go home, and Josef 's family popped in and out, but everyone else landed at our house. Jillian and Caleb joined us on Monday morning and got to see the NorCal Fentons and Grandma for a couple of hours before it was time for me to drive that contingent back to Columbus. A lot of musical cars were involved in the whole experience to make sure we had enough seats for everyone.

Tuesday had kickball games in the morning. Dad took the kids while I helped Mom and Justine prep food for an engagement party (?) for Jillian and Caleb. They are engaged. There was a party with cake and singing. Anything else that typically happens did not. We went to a park with a shelter, a playground, and a shaded field. The Hodges relations joined us and everyone was able to find something age and ability appropriate to do. Wedding meetings were held, singing happened, conversations were had. The cake was delicious.

On Tuesday night a few people headed to Pittsburgh and on Wednesday midday the rest of the contingent followed. Before leaving, Mom took Matthias to kickball for the championship game (he won!) while I taught a Music Together class (with guest attendees Justine and Margaret). Jillian and Caleb remained for the rest of the week, splitting their time between us and his family.

Matthias turned 9 on Saturday. He wanted "Dad's homemade pizza" -- cardboard pizza -- for dinner. He had multiple complicated dreams for dessert, but after some negotiation we settled on a mint chocolate chip ice cream cake with mint oreo crust and whipped cream frosting.

Other items of note:
- We came home from camp to a broken sunroom window. There is no obvious point of impact, so it was probably an imperfection in the glass. We have a warranty, and they will be out to fix it in the next one to two months. No big deal, Champion, we definitely aren't worried about it shattering onto the ground in that time.

- Theo had some suspicious circles on his arms. Jillian spotted one on Thursday morning and I took him to urgent care. Our Ohio doctors have improved slightly on the subject of Lyme disease since Olivia had it several years ago. They did not have to google the rash, although they did still try to tell me that seven individual bullseye rashes meant that we had somehow not noticed seven simultaneous ticks. Importantly, they are now very willing to give appropriate antibiotics just in case.  Theo is medicated for the next two weeks.

-Bryan and Theo had a Christmas present trip to Great Wolf Lodge on Friday. They had a great time. Theodore did the lily pad obstacle course (floating lily pads that span a pool and float around a little while you try to get across) approximately 300 times. Or thirty. Bryan is unsure. They took zero pictures, but did enjoy swimming, splashing, fighting waves, racing in the (not so) lazy river, riding water slides, and playing basketball in the kid pool. Also, Theo wants you to know that they did the lily pads.

- I resurrected the meal calendar that we used to use in Springfield. When we moved to Lima I couldn't find a good place to hang it, so it languished in a corner of my bedroom for nearly 12 years. I found a place for it recently, updated the meal cards, and showed the kids. Gretchen loves it. The others seem not to care.

Pictures:

June 7-28

It turns out that when I am extremely busy no one writes my blog for me. I did offer to publish guest posts written by the girls, but thus far no one has taken me up on it. I think Gretchen did write a newsletter or something. I will see if I can put that up soon.

Way back on the 8th, Bryan and Matthias had their Christmas present video game day. The other kids and I went to the Fort Wayne Zoo to be out of the way. This happened last year as well, so I purchased a membership then, and we went twice (once for video game day and once for Bryan and Olivia's staycation). One of those trips was the hottest day of the entire summer, but we were committed and only whined a little as we wandered around the zoo with water soaked towels draped around our necks. I needed to get this year's trips in before the zoo membership expired. Happily, the weather was much more cooperative this year and our zoo trip was quite pleasant. We touched the stingrays and brushed the goats and saw the alligator in several different spots in his enclosure (although we didn't get to see him move). All the animals were out and active and the orangutangs even knocked on their glass for us. We were slated to return on Friday of the same week (staycation day), but then Murry decided to take the boys for the weekend and Theodore was really the only one who was excited about the zoo. Gretchen, Kaitlyn, and I made ourselves scarce locally instead.

The boys spent a happy weekend at Grandma and Grandpa's house and came back in time for Matthias's final baseball game of the summer. Hooray. 

Kickball has been moving along, although a few games have been cancelled for rain and/or exceptionally muddy fields. There are five teams this year instead of the usual four, so they added some Wednesday games to get enough playing time in. Three mornings of kickball a week seems a little excessive, but it is what it is. I didn't have to deal with most of it due to my trip. Bryan and Murry took care of ferrying the children.

On the 13th the girls and I ran a 5k in Findlay. It went well enough, although I don't think there were any really exciting times. It was Kaitlyn's second 5k ever and I ran with her in an attempt to avoid straining my hamstring further. She thinks maybe hills are her favorite part.

Two weeks ago I abandoned the family for a Kodaly intensive in Bloomington, IN. Kodaly is a method for teaching music to children (particularly in schools) and there are three levels, each completed in a two week block. Last year I went to North Carolina and completed level 1. This year was level 2. Bryan and the kids made it through again, and I think this year his mom was more available to help than she was last year.

While she was here, Murry painted and redecorated the girls' bathroom and the boys' bathroom. She folded a lot of laundry, put up a shelf in the laundry room, and rearranged the living room. She also managed to get the boys to clean their room. Not a bad deal to come home to. My favorite thing, though, was the message I got from Gretchen four days into my trip: "grandma is here. she has made changes to the laundry room and girls bathroom. next she is going to do the boys bathroom. she has plans."

After the final concert on Friday, I drove to Hocking Hills to meet up with my family. They were attending the wedding weekend of a friend (except for Kaitlyn, who had been dropped off at Rudy's birthday on the way through Columbus). We spent Friday night and all day Saturday hanging out and playing board games before making our way back to Lima. I'll fetch Kaitlyn on Tuesday when I'm in Columbus picking up the NorCal Fentons for our family campout that happens this week.

Pictures:

May 24 - June 7

I forgot to mention that we have a new priest! One of the priests that subbed in a couple of times during Lent liked our parish's sense of community and asked the Bishop to assign him to us. He officially started May 1 and he and his wife have been commuting down from the Cleveland area each weekend while they tie up loose ends and finalize local jobs and housing. They are hoping to be fully transitioned by the end of the first week of June.

Theodore discovered drawing books at the library. He loves drawing books. He's very good at following the instructions and drawing his own pictures. He can also follow a youtube video, although he has to pause them frequently and he's more likely to bail on videos when he thinks they are too hard. His biggest problem with following drawings is that he gets frustrated if he thinks they are not perfect. A few weeks ago, he branched out and started creating his own step-by-step drawing books and making Bryan follow them.

Bryan has started playing group games with the kids just before bedtime. I don't know yet if this habit will stick, but it's been fun to see them all able to do something together. I came home from a meeting one night and they had learned teledraw (even Theodore) and had a great time.

May 24 was the yearly recital for our piano players. Olivia and Kaitlyn were both nervous, but did well. Olivia played "I Won't Say I'm in Love" from Hercules and Kaitlyn played "Queen's Minuet."

Answers to last week's questions: Four (of 31) third graders want to be youtubers (lower than expected, honestly). Two students, one boy and one girl, want to be herpetologists. I had to look that one up and thought maybe they had someone come talk to the class on career day, but it turns out these two students just really like snakes.

School has ended! We spent a couple of days sleeping in and doing nothing, but then we got busy again.

Well documented information: Olivia's brain ceases to function once summer vacation arrives. Last year she forgot how to spell "movie" (her defense: "I didn't forget how to spell movie, my brain just started talking.") and repeatedly read "wildlife" as "wildfire." And she told me I looked like someone she knew. So far this year she has tried to use a fork to eat cereal. And she told me she didn't know how to wash her dishes. I rest my case. And also might need to add a washing dishes seminar to this summer's events. She is reading this over my shoulder and preparing her defense for the comments.

Of course, with the end of school there is a need for summer schedules. I was quite happy with last year's schedules, so I kept the format the same and then tweaked it a bit. We are working towards independence that also accomplishes the things I need them to accomplish. Last year Theodore got pictures with his checkboxes, but this year he's just going to have to read words.

The first week of June was (Catholic) VBS which meant we were back to waking up early. The three girls were helpers and the boys were campers. This meant that drop-off and pick-up times were inconveniently offset, but luckily our friends the Miroglios had a split as well, so we were able to share the staggered drives. There's also a playground right next to the church building and we utilized that while we waited for the helpers to finish tidying up each day.

Now that summer is here we've added colors to hair. Kaitlyn got her hair trimmed and thinned and then asked for a no-bleach blue strand. It is unfortunately already fading out. Gretchen got a haircut and then I added no-bleach purple all over her head using a 17 ponytail method. The purple is dark but visible and she's happy with it. Olivia opted for the usual bleaching of the bottom inches of her hair and we turned those red. At the end of the summer we'll cut all the bleached ends off. I got my ends trimmed off and asked the hair salon for peek-a-boo purple. It was incredibly hard to see, though (possibly because they don't color very many strands of hair), and I ended up supplementing with the same purple Gretchen used. It's much more visible now, but only when I lift the top layer of my hair.

Kaitlyn got a second piercing in her ears this week. She's been wanting one for a while and I finally took her to get it. She is annoyed that school only allows one earring per ear at once, so in the fall she will have to choose which piercing to use each day, but in the summer she can wear all her earrings at once.

Gretchen and I went garage sale-ing for our (most recent) Christmas mom and Gretchen day. There's a large subdivision nearby that has a community garage sale every year, so we marked our calendars for June 4. Unfortunately, June 4 was rainy. As it poured, I checked the weather and saw that it was supposed to clear up by 11. But then at 9 it stopped and the new clear up time was noon, so Gretchen and I decided to risk it. We grabbed books for the car and umbrellas for the walk and set off. Our first garage was offering free stuffed animals, and who can pass that up?! Not Gretchen. We helped them move things inside as the rain started and after Gretchen bargained for a pair of shoes we made our slow way back to the van. She carried a box full of stuffed animals (and shoes) and I held both umbrellas over us. We made it to the back of the van, cowered under the roof for a moment while she put the box in, and then climbed in the trunk, closed the door, and shimmied up to the front, much to the delight of the watching garage sale family. We read our books until the rain let up a little and then continued on our merry way. There was more driving than I envisioned, but otherwise it was a grand adventure. Once Gretchen had amassed enough treasures, we drove home (just as the sun came out, of course), dried off, and played a game of newly acquired Monopoly.

Discord conversations with the girls:

Me: 

1. What dinner are you going to learn to cook this summer?

2. What fasting dinner are you going to learn to cook this summer?

3. You are going to learn to make bread this summer.

Olivia:

1. Macaroni and Cheese (which I might already know how to make now that I think about it).

2. Sweet Potato Tacos

3. Okay.

Gretchen:

1. Mexican Chicken

2. Vegan Taco Salad (we've had it before)

3. 😆

Kaitlyn:

1. I don't know

2. I don't know

3. WHAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAT!!!

Real life conversation with Bryan:

Bryan: What are we taking to the Miroglios'?

Me: I don't know. I am open to suggestions.

Bryan (zero pondering required): Baked Alaska.

Pictures:

May 17-24

A problem with taking a blogging hiatus and then resuming as if it never happened: people miss important details. For example, last week I referenced Lil Lilly as if everyone would know what I was talking about. It has been brought to my attention that some people were less than certain what, exactly, Lil Lilly is. She is a dwarf hamster that Kaitlyn received for her 10th birthday. Hamsters are generally smallish to begin with, but dwarf hamsters are the smallest ones, only slightly larger than a marshmallow. Lilly is quiet enough to not be noticed by the main pet hater in the house (surprise, that's me) and Kaitlyn takes full responsibility for the feeding and cleaning and socializing schedule.

For Mothers' Day the children all bought raspberry shoots and we expanded the raspberry bed a little bit more. Last year we had enough for a pie, plus a few for eating. :) They also designed a puzzle, which is a yearly custom. Bryan has been refining over the years and his ideas for good backgrounds have improved. He has also learned that if he gets me a 200 piece I'm more likely to do it in a timely manner.

Olivia and Gretchen were both in the school talent show. The event itself was organized by yours truly and went, I thought, very well. The girls did great.

Matthias's class made a book about what they each want to be when they grow up. Out of 31 students, how many do you think want to be youtubers? And how many want to be herpetologists?

Third grade at St Charles has this wonderful tradition of doing something called Market Day. The students learn about economics (and advertising) and have to produce, promote, and sell a product. There's a poster and a commercial for each product, and each student has to decide what they are making, anticipate supply and demand, determine pricing, and be willing to adjust costs if the day isn't going the way they'd hoped. They earn Market Day dollars in class and all go shopping at each other's booths on the designated day. It's a whole thing. When Olivia did it, she made perler bead items. Gretchen made little flower pot fairy houses. Kaitlyn made glitter calm down bottles (where you shake them up like snow globes and watch the glitter settle). Matthias decided to make slime. Important proud parent note before we get to the meat of my rant: Matthias did clearly think through the marketing aspect, and put a dime in exactly one slime container. He then made sure to note in both his poster and his commercial that most of his slime was normal, but one came with a dime. End note, back to my rant. Of course, as a way to test his product, he first made himself approximately four cups of slime. And Kaitlyn made some. And Matthias generously made some for Theodore. And then he made the slime to sell. Were we careful about our proportions? Don't be silly. We did try. The scale was used. The teaspoon was used. The liquid value of food coloring was not calculated. The measuring of baking soda was done by an 8-year-old on a quest to make "super sticky slime." Some slime is exceptionally sticky, some is suspiciously damp, some is fine (if you like slime). Our house has been so full of slime paraphernalia (not to mention actual slime) for the past week. This might be my worst life. Finally, though, it is done, and we only have one more Market Day in our future.

Olivia's last day of 8th grade was Wednesday. She had a moment on Tuesday where she realized that it would be her last day in St Charles, and she wrote a poem to commemorate the moment. I will let her post it in the comments if she wishes to share. Graduation was Thursday evening -- Mass, awards, and diplomas. It was a standard graduation. We are proud of Olivia and all the children are sad that they have 4 more of these (not to mention the high school graduations) in their future.

Years ago I remember being excited because I found a way to take photographs and turn them into coloring pages for the girls. It was putsy and not perfect, but they enjoyed coloring a few pictures of themselves before I forgot it existed. More recently, Theodore has been asking for coloring pages. He has this idea that we should be able to look up and print any coloring page he can conjure in his mind. I do a lot of looking for specific dinosaur battles only to find yet another t rex. Bryan had a thought, though: Why not throw it in AI? Copilot is Bryan's AI of choice, and it rose to the challenge magnificently. Theodore has any image he can dream up. He also has images Bryan can dream up, which means we have a coloring page of Theo riding a spinosaurus into battle. The kids got into it as well, and there are pictures of Matthias with his own pack of dogs, and one of Kaitlyn riding a scooter with her very own golden retriever at her side. Copilot makes a pretty decent Theo. Its rendition of the older kids is less good, but still recognizable. On a related note, Theodore's coloring skills are quite impressive. I'm not sure how he manages shading with markers, but he does.

Pictures:

April 19 - May 17

A forgotten story from last post: On the Friday before we left for Columbus Bryan went down to the basement for work at 8 am and nothing was amiss. At 9 am I also went down to the basement to get ready for Music Together. The little landing area at the bottom of the stairs was puddled with water. We had been having a lot of rain lately, so I grabbed some boards to put down as a bridge and moved on with my morning. As my class came in, they laughed at my solution to the aspiring moat. By the time everyone left at 10:30, my bridge was floating. The water had not yet crested the door lintel, but it was creeping ever closer. I went to check the sump pump and water was oozing out of the hole. Our worries about actual flooding were low since there's a high concrete wall around the sump pump hole, but the signs were not good. AI and I brainstormed quick checks and I was able to discover that the float was not stuck. I was not able to joggle the sump pump (or backup) back to life. I got out the shopvac to drain the landing area and called a plumber. On my fifth trip to empty the shopvac, I had an epiphany: we own a pump for draining the hot tub! I quickly abandoned the shopvac angle, fetched my hot tub pump, rolled the very long hose up the basement stairs and across the driveway, and dropped my pump into the sump pump hole. Victory. As an added bonus, the small taped up leak in the hose rested in the landing area and not in the basement, so that spray of water only landed in more water. I got all the levels down to a more comfortable baseline and waited for the plumber. He ended up replacing our sump pump and recommending that we check the battery backup because they go bad every 3-5 years. Everything has been dry since then.

Near the beginning of April, I saw a Lima News article that a popular restaurant, The Met, would be closing on April 25. This caused me to remember that I had a gift card sitting around somewhere waiting to be used. I found it and Bryan and I left the kids to their own devices for dinner on Pascha while we went to The Met. As it turns out, they are closed on Sundays. We ended up at dinner somewhere else and had to reschedule our Met date. We did manage to make it about a week before they closed.

We have two teenagers in the house. Gretchen had a low fanfare birthday on April 24 and our lives have continued as usual but with the knowledge that we have two teenagers. We got her an old lady bicycle with a basket (Olivia got a similar one last year) which she happily rides down to the nearby subdivision on nice days.

Every two or three months the Adrian (MI) Symphony Orchestra emails to see if I'm available to play with them and about once a year I am able to rearrange my schedule to make it work. The last week of April was one of the times that worked, so I drove to Adrian and back every evening. It's a long week because all the driving turns my 25 hour work week into a 60 hour work week, not to mention how many of those hours are after my preferred bedtime. I do very much enjoy playing with them, though, so it's worth it once a year. If only they were closer. I did learn on this trip that although the Culvers up there closes at 10, the drive thru is open until 11. I would swing by after rehearsal for a second dinner to eat on the drive home. I also finished three audiobooks over the week. :)

The first week of May at St Charles is Positive Addiction Week. They have a lot of activities and bring in speakers and workshop leaders and talk to the kids about being positively addicted to all sorts of things. At the end of the week there is a race. One mile for fifth graders and 5k for middle schoolers. The two other Catholic grade schools in Lima bring their students over to participate, and the high school sends over a contingent as well. Parents and community members come to run or cheer. Gretchen has been trying to get a sub-30 5k on the books for a while now, but last year she fell at the beginning of this race and missed the whole thing. Subsequent road races have either been very unfavorable weather or so twisty that her tenuous sense of direction failed her (she's run more than one 4 mile 5k). This was her chance and she crushed it. She finished in just over 25 minutes, the second 7th grade girl, and the 14th St Charles student over all! Olivia came in shortly behind her (what an upset!) in just under 26 minutes, the second 8th grade girl, and the 18th St Charles student over all. 

I posted in discord that during Holy Week I made 18 loaves of bread. I started making rolls at some point just before that and the kids and Bryan very much appreciated having rolls available pretty much always. Then there were extra loaves of prosphora and Pascha bread to make. During all of this, my mixer developed a clunk. The head started bumping side to side with the bread dough. I can hold it mostly still, but then the motor is very unhappy. In an attempt to not ruin my mixer beyond repair, I backed off on the dough making a little bit and called KitchenAid. They gave me an email address to contact for a repair kit and told me I would be mixer-less for 2-5 weeks. After dragging my feet a little, I did finally email the repair kit place. They told me that they no longer service my mixer model. Fine. I bought a mother's day present for myself and it it sitting in its box in the living room until my faithful red mixer finally gives up the ghost. I hope the new one can handle forever rolls.

Track season is finished. Depending on the meet, Olivia and Gretchen ran the 4x800, the mile, and the 800. Maybe they can comment with their best times, because I am not sure I know them. I only made it to the first half of one meet. We would not make it during track season without our village of families who all take turns transporting athletes.

Baseball games have just begun. This is Matthias's first year in kid pitch, so games are pretty light on hits and many runs are walked in. Matthias played in a coach pitch league where they swung at everything last year. He is working on remembering that he should only swing if the pitch is good. In his most recent game he did get on base because after two swinging strikes he got hit by a pitch.

Gretchen and I went duck pin bowling on Friday as our Mom and Gretchen thing from Christmas 2024. I may have gotten a little behind (only on that one, though, now I'm all caught up). We are very evenly matched as duck pin bowlers and spent an enjoyable hour posting mediocre scores.

Garage sale season is upon us. The kids are quite excited to go peruse the sales. Olivia is a window shopper and doesn't even bring money. Gretchen and Kaitlyn bring cash just in case. Matthias and Theodore promise to pay Gretchen and Kaitlyn back if they buy something. On Friday and Saturday a bunch of people near us all had garage sales, so on Friday we all wandered down Stevick Rd to see what there was to see. The boys and Kaitlyn were ready to enter Seven Oaks, so I went with them while Olivia and Gretchen finished up at one more sale. As we were walking, I got a call from Olivia: "Gretchen bought a dresser. We didn't have a way to move it, so they let us borrow a wagon and we left our bikes with them. We're walking it home now in their wagon and then we're taking the wagon back and getting our bikes. So that's why we're so far behind." Gretchen's dresser is actually quite small, more of an end table. They managed just fine. On Saturday the three girls went out again despite the light drizzle and came back with a few more things.

There was some talk of joining the community garage sale at the last minute, but we didn't manage to get anything together and besides, it was raining. I do think that if we are going to have a sale we need to talk about realistic expectations a bit more. And have a plan for where we are taking the things that inevitably don't sell.

Kaitlyn built a maze for Lil Lilly in the garage using 2x2s and some discarded screens. The outside frame is set and lifts up so that she can move the inside walls around to change the maze. I didn't get to watch Lilly do the maze, but the stories were entertaining. She is very good at smelling out where her food is and is also a big cheater and crawls over the walls if she finds a weak spot.

Our last Healthy Kids race of the spring is this afternoon. There is also a parent mile (used to kill time while they tally final scores). I am not running due to a pulled hamstring. Bryan is running because he promised the kids he would. We are both sad.

Pictures:

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: