Last day

This is Cameron’s last full day home for a while. He leaves to go back to Manhattan tomorrow morning.  He will then have training for working at the dorms as an RA until school starts.  Today he bought himself a new (to him) car.   He purchased this car with cash. He got the cash by investing half his tips in the stock market.  He then sold half the stocks he bought and paid cash for the car.   He is pretty smart.  He doesn’t really believe in credit.  Or loans.  He bought what he could afford and owes nothing on it.  I am actually very proud of this kid.  And I am going to miss him immensely.  I recently told someone that the hardest thing is to let your kids go, but the coolest thing ever is to watch them fly!  

Of course with the kids knowing Cameron's time was running low, that set off a storm of activities they wanted to do with him.   He wasn’t overly excited about their soapy slip and slide tarp idea.  Incidentally the extra cheap soap I bought didn’t make much foam and this failed.  Evie still liked it.   

He also was not interested in the library book sale, or in their afternoon swim (it was 74 degrees today).  He did readily agree to trying out Preston’s new hammock.  P is pretty impressed with his purchase and foresees hours of napping on the deck. 

As a matter of fact, he and Carlos took a nap while we were at the book sale!   The girls all got a ton of new books, a couple of video games, some movies. Jim got some cd’s he was excited about. 

And finally, Saige decided to make a good bye for now cake for Cameron.  She used a cake mix.  I don’t know what she did, but this is a strangely shaped cake.  She made purple pudding for frosting and it covered up the strange shape.  It tasted goo! 

A little bit of stuff

The Douglas county fair is going on currently.  Sort of.  There is no public allowed on the grounds.  There are no carnivals, booths smoking pork burgers, no cotton candy, no snow cones none of the good stuff.  It is sad but necessary. Generally we take a day and go watch my niece and nephews show their stuff.  But we aren’t able to do that.  They are live streaming the shows though.  So I sat at my office and ran the pig show in the background. When they called for Clayton, I tuned in.  I admit that it wasn’t as much fun as being there, but at least we could watch him!   His pigs both got blue ribbons.  I will also admit that I got a little bit busy watching the pig show, and wasn’t paying as much attention to a certain toddler as I should have been.  I looked up and saw she was eating her ball.  Big huge bites of foam.  When I got onto her, it made her very, very sad.  I decided she can do whatever she wants. (Just kidding....kinda).  

The live stream worked pretty well.  I hope I will have time to watch Gavin and Emma-Kate on Friday.  

Quincy spent the night with Landrie.  I told her I would come over after Evelyn went home around 2.   When I got there, these girls were nowhere to be found.  I started to drive down the road toward home, a little disgruntled because she obviously ignored my directions.  I found them. In the creek.  Looking for minnows and covered in dirt.  They had gone down there at 11 and lost all track of time.  I had been pretty upset, but they are hard to stay mad at.   They didn’t have their phones, they were enjoying nature, they were enjoying being together in the fresh air, had walked several miles and gone fishing and wading.  Having a good old time.  I’m actually happy they have each other.  I also love that my kids like being outside and aren’t always attached to some sort of screen.  

We hadn’t been home long after locating Quincy when a big rain came rolling in.   Blitz is terrified of storms.  I feel bad letting her in and not Ollie, so they were both inside.  Ollie was not too happy that i made him lay down and not play with Frankie.  I don’t know if he would eat the bird, but I certainly don’t trust him.  We got so, so much rain today.  I don’t have a rain gauge, but I’d guess a couple inches at least.  The kids wanted to go see if the low water bridge was flowing over.  When we got there, the water was littered with a bunch of trash.  The kids were ticked.  Upon closer inspection, we realized it was not trash, but several big, dead catfish.  I’m guessing they got trapped in a pool and ran out of oxygen. The kids were sad, and disappointed that they didn’t catch them before they died!  

After our evening of sight seeing, we had to run to town to get a bag of cat food for the hedgehog.  There was even more rain, and a beautiful rainbow.  Rainbow pictures courtesy of Saige.  

We took too long and Carlos had an accident on Harper.  Of course we all blamed Saige, because when the storm was rolling in, I was cooking dinner and asked Saige to take the dog out to potty before the storm got here.  She picked up the dog, opened the door, and then said “ummm naaa I’d rather clean his poop than go out in that storm!”

  

Jack Jaws

I mentioned yesterday that Harper was in some pain from some sort of a bite or sting in her neck.  The swelling got to looking like she had the mumps and she was in a lot of pain.  Jim took her into the doctor.  They couldn’t tell what kind of thing caused it, but they were worried about swelling in her neck.  She is now on antibiotics and steroids.   They somehow gave her liquid medicine.  The above photo is prednisone face.  We hope that she is better by tomorrow or she will need to go see an ENT.  Fingers crossed! 

Sunday’s guest of honor

Since Cameron is moving next Saturday, this is his last Sunday dinner to be home for, at least for a while.  So we told him he would be the guest of honor and could pick the dinner.  He chose breakfast foods.  We had a fun evening!  I have thoroughly enjoyed having this kid home for the last month.  I am happy Manhattan isn’t far away, and I hope that we can get the Covid nonsense under control so we can visit each other often.  I am proud of Cameron. He is doing great things at KSU and has a lot planned for this upcoming year.  I pray he stays healthy and that all goes well for him.  

I love my crew.  I’m thankful for all of them.  

When Harper got up for church today, she told me her neck was itchy.  It looked to me like a mosquito bit her in her sleep.  The longer the day went on, the more swelling and pain she was having.   At this point, we have given her some benedryl and Advil and she is resting comfortably.   I am hoping for a huge improvement overnight. 

My crazies

Any activity that requires pages of waivers seems to quickly draw in my sons.  

The yellow spot is Spencer.  The black spot is Colin.  

Back in March, Colin told Cameron that he paid for something amazing and then proceeded to say “buddy, you, me and Spencer are going skydiving!”   This is the story Cameron told anyway.  Colin is crazy.  Cameron has never backed down from a challenge in his life.  I don’t know which end of this spectrum Spencer is on but she told me she was super excited about it.   I was relieved when their jump date got cancelled due to the pandemic.   Of course, it got rescheduled and so I wasn’t off the hook for worrying about this crazy plan.  There is a wildlife park in Wichita where you can pet a baby kangaroo.  Mallory has been wanting to go.   Colin told her if she came down they would go together.   This is a good idea.  She was happy to finally do this.  She then accompanied the Group to take photos and keep me updated on if they lived to tell about their skydiving experience.   Loads of prayers were said by me.  The boys and Spencer all absolutely loved skydiving.   And thankfully all lived to tell about it.   There are apparently videos as well.  When you get photos of small black spots in the sky, it doesn’t make you feel real good about their life choices.   Colin told me he thought it was one of the best experiences of his life and he will definitely be doing it again.  I have no doubt.   I guess to live your life fearlessly is a blessing.    

Some kind of normal

Mallory had 2 days of teacher-y meetings and planning.  I feel terrible for teachers.  My daughter is having to come up with plans for school 3 different ways.  The first way is normal back to usual classes but while wearing masks, washing hands hourly, and socially distancing children at all times.  The second way they are calling “hybrid” which essentially means they would only have half the kids there at any given time.  The kids would go to school 2 days a week, follow all the guidelines and the rest of the time they would be doing online learning.  While this is better, I still have so many issues with it.  The third thing is called remote learning which means children will stay home and be taught through the internet.  Guys, this is a disaster.  All of it.  All of these options suck.   I have real, big, huge problems with all of this.   I don’t even know how we should proceed.  Added to the logistical problems is the fact that all of it is a political game to the very people who should be looking out for public safety.   It’s terrible.   

Anyway I guess I don’t have the time to write an essay about it, and it wouldn’t matter anyway because it’s out of my control.  Jim and I have decisions to make, and we are in the process of educating ourselves so we can do what is best for our family.  

Well I got off track there.   My picture above was what happens when Mallory has to go back to work after 5 months of being home.   She was worried about the Olive dog.   I told her the girls and I would go pick her up and let her spend the afternoon with us.   Olive was happy to go, but she ended up puddle jumping and was a complete mess when her mom came to get her! We were both in trouble!  

Besides the great school debate, I know that my kids are grieving for the stuff they have lost.  Despite out best efforts, we can’t shield them from knowing what is going on.  These kids, particularly our younger crowd, have been busy since birth.  I often joke about the fact that we took Quincy from her hospital room after being born, straight to a softball tournament.  (This is a true story).   I have made a big effort to keep them busy.  I am attempting to keep their minds occupied, keep them from seeing our inevitable fear, and stimulate their love of creativity and learning.  Yesterday we agreed to having a couple of friends over.  Saige was so excited to have an afternoon with Lylah!   Harper had Chloe over.  They all swam for about 3 hours and then Quincy kept them busy with a cookie decorating bar.  I appreciated her efforts but that child is a messy cook!   She did (mostly) clean her mess up though.  I think I’ll be needing a new bag of flour!   

Preston has predicted that we won’t be going back to school.  He has decided to turn his attention to fixing things. He has been working on the Honda that he bought.   He has put in a new starter and it runs now, but it lacks brakes.  He is working on that currently!   He also organized the tools and cleaned the garage.  He found an old hammer and added a new handle that he made from some of the hedge Jim and Cameron cut down this week!  

Speaking of Cameron, he has been a ton of help while he is home.  I know when he moves back to Manhattan, we will all miss him, but Jim definitely will!   A few days ago, I walked out to see him up in a tree with Jim below warming up the chainsaw.  My boys always have to have a project.  I sometimes have to put the girls on watch duty and walk away because they make me nervous!   Cameron is gearing up for KSU to restart.  He is going to teach a Leadership Studies class, and work as an RA this semester. I am on record with saying I love this so much more than when he worked as a bar bouncer!   He was given his move-in time for the dorms.  On August 1st he has from 11:00 to 11:15 to move in.  I guess he’s packing light!   The dorm rules and regulations will be vastly different and I know he is a little bit concerned over how that will work. Never being one to back down from a challenge, he has been exploring some options. We know once he moves, it will be hard for him to come to visit us due to consistent exposure.  One more disappointment on a long list of things the pandemic has caused.  If 2020 has taught us anything I guess we now know first hand how much pandemics suck!