100 Days

The imaginary 100 day of school holiday is upon us!  The school makes a huge deal out of this.  All of the girls were excited about today.  Saige's class was having a day of activities and snacks (for Saige, the best thing is snacks).  Harper's class is hosting grandparents day and a wax museum.  She is Martina McBride (celebrating famous people from Kansas).  

Quincy is skiing today at Weston.  They took all the junior high kids who had good grades, no missing work, and no detentions or suspensions.  She has never skied before.  She asked me for the all slopes pass, and I allowed it with the understanding that she would take the beginning class to at least learn to stop.  I know she has no fear, but sometimes a little bit of fear would be a good thing.  She was excited to go.  I hope she doesn't get hurt!  

Apparently, the 100 day thing is limited to the grade school kids, as Preston said they didn't have anything fun to do today!  :)

a class about salt and baby pics

Being a grandma has blessed my life, and expanded by entertainment.  This kid doesn't say much, she rarely makes any noise, and she very rarely cries or fusses.  However, if you spend any amount of time with her, you will quickly find that she makes her intentions clear, and her needs known.  She is incredibly expressive.  We have these kittens who are terribly mannered.  I bought a squirt bottle to use on them, but what we have found is that Evie loves to be squirted in the mouth with it.  She absolutely begs, laughs, squeals and points to get you to do it some more.  I blame her father, as he started it.  Who knew a 97 cent squirt bottle would provide so much fun?  

Grandpa had to go to Manhattan for a meeting this week, so we were forced to eat at the bar without him.  Evie loves bar food!  I don't feel too bad about it, they had a soup of the day, and she always gobbles up whatever kind of soup they have!  She may have also snagged a few French fries!  :)  

GG is always trying to dress her up.  The head band didn't last much longer than it took to take this photo!  Opinionated much? 

I teach a 3rd and 4th grade RE class on Wednesday nights.  I have for as long as I can remember.  I enjoy it, but sometimes I have struggled for ideas and lessons.  We have a book, and a list of things that 3rd and 4th graders are expected to know.  I do follow that, but this year I am also doing something new.  I am looking to the gospel for the upcoming week, and planning  a lesson and activity based on that.  The gospel this week will be a reading from Matthew 5: 13-16 - you are the salt of the Earth, and the light of the world.  One of my favorites.  We had a good lesson, and my hope and prayer is that since we have talked about the gospel, done a hands on activity about it, and learned what the bible is trying to tell us, that maybe when these children sit in mass on Sunday, something will make sense for them.  That maybe they will have a greater understanding of what is being read.  This week, we made salt dough crosses to go along with the lesson.  The kids loved this.  I had one student who made a cross for each member of her family.  I had one kid who was so excited that she was telling her dad the lesson without being prompted.  My class also successfully learned all the sorrowful mysteries and they all got prizes from the RE director last night.  I love this class.  I had Saige in with our class last night as well, so she was happy to be included on a fun night!  

Super bowl weekend

Since we were gone last weekend, we didn't get our weekend-y stuff done.  It sort of caused the whole week to feel off, since I am a creature of routines.  I was happy to see that the weekend was upon us, and maybe I could have some time to catch up.  The girls had friends spend the night on Friday night.  It was nice, because it kept them entertained while I started in on my list!  

Saturday afternoon, Saige had a game.  I told the little girls that when the game was over, we had to go do a big load of grocery shopping, and we needed snacks for the Super Bowl.  

Saige played pretty well.  She is learning, and getting better!  Her team won!  She was super excited about that!  I might add that I think she was more excited about helping me get the snacks!  And help they did!  Jim, Harper and Saige were great help deciding on all the stuff they thought was necessary for a Super Bowl watching party.  The girls surprised me with their snack ideas....wanting dill pickles, hot wings, and cheese.  Its hard to say no to that!  

It's not every day that the "local" team plays in the Super Bowl.  We enjoyed the game, and the Chief's big win.  OK, so maybe Preston wasn't impressed, but the rest of us are excited about it!  I loved having an evening with my people (and granddogs).  

I am also feeling a little bit back to normal, since the weekend stuff was accomplished, the shopping got done, and the weather was great!  Super Bowl is over, now bring on spring!  

Savers

Last weekend, when we were in Wichita with Colin, Mallory traveled to Manhattan and took some sample photos of Cameron and Lauren.  She is wanting to start a side photography thing.  I loved these 2, so I stole them, and am saving them here!  They turned out pretty cute!  

Cameron also drew up a bill and presented it to the KSU senate.  Last night, that bill passed.  The bill was to retire the jersey of Jim's favorite player, Ed Nealy.  He was pretty excited that it passed.  I am not sure when the retirement ceremony will happen, but we will definitely have to go to watch that!  

Quincy (above) and Preston (below) both attended regional FBLA contest this week.  I am proud of them for being active in this organization.  If it does nothing else for them, at least they are thinking about how things work, how to make a presentation, and figuring out what kind of energy goes into being successful with ideas and goals.  

And of course, there is always basketball.  Multiple games in multiple locations.  Mike took some pretty good pictures, and I just wanted to save them.  Saving photos is my favorite thing.  

Busy days. Busy nights

Basketball season means we literally spend all of our free time watching someone play basketball.  This week, Saige has 2 games, and Preston has 3 games.  It is a really good thing we like basketball!   Preston played last night at Silver Lake.  He seemed off to me, and when he got home, he told Jim he wasn't feeling the best.  He seemed fine today, so I think maybe he was just tired.  I enjoyed watching this game because they literally came back from being down by a lot, to win!  It was fun!

Preston is #10 in blue.

Besides basketball, Preston and Quincy had their district contest for FBLA today.  This was the day I have been dreading.  The one where Preston needed to drive, but the road conditions were not good, and I had to let him go anyway.  I think it is important to get experience with driving in snow, but I don't like the idea of practicing in the dark, on 56 highway!  He had to be at the school early, and with me driving the bus, and Jim having the other kids to get ready, the choices were extremely limited.  Preston made it, and I am thankful for that!  Quincy's jr high group wasn't leaving until later, so at least she could go on the bus as usual!  She and Landrie had matching hair, and they looked so nice that I forced them to stop so I could take a picture.  They don't enjoy cleaning up!  I am also thankful for Mallory, who loaned Quincy an outfit to wear.  Quincy isn't known for her dress up wardrobe!  :)  I hope they have a good day, compete well, and enjoy themselves!

Lauren sent me the above photo.  It cracked me up.  Cameron is one of those people who thinks he should be instantly good at something, even though he has never done it before.  If he isn't good at it, he then declares his hatred for the activity!  Lauren said he was mad because little kids were skating circles around him!  I am glad she understands his personality!  :)  I like the picture!

Cameron also sent me this picture of his first day of the second semester!   I never don't want photos!  He understands this!  He also texted me late last week to say "3rd day and I already hate calculus!"  Son, I understand completely.  As a matter of fact, if I was giving advice, I would just say change majors!   (kidding.....sort of).  

Visitors

We rescheduled our trip, and after Saige’s game, we jumped on the Turnpike and went to spend the rest of our weekend with Colin.  The kids were super excited.  Colin told them about these awesome electric scooters you can rent and drive all around the riverfront and down town.  We managed to get them rented just in time for them to turn off.   Apparently they’re only useable during the day.  They shut off half an hour before sundown.  That was apparently 5:22.   We had a good laugh about the oddity of the time.   I guess it changes every day based on the actual time of the sunset.  Who knew.  (Stanley——our Godson knew!).  

We had dinner with Colin at Norton’s brewery downtown and the kids thought that a place that serves s’mores for dessert is a definite place for their top 10 list.  

After dinner, we delivered a terrible looking birthday cake to Grace.  Pretty food just isn’t my forte.  Grace said the cake tasted fine.  I enjoyed seeing Grace and her boys for a while.  The kids were excited to see Triton, the puppy!   Always fun to see how they have grown!   The kids were a little antsy while we were there, since Colin had promised they could sit in his hot tub.  

Today, the  kids wanted to ride the scooters some more, so we attended mass at the downtown church, St. Anthony’s.   I really enjoy going to mass at old, beautiful churches.  I even snapped a few pictures.  The painting, stain glass windows, and alter are absolutely breath taking. The kids enjoyed seeing it too!   After mass, the kids all rode scooters around the riverfront.   We had lunch at Braum’s, which the kids proclaimed was almost as good as their current favorite (Dairy Queen).  We headed back home this afternoon.  We all had a great time with Colin!  I enjoyed getting to see where he works, and hearing about how he is adjusting to big city life.   I am so proud of him!   Thanks for hosting us Colin!