After some last-minute drama (with getting the funds wired the morning of)…it’s a done deal. We are now the proud owners of a 30-year mortgage! But it’s seriously our dream house and we couldn’t be happier. Tom and I just keep saying What did we do?! Oh yeah, we bought a house THAT WE LOVE.
I mean, we have purchased two houses in the past and they were both great for us at the time but we never loved them. We. LOVE this. house. (Is it perfect? Of course not. But does it check all of our boxes? Minus a lazy river and a four car garage… Yes.)
And then Anna brought the kids over…and was our family photographer!!
After a few weeks of randomly talking with Owen, he finally decided that it’s not really for him.
If I’m being honest, I might have been secretly leading him into the decision because we’ve watched him for the past few months and he just doesn’t care about doing any of it when he’s not actively at a meeting. It’s frustrating because he seems to be excited about it all during a meeting or at an event but then as soon as the meeting is done, he doesn’t think about it until the next meeting.
I feel kinda guilty because I really did want him to love it and I wanted him to have something to do besides baseball, but we don’t have the time or inkling to really get on him or make it a big deal. He hasn’t finished a single badge since distancing started while his friends have worked through a bunch of them. Also, this wasn’t really the optimal time to start scouts since scouts is really hands on and you can’t do much when you’re social distancing. If you’re not self-motivated it’s much harder. And Owen really isn’t one to self-motivate.
The kids started by catching fireflies. They were actually pretty good at it. Katie set these on the table and they stayed there long enough for me to get a photo—half on and half off!
Soon the fireworks came out. We started small.
The kids were at a respectable distance.
But the second one we did—a Panda—got a little crazy. It started small but then the second phase got insane and sparks were reaching the kids. Needless to say everyone immediately moved back!
Then they did some individual ones—each kid got to hold one and I managed to snap this awesome pic of Owen.
Tom and I innocently went to a local artisan shop today to get some ideas for the new house and one of the very last things we saw was this desk/hutch. We had actually been looking at desks for the kids rooms (since they’re bigger) and even a basic Ikea piece is like $100 (and not real wood). So I had a hard time passing this up. (Of course Tom could build something like this but he just doesn’t have the time.) So this will be Owen’s new desk… Something he can definitely grow into and something that we can paint over the years if we need to. Now we just have to go pick it up next week after we close!
Owen has been asking and asking and asking for a specific iPhone game and we finally told him tonight that the answer was no (and explained allllll the reasons why). Of course he’s not happy so this is the note he handed me, telling me he wanted me to write him back.
Owen: I’m sorry about today and I’m a jerk and it feels like you’re being mean and you don’t want me to get Terraria.
Me: You aren’t a jerk. You’re a kid who didn’t get what he wanted. You’ll be okay. I love you. Love Mom
Our library was having a virtual Lego challenge—you had to built a Lego scene with real life objects in it. Owen built a baseball field complete with baseball posters in the outfield! Katie added a fan eating a sucker!
We went on yet another walk in our new neighborhood today and the homeowner was outside in the garage and we quickly debated introducing ourselves or not…and I said WHAT THE HELL and long story short she’s super awesome—she was excited to meet all of us, reiterated that she’s thrilled the house is going to a nice family, and she let us show the kids the back yard.
She also told us she was leaving two additional TVs (one in the wet bar and one in the gazebo), that we were welcome to start bringing stuff over to leave in the third garage bay, plus, after we exchanged numbers, invited us over for a house tour and a drink on the deck!
Both kids are super excited about the gazebo.
We also got to scout out the back yard again to see where we could put a small shed so that was good.
A neighbor took the kids on a bike ride to the river the other day and that’s ALL they can talk about. They went back a time or two by themselves and really wanted to show us (mostly so we’d let them go by themselves once we saw how they could get there without traveling on the main road)…so we finally agreed.
First you ride through the church parking lot. At the far back corner there’s a strip of grass that you ride across which connects to a dead end neighborhood cul-de-sac. Then you ride up to the front and hop a curb and ride on some grass untill you reach the sidewalk then take that until you reach the next street and then you ride all the way to the end in another cul-de-sac where there’s a…creek. River is exaggerating a bit.
It is pretty back there… Can you see the kids? They are on their favorite rocks. Owen calls one of them his thinking rock.
Underneath is more fun… traipsing through the water in their rain boots.
This is exactly the kind of place I’d have loved to explore and play at as a kid so I get the fascination. I just wish they’d found it before we were ready to move. They’ll just have to explore the new neighborhood…
Katie is more excited than she looks as she picked this route. She just wants to go play in the gross water and was mad at us for making her take a picture.
Friends bought the same slip and slide so we decided to have an outdoor playdate and hook them together. The kids stayed far enough apart for me to not worry too much.
Of course after a while it devolved into this game:
Owen’s teachers planned a goodbye meeting at a local park. People were really good about having masks and/or keeping a safe distance…
The kids were all really excited to see each other and actually talk to each other.
The teachers walked around to see everyone and say goodbye, and I was able to take the end of year pic. Not quite like other years…but definitely one for the memory books!
Since Covid-19 has thrown everything out of whack, a scouts weekend camping trip was turned into a backyard campout. The boys had a schedule to follow including camp setup, meal planning, zoom calls, computer check-ins with photos, and games!
FRIDAY
We borrowed a small tent from friends and both Owen and Katie LOVED hanging out in it. We put it up in the morning and they pretty much spent all day in and out of it, sometimes together, sometimes alone. They were coloring and listening to music and who knows what else.
And of course Owen loved starting a fire!
Day 1 Dessert Tonka
Katie really wanted to sleep outside with him but he wanted to do it himself. We were slightly unsure he’d last all night, but he said he’d be fine but asked if we’d leave all the lights on…so it was basically daylight out there.
Schedule said lights out at 9:30!
SATURDAY
The night went fine and he stayed out all night!! Tom assisted with getting the fire ready for cooking breakfast but Owen did most of the actual food prep!
Prepping scrambled eggs to cook over the fire!Eggs plus reheated sausage patties and French fries!Katie LOVED the eggs, because of course she never eats scrambled eggs when we make them.
Both kids LOVED cooking over the fire… Katie—who generally says she doesn’t like hot dogs—cooked and ate TWO!
Cooking corn on the cob for dinner!Tom grilled the sausages because we knew neither kid could successfully cook a raw sausage over the fire.
Owen decided to let Katie sleep with him the second night and she was over the moon. They had another official 9:30 lights out but she says they stayed up really late! And again, as bright as day out there.
SUNDAY
More scrambled eggs!
Overall we were really impressed with how much Owen enjoyed spending time in the tent and prepping and cooking food! He’ll be even more ready if and when actually camping weekends start again!
Katie picked out this fancy dress to go to school supply pickup. Of course she hadn’t showered in three days.
It was a little bright on the porch.
She missed her last class Zoom meeting where they were going to share their goodbye posters so I posted it to the school’s page and sent it to her teacher.
School supply pickup was more emotional for me than I anticipated. I might have gotten a little teary-eyed as we drove away. I asked Katie if she was okay and told her I was sad so it was okay if she was. She said she was a little sad but she was okay. Leave it to Mom to be overly emotional.
Then we had to go through a huge garbage bag of Katie’s stuff…including…a lunch bag. Thankfully it was empty!! We were all thinking we’d have to just toss the whole thing. Phew! Oh, and we had an outfit change!
Then it was time to take Owen’s pictures—-and he hadn’t showered in awhile, either. But Tom had given him a buzz cut.
Not crying… Still too bright!
Normally last day of school pics are just me and the kids…
…but since Dad is working from home, he got in on the action. #gonnamissthisbench
Everything water-related is either out of stock or listed online at price-gouging prices, so when I saw this $18 slip and slide at Walmart I grabbed it. Of course the kids loved it.
It’s Teacher Appreciation Week and…end of year I guess?! Mrs. Hansen got some beauty goodies from me and, well, since it’s Cinco de Mayo she also got margaritas (plus Katie’s memory book to write in). She only lives about a mile from us—and probably less as the crow flies.
Lest you think I forgot Owen’s teacher…I delivered hers last week! That was a story in itself. I transposed her address so I actually dropped off the gift—and Owen’s book!—at the wrong house!!! There were a few moments of panic on my end because Owen’s book is irreplaceable and I kept thinking WHAT IF… Plus with the Corona thing, it’s not like she could just go knock on the other person’s door! And I felt horrible that I screwed it up. Well, some quick googling got me property records and a name which got me to LinkedIn where I recognized the guy who had been inside the screen door at a desk (I had just assumed it was her husband) and his posted resume had a phone number! I called and left a message explaining everything…and he called back almost immediately—he had been talking to her! She had walked down and they had a nice chat! In a bizarre turn of events, his daughter’s name was Heather and she was a teacher so he just thought it was a gift for her and didn’t even think anything of it! But he was very nice about it and even joked about enjoying the margaritas!
We had to take Tom in to drop off his car (when he took it out this week he realized the brakes needed attention) so since we were going to be out, we placed an order…
I hate not being able to wander and shop but I could get used to drive up service.
I think this is the last puzzle that I am buying and we are attempting as a family. Puzzles are just one thing that I would absolutely love to be able to sit and do with my family…but as I’ve mentioned before, Tom hates them, Owen really doesn’t like them, and Katie is okay for a short amount of time.
We have done smaller puzzles (I’ve posted pics recently) but it’s a trade off because Katie loves them but they only take 5-10 minutes. I’ve bought all of 8 or so of the ones she loves (of which Owen will tolerate doing 1-2 of the smaller ones).
I guess maybe I need to look at more options. We don’t have to do them but just in watching Owen try, I get really frustrated because he (mostly) has zero sense of spatial ability or sense of color. I watch the pieces he tries and he’s trying to put a round knob into a long skinny foot. Like huh? Didn’t you learn how basic shapes fit in kindergarten? Why is this different just because it’s not a triangle or a circle? And trying to put a white piece where it’s clearly black. I thought he was just being stubborn so I asked him if he really couldn’t tell or if he was just being silly and he said he couldn’t tell. If I’m to believe him…I just can’t even…?! I mean I guess I know people have those issues, but it just seems so weird because nothing else in his life shows that issue. So I want him to keep trying puzzles to get better at the spatial thing.
Maybe in the next house if I had a separate room to do them in…but there’s no good place here. That said, I rarely have the time.
But one cool thing about this puzzle is that it came flat and put together and we had to make the box! So Owen did that!
Katie’s teacher sent a YouTube video of her reading a story so I asked the kids if they wanted to do one…and to my surprise they both said yes. Katie whines and complains so much about reading that I was FLOORED that she was excited to do it. She knew exactly the book she wanted to read (they’ve read it in class), she knew what one I should read (an old favorite), and Owen knew what one he wanted immediately.
