Beards and Ballads, Field Day

Only one more week until it is officially Autumn. Hooray! It was a strange week with no school on Monday. Jeremy and Yulia left around noon to head back home. We sure loved having them visit. Evelyn was very worried about her rearranged doll area. Ksenia, Nadia, and Nata were more than willing to help put it all back, aka rearrange it even more. I spent an hour sorting and getting her space back to its former glory. Josie went off to Kara’s house with Stella to play Warrior Cats. The other day she complained that her legs and shoulders were very sore. Come to find out the soreness is from leaping and creeping along like cats during each recess. We had fun chatting with Sister Call off and on all day. After we ran out of things to say shenanigans ensued! We had quite a bit go fun using the face filters. I hemmed a pair of Evelyn’s jeans and sewed up a water bottle bag for Josie using cute strawberry fabric I’ve hoarded for 15 years. 

Josie had her last violin lesson with Rachel Beck this week. She is headed to BYU-I! It’s hard to believe a year ago we were in Rexburg moving Amelia for her first semester. It has also been a year since Charlie Kirk’s assassination and 20 years since 9-11. What an emotional rollercoaster! I did not have any luck finding another violin or fiddle teacher, so we will stay with Emma. Andrew will help out when he can and Emma will be more of a coach. I talked with Emma about adding more music theory to Evelyn’s lessons since she and Andrew just tool around for 45 minutes. Evelyn often doesn’t know what to practice at home since most of her lessons are call and response. Evelyn and Josie convinced Justin that I needed another goose! They made an emergency trip to Walmart for another goose. Justin’s condition was that the new goose is named Maverick. It only made sense to name my other goose, Penny. Hold your horses…there will be a wedding soon. A goose wedding. 

I noticed the 2nd grade teachers kept thanking me this week for all I do in cafeteria running around like a crazy chicken cleaning tables, dismissing students, and managing behaviors. Turns out they are upset McGrath is always late getting to the cafeteria and helping out. He is not the best cleaner, plus very slow! I hardly notice anymore, it’s just what it is. I’ve printed several items on Mr Darcy and Ms Bennet this week. Students are very excited! It was decided by the upper powers to have “fun” days when school is in session on Friday. That is all well and good but it messes up my 4-day lesson planning. I had to come up with something different for this week because I did not want to have one day of classes behind in lessons. We ended up just typing and playing a Digital Cit game on Yeti typing. Field day was a long, fun day outside. Mrs Wolfe had 13 stations with fun games, half using water, with parents managing the games. The specials teachers and extra staff were on hand to wander around helping out where necessary. I got to fetch popsicles from the cafe walk-in freezer. I’ve never felt so refreshed as those 5 minutes in the freezer, lovely to be cold these days. Josie and Stella helped me grab popsicles the second time. They were not as refreshed as I felt. The best part was watching students on the slip and slide, it was a snapshot of personalities! Easy to guess which students ended up soaked, the cautious ones, the ones who got a little wet, etc. My dang leg was throbbing after all that walking and standing.  

Mrs Sene organized a fun all-day event with any male student interested in choir in our school district from middle and high school. The boys were quite excited to have an event just for choir! Mrs Sene named it “Beards and Ballads.” They had t-shirts made, mustaches, a special lunch, and even a clinician present. The guys learned two songs during the school day! I know one song was Jumbo Rafiki in Swahili. 

I was very excited to find my favorite protein bars on sale at Winco during this week’s grocery shopping. The cashier’s eyes went quite large when I piled 72 bars on the check out belt. He asked if I had a tax-free ID! Um, nope. He asked how long it will take me to eat all these bars, about 85 days! So funny. The cincher was when he asked me if it was worth it to save $.60-$.85 per bar….yes, sir it is worth it. 

Saturday Everett has his second Driver’s Ed class in a vehicle. He said some guy cut him off near the freeway, that was nerve wracking. I busted out the dog clippers and spent several hours smelling like wet dog and covered in dog hair. The pups look much more respectable now. I only clipped Wally’s ear a tiny bit…that is a win/win. Josie, Kara, and Stella played Warrior Cats at our house Friday evening and then again at Stella’s house Saturday afternoon. Those three are cute together. Phillip and Evelyn finally got some birthday photos taken last night. I opted to just go to downtown Nampa near the train depot for some photos. I actually found a gal with llamas who will let me get some photos of Evelyn next week. Hooray. Still I wanted photos in case it falls through. Phillip and Evelyn used some of the Beards and Ballads mustaches for their photos. My kids are special. 

Josie put on her darling red plaid dress, found a matching hat, and put on her Mary Jane shoes. She thought she was so cute…indeed she looked darling. After church she convinced me to take her to the botanical park for some photos. I cannot resist that! The Ostlers came over for dinner tonight. I had Hawaiian Haystacks on the menu which is really easy to expand for a larger group. I had the privilege of shoving a candy corn pumpkin into Sara’s mouth when she was not paying attention. She was pontificating on how gross candy corn is, with her mouth open and the culprit candy corn in my hand the chance was too great not to pass on. She gagged. It was epic. We rounded out the night playing 6 rounds of Dutch Blitz. Amelia is currently on the phone chatting with us before she goes to bed. Sounds like her week was a regular one.