When is Friday?

It was the kind of week-end that left us exhausted and longing for the next week-end. A sample of what was what:

Hockey:




Boy Scout camping:





Karate:

9th grade homecoming. Our district has separate buildings for the ninth graders. (I love that concept!) Our school discouraged dates and limos. In other words, it was a really pressure-free, fun dance. And even better? Our tired girl got up Sunday morning to read the scripture lesson at church. She's a great public reader!





And church:

Checkered getting ready to race our pastor. We (meaning Checkered and the kids) won!
I'm not sure if they were frogs or Israelites trying to get out of Egypt. Checkered might or might not have thrown in a few elbows on the turn.





Our prizes for winning? A frog. Yep. We now have a frog.




The rest of the prize: a plague survival kit (Calamine lotion, insect repellent, a flashlight, et cetera.)

After church: Lunch with our favorite youth pastors!

And then there was the activity of Sunday afternoon and evening: setting up a frog tank, watching the Lions get their first win in 20 games (!!!!), choir practice, yard work, and school bags packed.

I need it to be Friday already.

Week-End Update

• Imagine my joy yesterday when I read that Detroit is the 8th worst skin city. Weather, health care, stress all contributed to the rankings.
• Our television gave up the ghost in early May. Checkered and I independently declared that we would wait ALL summer and then some before we would consider buying another one. We meant it!
• Our new t.v. came home Friday night.
• I may just throw up if one of us says again, "Look at that beautiful picture."
• My first son continues his Boy Scout merit badge requirement of spending 30 days recording which birds eat from our bird feeder. I've never been a bird-watcher, but this has been kind of fun.
• The kids sorted through their left-over school supplies over the week-end. The oldest brought home NOTHING. She threw away everything while at school. The youngest brought home 5000 pounds of broken crayons. He said all his intact crayons had been stolen. The middle kids brought home full garbage bags of papers which we enjoyed sending to the recycling container.
• I was always the student who brought home all those papers.
• Wallpaper removal project resumes today after a brief hiatus imposed by the arrival of my children's summer break.
• One of our many unemployed friends says the worst part of job searching is how many employers don't even acknowledge that he has applied to work for them or do not contact him at all after an interview. He says he would much prefer a rude, "No," to listening to the sound of nothing.
• I haven' t seen my younger sister in two years. She and her kids will be in Kentucky this week-end visiting my parents.
• Guess where I'm headed Friday? :)

What Became of the Week-End?

A picnic with friends :

Transitioned two boys out of one big bed:

into two boys in their very own beds:

Welcomed home and dried off a scout and his gear after his third very rainy campout:

Gave in to blog peer pressure and started to strip the bathroom wallpaper:

Spent time admiring these Knock Out roses. Last year, Rechelle told me to plant some because I wouldn't be able to quickly kill them. She was right.

And more of this:

Now, bring on the last week of school!

Rainy Days

Friday night Checkered and Boy 1 left to join the other 5th grade scouts at camp. They envisioned something like this:

Too bad for them that the remnants of some hurricane arrived here for a week-end visit. It rained without ceasing from Friday night through Sunday morning. So while Checkered and Boy 1 found that their tent leaked and that their shoes and sleeping bags were mighty slow to dry, the other three kids and I had some fun.

You see, when the hurricane remnant arrived, it brought with it his distant cousins, Lethargy and Carefree.

The other cousin, lots of video play time came, too.

Thank goodness, cookie baking time, stopped by.

And just when we were settling into our rainy week-end, Checkered called to say they were drenched, dirty, and tired and would be breaking camp a day early. That meant we had to scramble to get dressed, hide the evidence of our family room picnic, and act like we worked very hard while they were gone.

On Sunday the rains were still here, but what better thing to do than an old fashioned puddle-stomping!

Hope your week-end was equally as fun!