Then later that afternoon, I got Jackson dropped off at open
gym at 3 and took the three younger boys to their first day of soccer camp at
3:30. Then it was on to Pershing to pick up Ellie from basketball camp at 4 and
we left for Hannibal for a swim meet. I had to type out the rest of the afternoon
for Andrew to make sure everyone got to where they needed to go. Jackson walked
over to the football field after open gym and Andrew picked up all the boys
there at 4:30. Then it was onto McDonalds to pick up some dinner before
dropping the twins and Jackson off at my parents’ house. Andrew took Lincoln to
his game which started at 5:45, while my parents dropped Jackson off at
football strength and conditioning at 5:30 on their way to the twins’ 6:00 game
in LaPlata. Then Andrew picked up Jackson at 7 and got him back to the
ballfield for his 7:15 ballgame that ended up being scheduled at the last
minute. And finally my parents brought the twins to Jackson’s game and Andrew
had them from there.
Ellie and I made our way to Hannibal and she got there just
in time to get a little bit of warmup in. It was an indoor pool and a smaller
meet, so her first events went pretty quickly. She did well and I think was excited
to actually have a meet again. And she decided that she liked back stroke 😊.
I thought we would get out of there in decent time, but she was in the medley
relay, the last event, and it ended up not being over until 8:45. We tried to grab
a quick meal at McDonalds, but it took forever. We ended up getting home around
10:40 and Ellie got to bed since she had another 9-4 day of basketball camp. Which
she loved basketball camp. She felt like she learned a lot and also loved being
able to eat in the cafeteria.
Tuesday we had our carpets cleaned in the afternoon, so we
went to the pool for a little bit before we had to pick up Miguel from summer
school and then we took the boys to soccer camp. Miguel wanted to watch them do
soccer camp, so we stayed for the hour, but it was hot. Sharon was able to pick
up Ellie from basketball camp and I think she enjoyed some quiet time by
herself at the house before we got home. And that evening, Jackson had
football, Lincoln had soccer practice and Ellie had swim team. We had a few games
in the evenings through the rest of the week. Ellie finished up basketball camp
on Thursday and her team went undefeated in the 3rd-6th
grade scrimmages, so they won their “championship”. Thursday afternoon, they
were supposed to go to the Aquatic Center to swim, but then a storm rolled in,
so they had to come home early. Ellie was bummed. She did get to go with some
friends the next day though.
Friday morning, we took Ellie to swim team practice and then
I took the younger boys to Memorial Park. They had been asking to go, so I thought
we could do it while she was at practice since it was close.
That afternoon we went to my parents house to swim since
some family was coming into town. Then we went out to the lake to eat dinner with
Andrew’s family for an early Father’s Day. Then it was back to my parents’
house to meet Molly’s boyfriend, Brad. My parents had met him before, but it
was our first time and he was a very nice guy. He didn’t seem bothered with all
of our questions or put off by the chaos we bring. The next morning, we took
the boys to my parents house and then Andrew, Ellie and I made our way to Quincy
for another swim meet. It was at the YMCA and they didn’t have any place for
parents to sit on the pool deck, but they did have a room with windows that
looked into the pool and chairs, so we had a good view from there. She did the
same events as the previous meet and was able to improve all of her times, even
if just by a couple hundredths of a second on one. Her events were the 50 free,
100 free, 50 back and the free and medley relay. And this meet actually did go
a little quicker. We were done before noon and Ellie chose to eat at Steak-n-Shake
before we went back to Kirksville.
While we were gone, Jackson got to go golfing with Zane,
Owen and Brad. Jackson had never really golfed before, so I think playing 18
holes on a pretty hot day may have not given him the best feelings towards it 😊.
When we got home from the swim meet, I tried to work quickly and do laundry and
prep food for the Father’s Day brunch the next morning. Then it was over to my
parents to sit out in the heat by the pool. Thankfully, we had fans and shade. The
kids all had a fun time playing together over the weekend and we had fun
visiting with Sadie. They had one point where it looked they had made beards
and mustaches out of paper and were sneaking around the yard.
Saturday night, my parents made friend chicken, so my family
was happy. We let the kids swim some more before we went home that night.
The next
morning, I was up early to get food ready and Andrew went for a bike ride. We
gave Andrew his gifts. He loved one, a tumbler with his De Ronde Van Farwelland
logo, and didn’t care for the other, a mulching kit for the mower. And I was
disappointed that I didn’t get any pictures of Andrew with the kids. Ellie did
make him a cute card. I was able to get everything prepped before we went to
church and when we got home, it was all cooked and ready to come out of the
oven. The church service was neat in that they had Daryl Strawberry speak. He
did a great job and it was amazing to see where he came from to where he is
now. My family showed up just a few minutes after we got home and they ate and
hung around for a little bit. We cleaned up when they left and took them over
to swim one last time before everyone headed home. Andrew came by the pool as
everyone was leaving, so we ended up going to La Fuente for dinner and then out
to Menards. The kids loved looking around at everything. Well, everything
except what we needed to look at-lumber and bolts for the ninja course. Andrew
had been there a few days earlier and joked that he should have brought his
Garmin and track his mileage.
The next week was ninja course week. We did do other things
throughout the week too. I ended up putting grommets in our outdoor curtains to
tie them together. It worked well, but then the wire they were on ended up
snapping, so now I need to get something else up there.
Andrew brought home a case of granola bars that a lady left
at the office for me. She is a distributor for Sunbelt Bakery, the Chattanooga
70.3 sponsor, so she said I deserved some for my race 😊.
Jackson and Ellie started some basketball workouts with a
player from the Truman Women’s basketball team. They just do it for an hour a
week and she will work with them on shooting, ball handling and defense. The
younger boys and I stayed and watched for the first session and they enjoyed
playing around in the gym, watching the guys warmup and we played a few rounds of
Duck, Duck, Goose in which I would get dizzy trying to run around our little
circle 😊.
We actually had rain and cooler temperatures through part of
the week. We had several ball games throughout the week and two were rained
out, but we made it up the next day. Lincoln and Jackson were both supposed to have games in Lancaster-Lincoln on Thursday and Jackson on Friday, but Jackson's got rained out on Friday.
I had planned a little swimming time with some of the
families in the neighborhood the week before and we decided to go for it even
though the forecast looked like rain. It did rain for the first little bit,
even poured for a bit, but the kids had a great time swimming in the rain. It looked
like it would rain more throughout the afternoon, but it never did and they had
a great time.
Ellie convinced us to let her have a sleepover Wednesday
night. After dropping off Ella after swimming that afternoon, we picked her up
on our way to Lincoln’s game that evening. Kate ended up joining up with them
at the game and I took them to Wal-Mart afterwards to find a craft to do. They
really wanted me to let them dye their hair with Kool-aid (Ellie had tried to
dye her hair with marker earlier in the week and ended up using food dye. She
washed it out after I freaked about the possibility of food dye getting on the furniture)
but I ended up saying no since they needed to use boiling water. They were
disappointed, but I found a different project for them. They weren’t too
excited at first, but then they actually ended up liking it. We got white
shirts and they used Sharpie markers to make designs on them and then dropped
rubbing alcohol in the middle of the designs with an eye dropper to give it a
little bit of a tie dye effect. So, they did that and watched The Greatest
Showman. Kate ended up going home a little before midnight though.
The next morning, when I got back from my run, Ellie and
Ella had decided to try to do the marker hair dye again and they had glass
bowls filled with the insides of markers, water and conditioner. They did take
it outside and were somewhat successful with Ella’s hair, but Ellie’s was too
dark. I had a hair appointment that afternoon and didn’t realize it had been
since January. While I was gone, a lot of work was getting started with the
ninja course. Andrew and Jackson went to Menards a couple days earlier and
bought everything they needed to start. They came home with bags of bolts and
fastners and had the lumber delivered the next day. Then Andrew went on the
grand adventure to bring his tractor in. He had depositions in Milan on Wednesday
and then he drove out to his pasture and drove the tractor in. It took him
about an hour and 15 minutes. We had already planned on meeting people at the
pool, but we got to see him driving into town as we were heading over to my
parents. We had talked about just taking him to the office, but he left his
keys in his truck, so he decided to just take his bike back out there to get it.
It was quite a ride with a head wind, riding through thunderstorms and rain and
even a flat tire. But he finally got out there and got his truck back.
Then
Thursday morning, he rented the auger to help dig holes. They were working on
that when I got home from my hair appointment. It took quite a bit of work of
three of them pressing down with all their might on the auger as it dug,
letting it dig for a bit, pulling it back up to get rid of some of the dirt and
then putting it back down to dig again…and again and again until they got close
to 4 feet deep. I think Andrew ended up with a pretty sore back. And Jackson worked
really hard too. Ellie and the younger boys were in and out with helping. I
came home with a nasty headache. I went out and tried to help but the noise was
so loud that it just made things worse. Andrew sent me in and I took some
Tylenol and laid down for a bit. They left and got some rock and came back to
finish the holes. I barely helped at all, but was proud of them for working so
hard. Once the holes were dug, then we had to go back and dig out the remainder
of the loose dirt out and add in a couple inches of rock. Dan Marek had offered
several times to help and Andrew never called him about it, so he just showed
up. And he was a great help. Especially since Jackson had to go to weights that
evening. I ended up ordering Jimmy Johns for them when I took Jackson to
weights, stopped by Dollar General on the way home and got some drinks and
cookies and quickly made some PB&J for the boys before Lincoln and I had to
leave for his game in Lancaster. They were able to get all but three of the
posts set before they ran out of rock. And my dad was nice enough to pick up
Jackson from weights and bring him home.
And the kids finished the night with some kick ball and
basketball. We got some more rain that night and it was cool and misty the next
morning, so I let Ellie skip swim practice. The kids all slept in. Andrew was
still up early and returned the auger, got some more rock and made another Menards
trip before getting some work done at the office. Then it was all about getting
more work done. Andrew put the work bench on the tractor to use as make-shift
scaffolding and got the first 2x12 up on the tall posts. I felt bad about going
to my hair appointment that afternoon, but I hadn’t been since January. I told
Andrew I could cancel it, but he said they would be fine. They had all the posts
set when I got back, which was great. Dan came and helped again that evening
and the kids stayed busy with their own construction and swinging on the rope.
They got the beams up for the first set of monkey bars and then I think he felt
bad keeping Dan too long. Jackson had to take off for his last day of evening
weights. They will continue with early afternoon weights and start 2 weeks of
camp in a couple weeks.
Ellie went with my parents Friday afternoon to St. Louis and
went to Bella and Charlotte’s dance recital. They went to a flea market and saw
Incredibles 2 at the drive-in the next day. And finally got to watch Bella and
Brady’s ballgames on Sunday before coming home. Ellie loves getting to take these
little trips with my parents.
Andrew took the kids out to the ranch on Saturday while I
cleaned the house and went grocery shopping. When Andrew got back, he was ready
to get back to work. He kept at it and worked hard. Jackson worked hard too, but
Andrew let him have some breaks every now and then and just hang out. They
finished getting the 2x12s up on the high posts. And we called quits a little
earlier that night so Andrew and I could go out to eat. I picked up McDonalds
for the boys and rented a movie for them. It was nice to have a quiet night
out.
I didn’t realize how early Andrew was up and working Sunday
morning. It was going to be a warmer day, so he wanted to get started early. I
was amazed that he was already putting together the beams for the second set of
monkey bars that formed a peak. He spent some time the evening before trying to
figure out the angles. He sent me on an errand to Menards and I went again in
the afternoon. Dan came by again in the afternoon and helped put up the second
set of bars, but I didn’t back quick enough with the extras they needed, so
Andrew sent him home. Then I had to get right to work making dinner because I was
running behind and my parents were going to eat with us when they dropped off
Ellie. But then it looked like it was going to rain, so Andrew and Jackson
quickly put all of their tools away and got inside just as it started pouring.
Ellie showed up about that time and was so disappointed she couldn’t get on the
course. She tried to go out after the
rain and it was a muddy mess. That didn’t stop her though. So, the ninja course
isn’t complete, but it is getting there. Again, Andrew worked so hard on it and
was so sore but didn’t quit. I ended up helping out much less than I thought I
would, just handing him stuff every now and then. Jackson and Dan were his main
helpers and the other boys would get in there a little bit. Jackson worked hard
without complaining and Dan offered so much insight and knowledge and seemed to
enjoy the work 😊 My hard work was raking up the compacted
dirt from digging the holes. And I didn’t get it done before the rains came, so
I kind of failed there. But, hopefully we can keep the momentum going a bit and
get more done next week. It is a busy week with rain in the forecast, so we’ll
see.
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