So, I’m not even sure where to begin this. I’ll try to
highlight what we were up to the couple of weeks before the race and the couple
of weeks since. I followed up on Miles’ request to eat lunch with him and
joined he and Bennett for lunch one afternoon. The extra table where parents
can eat with their kids was full, so we got to sit with their class 😊.
Even though my bible study group finished up back in April, we were able to
meet up for dinner at Maxwell’s one night. It ended up being a later dinner and
it went even later than expected since we showed up at the same time Trivia
Night started. But it was a nice evening and they were super nice to get me a
gift certificate for a house cleaning. I had mentioned to Leah earlier that,
although I appreciated what they gave me last year, they didn’t need to do
anything and I would prefer if they didn’t. She told me I was already too late
though.
The twins had their kindergarten music program and they were
front and center. Problem was that since they were the first row, it was harder
for me to see them. But we were excited that they both actually participated,
smiled and had fun. It was the American Flag program like the others have done,
but they did do some different songs. And they got to sing This is Me at the end, which they were excited about.
I was back at school for lunch the next day as the Primary
PTA had a teacher appreciation lunch where all the staff ate together and
parents volunteered in classrooms watching the kids. Lincoln’s teacher
contacted me first about helping, so the twins’ teacher was bummed I couldn’t
help out in their class. Although, I think their class may have been a little
easier. We had a movie on in Lincoln’s classroom, but the volume wasn’t loud
enough even with it all the way up. Plus another volunteer came in to continue
helping the kids put their painted handprints on their field day t-shirts and
along with having the lights low, the kids decided it would be a good time to
act up. I helped with the handprints and we were able to finish them up.
I continued my training and the kids continued with all of
their activities. At this point we still had soccer, baseball and dance. During
my runs, I decided it would be nice to run down Highland Ave, the pretty street
we lived on when I was younger. I had to take a picture of our old house. I
hope they didn’t think I was creeping.
That weekend was Mother’s Day weekend, so Sara and her kids,
Lissy and Molly came home. The kids swam a bit and played on the slack line. Lincoln
had a soccer game Saturday morning and his first baseball game that afternoon.
And Ellie went to Scotty’s in Quincy with Ella and some friends to celebrate
Ella’s birthday. And Saturday night we all ate at Pear Tree. That night, Ellie
ended up being up most of the night with her stomach bothering her. She never
got sick, but was rolling around in pain until I had her lay by me and I rubbed
her back until she went to sleep. So, we let her sleep in the next morning
instead of going to church. I still had to get up though, because I was doing a
Mother’s Day brunch for my family. I prepped a lot of it the few days before,
but still had to make the dessert, cook all the casseroles, etc. My parents, Lissy,
Molly and Sara and her kids came over. And, thankfully, Ellie was feeling
better.
After we got everything cleaned up from brunch, I started
working on prepping everything for dinner with Andrew’s family that night. Then
the kids and I went over to my parents for them to swim a little bit before
heading back home to finish up dinner. And thankfully all of the meals went
well and I got to spend some time with the kids. And for Mother’s Day, Andrew
gave me a gift certificate for a massage to use after my race, Ellie painted a
fun canvas for me and the twins made some cute cards and paintings at school.
So blessed they call me mom!
That next Monday was my last day to help in the kids’
classes. I took them and their classmates some little treats-sidewalk chalk for
the twins’ class and Starburst for the Lincoln’s. I also had the kids take in
their teacher gifts.
Then it was on to Ellie’s field day. It was a hot one, but
she had fun and it is always fun watching the kids compete and have fun with
their friends.
They ended up dividing it up into a morning and afternoon
session. I went for a run after the morning one, came home to shower and grab a
quick lunch and then went back for the afternoon session. Then she was just
able to go with me and we picked up all the boys.
The next day was a long day with the annual kindergarten
field trip out to 1000 Hills. They have been doing the same field trip since
Jackson was in kindergarten, so this was my 4th time doing it and
not much changed. I had a good time with the boys and their friends and
everything went off without a hitch. It is hard to believe it was my last time
doing it. And a sad memory of doing Lincoln’s a couple years earlier with Mrs. Quigley.
It was her last one and she retired after that year and passed away less than a
year later ☹.
Lincoln had his field day later that week. I got to go
around with his class to the different activities and help them out. Andrew even
came by for a little bit and brought me a smoothie from Smoothie King. He also
brought one for Makenzey since I mentioned she was helping with me. The top boy
and girl from the class in each event got to go to the finals and Lincoln made
it in the 50-yard dash and 400. The neighborhood represented for the 400 and
had Lincoln, Alex and Josh.
That same day, Ellie had her zoo field trip for RAP. She had
to be at the school at 6:30 to head to St. Louis and they rode the bus there.
Lissy met up with her and got to take her group around the zoo. And Ellie
decided to stay the night there, so thankfully her teacher was okay with just
an email confirmation that she could leave with Lissy.
Jackson had football after school throughout the week and the
boys started their regular baseball season with several games in the
evenings. And throughout all of it, I
was trying to prepare for the race and our weekend away. The kids found ways to
entertain themselves, though.
And of course, we were off to Chattanooga the next day and I
talked all about that in the previous post. But, we jumped right back into
everything when we got home. Ellie and I got to her school at 6:45 to head to
Nauvoo. She rode the bus and I rode with a few other moms. I was sore and tired,
but it wasn’t horrible. It was drizzling when we got there and they took all
the kids to a park area to go to the bathroom while we went to the visitor’s
center to pick up some name tags for the kids to wear. Then we went to Old
Nauvoo and split up into our groups and spent the day going to different buildings
and presentations about pioneer life. We went to a park for lunch time and there
weren’t any spots left to sit except for a couple benches and a picnic table in
their Pioneer Play area that was just a covered spot with different toys and
games for the kids to play with. But they wouldn’t let us eat at them because
they didn’t want any bugs (it was all outside 😊), so we had to eat standing up. I was a bit
tired at that point. Ellie had fun playing the pioneer games with her friends
and trying to figure them all out. The rest of it was okay, but not too great.
We left a little early though since the mom who was driving had to get back for
8th Grade promotion.
While I was at Nauvoo, Michelle came and cleaned the house
using the gift certificate from my bible study girls-it was very nice. The
twins had their Kindergarten Olympics and then a picnic lunch where they could
have guests. My parents surprised them by showing up and they were so excited.
And we had also received an email that Jackson was selected for an award, so
Andrew went to that awards ceremony that morning. I guess Jackson received an
award for dependability and Andrew thought another one. Andrew and Jackson
weren’t too informative on it and Jackson actually put his certificate in the
trash ☹. Ellie missed her awards ceremony because it was on
the Friday we left for Chattanooga. She received awards for Presidential Academics,
reading all the Mark Twain Award Nominee books, top in her class in
keyboarding, her group in RAP won a Stock Market Challenge and they completed
Exploravision.
The next day was the last day of school. The kids were super
pumped. Lincoln had a End of the Year Celebration that morning. I stopped by
the twins classroom first and gave them their sidewalk chalk and told them all
goodbye. They were such a sweet class. At Lincoln’s celebration, we got to sit
with them and enjoy snacks while they played a slideshow, went through some of
their classwork and then they had an awards ceremony where Lincoln received the
Math Award.
I went back to the school later that afternoon for their 2nd
grade send-off. I had to switch back and forth from sitting with the twins and
Lincoln. They did drawings for some gift certificates, showed a slideshow and all
the kids got bags of Caught Being Good Tickets and they counted down and then
they all got to throw them in the air. They love it. Then it was time to send
off the 2nd graders. They tried to change it up a bit this year and
it didn’t really work out, but they had the kids line up at the gym doors and
the 2nd graders got to run through them. So hard to believe Lincoln
is moving on to Ray Miller next year and three of our kids are done with the
Primary. It is such a great school.
I went ahead and took the boys when they were done with the
send-off, picked up Jackson and then Ellie and then we went by Dairy Queen to
get some ice cream. The kids got an
eyeful when we got to watch the arrest of a prisoner who had escaped during a
hospital visit in Ottumwa. They had him handcuffed on the group and he kept
rolling around and had already rolled out of his pants. Then the ambulance
showed up and they had trouble getting him to stay on the stretcher. This all
happened while we were waiting in line for our food. That night we had a couple
ballgames and Ellie had dance class. Jackson kicked off the summer the next day
by starting his little mowing job. Robin has a rental in town that Matthew
lives in during the school year and they were needing someone to mow the yard
during the summer. And we finally finished up soccer practices the week after
school got out. We also had a little pool play date with a random group.
Lincoln invited Miguel over and Ellie had several of her friends including
Lydia, Madison, Lauren and Ella. Lydia spent the night with us after their last
soccer practice. Ella’s sisters and mom joined us for a little bit too. Then Sharon and Kiersten came for a little
bit, Annie brought Josh over and Joe came down to hang out with Jackson and
Michele stopped by for a bit. It was a nice afternoon and they all had fun.
That weekend was Memorial Day weekend and Andy and his family,
Kaitlin and her family and Molly were in town which meant sleepovers and a lot
of swimming because it was hot. Heidi was in town for a couple days, so we got
to meet up for lunch…which lasted about 3 hours 😊. It is always great to catch up with her. Andrew
took the kids to the batting cages one morning and I joined him a little later.
Ellie stole my phone to take selfies and Jackson discovered he was able to
climb up on the arbor attached to the pool house.
On that Monday, Jackson’s small group came over in the
evening for a pool party and then went to the K-Life house for a sleepover. I
got them set up and then went into the house so they didn’t feel like I was
constantly watching over them. It looked like they had a lot of fun and ate a
lot of food and thankfully nothing broke and there weren’t any injuries. They
swam for a couple hours and then we loaded up and took them to the K-Life
house. We picked them up the next morning and Lincoln started basketball camp
at the same time. Jackson went a little later in the morning and he also had
optional weights. Basketball camp was just four days, but the optional weights
is Monday through Thursday through the middle of July. Jackson doesn’t go every
day though, especially if he has a baseball game. Ellie started back to swim
team that week too. So, soccer was done but she didn’t get a break since swim
team picked up. But she did have her last week of dance, thankfully.
We took a break for the practices and games and went to a
Cardinals game that Thursday night. I used our four free tickets from the MI
Sweetheart Dinner and they could only be used on Monday-Thursday games. Sadly,
Andrew ended up having a trial and wasn’t able to come with us. We picked up
Jackson from basketball camp and headed out. We went to Sara’s first and Lissy,
Ellie and I went to Kohls (finally got to make the millions of returns I had
been accumulating for months) and Marshalls. Then my parents and Ellie left to
pick up Molly on their way to the stadium and Lissy went with the boys and I.
We got there a while before my parents since they got stuck in traffic, so we
went into the stadium and I got in line for food while Lissy and the boys found
tables. The food line was super slow and the game started while we were eating.
My parents got there and we went to our seats, which just happened to be next
to a large church group. So, we had to convince some kids that they were
sitting our seats and needed to move. We missed most of the first inning, had
to call down an usher and the Cardinals scored a few runs, but it all worked
out. It was a hot evening, but we were thankfully in the shade and our seats
had a good view. It was a fun game with the kids. Of course there was some
whining, but it wasn’t too bad. The younger boys were ready to leave by the 7th
inning, but Ellie really wanted to stick it out. Then in the 8th,
the Pirates hit a home run and pulled ahead 8-5 and masses started leaving the
ballpark. We decided to go ahead and wait it out since it seemed like half of
the crowd left at that time. And we were glad we did. In the bottom of the
ninth, the Cardinals scored 5 runs including a walk-off homer to win the game.
It was so exciting!
We stayed at Sara’s that night and headed back the next morning.
We were getting on 141 when Sara called to say Ellie left her camera. She
desperately wanted it, so we went back. It was almost 11 by that time, so we
stopped at a as station to fill up and let the kids get a drink and snack that
would suffice for lunch 😊. We ate an early dinner back in Kirksville
at La Fuente and then Ellie and I headed to her dance rehearsal while Andrew
and the boys went to Jackson’s ball game later that night. I was hoping to get
to some of the ballgame, but Ellie’s routines were spaced out just enough that
it didn’t work. So, I brought my computer and was able to get some office work
done while she danced. We finished up there around 9:30 and headed home to
regroup for the big recital the next day.
Ellie’s first recital was at 2 and it was her jazz duet. It
was the first dance of the recital, so Andrew and the boys snuck out after she
was done and were very excited. Ellie and Makenzey did a great job and it was a
fun dance. Although, my pictures weren’t that great.
Ellie wanted to stay through that whole recital, which ended
up being a little less than an hour. Then we went home for a little bit before
heading to Thousand Hills to have an early dinner and celebrate my parents’
anniversary. We hadn’t been out there to eat in a quite a while and it was
nice. Ellie had picked some flowers for my parents earlier in the day, but we
kept forgetting to bring them.
Ellie and I went straight to Baldwin after that and I saved seats
while she got ready, the my parents, Mary and Andrew and the boys all came.
Ellie had four dances, including the final one of the night. The boys were
really hoping to leave early, but they stuck it out all the way to the end.
Ellie did a wonderful job and I love watching her dance. She did her clogging
routine to Hick Town, a tap dance to a Janet Jackson song and her first jazz
dance was to a Michael Jackson song. Then they did their 2nd jazz
dance to Time of My Life, which was the finale.
The next day was dog fence day. We skipped church since we
had several that were stuffy, sneezing and coughing all over the place. Andrew
had picked up a special tool someone had to trench out the ground to place to
wire, but it sadly didn’t work as well as we were hoping. But first we had to
stop by Home Depot to get a few extra parts. Then we spent the rest of the day
working on it. Digging and redigging, laying the wire, burying it, putting out
soil, etc. It was a team effort and I think most of us were sore the next day.
We also decided to run the wire up through the gutter and along the roof of the
house to complete the circuit so it was just in the back yard. The next day, I
tried to use some silicone to “glue” down the wire on the peak and it just wasn’t
happening. We still haven’t quite figured out what to do with it. But, Andrew
and Jackson have been working on training Buddy to stay in the backyard and it
is working. We just have to remember to not let him out the front door or out
of the garage, which will take some training on our part. Buddy will miss the
front yard though.
Andrew did a lot of work clearing out brush in the far end
of our backyard and he had Lincoln help him. But Lincoln woke up with an itchy
rash the next day. It kept spreading throughout the next couple days and we
weren’t sure if it was poison ivy or a virus, but he ended up getting a shot
and my dad prescribed a stronger antihistamine for him. It has all helped and
it is starting to look better.
So, now we are up to this last week. Ellie has basketball
camp this week along with trying to get to a majority of the swim team
practices. Jackson had weights for football and open gyms for basketball. And
all the boys had several games throughout the week. We had at least one game
each night, Monday through Thursday. Lincoln got an in-field home run that he
was pretty excited about. He was so excited, that he missed third base and had
to go back and tag it.
We had a pool party for my bible study group and I didn’t realize
just how big it would be. We ended up having 35 people there and only 7 of us
were adults 😊. They all had a lot of fun though and it
went off really well. They swam and played on the slack line, monkey bars and
swing set.
We spent one evening trying to figure out a plan for the
ninja course we are supposed to be building. We are getting closer. And I ended
up posting our swing set on swap shop for free, as long as they took it apart
and hauled it and it was gone immediately with lots of people in line.
Friday was my day to get caught up. But first, I stared with
a 30 minute massage using one of the gift certificates from Mother’s Day. I
dropped Ellie off at swim team and went. Then I did some grocery shopping and
came home to clean all the bathrooms, kitchen, dust and vacuum. I also got a
workout in. I started back to running a little and did a couple 4 ½ mile runs
during the week. Then I would do my old 30 Day Shred on the other days. The
kids joined me for part of it 😊.
Andrew and Jackson spent their afternoon getting panels and
gates from an Amish guy and then put them out at his pasture. The others got to
help wash Buddy when they got home.
My parents got Andy’s kids that afternoon, so we went over
there that evening and they swam and we had pizza. Andrew took the kids out to
the ranch the next morning. He took Jackson and Ellie with him to move his cattle to the front of his pasture. That was the most riding Ellie had done in a while and she was hurting a bit. The younger boys stayed at the house/barn and helped feed calves. I worked on this blog post, just wanting to get
it all wrapped up and take it off my to-do list. I also did some more cleaning and baking. The kids and I headed over to my parents that afternoon and they all got busy playing and swimming. We had dinner there that night and the kids did some evening swimming and tried to catch lightning bugs. Jackson went to the Behnens for a little bit to hang out with Joe and John.
Sunday morning we went to church and then I went grocery shopping. When I came home, the slide, rock wall and tarp from the swing set were laying in the driveway and Andrew had Jackson and Ellie out back taking apart the swing set. It was almost all down, except for the tower part, which they had a lot of wood off of it already. While I put away groceries and worked on prepping stuff for dinner that night, they did some more work on the swing set and mowed the yard. We were having the Seedorfs over for dinner and then they were taking the swing set stuff. We made it over to my parents to swim for a little bit with Finley and Atticus. Atticus was excited to show Ellie how he would actually get in the pool and swim. Ellie decided to take my phone and take pictures of squirrels. There were quite a few of them.
We were there for a couple hours and then headed home to finish up everything for dinner that night. We had a nice dinner with the Seedorfs and the kids had fun playing together. Andrew, Jackson and Ben got everything loaded up from the swing set and they went home around 8:45 since Ellie and Ella had all-day basketball camp the next day. So, there, finally caught up until next time :-).
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