Yesterday I pulled out the flyer for Teacher Appreciation Week, another school thing to keep track of! It really is relentless at this time of year. Declan has his short testing appt. first thing in the morning, at the same time I had to drop Owen off for his 2 1/2 hour school day, so it worked out well. After we picked Owen up, we went out to lunch at Panera. Then we stopped at the library since I had a couple of books that were due. Owen had been invited on a sleepover, but we weren't sure what time he was leaving. He got picked up in the middle of the afternoon, so Declan and I proceeded to get sucked into Lego Harry Potter. I was the only one who had played it before but Declan finally got interested and we are working our way through the levels. I find it more confusing to navigate than the other Lego games we have, but we are figuring it out.



Owen got dropped off around 9:30 a.m. since we thought he had a soccer game, but it ended up getting cancelled. The other team didn't have enough players, and the weather was quite windy and cold. Owen said he got up at 5 a.m. anyway, so not sure he would have been in top form! I was worried about him staying up too late, but forgot that this family is used to getting up early. Declan's game was still on, so we watched that one out in the cold. They ended in a tie after a bad beginning.

Scot and I decided to go see a movie, so we saw Hanna. There is nothing that exciting playing right now, but it was a fun action movie. I'm almost done reading Body Double, which has been good so far. I got the movie Hereafter from Netflix, but haven't watched it yet.

They can't really be seen in the photo, but Hurricane is on the right and Flame is on the left. Luckily they survived the night, so they are already working out better than the goldfish! Flame still cracks me up with all his posturing with his gills while Hurricane doesn't react to him at all.

Today I went right to the Apex after dropping the kids off at school. It seems to work better. I walked for 2 miles uphill on the treadmill, and then spent some time on the exercise bike. They got new ones that are really comfortable. I got a book recommendation from a fellow 3rd grade mom that I saw there, and I was lucky enough to be able to check it out as an ebook, even though the regular book had a bunch of holds on it. It's a mystery series with an 11-year-old as the sleuth. I think he is on book 3 now.

I had a little time at home before I had to run to the store and get some carrot sticks to bring to Declan's Nursery Rhyme Picnic at school. Everyone brought theme food, like Humpty Dumpty Deviled Eggs. The carrots were Old Mother Hubbard's Bones. The kids all recited a nursery rhyme before we ate. It ended right when my library time usually starts, so I went over and shelved books and helped Owen's class find books. I won't be going tomorrow since it's a testing day. Declan has a 15-minute time slot in the morning, and Owen will be there until 11:30, then we are free for the rest of the day. Owen will be going on a sleepover, so hopefully he won't stay up too late since he has a soccer game on Saturday in the late morning (unless it gets snowed/rained out!). This boy is used to getting up really early, so I'm guessing he will not be staying up even if he wants to.

We stayed and played after school for awhile, and then came home to take care of chores and piano practice in time to have an early dinner for Owen's soccer practice. They had their group photo taken, so luckily everyone remembered to wear their uniforms!

No coffee today since I figured I wouldn't be able to taste it anyway. I had some Throat Coat tea instead. The coffee is from yesterday, along with one of the many flyers I have to deal with right now from school. There are field trips, special lunches, Field Day, Carnival, Run with Rocky, testing day, special Native American crafts days, etc. I'm sure I'm forgetting something, but it's all getting a little overwhelming trying to keep track!

I didn't have to do much today apart from getting a birthday present for the party after school that the kids were invited to. I forgot to have them make a card, and since it was right after school, there wasn't any way they could, so I used one of my homemade cards. I walked down after school to help walk with all the kids who were going to the party. It was at the rec center not too far away from school, most of the kids walked in a group. I offered to help with that part of it before I got sick, but it was probably good for me to be out in the fresh air! Yesterday I had yet another dentist appointment, which I had scheduled 6 months ago and forgotten about. Luckily I won't have to go back until Nov., and there is nothing pending to get worked on. I am really tired of dental stuff by now! Declan also told me Monday night that if I wrote a permission note, he might be able to bring home one of the goldfish they have been observing at school for a science unit. He was so excited to actually get one, and it was alive when I went to bed last night. However, we woke up to this:



So I went out to Petsmart and got a small betta tank and a couple betta fish. They are supposedly easier to take care of than goldfish, although they don't live as long. I am hoping they make it through the night, but I'm wondering if I should have gotten the little heater unit, since it does cool off in the house at night right now. There is a red one and a blue one, and they have been named Hurricane and Flame. Flame is rather feisty, showing his gills to Hurricane, who just ignores him and swims away. There is a removable partition in the tank to keep them separated, and if one dies, the other can take over the whole tank!

I finished a book by a new to me auther, Beverly Connor. She writes about a foresic anthropologist, and it was pretty good. One of the ebooks I had on hold came through, so I checked that out and got started on it at soccer practice. It's book 4 of the Rizzoli and Isles series. I will have 1 1/2 hours tomorrow night at Owen's practice, so I should be able to get a lot read, although I should probably spend some of that time walking on the nice track they have around the practice field. It has been so windy for every practice, I don't even want to get out of the car, but surely it has to be nice one of these times!

This picture is from yesterday. I was out and about today, and ended up with Starbucks. My first coffee tasted really bad, so I actually went back and exchanged it for another one, which was better.

Monday I had to work during the day, and then it was our usual routine of getting homework/chore/piano practice out the way before having an early dinner so we would be ready for soccer practice at 6 p.m. This is how it goes M-Th., with the added bonus of a piano lesson thrown in on Wednesday after school, and an occasional scout meeting. Tuesday I had an orchestra board meeting, so I was gone all morning and part of the afternoon. Today I took the van in for an oil change and also to find out whether it has a tow package installed. It does, and we can pull up to 3,500 pounds, so now I just need to decide on a pop-up rental for the 4th of July camping trip. Unfortunately, due to recent changes in the on-call schedule, Scot may or may not be able to accompany us. I'm hoping he'll be able to switch with someone, or the new guy will be added into the rotation soon so his week gets pushed ahead by one. The on-call thing is such a pain when it changes all the time due to people quitting and being added in. It would be nice to know for the year so we can plan trips around it, but it's hard to trust it for very long. The kids are looking forward to the camping trip, and we have the site reserved for almost a week, so I will still go, and I knew Scot wouldn't be there the whole time, but I was assuming he would be there Fri. night through Mon. night. It is still early, so hopefully something will work out. I am excited to try the pop-up, but a little nervous to drive with it, especially over the pass. Scot did sign up for the scout overnight camping trip, so he will be able to take the kids on that, even if his on-call shifts by a week. We don't have any other camping trips planned yet, but I hope we are able to fit in at least one more sometime during the summer.

Tomorrow I need to get some Easter goodies and a dye kit. The kids haven't really mentioned Easter much, but I'll at least hide some plastic eggs and have them decorate some hard boiled eggs. I don't really want to get small, annoying toys that they won't play with, so I need to figure out one bigger gift for each, I guess. I have some books that I haven't given out from the Scholastic sale at Christmas, so maybe I will do that for part of it. Declan needs a new soccer ball, since his gets flat every day, so then I just have to think of something for Owen.

I have been taking photos, even though I have not taken the time to actually upload them and write something!

We had a fun trip to Portland, even though Scot was sick most of it. He is hardly ever ill, so it was bad timing for that! We had a late Friday night flight into Portland, and then we drove to Sun River on Saturday morning. We got caught in quite a snowstorm going over the pass, so it took longer than it usually does, but we finally arrived Saturday afternoon. It was a nice rental house, and we were lucky enough to get the master suite. We decided to go skiing Sunday afternoon. It started out nice, but then got pretty windy with low visibility towards the end. The kids stuck it out and seemed to have fun, so we decided to go for a full day on Monday since it looked like the weather was going to warm up later in the week. It ended up being really nice and the kids got a lot of good practice on their skis. Tuesday we went into Bend to watch the new Diary of a Wimpy Kid movie, which we all enjoyed. Wednesday Scot and I went into Bend alone for lunch and walked around downtown while Mom took the kids to the Desert Museum. Thursday it was time to pack up and head back to Portland while Mom headed south for her cruise. No rest for the retired! Thursday night we got to see my dad, who happened to be in Portland at the time. He had to leave the next morning since his MIL had died, but he was able to come over to my brother's house for dinner before he left. Friday we spent all day at the OMSI Museum. We took a tour of the submarine there, and then the rest of time we just explored all the cool hands-on exhibits. We also saw an IMAX movie about Alaska. We had pizza that night. Owen and Declan were very enamored of my brother's house, especially because they could run all around the outside of it. I think it felt exotic to them because it was at the top of a steep hill and there were a bunch of green plants and trees around, unlike the climate here! They wanted to eat outside on the porch for most of the dinners. Saturday we went to a big mall and went ice skating for a little while, but I guess the ice wasn't very good. Then we ended up going to forestry museum, which was really nice. There was hardly anyone there, so we got to do all the hands-on stuff without having to wait. The kids did a scavenger hunt paper and got a prize at the end. My brother took us to the airport on Sunday morning and our flight left without incident, although we ended up flying into a little snowstorm here. It wouldn't have been so bad except that I had to drive almost an hour in it to pick up Dottie from the foster volunteers that were watching her while we were gone. The kids still have Monday off from school, so we went roller skating with one of their friends, and then they played with some other friends at the park. Tuesday it was back to a normal schedule with school again.

The weekend after getting back were our two orchestra concerts, so I was busy with those. I got to see Declan's soccer game but not Owen's. Luckily I got to see Owen play today, finally. I have been helping in the school library during time when 1st and 3rd grades come in to check out books, so Owen's teacher came up to me and said he was working on an email but hadn't finished it yet, so I was worried that there was some problem, but it turns out he just wanted to explain that Owen and a few others from his class were working on some 4th grade math, so it was actually good news. He used to really hate math, but I guess that has changed!