Busy Monday, June 2

Today's 'To-Do' List

• Write this Blog 
•  Go to work
• Finish washing Laundry
• Make sure the kids get packed
• Shop for airport friendly snacks (need to do research on this too see what kinds of things the kids can take)
• Pick dinner up out. 
• Early Bedtime for entire family

Menu

• Eat Out (I don't feel like dishes tonight)
• Unknown at this time I'll figure this out tomorrow. 

This Week's 'To-Do' List

• Take kids to airport. They will be flying to Oregon to see my family until the start of next month. 
• Clean house
• Finish putting away sleeping bags (I got them washed and dried and rolled but that is as far as I got last week)
• Go out looking for siding. Call around asking about siding. - You're going to hear a lot about siding. Peter and I are having our house insulated. We didn't have enough in the roof  apparently (though I think a big part of that is we have no air flow up there even though we have put in various additional venting systems) and our exterior walls don't have any insulation. So we are having someone  rip off the aluminum siding and putting in insulation. It's not cheap but it is something we've needed to do for years. (the things you don't think you need to check on when you buy a house...)
• Who knows what else other than I know work and my husband is on-call so that limits plans. 

Last Week

So yes I missed last week. It was Memorial Day and then the rest of the week was very busy with it being the last week of school for the kids. So, I owe you 2 weeks and I'll try to highlight it the best I can. 

The Friday before our camping trip we had Katherine's big school project we had been working on and thanks to one of my friends who sewed the bonnet and the apron we were able to pull it off. Katherine's famous person was Laura Ingalls Wilder. She did a very good job and Peter and I made a point to head over there and see her at the school! I never get to see the school projects and events because I'm always at work so I took off early that day so I could make it a point to see her. 

So for Memorial Day we didn't go to Mammoth Caves this year because my teenager decided that she wanted to go to Holiday World (theme park) with the rest of the Orchestra that day. Seeing how they don't do these trips in High School and many people will not be in Orchestra in High School because how they schedule things it's really hard to stay in (trust me they had to do a lot of juggling for Brielle). In any case, it meant that someone (thankfully my husband) was going to have to travel back to town to pick her up so we needed a much closer camping spot. We decided to go to Rough River. 

While there we went down to the water and played on the beach and we saw some friends who were visiting family over there and they showed us around the area some. We went on a nature walk but only one because the ticks were horrible so none of us were brave enough to go adventuring again. Our campsite was on this very steep hill so we put the kids tent in the graveled tent area that was flat and Pete and I took a hill and would wake up every morning having slid down our bed and our feet hanging over. I was very off balance when we came home and would suddenly get the sensation of being on a slope. 

You may noticed no pictures with Brielle walking with us. Our adventure was Saturday while she was gone but Katherine's friend who had never been camping came a long with us so the kids had fun.  

Brielle had yet another Orchestra concert. She failed to even tell us about it until we were unloading the van Monday from the camping trip. Ah teenagers.... 

I took a goofy picture of my husband while we were out to dinner for our 14 year anniversary.
We went out for a nice dinner and because it was the middle of the week we got great service.
Nothing was in the theater we wanted to see so instead we went to Sam's Club to wander around and we ended up running into friends there and talking until nearly the club closed on us! 

I got rather stressed out this past week so when I went down to Hobby Lobby for a silver Sharpie I saw this book while I was walking in and decided that I needed something for me and I knew I had some money left on my gift card from Christmas. Now I just need some time to do projects. 

Brielle was all dressed up for her last year of Middle School. My girl is a High School-er come Fall!
I picked her up early from school though not as early as most students were picked up because I was at work. I missed her Middle School graduation which was sad. I woul have really liked to have been there. 

After school we went downtown to the DMV and got her a state issued ID which made her feel all grown up. 

Saturday we went down to order our family pictures. Oh you don't want to know the costs. It's going to be strange though to take the tapestry down in the living room. I'm probably going to hate it for awhile since I really dislike change.

Saturday morning before Peter and I left to go order our pictures (see above) one of our friends came over and picked mulberries off of our tree so I need to process the berries this week too.

Saturday night we had friends over for a BBQ/Potluck. We had 7 adults and I believe it was 10 children! We had really good food and Peter set up the projector outside for an outdoor theater for the kids. I was a bit flustered but thankfully one of my friends snapped a shot of the theater.

That evening Katherine's friend spent the night too. We had a lot of bumps though because our teenager was so emotional. She was tired and didn't want to admit to it. The next morning I asked her how she felt after I had made her go to bed and she said a lot better and gave me a hug. Our babies will always be our babies won't they. 

Sunday before Katherine's friend went home we all sat down and made stain glass butterflies for a friend of mine who just had a baby and is doing the baby's room in butterflies. 

Later Sunday I tackled a stained shirt. I may or may not have mentioned that Brielle (my teenager) left a root beer flavored chap-stick in a pocket and not only did it go through the wash but the dryer and stained a lot of clothing. Well around ground zero of the accident I tried scrubbing it with soap, with goo gone, with dish soap, with laundry bars and washed it several times over. I even tried using a magic eraser and I used dry cleaning chemicals! This was the result of all that previous work.

It was still pretty bad. So then I started Google searching and I saw WD-40, Dawn and Baking soda. While this did work though a really long process it made my house smell like WD-40 (which isn't too pleasant) and it was a lot of work, especially since the whole shirt was stained.
So I took an old LARGE pickle jar (yes I hoard) and stuffed the shirt in it, covered the shirt with olive oil and then put the lid on and started shaking to get the oil worked around and then let it sit a little bit while I gathered my supplies outside since thing were going to get messy. I then proceeded to cover the shirt in baking soda (I went through half a box by the end of this!) and I scrubbed it with an old tooth brush. I then scrubbed dawn into the shirt. It took a lot of elbow grease. I then put the shirt back into the pickle jar and covered it with vinegar and let it foam up and sit. I would then put my hand in and squeeze and move around the fabric in the jar before emptying the jar (which I did on top of some weeds in the drive so hey double duty! since it kills weeds well). I did this several times over with the vinegar until it was white and no the 'yellow' the oil has been making it. I was very stubborn but here is my result. -->
Other than I noticed I tore part of the shirt during everything, the shirt was good as new. I pulled out my sewing machine and fixed up the seam that had torn and that was one shirt done! (now only like 6 more to go but they aren't as bad).

Sunday night in the rain my dear husband went out with me (since I had hurt my back during the course of Sunday) and and we picked up a baby swing someone donated (Facebook version of free-cycle) and we took it over to my friend's house so she could have a swing for her baby. It was a very nice swing and my husband I went out and bought some batteries for it. My poor dear friend got tripped up by her cat while carrying the baby so she hit the floor pretty hard we were a pretty sorry pair though thankfully my husband was there and helped take care of the baby for a bit.

Well I think think that pretty much finishes off the recap and I'm at work right now actually just putting the finishing touches on this so I can upload it.
I hope everyone has a wonderful week!