Keeping up with...Family (Weekly Wrap 8/4 - 8/10)

Friday (8/4) The weather forecast was for strong storms today so we decided not to do our trip to the Wilds and instead focus on things closer to home.  We also decided to cook a big turkey dinner tonight and are hosting dinner tomorrow night so we have a few errands to run as well.  We got ready and headed out to the new natural play area at Blendon Woods metro park.  It was so cool!  The boys enjoyed climbing on the rope structure, balancing on the logs, exploring the trails and using the old fashioned teeter totter.  But their favorite part was using the zipline swing.  They each rode it 5 times & wanted to do it even more!!  It was a great way to burn off some energy.

Our next stop was Kohl's for some tax free shopping.  Nana bought a birthday gift for Vinnie and the boys each got a new pair of sneakers and some socks for school.  It was a little hectic, shopping with them always is, but we survived.  After that, we were all hungry so Nana treated us to lunch at Red Robin, yumm!  The food was great as usual, but the service was very slow today for some reason.  When we finally finished up there, we headed back towards home to drop off Adrian and the boys before Nana & I went back out to do the grocery shopping.

After we stocked up on what we needed, we came home and finished cooking the sides for the turkey dinner.  Everything came out great!  We finished the night with a family movie night watching "Pete's Dragon" which was a fantastic movie.  I don't really remember the original but this version was great.  We all headed to bed shortly after the movie, it's been a long and tiring week!

Saturday (8/5) Once again, everyone was up bright and early.  I really hope this trend continues into the school year when I need them up bight and early.  The boys were signed up to go to a Home Depot workshop but then everyone decided they didn't want to go.  So they ran to Target to get a present for their friend who has a birthday party tomorrow and then spent the rest of the morning playing with Nana.  Sarah dropped off Isabelle and Vincent so the big kids played together while we watched Vinnie.  Carl and Sarah did some packing for their move, then came over to hang out for the day.  We just relaxed, chatted and ate home made pizza and crumble (crumb) cake.  Everyone had a great day together!

Sunday (8/6) was the official end of our staycation and back to reality.  I volunteered in childcare at church this morning.  Adrian and I did some work around the house, including a mound of dishes from yesterday.  AJ and Daniel went to Keaton's birthday party and had a blast playing laser tag.  Everyone played outside in the yard since all of our water toys are still set up and the rain held off.  We aimed for an early bedtime for the kids to try to get them more towards that schedule for school.  Adrian watched "Game of Thrones" and I started watching "Dallas Buyers Club."  All in all a good day back to our normal routine.  One more week of summer vacation & then we go back to school!

Monday (8/7) We woke up to a rainy, cold morning.  Our plans to go to Zoombezi Bay were canceled so I tried to find something else to do.  But the boys just wanted to "stay home" so I decided to let them just do that.  They had fun playing video games, watching TV and chilling around the house.  Then in the afternoon, I was back to work so we headed to the Y so I could teach my Zumba class.  We are celebrating my anniversary of teaching (4 years - wow!) so we're doing a shuffle of my favorite songs this week.  It was a fun class.

After class, we headed across town to meet Adrian for a movie at the cheap movie theater.  I wanted to go see "Sing" but no one else did so we decided to go see "Boss Baby" instead.  There was no traffic so we got there really quick.  We decided to stop in to Graeter's first for some ice cream - yum!  Then it was time for the movie so we got our popcorn and found our seats in the almost empty theater.  The movie was pretty good, way better than I thought it would be.  Everyone liked it, even Zak who sat still for most of it.  It was a great family night & we'll be keeping it in mind for something to do in the future.

Tuesday (8/8) We got up and moving so I could get to my Silver Sneakers class in the morning.  After class, we ran a quick errand to Aldi and then came home to eat lunch and get ready to head to AJ's next Brain Balance follow up assessment.  He continues to make improvements and they are really pleased with his development.  We will continue doing exercises at home and see how he does when school starts.  After his assessment, we went across the street to Highbanks Metro Park for some playing and some Pokemon Go.  Little did we know there was a raid on a gym where we were and the boys got to help about 30 other people defeat a Zaptos.  I'm not sure what that all means, but they were super excited about it!

We stayed at the park way longer than I expected to, which was fine with me.  It was a gorgeous day with low humidity so I did not mind being outside.  We got home and were all pretty worn out.  I used our leftover turkey and fresh broth to make an amazing turkey soup for dinner.  We had a relaxing night of watching TV, playing in our yard and playing video games. 

Wednesday (8/9) We had another lazy start to our morning and didn't get out quite as early as I wanted to.  We had a bunch of errands to run since we didn't do them earlier this week.  So we headed out and ran as many as the boys would tolerate before coming home to have lunch.  They had most of the afternoon free to play while I got ready to teach my class at the Y in the afternoon.  We did a random playlist of songs again and one of my students gave me a gift of notebooks with Zumba logos on them.  They are so cute!!  We had planned to have a movie night but everyone went outside to play and we just never got to the movie.  It wasn't a super fun day but it was productive and relaxing.

Thursday (8/10) We got up and moving so I could teach my Silver Sneakers class this morning.  After class we ran to Half Price Books to turn in our summer reading logs and buy new books and toys then we ran to Meijer to finish our grocery shopping for the week.  It was a rough stretch at Meijer and I found myself very thankful that this was probably the last time I need to shop with the children since they go back to school next week.  When we got home, Zak and Daniel had their teacher assignments for this year.  Daniel placed into the gifted class and we're super proud of him!  Zak got the one K teacher I didn't want him to have.  I was super upset and after chatting with a few trusted friends I decided to ask for a switch.  Now he has one of my favorite teachers & I couldn't be happier!

In the afternoon, one of the boys' friends came over to play while his mom and I got a few things done and then had some time to catch up.  The boys had a great time playing outside, with their toys & video games together.  When they left, it was time for us to start packing up for our camping trip this weekend.  It was an exhausting day with a busy weekend ahead so it was early bedtime for all of us tonight.  We're ready for a weekend of fun!