Life After Alaska

This week Scott took Monday and Tuesday off. I tried to convince him to just not tell his office that he was back in town and just stay with us till Thursday when they expected him back. But after being gone from work for so long, he was itching to get back to his office and get caught up on everything.

Monday night the whole family went to Josh's end of season football awards ceremony. His football league is sponsored by a church, and the awards ceremony turned out to be more of a "convert you to our religion" meeting than an "awards" ceremony. And the kids did not behave at all during it. All I could think was, "I'm so happy I'm not here doing this alone". I'm sure all Scott could think was, "I should have stayed in Alaska".

On Monday we started a project--a big one. Last year we built a desk area into our upstairs. My ultimate goal has been to turn that into a family computer area and turn our office downstairs into a piano room. So on Monday, we moved our computer upstairs (now we have the kids' computer and our computer on the desk). But then we had a whole room full of office furniture that we didn't need anymore. Scott texted his sister to see if they wanted it (it was their mom's old office furniture), and she did! So we loaded it up into Scott's truck and he delivered it to them out in Homedale. While he was gone, I shampooed the carpet in that room. The kids were excited to come home from school to a big empty room.

The next step in this project was to move the piano into that room, but we couldn't do that till the carpet was dry, so we moved on to the next step--a shelf to hold a TV to go where the piano was in the living room.

On Tuesday morning Scott, Owen, and I (Nate had preschool) went on Aaron's school field trip to the pumpkin patch. It was cold, but was fun. (In the picture, Aaron is on the top right.)

After the field trip, Scott and I took the three little boys to Home Depot and bought the wood for our new shelf. And then we spent the evening with a table saw, wood, and lots of sawdust as we started building our new shelf. We found ourselves really surprised at how quickly the project came together. It's not done yet, but it's close. I'll post pictures of it w

Wednesday Scott went back to work. I spent my day cleaning house, catching up on laundry (Scott's suitcase was still sitting in our living room waiting to be unpacked), and shampooing the carpet in my bedroom (I'm tackling one room at a time). After work, Scott and I worked on the shelf again till it was time for him to go to Mutual.

Thursday morning Scott took the morning off and took Owen to gymnastics. Nate was at preschool, so I had the house to myself to speed clean for an hour. Scott went in to work before noon. Thursdays are Savannah's gymnastics day, so I had to drag all the kids along drop her off there after school. But, with Josh's football done for the season, we didn't have to worry about football practice, and Scott just picked up Savannah from gymnastics after work and brought her home. Not having football is going to make our Thursdays a bit more simple.

This morning (Friday), I went and donated blood. Long story short--11 years ago I found my way onto the "do not donate for life" list because of a false-positive Hep C test. Two years ago, I started the process to get off that list. It took a year--a blood test and clearance from the FBI--but I was told I could start donating blood again. So I went in to donate, and was turned away that time because my iron was too low. So I tried again today. My iron was high enough and I was able to donate blood. Now I'm sporting a nice purple bruise on my arm.

Scott took the morning off work so I could donate blood, but had to go in to work at lunch time. Before he went to work, we got the piano moved from the living room into the office (now piano room). After Aaron got home from Kindergarten, I loaded up Owen into the stroller and Aaron and Nate hopped on their bikes, and we walked over to Aaron's friend Wheaton's house. Wheaton's mom had planned a "Fall Fun Day" party and invited the entire AM Kindergarten class, their parents, and any siblings that wanted to come. We packed a lunch for us, and she provided juice and cookies. It was perfect weather, and all the kids played outside while the moms visited with each other. After the party, we came home and I put Owen down for a nap in his crib, and the rest of the afternoon has been spent updating this blog. But, I think I'm finally caught up. Now we are off to the pumpkin patch as a family! It's great having Scott home for all these activities!!