1. School's out! My kids continually do off-the-cuff learning throughout the year (part of our unschooling approach), but their official year "on the books" is complete. I received their evaluator's "sign off" last night (I love their evaluator!!!) and all I have to do is scan copies for myself and then drop them at the district office later today. We were going to celebrate by going to the movie Inside Out this evening, but I keep forgetting that a day out at the movies is going to run us $70-ish. I think we'll celebrate instead with the reinstatement of Taco Tuesday and a rented movie from Amazon.
2. John is in week two of deacon bootcamp. For two weeks, every summer for the next four years, he'll be in Pittsburgh for intense classroom time at the Byzantine Seminary. We've been talking to him everyday via FaceTime, which has made it a little less agonizing, but it will be just short of Heaven to have him back home this weekend. I do not know how military wives manage. I have a whole new respect for my mother and what she endured while my dad was away. I also now completely understand her immediate disappearance (to her mother's house) when my dad came back from war college. I'll admit that I'm sitting on a day-of-beauty spa certificate that John got me for Mother's Day, which I will promptly utilize upon his return. "Love you, honey! Missed you so much! Sandwiches are in the fridge, enjoy the kids, I'm outta here!!!"
3. Joseph wanted to start a blog. I saw no harm in it. It'll be a good way for him to practice his typing skills and language/grammar. So far, his stream of thought is about par (read: all over the place) and his subject matter is video games, youtube videos, and family. If you're interested: http://tipjoe.blogspot.com/
4. I'm almost entirely caught up on laundry. I need to call the borough and start planning my parade.
5. My children will, hopefully, learn about political activism this summer! My cousin in NJ is helping her daughter petition their local government for backyard chickens. Just in time, as the bird flu egg crisis has egg prices starting a rapid climb. Our borough has dropped the issue before, a few years ago, when there wasn't enough interest drummed up. We're hoping to do better and learn about the function of local government in the process, good, bad, and ugly, by petitioning our borough to revisit the issue and allow for reasonable urban chickening.
6. I bought some nail stickers at the grocery store the other day. They were on clearance for $1.24 per box. I love them. I wish I bought more than two, because now they're back to regular price ($5-$13 per box, style depending). They're bright and fun and they've lasted longer than any regular polish manicure I've done. They're impossibly cute on my daughter's nails.
7. My oldest brother and his family are headed to the DC area in a few weeks! I'll be bolting on down there to hit up the National Mall with them and our gaggle of children, and I don't know that I could possibly be more excited about it!!!
8. Baby John is walking. Well, I suppose I should throw some context on that. He knows how to walk, and he has walked unassisted, but only when he isn't paying attention. As soon as he figures out that he's not holding on to anything, he plops onto his butt and resumes crawling or demands that his little walking push cart thing be brought to him so that he can use that to charge around the house. Goon.
Well, that's it. I'm out of thoughts that don't involve meal planning and getting more coffee. :-)
