Adventure Update #017: What Would You Like Today?

Scout Picnic, Helper Rotations & ‘tend food.

Friday

On Friday evening we had the annual scout picnic and Dominick graduated from the Bears to the Webelos. There is a brief ceremony at the picnic where each of the boys “bridges” from the Bears to the Webelos – which is done symbolically by them crossing the bridge you see them standing on here. So Dominick will be moving on to the next chapter of his scouting journey – as a Webelo! Congratulations Dominick!

Saturday

Soccer recap – unfortunately none of the kids teams won this week. Dominick was the only one that scored – and he scored one goal. Updated stats are available here:

On Saturday afternoon we tried something new. We called them “Helper Rotations” – where Melani and I each took one of the older three with us and then had the third be in-charge of babysitting Sophie. We had a family meeting to kick this off and settled on 45 minutes for each segment – or rotation. For the first “Rotation” I took Dominick and worked in the garage and on the playhouse a little. Melani took Annie and worked in the kitchen. So Gracie had Sophie and spent some good big-sister / little sister time playing with her both inside and outside. We were pleasantly surprised at how well this worked! We took about a half-hour break in-between rotations and then did another one – where Gracie was with me, Dominick helped Melani and Annie was with Sophie.

As part of my effort to “recruit” the kids as willing participants I may have thrown out there a potential visit to Sweet Frog…. So we did make a run later in the afternoon for ice cream -which we combined with a visit to the grocery store and Chipotle (take out) for dinner. Sophie and I were in the car for everything but the ice-cream stop – as she apparently REALLY needed a LOOooOOOoong nap!

In an effort to defray some of the expense of sending the kids to we participate in SCRIP program through the school. It is a fund raising program in which gift cards to national chains and local merchants are purchased through the school with a small portion of the proceeds is remitted back to the school reduce the tuition burden for families. So we try to purchase gift cards for establishments we know we will need to / or plan to patronize – and get a portion of that back as a tuition credit. The beauty is that there is no additional charge to do so – it is just a portion of the vendor’s profit that comes back to us/ the school. So it is like a rewards credit card. You don’t spend anymore – it just a portion of what you do spend goes to somewhere you want it to go – rather than to the company’s bottom line. If you are interested in purchasing any gift cards – please let us know.

Anyways – the point is that we have an inventory of these gift cards that seem to build up at times – so one of my goals is to use then up during the summer months – hence the trip to Sweet Frog and Chipotle.

So I had $15 worth of gift cards fro Sweet Frog (some / all of which may have been gifts that the kids received – now that I think about it…) – and for four frozen yogurt treats (one for each kids) we still had to pay an additional $13! Wow – that is some expensive frozen yogurt!

Sunday

Someone slept in VERY late on Sunday (Sophie) – so much so that we ended up doing the YouTube mass thing (Heart of the Nation). After that I attacked the remaining issues I needed to get done with the playhouse roof with our third and final “Helper Rotation” of the weekend. Annie was my partner – and proved to be a really good helper!

In the late afternoon Melani generously made dinner again for my brother and sister-in-law. I had Gracie and Annie go with me and make another drop-off at Aunt Annette and Uncle Steve’s house – since Annette is still recovering from foot surgery.

In the evening we used Alexa and video chatted with my father for his birthday. It is nice that he is able to see the kids and interact with them! We were on a call with him for over an hour.

Miscellaneous

Progress continues to be made on “the other” roofing project! 2 of the 4 skylights are in!

Below is some of Gracie’s recent artwork I really liked, She says she is still going to paint the sky blue. She knows I like my greens, blues and browns!

Oh – and what does the title “What would you like today?” refer to? Well it seems that lately Sophie is very preoccupied with her ‘tend (or PREtend food) and picnic basket. It is her new favorite plaything for the last couple of weeks. Poor Melani is probably asked about 100 times a day by Sophie “What would you like today?” When Melani tells her a specific food item Sophie roots through her picnic basket / store and them hands the requested food item to Melani. Very cute – but it does get a little tedious for Melani – especially when she is trying to get something done!

Sincerely,