Let's Go to the Show

After many weeks of watching both the weather report and the announcements page from our local drive-in, they finally lined up last night. We made sandwiches, bought candy, popped crazy amounts of popcorn, and took the kids to the drive-in.

This is how Topher felt when we told him we would be going.

Dinner went well while we waited for the movie to start. Thursday was a good night to go since there were so few people in attendance.

Yes, that is too much popcorn, I agree.

Sophie was also excited to be there. Actually, all the kids were.

I took very few pictures,  but I'm happy to report that we had a great time. It was a double feature, first was DC League of Super-Pets, then Minions: The Rise of Gru. While both were fun, we all agreed that the first was the better of the two.

Bryan, Cooper, Peter, and Sophie all sat in chairs in front of (technically behind, but in front of where we were sitting to watch the movie) the van while Phoebe, Topher, and I sat in the van. Topher started to get really anxious partway through the first movie. He asked to sit with Bryan and then he asked to go home. I finally realized that he's not usually outside when it's dark, so he was feeling uncomfortable in this new situation. Plus, it was way after his bedtime, and he usually snuggles with Bryan right before he goes to sleep. He settled down after a bit, but he was very ready to go home when the second movie ended. In fact, he was asleep minutes after we started our drive home.

Happy memories were made, which has made today's high level of exhaustion worth it.

Sounds Fishy

"I like this fish, I like spicy fish, I like normal fish, and I like Swedish Fish." - Topher, after taking a bite of some breaded tilapia. He did not finish his serving of fish, despite his declaration.

Accidental Twinning

Dreamland

The kids have been pulling out our old blog books and have enjoyed reading about their past adventures. Sophie noticed that over the years I've posted lots of pictures of the kids sleeping. It's true, they look peaceful while they sleep and I like to be reminded that it's not always chaos over here. She also observed that I haven't posted many sleeping pictures lately. That's also true. I don't think the big boys would appreciate it, Phoebe is on a top bunk and hard to photograph, and Topher is such a light sleeper I wouldn't dare sneak in to take a picture for fear of waking him up. However, Sophie is someone I can still photograph in all her slumbering serenity. At her request I took this on Sunday night.

She does look peaceful.

The Reading List

I mentioned last week that Phoebe will be doing an accelerated program for sixth grade. A shipment of her schoolbooks recently arrived. Even I was a little surprised by these titles. I'm not opposed to them, in fact I'm excited for her to be challenged by them, I just wasn't expecting the Scottish play or Animal Farm in sixth grade. Not pictured: Fahrenheit 451 and The Cay.

She's already started reading them.

School Daze

Tonight as I was tucking her in, Sophie sighed and said, "I can't wait for school to start. Most kids want summer to keep going, but I'm like yay learning!"

School starts in three weeks. Sophie may be ready, but I'm not. I don't think I'm ever really ready to start a new school year, even though I do love new school supplies and the excitement of new classes. I just love the freedom of summer. And I love the extra time we have to spend as a family. The last two years have been easier in that regard for me since the kids were doing school from home. They had so much more flexibility in how they spent their time and we definitely had more opportunities to do things all together. There were aspects of it that were significantly harder on me as the school facilitator having them all home, but the time together has been worth the exhaustion. (If you had asked me about this in the middle of the schoolyear I probably would have felt differently, but I'm viewing it through the rose colored glasses of summer break.)

Even though we have three weeks until the first day of school, we still don't have a proper plan. Topher's vaccine will be fully effective about three weeks into the school year. A major topic of discussion at our house this summer has been about what we'll do for school. Do we stay virtual? Do we send the kids back at the beginning of the year with masks firmly in place? They don't want to take those masks off for lunch, so do they just skip that meal for those first three weeks? Or do we start virtual and then switch to in-person a few weeks into the year?

Yes, I realize that at three weeks out we should have a plan, I really wish we did. But we're still figuring it out. Well, Phoebe's not, she has a plan. She applied to and was accepted into the advanced program at the virtual school, so she'll be hanging out with me and Topher for another year. The other three want to be in-person at some point this school year, we just don't know when.

I asked Sophie about it during bedtime. She wants to start virtually, then move to in-person because she's always thought it would be cool to be the new kid who comes into school part way through the year. 

Well, I think we can arrange that.

The Strings

Many years ago Bryan's parents passed a tiny violin on to us. Bryan's youngest sister had used it and outgrown it (I think, my memory is fuzzy on the details) and we had small kids interested in making music. That violin has traveled with us for many years. The kids would pull it out and hold it and examine it. They couldn't do much beyond that because it needed to be restrung. I wasn't sure how to make that happen, so it kept getting put off.

Well, I finally found a local music shop and dropped it off in June. Yesterday I picked it up, all four strings working and tuned beautifully. Both yesterday and today Topher has gently pulled the violin out, held it delicately, and pulled the bow across the strings. When asked what he's doing he says, "I need to play my violin."

Thank you for the violin, Ron and Shari. I'm sorry it took so long for us to properly appreciate it, but we're certainly enjoying it now.

We All Scream

Nothing says summer break fun quite like eating ice cream for lunch.

Primary Colors

Courage

Sophie and Topher were asked to contribute a talk and a scripture for Primary yesterday. Our scripture study for the week was about Esther, so that was Sophie's topic. This talk was collaborative. She talked, I typed and asked questions. I suggested we use verse 14, Sophie was the one that added verse 16. In retrospect we probably should have included fasting and prayer in the summation, but it was late enough in the game at that point that I didn't want to rerecord for that one correction.

I think Sophie did a wonderful job presenting the talk and helping Topher with his scripture. Topher was much more cooperative this time about getting into church clothes on a Saturday evening so we could record his part. They were both happy to see their faces on the TV screen that was in the Primary room. We couldn't really hear it through our Zoom call, but that's okay, we already knew what was said.

Hopefully the next talk and scripture will be in person.