Charolette the Spider

Emmy and I just finished reading Charolette's Web and about that time we found this spider out by the compost pile. Robb looked it up and she is a garden spider. I typically would hate everything about this spider, but she is living far enough away from the house that I'm not worried about her coming in and she is really interesting. One day she ate 3 grasshoppers. She will get really fat when she eats a lot and then will be a lot skinnier the next day. At one point she had an egg sack that she laid. The entire family has had fun keeping tabs on what Charolette is doing each day. Emmy asked if she would die like the spider in the book and I told her I thought she would die in the winter. I think Emmy had a fleeting moment of wanting to bring her inside to live but then she remembered that she is terrified of spiders.

Charolette eating what is left of her grasshopper.

 

Emmy's Funnies Lately

I was on the phone with Cindy the other night and Emmy was attention needy, like she is every time that I am on the phone. She was being goofy and crazy and all of a sudden, I heard a razor. I turn around and she is as freaked out as me. I guess in her 5 minutes of boredom she had decided to randomly take her temperature with the thermometer, except she grabbed the dog shaver which looks oddly similar. Thankfully, she didn't shave a chunk out of her hair!

Emmy is hilarious and says some of the funniest things. Tonight’s is one of my favorites.

She convinced Robb to help her make a Japanese cheesecake that she found the recipe to online. Cheesecake is not the easiest thing to make let alone having 2 people who never bake making it. She was telling Bryce about it when he got home and she says, “Dad says it’s more of a cluster than a cheesecake”. Bryce and I are dying laughing because we can totally see Robb describing this entire venture as a Cluster! Turns out she meant to say Custard. We are trying it tonight. I will let you know if it’s a Cluster or a Custard.

 

Covid Positive

After a week of eating, sleeping, playing and spending every waking moment with little petri dish, Emmy, I of course ended up with Covid also. I started to get a sore throat, but I convinced myself I was fine. I was the opener at work on Monday and was the 4:30 am person. I convinced myself that I felt wore out and crummy because I had to get up super early. When I got home that night, I took a nap before the kids got home and woke up feeling terrible. I just about took the Robb approach of "If I don't test, I don't know" but being a nurse that was around vulnerable people I didn't feel right about that. I tested at home and was positive too. Now everyone avoided me like the plague at our house, except Emmy who was more than happy to have me to herself since she had already been sick. I had to call into work the rest of the week. The next Monday I had to go in at 5:30 to get tested at employee health. I got swabbed and then had to sit in my car for 30 min until they had the results. It came back positive on Monday and Tuesday, and I asked to not have to come in super early to test on Wednesday. I have now missed almost 2 weeks of work. I felt bad because 4 of us had Covid at the same time and they were really short staffed at work. I had a sore throat and cough for a couple days and I was tired for a week but nothing that would usually keep me from working. This Covid thing is crazy! I'm glad that I didn't get terribly sick, but it was really hard to be home for 10+ days, no shopping, no errands etc. I was starting to go a bit stir crazy. I even volunteered to work that Friday that I usually have off just so I had some adult interaction.

Scout and Lucy were more than happy to be my snuggle buddies for the week.

 

Bye Bye Boat

Robb is not sentimental about very many things, but he was sad to get rid of his old boat. He has had this boat for 10 summers and it has overall been a good boat. Sure, it has had its issues like any boat does but overall, it has been a good boat. Caleb and Bryce learned to wakeboard behind it and Abby has got comfortable tubing. 

It was funny how we ended up selling it. Robb had posted it on numerous wakeboarding sites online, but we ended up selling it to someone in Hickman that drove up our driveway when he saw we got a new boat to ask if we were selling this one. Caleb wanted commission for this sale since he gave all the info and got the guys contact information. He might be entitled to some; it was a pretty big sale.

 

Scout's First Haircut

We love Scout dearly and we know that she is a scruff muffin but lately her scruff has gotten a bit out of hand. I have had to trim her beard so she doesn't get food in it and her little hair wings by her eyes get so long that she can't see. I wasn't sure what a groomer could do for her, but I thought we should give it a try. She went to Tina at Vanity Fur. It takes as long to get into a groomer as it does to get into my haircutter. We had to wait 2 months and most people aren't even taking new clients. I didn't know what to expect when I picked her up, but we were pleasantly surprised.

Scruffy Scout

Why am I here?

Is all that hair from me?!

I feel lighter and wild, time to play!

Mom, I look stupid in a bow, I'm not a bow kind of dog.
The stylist said that she had terrier like hair on her back and that it needs hand striped 1-2 times a year to keep here from getting shaggy and to cut down on the shedding. Scout is still our crazy looking little mutt, but she looks a little more stylish now.

 

Okoboji for Abby

Abby got asked to go to Okoboji with Maddie and her family for the weekend. Abby usually goes once a summer and has a blast. They tube, jet ski, eat at the restaurant that you have to take your boat to and just have fun being together. We missed her for the weekend, but we are glad that she had fun. She forgot her phone at the lake house and had to go without it for a week until Maddie's older brother got into town. It was a long week without a phone for her!

 

Steve Mattern Memorial Golf Tournament

The Steve Mattern Memorial Golf Tournament was the 2nd day of school. I had more or less promised Caleb last year that he could play this year. I stuck to my promise figuring that they probably wouldn't miss much on the second day of school. Caleb, Robb, Josh and Chris were on a team. Bryce and Lester walked along. I was really sad and disappointed that I wasn't able to attend this year. I didn't feel right about going when Emmy had Covid and I had been exposed to her all week. Steph and Mitch also went so I at least got a couple pictures. 

 

Happy First Day of School

I wasn't ready for the kids to start school this year! I was enjoying our fun summer that lacked structure, rules and things that had a deadline. I'm not ready for early mornings, homework and all the activities to start but ready or not here we go. 

Bryce and Caleb are Sophomores

Abby is an 8th grader 

Emmy is a 3rd grader

No bus ride for them today. Bryce and Caleb are able to drive to school and take turns driving the whole crew to school. Safety first please kids!

Emmy wasn't done with her quarantine until Monday, so she got a few more days off to spend floating in the pool. 

Since Emmy was sick, she wasn't able to go to her open house for the Intermediate School and she wasn't able to meet her teacher. She was very nervous on Monday when she got to start school. Robb took her to school that morning to make sure she got to where she needed to be. Poor girl was really scared for her first day. I felt bad for her.

 

Trying to keep busy in Quarantine

Emmy and I were quarantined to her bedroom and bathroom with the hope of keeping everyone else healthy and allow them to start school on the first day. I volunteered to be Emmy's person because she was mommy needy anyway and Robb got pretty sick last time he had Covid. I also figured that I have to get exposed at work and just probably won't get it. Ha Ha I'm funny. I wore a mask day and night and washed my hands a ton, but I knew that my chances of staying healthy were about 0-1%. Keeping Emmy busy was a challenge. We started by watching a lot of movies and TV when she had a fever and as she felt better, we moved to deep cleaning her room, closet, dresser, bathroom, doing all the puzzles in the game closet and playing every game that we owned. As she felt better and better we would walk the dogs outside, sit outside and read and we floated in the pool. She was a good sport, but this sent her into a state of mommy dependence that we would spend months trying to break. 

We did all the floor puzzles to make sure they had all the pieces before we put them back in the game closet.

She is living it up while the kids are at school for the first day.

Playing with all of our playdough.

We did this 400-piece cat puzzle that was a challenge for us. We were both pretty proud of getting this one done.

 

Camp Kitaki or Camp Covid

We have missed Emmy all week and have wondered how she was doing. It was killing us to not be able to check in to see how she was doing. It was a little bit of reassurance when we got her letter saying that she loved it and was having a great time. Pickup was Saturday morning at 10-11 and Robb and I showed up right at 10. Emmy looked happy and like she had fun, but she also looked exhausted and like she didn't feel the best. Her counselor told us that she had complained of a sore throat that morning and they gave her Tylenol but no fever or other symptoms. We got all her stuff packed up and we got her in the car, and we could tell she really didn't feel well. She slept most of the way home and by the time we got home she felt warm. None of the other kids were around and I highly suspected that she probably had Covid. We put her in her room to let her nap and when she got up, we tested her for Covid 19. The test that can take up to 30 min was positive in a matter of 30 sec. Her fever had also climbed to 102 and she felt miserable. And here starts the Emmy and Erin Covid quarantine. Not that I ever wanted her to get Covid at camp, but it was nice to have a starting point of when she got sick and then we were able to keep the other kids separated so that it didn't affect their first day of school.

Emmy's cabin of girls.

Sleeping on the way home.

Super sad Emmy when I told her that she had Covid!

 

Pointe Shoes

Abby is going to take Beginner Pointe class this year. The studio that she attends is much more conservative when it comes to the age that they let them start pointe shoes. It is hard on your feet and ankles, and they want to make sure that you have the strength to do it so that you don't hurt yourself. Abby is at the age where they let them start and she is excited. We had to make an appointment to get her pointe shoes fitted. She said that they felt funny but didn't hurt as much as she thought they might. 

 

Bryce's First Truck Mishap

This week was the first week of what we call "Dance Camp". It is really choreography camp for Show Choir, but it makes the boys so much more upset if we call it Dance Camp, so that's what we do. I guess they were running a little behind or maybe at the last minute decided to go to the gas station. Rule #1 with teen boys, you never really get the whole story. Anyway, I think they decided to go to the gas station at the last minute which then made it so Bryce had to turn around in one of the semi driveway/grass turn in areas. He misjudged a bit and got into this situation. He called me at work, and I had to call him back. He told me that he had put his pickup in the ditch but that he was ok. This freaked me out a bit, so I called Robb. He has a more forgiving job and headed home to help the boys. Robb sent Caleb home and told him to drive himself to camp and Bryce would come in a bit. Being the super nice brother that he was, he showed everyone the picture and told them what happened so everyone gave Bryce crap when he got there. Robb was able to pull it out with his truck and chains he borrowed from work. He decided after this that he might need his own set of chains now that we have teen drivers. We were glad that no one was hurt, and we know that this is far from the last time that they are going to do something stupid.