Still no bid list

Poor Ian is at work, surrounded by constant reminders of not having a bid list yet. The rest of us have been hanging about at home, and keeping quite distracted.

So far this week we have:
- set up a painting station outside one morning and spent a few hours painting with watercolors. Rebecca chose a still life, Katherine drew a new fashion then painted it. Jonathon went for abstract and Nicholas did two separate pictures of ice cream cones. He's not exactly the adventurous sort.
- dissected fish in the kitchen. Armed with gloves, pumpkin carvers (any heavy duty cutting I did with a sharp knife... fish are slippery) and a desire to see blood and organs, the kids picked out the intestine, heart, air bladder, etc., of their fish. Gills were a favorite, as were eyes. There was a hunt for the brain, that was a little more difficult to find.
- swum every morning, even me. Sure, the pool is gross most days (should have seen it yesterday, Oh My Goodness), but I can still get in some laps before the kids descend on me for Monkey in the Middle or Marco Polo or today's nonsense game of everyone piling on me and pretending I'm a train. A fun passtime has been using old toothbrushes to scrub algae off the tiles. It's a rather silly attempt as much of the algae returns by the next day. Did I mention the pool is gross? And dangerous too. Tree roots are pushing in on several sides, so we have lots of cracked tiles with very sharp edges. Cuts are not uncommon.
- played Battleship and Carcassonne with Jonathon, Scene It! Harry Potter with the boys. I feel like there have been more games, but can't recall.
- watched too many episodes of Monk Season 1.
- baked and cooked, from jell-o by Jonathon to fish sticks for dinner tonight by Katherine, Rebecca made chocolate pudding and added fruit and a cookie for a yummy dessert last night, Katherine decided one afternoon to make pumpkin bread. Potato salad was another new endeavor for Katherine. She also made eggs for everyone for lunch today, scrambled for the boys, fried for the rest of us for egg sandwiches. Nicholas pitched in with the toast. OK, granted, some of the goods are from boxes but still, it counts in this house.
- sent Katherine and Rebecca to Amma Naana for eggs when we only had 2. They walked over by themselves, picked up 18 eggs and some treats as well, then made their way home.
- let the kids play on the computer. Duh, it's still summer vacation.
- made the kids do some school work. So far the only consistent thing has been math every day. Katherine is working on the first chapter of an Algebra textbook, Rebecca has 5th grade multiplication, Nicholas has 3rd grade multiplication, Jonathon has review on lots of stuff from fractions to double digit subtraction to whatever else I come up with.
And just think, there's still tomorrow. And next week. And the week after that!