On Friday night after we planted Jonathon's new blue spruce, a gift from his teacher for Earth Day, a tree he named Bob...
Katherine had a bunch of friends over to watch "Zombieland" on the projector in the garage. I have no idea how much "watching" was actually done since I ducked out to watch "Princess and the Frog" at the boys' school with them and left Ian to man the passel of teens. I should say I felt sorry for him (but I didn't, not really). The thing with letting Katherine do things like this is that they rarely go as planned, and she gets in this weird mood where none of the house rules are followed and in general makes decisions that make no sense. If it isn't obvious, we're not really fans of letting her have an abundance of fun of her own choosing.
In order to avoid doing her homework, Rebecca practiced making frosting roses. She did get around to her homework eventually and stayed up until midnight working on it (our house rule is weekend homework gets done on Friday night... it avoids the nagging sensation all weekend of having to do it, and avoids the Sunday night frantic...ness).
Saturday morning we drove the 45 minutes to Battlefield HS for the county wide art show. Dozens of ES, MS and HS had picks of their student work up to show off.
It was so much fun to see the wide variety of art. Some of those kids, in every grade, are quite talented.
Though the kids wanted to eat in the HS cafeteria for lunch, we dropped into Best Buy for Katherine's new alarm clock and over to Hard Times for food instead. The kids played BuzzQuiz and I learned I don't like their Texas chili. Stick with what I know... Cincy 3-Way. Since we were still a ways from home, we checked out the roller rink... packed on a Saturday afternoon with birthday parties or something... tried to find an ice rink... remember ours caved in with that last big snow and was a complete loss, but we couldn't find the Manassas rink anyway... and opted for 36 holes of fun (chilly) mini-golf. Ian played along for the first 18, but since the weather was gloomy the place wasn't busy and only $1.50/kid for the second round of 18, we let them at it.
They all played pretty bad. They didn't take Ian's score into account when ranking, but that's the norm in any game played with him. He still doesn't realize he's playing with some little kids and he tends to crush them. When I play, say, Scrabble, I'll play words everyone knows even if there's a 30-point Qi waiting. Consider it playing with a handicap, but I think it's only fair when competing with an 8 year old. Ian doesn't see things that way, he makes sure he wins every game because games are for winning. Yeah, the kids prefer playing with me or they do what they did on Saturday... toss his score out. Heh.
We got home with an hour for Katherine and I to prep ourselves for an evening out with my mom. Katherine did not appreciate being told to dress up because the evening was a surprise and she didn't know what was up. I asked for a dress, she countered with her suit, and that was that. She had no idea we were going to pick up grandma then go to my alma mater, Marymount University, for their annual alumni showing of the "Portfolio in Motion," the fashion design majors runway show.
Marymount's fashion school is small but well known in our area. The students have opportunities to travel and meet world famous designers. They are regularly finalists in various competitions, and they participate in programs like USAID's Macedonia Competitiveness Project.
Various scholarships and awards are given out, like the designer with the best men's line. Notice her outfit matches theirs.
Here's Katherine at the runway at the end of the program. She enjoys drawing and configuring new outfits for her sketches, so we're looking for positive outlets for her creativity. So along with the recent trip downtown to participate in the Anime workshop at the Sackler, we're always on the lookout for instructional programs. Unfortunately we missed the recent Japanese fashion program at the Textile Museum. There's so much going on everywhere it takes dedication to keep it all on the calendar:
Sunday started gloomy and yucky again. The farmer's market was slim, church was OK, lunch at home was decent though the sweet potatoes needed to be nuked because it would have taken another couple hours in the crockpot. It was just one of those mornings. But rather than have a full day of that, we piled the annoyed children in the car for another longish drive, this time half hour to the Spotsylvania Town Center. Part of it are brand new and empty. The movie theater and bowling alley... not open. We didn't go across the way to Funland with its indoor play park and outdoor go karts. One day we'll make a day of it over there, but Sunday we went to the mall.
Our family was split... Dippin' Dots vs. Starbucks.
For future reference, the lemon-lime sorbet is more lemon-lime ice cream, which doesn't work nearly as well.
Our day wasn't over yet, oh no it wasn't! We returned to the highway to get Katherine to youth choir practice only to hear 5 minutes into the drive that it was canceled due to the high school retreat this weekend (the same 5 minutes in that Jonathon decided he was going to explode it he didn't get to a bathroom). Hmph. We could have stayed (and at least have gotten J relieved). That was when Rebecca reminded us she had a birthday gift card and a 15% coupon for Kohl's that were burning a hole in her wallet. She spent it, and we spent more because Kohl's is awesome and I finally have a bag that's all mine and relatively grown-up looking. It makes me smile when I look at it with it's bright cheery color. There was a bag design I liked better but it only came in teal. Teal? No teal.
The girls each got new fun swimsuits for the beach. I was thrilled to see the suit options this year. Long tops, boy shorts, in abundance even with great colors and reasonable straps! Some were cut far too low in front for my girls, Becca is only 5' 2" so her torso is pretty short, still they each got one that worked nicely for them. Becca will get a new suit for Frogs too, but it's nice to have one to wear to the lake beach that's cute and isn't for racing.
We stopped into CiCi's pizza for dinner before realizing it's a buffet, which Ian actively dislikes. The kids and I enjoyed our food before heading home and calling it a night. The boys were due for showers and bed, Becca had a bit of leftover homework, Ian and I were wiped out.
Now it's off to get all the errands done we didn't do over the weekend. Groceries, we have no cat food or milk or bagels. Laundry. Again. After school Jonathon needs to get a vaccination or they'll kick him out of school at the end of the week. Tomorrow I'm supposed to be off with J and his class to the National Zoo, so let's hope the weather clears up. And somewhere in here I really need to get my geography and assignments completed, and study and sign up for the Praxis.
I seriously don't know how working moms get it all done.
Oh here's a parting shot for John and Scott.... you can thank Ian.
They look nicer than the ones we made a couple years ago, but I still think ours tasted better.
So, nyah.
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