A blog about Kyle and Rebecca's family
HOW did Lydia happen to flip my desktop sideways???
It is incredibly difficult to type, or to move the mouse around when the orientation has been flipped.
Kyle figured it out when he got home from work, and it ended up being a simple combination of specific keys being pushed at the same time. So he flipped it back the right way and then went into the settings to turn that command off. 🙂
A couple of weeks ago a neighbor shared a picture of one of her kids covered in mud from about the waste down.
Last week Tyra came home in mud looking about the same as the neighbor kid did.
The other day as I was driving to the dentist I noticed some tractors out working in the fields.
At the dentist office, I noticed buds on the bushes around the building.
The backyard is all thawed except by the back fence where it gets no sunshine.
The front yard is mostly thawed aside from the areas that are in the shade most of the time, and the lawn is squishy.
There are buds on our trees.
And Chewy was covered in mud when he wanted to come inside today.
Yes sir, even though today is bleak and overcast, I do believe that spring really is around the corner. This winter has been so cold that everything has been frozen solid for so long, and now the fact that everything is thawing indicates spring is coming. And for that I will rejoice. 🙂
Yesterday Tyra didn’t come straight home like she is supposed to. She left the school with the boys, but then she went with her friend Carley, to Carley’s house. She came home with Carley to tell me that Carley’s mom said that she can come over to play. I told her that she didn’t ask me if Carley could come over, and I pointed out that she has lots of homework to get done before I even consider letting her have a friend over. Not to mention that the house is a mess because we are in the process of moving everything around now that the basement is finished. So she sent Carley home saying that she can’t play today, but maybe another day.
Today, the boys again, came in the house without Tyra. Ethan informed me that she was in the front yard. When Tyra did come in the house, she brought someone else with her, and she came to me to tell me “She wants to watch me do my homework.” I told her that I really don’t think this girl wants to watch you do your homework. Then I pointed out that Tyra still hadn’t even started her homework for the week, and that Daddy and Ethan have scouts tonight and we just have a lot going on. I told the other little girl that we will have to talk to her parents and set up a play date in advance for some other time. She said ok and then Tyra took her to the door, telling her to tell her mom that she can’t play today and not to be scared going home. Then Tyra came back to me to yell at me “I didn’t know that you would send that LITTLE girl home!” The phrase “little girl” caught my attention. I asked Tyra, “what is that girl’s name?” Tyra had no clue what this girl’s name was but says “She lives over there somewhere” as she points to the back of the house.
So at this point I’m thinking “Great, this girl’s mom is going to think I’m a snob or something because I wouldn’t let her stay and play, assuming her mom knew that she had come to my house. Also because I have no idea who she was or who her parents are, or where they live or anything like that, I CAN’T set up a play date for anytime.
I don’t know why Tyra thought that maybe I would let this girl stay and play, when I wouldn’t let Carley stay and play yesterday. Why would she think there was a difference? She still hasn’t done any homework. The house is still a mess and she isn’t helping to clean it up. Both of those were reasons I said we couldn’t have friends over, yesterday. Why would I have changed my mind for today just because she brought a different kid over? It’s like she is testing me or trying to trick me or something.
When I was a girl scout I remember participating in an activity that we called “International day”. We got together with a whole bunch of other troops and each troop represented a different country. We had a display to show things from our country and we got to dress up to represent our country and as a troop we made a treat to share, and we had passports that we got to take with us from table to table and as we got to taste the treats from all the other countries they stamped our passports. Upon becoming a leader I tried to look it up to see when it was supposed to be and found information on “World Thinking Day” which seems to be the same thing and it’s on February 22nd every year. Last year, we celebrated World Thinking day as a troop. Each of our girls got to pick a country, and they learned a little bit about that country, and came to our meeting dressed up to represent their country and they brought a snack from their country. When our service unit asked for activity suggestions, I suggested a World Thinking day activity and I described the way it was when I was a girl. (I also described the girl scout olympics, but that doesn’t really have anything to do with this post. 😉 ) This year, our service unit is put on a World Thinking Day event and it was similar to the way it was when I was a girl. Each troop represented a country, and they had treats and swaps, and a display, not many people dressed up though. The older girl scouts made passports for all the girls attending. I kind of think the passports that I had when I was a girl were better though. Mine have my picture on them and info about what troop I was in, and what country we were representing and things like that. These passports were just some folded papers inside a laminated cover that said “Passport” on the front. But there were enough pages inside to make it difficult for the staples to actually hold them all inside (Tyra’s fell apart, halfway around the room). Our troop represented Micronesia this year, because Amy’s sister lived there for awhile and had some things that we could put on display and she came to one of our meetings to tell the girls about the islands and the people that live there (Tyra and I missed that meeting though due to our impromptu trip to North Carolina).
If the service unit puts this on again next year I would like to get the girls more involved in deciding which country to represent. Amy split the girls up and set up shifts at our booth for the girls to cover. That way everyone had a turn to be at the table to answer questions about Micronesia, but that way they didn’t have to be at the booth the whole time and could check out the other booths before or after their shifts. Tyra’s shift was the second to last, so we started out by going around the room. We were just finishing our rounds when we heard them say that we would be ending in 10 minutes. I flipped out, thinking that I totally spaced the time and missed taking Tyra to our troop’s booth for her shift. But, upon looking at the time, I noticed that we still had time before her shift was about to start, and that there was supposed to still be another HOUR of the activity. Amy asked the ladies in charge about this and was told that some of the kids were starting to act up and the events director decided it was time to just end the activity since those girls had already been to every booth and were getting bored. Amy was quite angry with this decision. She had sent her daughter out with her husband to deliver as many cookies as they could, and then her husband was supposed to bring her to the World Thinking day activity for the last hour. But they were ending it an hour early and Amy’s husband hadn’t arrived with her daughter yet. I wasn’t really angry, but I was rather upset at their decision to end an hour early. I sent Amy around to the tables to quickly go get some swaps and things for her daughter, and while she was doing that, her husband and kids arrived, so I filled him in on what was going on. He wasn’t too pleased either.
They finished off the activity with a really big friendship circle and sang “Make New Friends”:
All in all, I think the event went well. And I think the three hours would have been a fine length of time if more troops had been willing to participate. My hope is, that they will want to do this again next year, and that more troops will be interested in participating. 🙂
Girl scout cookies arrived this morning! This year our troop sold nearly double the amount of cookies that we did last year. And last year we got them all to fit into the back of the van with some room to spare. But there was no way were were going to get ALL of those cookies in the back of the van this year. Kyle still removed the seats in the van so that we could use it to haul cookies home, but Amy also found a smaller trailer to borrow. We figured that last year we had two and a half pallets and so this year we were going to have at least five.
Our cookie pick up time was super early this morning. After Kyle got all the seats out of the van, and Debby was at the house, Kyle left with Ethan to go to a belt loop pow wow, and I got in the van to go meet Amy and the other parents that volunteered to come help. When we were all at Amy’s, we split up in the different cars and went to go get our cookies. At the warehouse there were LOTS of pallets of cookies. Our troop was the second troop to pick up, and we were told that our troop was the second highest selling troop and that was why we were one of the first troops on the schedule. Once our cookies were out of the way, they would have more room to sort out all the other troops cookies. 😛
They got all of our cookies sorted out and instead of making five decent sized stacks on pallets they made three really tall stacks on pallets for us to take. I was really nervous about how tall the stacks were. But the guys wrapped them in plastic and loaded all three pallets onto Amy’s borrowed trailer. It was scary to see how the tires of the trailer flattened with the weight of all those cookies loaded onto them. And we ended up only putting a few odd cases into the van because there weren’t enough to make another full layer on the tops of the pallets.
I followed the truck that was pulling the trailer home, so I could watch to make sure the cookies and trailer were ok. At one point we did have to pull over and check how well the cookies were tied down because we started loosing the cardboard pieces that were supposed to be there to keep the ties from smashing the boxes of cookies. But all seemed to be ok and we got to Amy’s house and started sorting out the cookies by what each girl needed.
I came home after all the cookies had been picked up, and it had snowed a lot while Kyle and I were both away, so I shoveled the driveway before trying to park the van. Kyle and Ethan got home while I was shoveling the driveway. After we parked the van and the car we unloaded all the cookies, and here is the pile of cookies that Tyra sold this year. She sold 624 boxes during the pre-sale this year:
That isn’t the greatest view of them, but considering the hallway was the only clear enough space that we had to stack them up, that was where they were put. 🙂