Weekly Happenings: This last week was pretty laid back. We mostly hung around the house, with the occasional play date and park visit mixed in. Monday night, we started out for the library to switch out books. As we got out to the highway, the weather did a 180. The wind was blowing like crazy, it started pouring, and then started hailing. Paul quickly told me to find a large tree to park under, to protect the car from the brunt of the storm (the hail wasn’t as large as a couple of weeks ago, but it was still large enough to potentially do damage). Once the storm passed, we continued on our way. Fun adventures in Texas!
The Weekly Weather: We had a few more storms move through in addition to the one on Monday. The news warned of the possibility of them being very severe, with the possibility of large hail. Luckily, that didn’t happen (at least in our area). It just poured buckets and buckets of rain. One storm did produce a funnel cloud just a few miles from our house, but thankfully it didn’t touch down and turn into an actual tornado. We don’t have tornado sirens in San Antonio, so we have to rely on the news stations to release tornado warnings and watches. This has definitely been the most volatile spring we’ve experienced since moving out here!
What Paul’s Been Up To: Not too much out of the ordinary. He’s plugging away with school, work, and Scouts. He’s also getting ready for his quickly-approaching trip to DC to accept his award for Library Technician of the Year.
What Sarah’s Been Up To: As I alluded to in the title, I did quite a bit of organizing. At Paul’s suggestion, I put some work into making Joseph’s snacks in the pantry and fridge a bit more accessible for him to get on his own, without needing my help. It’s been great! While he knows that he still needs permission to get a snack, he loves the independent feeling it gives him to get it himself. I also went out with some of my girlfriends for shaved ice one night and attended a baby shower another night.
What Joseph’s Been Up To: Not too much out of the ordinary for him, either. Playing around the house and yard (when the weather permitted), hanging out with friends, etc. Tomorrow is the day I go to register him for pre-K at the elementary school. I believe the program starts with the new school year. It’s hard to believe that we’re already at this point!
This Week in Pictures:
Paul and Joseph created a robot named Robot Sam. Joseph was just a little excited. Can you tell? 🙂Sweet snuggles with the boy……and back to reality. 😉Looking for birds in the front yard.The bottom shelf of the pantry is dedicated to Joseph snacks. This is the before.This is the after. I purchased a bin, divided the snacks into smaller bags, and put them in easy reach for him.I also divided up the string cheese and pickles; two of his other favorite treats.I finally got the other drawers in the fridge organized, too. One for fruits and veggies and the other for meat (and random condiment packets, since I couldn’t figure out where else to put them, hahaha).Joseph and I made a trip out to Trader Joe’s for some snacks. It was a fun trip. 🙂A dear friend gave me some basil, with the roots still attached, in a jar of water. I just transplanted it into a pot. I’m sort of proud of myself, hahaha. Oh, and if you’re wondering about the piles of sticks and rocks…that’s Joseph’s collection…and yes, he keeps track of each and every one of them. 😀Random picture of the week: my boots. I’ve had these for a year and a half, have worn them A LOT (essentially every day during this fall/winter and the previous fall/winter and then tons of times in-between), and they still look practically new…not to mention they are the most comfortable pair of shoes I own. 🙂 Totally worth the investment!
Weekly Happenings: I’m getting a head-start on the blog today. This is the first day of us meeting in our new church building and we’re switching from 11:00 to 1:00 services. I figured if I waited until after we got home from church and had dinner (since those two will happen almost back-to-back), I just might be too tired to do it, so I’m pounding it out now. 🙂 This past week was pretty fun (especially for Joseph). He had a few play dates, which were fun as usual, but the big fun thing was the last session for his story time at the library. Since they’ve been focusing on a different letter of the alphabet, it was inevitable that they would eventually reach “Z”. After they did so, they had a “graduation” party, which consisted of reading a couple of stories, parading around the library wearing “graduation”caps, receiving a completion certificate, eating snacks, and making a “Chicka Chicka Boom Boom” (an alphabet-themed story that is popular with this age of children) hat. Joseph had a blast! Oh, and he also got to attend a birthday party for one of his friends at Chuck E. Cheese, which he enjoyed immensely. I was relieved that it wasn’t super-crowded and crazy, hahaha. The big thing for Paul and me this past week was deciding to replace one of our TVs that was on its way out (about a month ago, the picture started getting “wobbly” on one side and was slowly spreading to the rest of the TV). Since the Roku Box (streaming device) we had attached to that TV was also acting up (freezing and restarting itself), Paul decided it would be most cost efficient (and admittedly rather cool) to purchase a Roku TV (a TV with the Roku Box essentially integrated into it). It’s been working great!
The Weekly Weather: It’s been quite a bit less…eventful than the previous week, for which I am grateful. I think I’d be fine if we just had the one crazy hail storm this year and no additional ones. 😉 We did have a few good-sized thunderstorms (one of which came rolling in rather early in the morning, causing Joseph to wake up scared and wanting to snuggle in bed with us while it passed) that dumped quite a bit of rain on us, but no damage from it, thankfully.
What Paul’s Been Up To: He’s started back with a new semester for school, so he’s added homework back into his daily regimen (along with work, Scouts, and taking care of the house and yards). He’s also working on finalizing the details of his trip to DC which will happen mid-May.
What Sarah’s Been Up To: I’ve been just plugging away, teaching piano, keeping Joseph entertained, and making sure he gets his antibiotics (from his bout with strep) and probiotics (to combat the effects of the antibiotics). I did get to go to a book club meeting (which was fun, as always) and a movie night at a friend’s house (again, a lot of fun).
What Joseph’s Been Up To: He’s pretty much returned to his happy-go-lucky normal self (I’m so grateful for antibiotics!). As mentioned before, he enjoyed the last session of story time, the birthday party, and the play dates. He was also practically beside himself when the new TV showed up (because of all of the protective packaging, it was a rather large box, ha.). It was delivered on Wednesday morning and he kept asking when Paul was going to get home in order to unpack it and get it all set up. He’s totally his Daddy’s boy when it comes to enjoying new electronics. 😉
This Week in Pictures:
Pretending to be Link from Legend of Zelda.Reading to one of his best buddies.Getting ready to parade around the library.Wearing his “Chicka Chicka Boom Boom” hat.Showing off his completion certificate.Joseph found his LEGO car and decided that he’d make his LEGO guy into Toad from Mario Kart.Paul took this picture. With three bird feeders (four, if you count the hummingbird feeder, even though none of these birds are hummingbirds) in our yard, this is what it looks like almost every day.Waiting for food at Bobby J’s (one of our favorite burger places).Our cherry tomatoes are working on getting ripe!We’ve got some good-sized tomatoes on the other two plants as well. I’m so grateful the hail didn’t hurt them!Finally, our pumpkin plant sprouted! We’ll plant it outside once it gets a bit bigger (Paul put it in one of those pots that can just be planted in the ground). I love that the seed is still attached to the seedling. It reminds me that small things often have huge potential.Swinging away.Playing tag with Daddy. I’m so grateful for all the hard work Paul has done to make this a fun back yard. I do my small part (weeding and watering the gardens), but he definitely has the brunt of the yard work (not to mention the fact that Joseph is now firmly convinced that Daddy can build ANYTHING…like his little fort there in the back that he still loves to play in even though Paul built it probably a year or longer ago).
Weekly Happenings: Not too much out of the ordinary happened this past week. We had story time, play dates, grocery shopping, etc.. Paul had work and scouts (I believe he starts his next semester this week). On Friday night, Paul went to an Introduction to Outdoor Leadership Skills overnight camp out, where he and other Scout leaders learned more about the different skills to teach the boys on camp outs. Joseph and I fended pretty well for ourselves except for the fact that yesterday morning he woke up with a high fever, saying that his throat hurt. Since strep has been going around, I went ahead and took him in to urgent care. Sure enough, he’s got it. So, we’ve got some antibiotics for him and he’s well on the road to recovery.
The Weekly Weather: We had a major storm come through on Tuesday night that dropped baseball-softball sized hail. Yup, you read that correctly. Luckily, it seems like our house is okay (though we still need to take a look at the roof to make sure we didn’t miss anything). Some of my friends have major damage to their homes and there are a lot of cars with hail damage (luckily ours were both in the garage). Some businesses in Helotes (the town near us) sustained major damage when the hail came crashing through their skylights, making it rain not just water, but glass as well, onto unsuspecting shoppers. The rest of the week after that was sunny with a few storms here and there. We’re supposed to get thunderstorms all this next week, so it’ll be interesting to see what transpires. That’s spring in South Texas!
What Paul’s Been Up To: As mentioned before, not too much out of the ordinary. Work, scouts, and getting ready for another semester of school.
What Sarah’s Been Up To: Not too much on my front, either. I did play my flute in church today. It was an arrangement of “Be Still My Soul” that was written for piano and two violins (which is easy to have flutes play, as long as the notes don’t go too low, and if they do, it’s easy to switch out for a different note). It was me, a friend of mine playing the second flute/violin part, and our dear, trusted accompanist (also a dear friend). It turned out beautiful!
What Joseph’s Been Up To: He has been his normal, crazy self, for the most part. He slowed down a bit yesterday, when he was feeling sick, but now that the antibiotics are kicking in, he’s feeling quite a bit better. He did rather well at the doctor’s yesterday. He willingly opened his mouth for the rapid strep test (which, I think, is a first for him…usually the nurse has to practically pry his mouth open). While waiting for the doctor, the nurse gave him this special paper and a plastic “pen” kind of shaped like a small butter knife that made marks on the special paper. That kept him occupied the entire time we were waiting for the doctor, and he got to keep it, which made it even better. He also got to pick a toy from the treasure chest at the end (he chose a green jump rope). I appreciate the fact that this urgent care recognizes the fact that kids might be nervous about being at a doctor that is different than their regular one and does their best to put them at ease. I’m also grateful that there are stand alone urgent cares (as opposed to only be attached to large hospitals). Because we have quite a few in our area, they are rarely crowded. It’s not something that I experienced in CA. One funny story about Joseph: earlier last week I was getting ready to help him brush his teeth and he was kind of dancing/wiggling around on his steps in front of the sink. Consequently, his nose ran into the toothbrush I was holding, leaving a bit of bright blue toothpaste on the tip of his nose. I said, “Oops! You’ve got a blue nose!” He answered back, laughing, “Yeah! Like ‘BLUEdolph!'” I burst out laughing, which made him laugh harder. What four-year-old can whip out a different version of a popular name to suit the situation? Joseph can, that’s for sure!
This Week in Pictures:
Joseph created Bowser’s castle (from Mario Brothers) out of his Mega Blocks.The T-Rex was clearly Bowser. The Easter egg is a Yoshi egg. I love his imagination!This is a hailstone that Paul went out and grabbed from our yard…half an hour after the storm was over…so imagine how big it was when it first fell! They were crazily shaped, too. Not spherical at all. They were all pokey and jagged.Paul put up Joseph’s bird feeder and filled it up (as well as our other bird feeder). We’ve had so many birds in our yard!We have mostly smaller birds, but we do have a few different varieties of doves that also frequent the feeders.Paul’s set up for his overnighter…that little one-man tent is rather handy.They were camping in a field near the Scout offices, so there are still homes nearby. He spotted this deer.It was just hanging out by somebody’s house. It reminds me that while this part of San Antonio is by no means “country”, it is a bit more rural than the heart of the city, for sure.The projected forecast for this next week. Wee…fun! Hopefully it’s just thunderstorms and no more hail of Biblical proportions (oh, and tornadoes…please, no tornadoes)!
