Darr Family Blog – Page 39 – The place to follow the Darr Family

The Last Bit of School, A Convention, and a Bit of the Plague (Boo)

This last week saw the last few days of school (full of pajama parties, class parties, movie watching, and extra recess…I wonder if the teachers were done, too, haha), Paul getting home from his political convention (and testing positive for covid…boo), and the rest of us working with him to try to not get it. He knew there was a possibility of him having it because he started feeling sick while he and two friends were driving home from Reno and one of his car mates tested positive. He walked into the house with his mask on, has been staying out in his office (just coming in to shower, brush his teeth, and use the restroom), and we all wear masks when in the same area. His symptoms haven’t been extreme (he said it feels like a bad head cold…so congestion, sore throat, headache, coughing, etc.), so we’re grateful for that, at least. So far, the rest of us haven’t exhibited any symptoms, so fingers crossed that we won’t end up with it. We’ve been staying home just to be safe (well, I’ve gone out a couple of times, but I’ve worn my mask just to be extra careful). It’s not how we anticipated kicking off summer break, but it is what it is and we’ll make it through. 🙂

I discovered this tasty treat. It’s amazing how different it tastes just by switching out high fructose corn syrup for sugar.

Abigail’s tent was tearing at the corners. I quickly realized that the “fabric” was not conducive to needle and thread (the thread would tear right through it as I pulled the tear closed), so I opted to put patches on instead. I even found some fabric with a cute owl on it to use.

Dressed up in Paul’s old Army uniform, playing with the bear that he got for me when he was in basic training.

She was fascinated by the fact that the different measuring cups made different sounds.

I finally decided to let her use a cup without a lid (the lidded cups are so convenient, y’all). She did have one minor spill, but it was easy to clean up.

Joseph let her borrow one of his favorite stuffed animals, this snake (it’s actually a puppet). She was pretending it was giving her a hug. I decided tonight was not the night to talk about how constrictors eat their prey. 🤣

Paul in front of Lake Mead (on their drive home from the convention).

Joseph and his teacher, Mrs. Rodriguez. He loved how much she loved Harry Potter (her room was all decked out in Harry Potter decor). He really enjoyed being in her class this year.

Aaaaalllll the pre-teen vibes happening here: comfy clothes, checking out stuff on his phone, and having cereal and milk for lunch. 😀

Abigail’s awards ceremony. This is her and her teacher, Ms. Rodriguez (yup…both kids’ teachers had the same last name…I managed, barely, to never mix the two up when dealing with messages). Abigail really liked having her as a teacher.

Abigail spotted this photo booth picture taking spot in the hallway and had to try it out.

I love when the sky is full of cotton ball clouds!

Last day of school! Both kids had pajama day, so that made getting dressed easy, haha.

Boooooooooooooo. 0 out of 5 stars…do NOT recommend…my poor, sweet husband! Fingers crossed that all of our efforts combined will help the rest of us to not get it!

Fun Times, Discoveries, and Improvements Abound

This past week was full of fun times (mainly for the kids who enjoyed their last full week of school thanks to fun activities planned by their teachers…they have Monday off for Memorial Day and then only have three days of school left after that), fun discoveries (of the insect and reptile variety), and fun improvements.

I’ve discovered that my favorite part of my daily walk/run is walking through this part of the park in our subdivision. The trees are my favorite!

This was a fun discovery: this is apparently a moth called a flannel moth (I have an app on my phone that helps identify insects). He was about the size of the top half of my thumb and hung out on the side of our house for a couple of days.

I’m so grateful for this beautiful home that we live in!

This was a fun game to watch. I was afraid there would be tears if she lost, but as luck would have it, Paul went bankrupt first. When Abigail realized she won, she said, “Yay, yay, yay! Oh, but it’s okay…maybe you can win next time!” In addition to trying to get her to be graceful about losing, we’ve also worked on having her try to be a graceful winner. It’s nice when that shows.

This was a fun experiment with water, orange juice, pectin, sugar, and orange zest…

It was quite tasty! I put the half jar right into the fridge and the two full jars eventually went into the freezer.

I probably took ten pictures…this was the least blurry. She’s always on the move!

This was the day after I saw the flannel moth. We went back to check to see if it was still there. Not only was it still there, but there was another one hanging out with it! They were both gone the next morning.

Paul got this picture of the anole. I think it’s cool that he was able to get a picture of it while it had its dewlap flared out.

She told me she wants to be a puppy doctor when she grows up.

This was a funny discovery. Last week, Paul spread some of our compost onto bare spots in our yard to propagate grass growth. He had mentioned that he had seen stuff sprouting from it, but I hadn’t had a chance to see anything yet. Well, a couple of mornings after a big overnight thunderstorm, I went out to the front yard and discovered probably close to ten of these plants. My plant app said it was a gourd of some type. I was perplexed. I started pulling them out and noticed that one of them still had a seed present. It was a pumpkin seed! I had forgotten all about our Halloween pumpkins! 😀

Nothing like a nice dip in fresh water on a hot day (I change the water out every day).

She made sure the carnivores and herbivores were separated and that they had appropriate food to eat. At first she was concerned there would’t be enough lettuce for the herbivores, but then she decided the three stegosauri could share the head of lettuce. She also insisted that they say a blessing on their food.

One fun improvement: The grouping to the right of the bulletin board used to be the two sea turtle pictures and a wood anchor decoration.

I decided I wanted something different than the anchor and was happy to find this white sea turtle. I think it fits better with the decor than the anchor did.

I also decided that I was going to slightly rearrange how some of the stuff in the loft was organized. I pushed the couch all the way to the wall (before, the Mickey table was between the couch and the wall). I also moved Abigail’s kitchen to a different wall (I put it where the car garage was before, so I swapped the placement of those two things), and moved her tent farther out of the corner (it has a “skylight” that she likes to pop her head out of and I was always afraid that she’s bonk her head on the corner of the white cabinet).

The kitchen’s new home. I also moved the Mickey table to the outside of the couch.

Joseph had Primary activities on Thursday, so Abigail and I went to Freddy’s to get frozen chocolate custard with peanut butter sauce as a treat.

Freddy’s has really good fry sauce (in fact, it’s the only fast food place around here that offers it)…and they started bottling it! When I bought it, Abigail was concerned that I would put it on her frozen custard. I reassured her that I would wait and use it for other stuff.

She wanted to pretend that she had a paper route and was ticked that I wouldn’t let her ride her bike inside. I convinced her to pretend that she was part of the Pony Express instead. She seemed pleased enough with the change of plans.

My tennis shoes were wearing out and I felt like before spending good money on a new set, I really ought to go to an actual shoe store and have them do a foot analysis (where they watch you walk and they have you stand on a special board that shows how you distribute your weight along with seeing how your arches are). It was nice getting one-on-one service where the salesperson took the time to do that and was able to pull out just the right type of shoe for me to try on. Here are my new running shoes. They are called Cloudrunners and they feel so good on my feet!

This is the happy face of a girl whose feet (and knees…and hips) didn’t take a pounding when she ran.

This was my stats from my walk/run last week…

And these are my stats from last night. I managed to shave off an entire minute off of my time! The right shoes really do make a difference!

Abigail drew this at school and her teacher labeled things after asking Abigail to tell her about the picture. I wish I had a front-row seat to whatever is going on in her head! It seems like quite the entertaining place!

It was fun to come downstairs after a quick nap and see this happening.

We tried out a new frozen custard place.

It was pretty tasty! Both kids approved,which doesn’t always happen. 😂

Peek-a-Boo!

I had several peek-a-boo moments pop up in my pictures this past week. I’ve been trying to be more observant of little things around me and it’s been nice to slow down and take a look around. The kids have been enjoying fun activities at school as the school year is starting to wrap up (we’ve only got two weeks left before summer vacation starts. It’s crazy that the year has just flown by like it has!