It's Friday!

The end of the week has arrived and we've made it through another week! I'm cautiously optimistic that this is the end of the major homework push for the kids. JR's game last night was rained out, so we had a more relaxing evening. We read some new books I'd bought for the kids about summer, and that made us even more ready for the school year to end! Tonight JC has group ballet pictures to be taken, and then the only other plan we have for the weekend is an evening out with friends tomorrow evening (kid free!). We are hoping to make it to church tomorrow evening before that so we can sleep in and just hang out on Sunday. It's supposed to be a beautiful day, and in addition to getting my flowers planted, I would love to be able to have a picnic or some other fun activity with the kids.

We've also learned that my in-laws are coming next week! I was really hoping they would come after we asked them to earlier in the week. They will get to see each child play ball, as well as attend a special lunch at school with JR. I'm really looking forward to seeing them. I'm grateful for so much fun in life!

A/C

I finally broke down yesterday and turned on the a/c. I always set my target date as June 1, but we were close enough. It wasn't so much the heat that I couldn't handle, it was the humidity. Can't stand humidity. This evening, however, I will be turning it back off and enjoying a beautiful spring like day tomorrow!

Fries with that?

When we were up at my dad's cottage this weekend, he took us over to a new restaurant. It had only been opened a few months, and Dad had been there already so we all decided to try it out. I wasn't terribly hungry and was looking for a lighter meal so I checked out the salads. I knew they were not from around here when I saw that they put french fries on the salads. I did however, know that they must be from steel country because that is the way they make salads there, and since my husband is from there he thinks that is the way that salads should be made. It turns out that they are from Youngstown, OH, very close to the PA region where these salads began. My husband was so excited and couldn't wait. I, on the other hand, continued to ask for my fries on the side!

Unwinding

Yesterday was a day to just relax and unwind in our house. My husband and oldest son participated in the Memorial Day ceremony at the park and cemetery here in town. Then they came home and we really just hung out around the house. I have been doing some clerical work for the office where I used to work (and my dad still does) so I spent several hours doing that yesterday and watching the Reds game. The kids played in the slip-n-slide and had a friend over. My husband dozed most of the afternoon. It was nice that we had hosted everyone Saturday so the house was still clean and we didn't have anything we really felt we had to get done. It was nice that way. JC is on a field trip today and she's excited about that. The sun is out right now, but they are calling for storms later today, and in fact it will be that way all week. We'll just have to see about games this week!

A day with family

We've had a wonderful weekend. Our gathering Saturday evening was nice and we enjoyed seeing friends. Yesterday was such a nice day, full of family! We began the day having brunch with my mother, sister, aunt, grandmother, a cousin, her husband and three kids, and another cousin. It's a family tradition every Sunday the weekend of Memorial Day, after placing flowers at relatives' tombstones. We did the cemetery portion of the trip last year, and decided to just meet for brunch this year. My cousin with the kids does the same thing and everyone understands. Following the meal, we headed up to my Dad's cottage at the lake and spent the day with my Dad. It is a day full of memories that I know we'll never forget. My father has a chronic lung condition, and is on oxygen 24/7. We know that he doesn't have much time left here with us, but Dad still works every day and does everything that he can to enjoy his life while he can. I think he's often worried that an extended time with the kids will just wear him out, but yesterday seemed to be the exact opposite. He absolutely loved getting to spend the entire day with the kids, and they loved getting to spend it with him. There were lots of golf cart rides, ice cream cones, dinner out, and badminton games. Dad just loved watching everyone have fun. I'm sure he's worn out today, but it was a great day full of many memories for us to take with us forever.

Weekend plans

We are having a fun weekend here. Last evening my husband and JR went to the Reds game. It was fireworks night and the Reds won...sounds like a perfect evening. I've spent all day yesterday and today cleaning the house for a cook-out we are having this evening. I'm looking forward to reconnecting with some friends we haven't seen in a while, as well as visiting with some I see regularly. Tomorrow morning is brunch with extended family, and then we are headed to my dad's cottage near the lake to spend the rest of the day. Usually my dad prefers to let us have our "own space" when we are there, but he'll be there with us tomorrow. I'm very excited about that! We'll come home late (as late as I can make it) tomorrow evening, then JR will be in the Memorial Day parade Monday morning. Following the ceremony at the cemetery, we will spend Monday just relaxing. Possibly head to the pool here in town, but nothing stressful or work related. Hope everyone has a great weekend!

School work

This morning, I was reading a blog that I read often and this writer, a stay-at-home mom to 10 (yes, you read correctly, ten), was thrilled and whoo-hooing that school was out for the summer. In the comments section someone else was cheering right along with her, while another mom wrote that she couldn't cheer yet because they still had three days next week, but she was pretty sure that she was done with homework. This made me really stop and think. She was done with homework? Isn't that the job for the kids? I know exactly what she means though. Right now my youngest, a preschooler, is sitting here doing his homework for the weekend. I have yet to meet a preschooler who could be responsible for his/her own homework, so that makes the responsibility mine. My daughter has nightly math homework, weekly spelling words, and a weekly reading log. My son has weekly spelling words, a weekly book report, a weekly geography worksheet, and nightly math homework. While the older two are generally responsible kids, they are still awfully young to be taking on the responsibility of that much homework by themselves. My oldest hasn't yet mastered time management (go figure, some adults haven't either!) so unless I urge him on Monday to begin the weekly assignments, everything gets pushed to Thursday. That wouldn't be a problem, but there isn't nearly enough time on Thursdays to accomplish everything. We've made great progress through the year though, and he pretty much knows that school work comes before everything else he would rather be doing at home. Why are all of these stay-at-home moms, myself included, so excited about the end of the school year? I am fairly certain that my mother and women of her generation felt more dread than joy at the end of the school year. It meant the kids were home ALL DAY, EVERY DAY! Is my generation more loving and patient? Ha, ha, ha, ha, uhm, no that's not it. I think it is simply that school is so much more stressful than when I was a student. And if I'm feeling the stress, my goodness, what are the kids feeling? I know that much of what happens in schools today, and thusly the homework, is necessary because of the state standards. I just worry that kids don't really get to enjoy being kids. I worry, because this is supposed to be the carefree, stressLESS part of their lives. If they don't get to enjoy it now, when?