Busy Sunday and Now to Monday

 Happy Monday everyone! I hope everyone had a good weekend. We had a low key Saturday just staying home and getting some stuff done like laundry! LOL 

Yesterday was much busier. We took the kids out to Honey Run Waterfall in the morning as the weather was perfect! The waterfall was as low as I have ever seen it as we haven't had very much rain at all. We also enjoyed climbing some of the rocks and even climbed up to the very top of the waterfall.

After we spent time on the waterfall side of the park, we headed across the street and did one of the park trails. It was a fun way to spend a Sunday morning. 

After coming home, showering, and getting lunch we headed out to my parents' house to celebrate my dad's birthday. His birthday is actually today but being a school day/work day we celebrated yesterday. So Happy 61st birthday Dad! The kids had fun playing with their cousins. We had pizza from a local pizza place for dinner and then had cake! I wasn't going to put a lot of candles on his cake, but my mom insisted on 61 candles! LOL It was a fun afternoon/evening. 

Today, the kids the "virtual" school. Before we got started on school work, we had "gym" class by going for a 2 mile walk on the bike path.

Then we stopped by the middle school to pick up lunches and breakfasts for 3 days for Rebecca. Then we headed to the boys' school to pick theirs up. Our district is offering grab-n-go lunches and breakfasts for the days that the kids are not in school for the free/reduced lunch kids. So on Mondays those kids can get 3 lunches and 3 breakfasts for the days they aren't in the school building. After we came home the kids did their school work (well most of it as one of Rebecca's classes was having issues with their audio book playing on the platform they were using...technical issues, you have to love them? NOT!). 

This afternoon, I was supposed to start back to tutoring, however my client had a death in their family so we are pushing the start date back. Dinner is in the Crockpot-- going to do shredded beef sandwiches, coleslaw and fruit salad. I have the last load of laundry in the washer. Not sure what else we will get into tonight. Maybe I should start reading one of the many books that I have in my bedroom that I haven't read in months....

How is your Monday going? Did you do anything fun over the weekend? 

Nature Photos This Week

Happy Sunday! I saw this quote and shared it on Facebook and thought I would share it here as well! 

I hope you have time to get out and enjoy nature, if not hope you enjoy these photos that I took this week while I was out in nature! 

 August 23, 2020: Various locations around town

August 25, 2020: Various locations

August 26, 2020: Ariel-Foundation Park

August 27, 2020: Around the neighborhood

August 28, 2020: Brown Family Environmental Center and KGT

Enjoy the rest of your Sunday! 

Fired as a Gym Teacher! LOL

Happy Saturday! Today is a stay at home and clean kind of day. Or at least that is what it is supposed to be. LOL 

Part of that is because yesterday started off strong then ended up with me having a headache and spending most of the late afternoon and evening in bed. 

Yesterday morning started off with me making the kids have gym class before they started their school work for the day. We were supposed to get remnants of Hurricane Laura through here and were supposed to have some severe storms throughout the day. We headed out to the Kokosing Gap Trail to walk. We ended up walking a little over 3 miles. It was so humid out but felt good to get out and walk. I told the kids that this was their gym class. Rebecca told me that she didn't have gym class this year and Jacob and Ben both told me that I was fired as their gym teacher!😂😂

We ended our walk with looking at the flowers and finding frogs at the Brown Family Environmental Center. (I will share more pictures tomorrow in my nature post!) 

 

When we came home, the kids got to work on their school work. The boys had paper work to do as they will not get their Chromebooks until later next week. Rebecca had work to do on her Chromebook, however the school issued Chromebooks were having issues connecting :( She was able to use my laptop to complete most of her work.

In the afternoon, we had several rounds of rain come through. One of the rounds the wind picked up really fast then it stormed for about 10 minutes. I kept looking at the sky because the wind was really bad. We had storms off and on most of the evening. I ended up being in bed all evening with a headache. 

Today, I have lots on my to do list. I need to do laundry, make a cake or cupcakes to take over to my dad for his birthday, menu plan for next week using what we have at home, figure out tutoring stuff as that begins again this week, message tutoring clients, deep clean litter boxes, etc. Yet I really don't want to do anything. LOL But I should get some stuff done, so with that I will log off and say hope you have a happy Saturday! 

We bought a van!

Happy Thursday! Hope everyone is having a good one! For those in the path of Hurricane Laura, please know that I am praying for your safety and well-being! Here in Ohio, it is HOT and HUMID!! We are supposed to have pop-up storms today and then tomorrow and Saturday we are supposed to have severe/strong thunderstorms as Laura makes her way through here. We shall see what the weather is going to be like. 

Tuesday and Wednesday it was hot as well! The kids all had a good day at school on Tuesday. They were a little sad that some of their friends weren't in their classes or assigned to the same days as they were but I told them that this means they can make new friends! Yesterday, the boys had a couple of worksheets to do for their virtual work, and Rebecca didn't have any work. She told me that she does have work for tomorrow though. 

Yesterday, Bill and I spent the morning at a car lot. Last week, Bill came home and said that his van quit as he was turning onto our road. The engine just stopped. He was able to get it started again but we knew that we were on borrowed time. (We actually have been on borrowed time as he was told almost 2 years ago that it was almost dead. The main head gasket was blown, it leaks coolant, apparently in the last 6 months it has started leaking brake fluid, the rear-view mirror fell off, the heater doesn't work...in all case and purposes it is a piece of junk.) We have been talking about getting a new, used van but it was never the right time, etc...

So Bill asked me what I wanted in a van, as the plan was to get a better van with less mileage and that would be MY van and give him my current van to drive as it has almost 250,000 miles on it. I told him I needed at least 7 seats and air conditioning!  

Tuesday he did some research and found one that he said looked promising at a car lot in town. We went and test drove it. Honestly I wasn't in the mood to buy a van. I wasn't in the mood to drive a van. I wasn't looking to buy a van. Toyota Sienna's were NO where on my radar. We put half down and financed the rest. We are trying to get Bill's credit score to go up so that we can hopefully buy a house in the future. They were really slow on getting the financing done so we had to leave as Bill had to go to work and I had to get the kids from school. That night they texted Bill that the financing went through and they were trying to get us to put less down and finance more. Not happening. 

Wednesday morning we headed back over to finish the paperwork and get the van. So now for the first time in my life, we have a car payment... but we also have a nice, used van WITH air conditioning! LOL

After we got the van, we came home and told the kids to get their shoes on and we would go have a picnic. They were happy with the new van and that we got them McDonald's! LOL We ate at the park and let them throw rocks in the lake. There were a ton of geese around.

Today, the kids were in school and Bill is at work. After I took the kids to school, I took an almost 3 mile walk and saw some really cute ducks and ducklings in a yard here in town. Along with some beautiful flowers. 

After my walk, I came home and showered. Then headed off to Walmart to get a new dust pan as someone broke ours. I also wanted to get some new socks for Ben and new underwear for Jacob. Apparently our Walmart only sells boxers for boys as they didn't have briefs on the shelf or spaces for them. Guess I will have to order online. :( Then it was off to Kroger to get groceries. We were out of fresh fruit and veggies here at home, except for 2 apples and a bag of carrot chips. I stocked up on some easy meal ideas, including a frozen lasagna and chicken strips. Then it was home to put it all away. 

I then left to go pay rent and stop at the farm market to get a cantaloupe and some tomatoes. Then it was off to pick Rebecca up from school. I will say with the new hybrid model, we don't have to sit in the backup of traffic that is usually the case. It was also nice today to wait for her with the a/c blowing and not sweating to death. Then it was off to get the boys. Now Rebecca is doing homework, and the boys are playing at the dining room table. They said they have work to do for virtual day tomorrow. 

What are you guys up to today? Anyone have experience with the Toyota Sienna?