Roughing it

Well, we are having a bit of a "Survivor" experience in our own house. Thursday evening we got home from running some errands to find that we had no water. Mark called a friend a few blocks away and they were without water too. I called a neighbor and they too were without water. By this time, I decided we needed further investigation and checked our local news website. Seems that there was a watermain break that was leaving 3,000 customers without water for the night. The city hoped to give us water by 7 a.m. the next morning. Sure enough they actually had it on by 6:30 a.m. but now we were under a boil water advisory. Now we are told that the advisory will last at least through the weekend and possibly longer. We are glad to have the water back for bathing and flushing but the everyone is still struggling with not using the water to brush teeth or drink. I keep boiling water and trying to keep a full pitcher in the fridge but that just adds to the crazy schedule.
I mentioned lots of things coming up in our schedule and haven't gotten back to writing about them. Now we are actually part way through them. Rachel started volleyball try-outs last week. She has them again this week through Wednesday before she finds out if she makes a team. They have 2 teams and there are 12 girls per team. Right now, there are only 31 trying out so she has a pretty good chance, I think. But this also means someone going back out to the school at 5:30 to pick her up after practice. The good news though is that our neighbor girl that rides with us to the school and a friend from church are all trying out too so we have broken up the extra trips. Now, we sort of hope that either they all make it or none of them do to keep the trips to a minimum.
Rachel didn't quite get all the info right on the AWANA grand prix cars. We did have pit day a couple of weeks ago but we are having another one next weekend to finish them up so we are still open to more suggestions if anyone has any for us. Mark even made a car this year since we are working with the program. Rachel's is going to look like a offering plate and she is using real money for the weights. Stephen made is basically a slim triangle painted red. He plans to put a white Coke symbol on the front of it. I don't think there is any question what Mark's looks like for anyone that knows his love of Nascar. Rachel is really hoping for a trophy or ribbon this year since it is her last chance. I think she might make best design if nothing else.
The kids had a 1/2 day of school yesterday since it was the end of the marking period. Joshua went on his second field trip. This one to the local children's museum. Then in the afternoon, there was tubing at a place called Pando Ski Area. It was sponsored by the school although no school supervision was provided. It was for 3rd through 8th graders so Joshua mainly got to watch. It was a beautiful day for it! Boy do these guys have it easy! The worst part of going sledding was always the trip back up the hill. Now, they just attach a tow rope to the line and sit back while they are pulled to the top of the hill again! It looked like lots of fun! There were even some teachers that joined in but only towards the end since they had to stay at school till all their grades were in the computer.
Stephen's class is in the middle of a series of water safety lessons. Rachel never had the opportunity to take these but I am really glad Stephen is. Each 4th grade class takes turns being driven to a pool of another school system and spending an afternoon learning water safety. They did it back in second grade too so this is more advanced. There are 5 classes and they have done 3. This week they even have to take an extra set of clothes to get wet and they will be jumping in fully dressed to work on how to stay afloat using the clothes. I used to teach the same thing back in Alpena only we only demonstrated and didn't have the kids do it too.
We also have the AWANA games that Stephen and Rachel both want to be part of. Practices are twice a week starting the end of Feb. and running through March. The area games are on a Saturday at the end of March. Last year is about the only year, I don't think that our team has placed with Rachel on the team. This year, we hope to have enough to take 2 teams to the area competition which would give Stephen a better shot of making the team. Last year he was an alternate and everyone showed up so he didn't get to compete.
Mark's also swamped at work. They had their FNI (finance) person quit at the first of the year and the bosses are dragging their feet at hiring another person. Now they are into boat show season and wondering why Mark can't keep up. He is really frustrated because the main show he will have to spend the entire show at is Daytona 500 weekend.
We have our car back! It is running good. It needs an alignment yet but other than that it looks and runs good. Our friend was able to get it going for just $450 in parts which leaves enough from the $500 to cover the alignment. Our next car adventure is to get heat in the van again especially now that the garage door is broke so we can't keep it in the garage at night and no heat means no help clearing windows.
Well, I have to get these kids motivated around here. We played yesterday, now everyone has homework to do today but while I'm at the computer they don't think they have to do it.

Tips

I need tips. Rachel here, and I am about to make a Grand Prix Car. I remember that I need to cut it so that it looks like upside down car. I can't remember were you put the weights. If you have any tips please tell me. I need them by tomrrow morning. Hope to hear from you Uncle Nate ir any one.

Back to school

The kids are finally back to school and we are working back into a routine. I'm so glad. There is always so much to do and so little time to do it and I seem to get everything done faster when I am doing it solo. With them back to school, I can at least focus on projects better and think through them more. I am glad that Rachel blogged during the break but she left quite a bit out so I'll try to bring you up to speed.
We survived all the programs during December. I think that I had previously mentioned 3, I don't remember putting anything about the 4th which was a puppet program that both Rachel & Stephen were part of. Rachel has been part of the church puppet team for almost a year now and Stephen decided to join in October or November. The team performed on Wed. Dec. 20 for our AWANA program. I'm told they did well. I was busy cutting cakes and didn't get to see the performance. It's on tape though and I'll watch it later.
Also, Rachel failed to mention that after the band concert the director had each child perform a piece in class. He then assigned them "seats" and Rachel is the second seat for the saxophones. Not bad since most of them have been on that instrument for 2 years and she just went to it in Sept.
For those that did hear, I had quite a surprise for my birthday. Dad managed to find out what Meijer I'm decorating cakes at (There are only about 8 in our area.) and called and talked to my manager. He placed an order and paid for it over the phone. I was a bit surprised when the main decorator handed me an order and it specified that I was to decorate it. I sort of thought maybe someone from church wanted me to look good to my manager. Then I looked at the name (Roger) and it had a 569 area code and it was a Pooh cake. I figured out it was for me by then but then I was wondering if he was coming to pick it up! He didn't but I got paid to decorate my own birthday cake this year!
For Rachel's birthday, we went to see the Santa Clause 3 on Saturday the 23rd. She brought 2 friends from school and all had a good time. She didn't like the idea of a store bought cake even if I did decorate it so I had to do hers at home.
We had very pleasant, relatively quiet, holidays. We were right here and didn't even have any family in. Usually part of Mark's family will come for New Year's but that didn't happen this year. We were so busy with things this fall that we didn't go anywhere except his family party for the day of the 16th. For New Year's Eve, we went to a church family's home and played games till the ball dropped. We then hurried home as I had to be at work at 7 a.m. on the first!
As for the car incident, we have been able to get $500 from the girl that hit us! She didn't have insurance so we really didn't think we would get anything without a trip to small claims court. It took some doing but I was finally able to reach her by phone on 1/3. She claims that her boyfriend was to have paid it and she didn't know that he hadn't. Anyway, I told her that all we were wanting was the $500 we would have gotten from her insurance company if she had had insurance. She agreed and came over with a personal money order the very same day! This should cover the parts needed and so we have moved the car to a friend's house who has a barn to work in. He also has a son & son-in-law to lend him a hand on the repairs. He's also the same one who has loaned us his Neon to use until our car is back up and running!
We were also able to go see Charlotte's Web over the holidays thanks to Nate. The movie was really cute and we all enjoyed it. Since we were at the theater the weekend before for Rachel's birthday, I picked up the tickets without the kids knowing it. I then put them in a popcorn bucket under the Christmas tree with the card that Nate had sent. After most of the presents were open, they saw the bucket and couldn't figure out what it was doing under the tree. As Stephen picked it up, he saw the tickets and the whole family was excited. They just couldn't figure out how Uncle Nate had gotten tickets for our theater all the way from Utah.
Our Christmas is all packed up just not put away yet. It is hard to do things in our attic after dark and Mark fell asleep Sunday afternoon while I was at work so the tubs are still in the living room. Of course, I have found several more items that needed put in the tubs since Sunday so I guess it isn't all bad.
We have a lot of things coming up so maybe I'll try to make my next post a look ahead but that is all the time I have for now. Time to pick up the kids.

I Have Been Part Of HISTORY!!!!!!!!!!!!

This is Rachel here and I have been of HISTORY!!!!!!! We waited 3 whole hours to do a 30 sec. thing. But I guess if I if I was part of history ok it was fine. Most of the time I had a hold of the tail of the wolverine on the back of Daddy's sweatshirt. It was really crowded in there. I hope that if I do something like that every again that they make it so that we are in a single file line! My legs still hurt from that night.

I just got back from seeing the movie Night In The Museum. It was sssooooooooooooooooooooo
funny! I hope that we can own it on DVD when it comes out. You should go see it for yourself.

Hope to type soon!

History

Part of our family is proudly being part of history. Mark, Rachel, & Stephen are in line with thousands of other people to view the casket of former President Gerald Ford down at his presidential museum in downtown GR. I am home with Joshua as we felt him too young to understand and appreciate the experience (not to mention standing in a long line of people for who knows how long). If you want to see the news from our local perspective, we use www.woodtv.com. There is a lot of pride as Ford was a well-loved local hero!
It has been interesting to find out how the details have been worked through for many years (basically since he left office). We knew the city was wanting to pretty things up a bit because we would eventually be in the national spotlight, but we didn't know just how extensive the pre-planning was. This has been a really touching experience for us. Maybe I can get one of the kids to blog more about the actual experience tomorrow.

The New Year!

It is me again, Rachel. Mom and Dad are sleepping so I guess I should type. Stephen has been in front of the tv waiting for the Michigan vs. USC at 4:30, I think?

I am glad to say that I sayed up until 1:30 this morning. It was fun last night. We were invited to go to our babysitter's parent's house. We played a lot of fun games, ate some really good food, watch at lest 1 movie, and watch the ball drop in New York! I was hoping to stay up later but oh well.

Hope to type again soon for I have nothing elas to write about.