June 17, 2012

We are enjoying our break from school.  It has been very nice and relaxing around here lately.  Nick has started taking piano lessons.  He was so excited and could not wait to start.  The first week, he happily practiced every day without me saying anything.  The second week, he decided he didn't want to practice.  Well, that didn't take very long.  Yesterday I had to make a new rule that there would be no movie or computer games until after his piano practice.  It only takes him about 10 minutes to practice what he has been assigned and it is very simple.

Funny enough, Ben has the month off of violin lessons/practice until July 9th but has been practicing more than ever on his own.  I had suggested to Nick that he wait until the week of July 9th to start piano lessons but he insisted on starting in June.  Anyway, Ben is not required to do any violin this month at all and so, funny enough, he has practiced almost every day and is making large strides in improving his playing and ability to read music.  He is really having fun with it and it is showing me that we need to give him more freedom in his day to day practice, when he starts taking lessons again.  He really relishes in being able to pick the songs he is learning so we need to give him more freedom with that going forward.

I have been very busy this month, preparing for our lessons for the year.  I am putting together a filing system where all of the paperwork we will need during the year is already ready for us.  So, hopefully, I will not have to be working every evening during the school year, making copies and printing off maps and math pages and such.  It is a lot of work now but I think it will save a lot of time during the school year and give me more free time, which would be nice.  And hopefully I won't feel so harried and like I have no free time.

The boys are playing basketball for the first time through our local YMCA.  They have had two practices so far and they had their first game on Saturday morning at 8:00am (yawn - we have been staying up later and sleeping in later lately).  They actually did pretty well in their game, considering they have only had two practices and have never played before.  Their whole team really did fairly well, although they still have much to learn, of course.

The husband has a high school reunion to attend in August so we may be making a road trip up to the Chicago area.  If we go we will use it as an opportunity for a little vacationing fun.

The husband's new practice is still going pretty well.  We are both pleased with the number of patients he has been having and are hoping and praying it will continue to pick up quickly.  He has been driving an hour and half to the place where he is working part-time and he stays over night there and works multiple days when he goes.  It will be nice when he doesn't have to do that anymore.  We miss him when he is not around.

My mom seems to be doing much better.  She has not fallen now for a number of weeks, which is the longest she has gone without a fall since last year sometime I think.  So that is very positive.  She has not had anymore vertigo episodes either, other than the two she had at our house.  She came close to having one a day or two ago but it was not nearly as bad as the first two, thankfully.  She has been staying at her house lately and seems to be doing pretty well.  We are very thankful to see her doing better these days.  It is quite a relief not to have to worry about her having bad falls.

The boys have been swimming a ton this summer, either at our local community pool or at the indoor pool at the YMCA.  They enjoy both and it is nice to have both an indoor and an outdoor option.  I took them yesterday evening and the water was really wonderful.  It was just cool enough to be refreshing but warm enough that it was pretty easy to get used to it quickly without it taking your breath away.  At first, we were the only ones there but it didn't take long before there were about a dozen kids in the pool.  The boys had a lot of fun playing with the other boys.  Our neighborhood is still small enough that you end up seeing the same people again and again so they are starting to get to know the names of some of the other kids.

They are having a parade of homes in our neighborhood this weekend so it is quite busy around here.  One of the houses in the parade of homes is next door to us and one is across the street and a little bit to the right. So our street is very busy with lots of cars parked everywhere.  The dad is working today so the boys and I decided to drive into Tulsa to eat at our favorite Chinese place (Pei Wei) as we had not eaten there in ages.  On our way home, we decided to stop and go through a couple of the houses that we had not seen yet.  One of them was particularly beautiful.  They really went all out on all of the little (and big) extras in this house.  It has a big WOW factor.  We all enjoy going through the new homes.

Last but certainly not least, the big milestone this week was that Nick lost his two bottom, front (center) teeth.   The first one fell out on Friday and the second one fell out today while we were eating lunch.  He was so happy that it was finally out because it was really bugging him and making it hard to eat.  He said "now I can really eat!". 

Well, I had better sign off for now so I can get a few things done.  Bye for now!