A Slow Fast Month

Slow in news, but fast moving month. Every day ends up feeling very busy, probably because this homework business has been so consuming to us. haha. The whole family more or less sits around every night and waits for Christian to finish his homework before we watch either Jeopardy or Alone, the survivor show on Hulu....

Bday celebration for Claira at the Rock Gym in Kennewick

Bday celebration for AJ in her backyard in some nice sunny weather for late in September

Discovering shuffleboard at MOD pizza by the mall

I've Post-It'd quite a few recipes in "A Good Bake" and started making them. So far I like all of the items a lot! These are cardamom cinnamon rolls. Kind of work-intensive (lots of rising periods) but not too bad.

Olin's lovely ombre'd embroidery. I can exactly see his penmanship.

Booster! Dae and I got our Pfizer boosters at Walgreen's this past week

Very exciting package arrived in the form of one iFit magnet for completing September's challenge. Basically you complete, for example, 12 workouts in a series in a month and you get to choose a magnet. It's surprisingly compelling!

Went up immediately

Great photo evidence of Dae's (over)reaction to any kind of vaccine. Dae was convinced he was having chills and emerged wearing these Christmas PJ's (have not seen him wear these Christmas PJ's except for one time at my work Christmas party) and sweatshirt. He had also taken a prophylactic Aleve. I was fine, no Aleve. Last week, he came home and goes "oh my arm is so sore - I got the flu shot today!" and I was like "weird, I got the flu shot today too and I'm totally fine".... He also said Sung slept the entire day after his booster so we determined it must be something weird about his family and overreaction to things. hahaha.

Christian was asking me how to Save, how to open saved files, and how to print images since he hasn't spent lots of time on the computer, especially for documents. He didn't need much guidance at all though and I was quite proud that he completed this computer project mostly start to finish on his own over a couple of nights. He is committed to excellence in his work, that's for sure. The top hog is cute!

More baked goods from A Good Bake. These muffins were really good and chock-full of flaxseed meal, like 2.5 cups!

I finally forced myself to go line by line through page 6 of Liebestraum and am close to playing this piece start to finish (Liebestraum). Actually the last page isn't even the hardest. I just got held up on the fast notes on page 5 and another fast notes section on an earlier page. 

Current Covid tidbits: 

• Kids are still fully masked in school. I think at this point they've been masked for 1.5 years
• Washington State issued a vaccine mandate for all government, school and health employees by October 18 or they lose their job. Unless they can claim religious or medical exemption, which is determined by their employer. Lots of outrage over this, especially on the east side!
• Nationwide 55% vaccinated but I think that's including those that don't qualify yet (kids)
• Housing market in Richland is crazy (high)
• Kids aged 5-11 vaccine looking at approval in October

September 2021 and Soccer

Olin: "I fell off the bed last night. It was really strange -  I went from my dream to the floor. Then, I slept, and then I woke up at 5:51." So specific.

Olin's B11U soccer team playing in Lewiston. They are 1-1 so far this season and he's playing right fullback. Lewiston was surprisingly pretty and the drive over was windy but pretty. Lots of wheat fields.

Olin has been cutting his own apples for a while but I actually saw his pieces the other night and they were the tiniest slivers of pieces. I then retrieved this core from the garbage. It's nearly a full apple's worth of flesh remaining on that core!

Very fun to have Christian playing again for the school's team (CK). They practice every day after school and have games 2 days per week. They are currently 1-2. 

Christian has been keeping up with (what feels like) gargantuan amounts of homework every evening and he's doing well on homework and quizzes/tests so far. He's very organized and very on top of his assignments. He's even doing well in his first 'real' math class (haha), Advanced Algebra.

A couple weeks ago Olin came home disgruntled because he got the part in the play at school, Robin Hood, that only has 3 words. His words are: "I can't move!". hahaha. It makes me laugh whenever I tell him to say his lines because he is supposed to shout them. Anyway, he has come around to being really excited about the play and today they perform the play for the Lower El kids.

Funny Things

Olin last week: "9/10 of the carrots I packed got stuck in my palatal expander at lunch today"

Christian a couple weeks ago: "I'd really like to get in to decaf coffee soon"

UW's Season Opener

The Husky game didn't quite go as planned (season opener, home, against Montana and we lost 13-7) but we got to see Didi and grandparents so all was not lost!

Puops can't slouch

September bday celebration at Top Gun dim sum in Factoria

This series of photos we captioned "Ev rock climbing" hahaha

Happy 10th Birthday Little Pancake!!!

Happy 10th birthday to our 1) Little Pancake (when the kids lie in sheets flat sometimes they are so flat they're like pancakes and I can barely see them in their bed) and 2) Little Delicious. Those are the most recent nicknames I have been using, although now that he's 10 I told him he's "Medium Pancake" and "Medium Delicious"! 

Olin said he'd like a family day today so we woke up, ate Pillsbury Cinnamon Rolls and fried eggs, went to school, came home from school and relaxed/read, ate carbonara dinner with rolls and cauliflower, went to HHS to play tennis (Olin and Babz won) and came back home to eat cake and watch some LegoMasters. He said his school celebration consisted of him presenting 5 interesting facts about himself. He wrote them all on a Post-It but then forgot to say one (that he just got a palatal expander) so the 5 facts he shared were: he has a hedgehog, he first started skiing at age 3, his favorite book is the last book in Land of Stories....and now I can't remember the other two. I'll have to update later. A lovely, lovely day...

Last week practicing, trying to get to kapotasana

10!!! Still can't believe it. My beautiful 0 balloon started deflating the second I got home - must have been faulty. So I had to tack it up. Olin got: Belgian waffle maker from us, Morse code paraphernalia and waffle mix from Claira, Cubing mat and baseball cards and college money from Puo Puo, Escape books and gum and mints from Portland cousins, cash (a Benjamin..haha) from halmoni & haraboji, college money from Gong Gong, Bears Vs. Babies from AJ, Amulet Japanese graphic novels from Ursula, and a Remote controlled car from the Safranskis! Lucky boy.

Taking wish making seriously. Funny upside-down writing on top of the heart. This time I online ordered and they didn't have Wild and Reckless sherbet (kids favorite) so I settled for his usual love, mint chocolate chip. I think he prefers Wild and Reckless so I will have to phone in my order next year...

A little help from behind

September 2

 My 44th! It was a great day...

Just the cookbook I wanted. Breads, pastries, etc. Plus a nice flower bouquet, some Moet & Chandon, and some homemade cards!

Kelly so nicely and thoughtfully made me the most delicious coconut cake a day early, knowing we'd have cake for days from today until tomorrow! It was scrumptious.

Cool monogrammed pouch

Olin got his palatal expander today! Lots of lisping and slurping for a few weeks. He asked if he was still going to be sore and getting used to it on his birthday (tomorrow). I said yes.

Solar panels in! They look really sleek.