Top Nine of the Week

July 15, 2012

Top Nine of the Week

1. Alayna started Viola lessons! She loves it so far although she developed a giant blister from all the plucking she did. I love seeing her practice and excited for it. She starts volleyball camp this week too!

2. Kayla got checker-trained! This means she can be a full-fledged cashier. She had a few long days of training, but she is ready to roll. Yesterday she worked “Kids Day” at Hyvee and had the awesome opportunity to supervise the bounce house outside for 4 hours!

3. Marisa has been working quite a bit, as well as packing and ordering books for her classes. We leave in less than 2 weeks. It’s all becoming so real. She is dating Dave, an RM, but he will be at a different college next year in medical school. He is very sweet!

4. It’s the year of the pests for our garden! The Japanese Beetles have never been this bad!! They destroyed my roses so badly that I had to cut them and dig them up. I’ll try lilies there next year. They shredded me green beans and sucked the juice out of the raspberries. Bob calls them “jerks” and I agree! Then we got our zucchini and they have been overtaken by grubs, both inside and outside!! Could be the beetle grubs? The warm winter and early freeze ruined our apple trees. Those dang pests! And of course, this is the year Iowa (and everywhere else) has a drought so food prices are going higher. We plan to can as much as we can!

5. Our family officially signed up for the Color Run in Des Moines on October 6! I am so excited!!! I figure its good incentive to keep our fitness going and its not nearly as brutal as the Tough Mudder, which is still my goal!! I told Tyler he has to run it with me before he goes on his mission!

6. Speaking of fitness, our group has rocked on workouts this week. We did the track 2 days (5K each time), did tennis, swam laps at the community pool, etc! I guess using movies as incentive actually works! So, Tyler, Bob and I went to see “The Amazing Spiderman” yesterday and I loved it!!! I like him better as Spiderman and was entertained the whole time! This week? “The Dark Knight Rises”!

7. We also watched “Three Musketeers” at home and I thoroughly enjoyed it! Bob thought is was too much like “Pirates” but I think that’s a good thing. And Tyler must have enjoyed it cause he watched the whole thing without opening his iPod once!

8. You will be impressed to know that I actually semi-relaxed this week. I was working on my hugely ginormous blog project (going through every pic and newsletter from 1993-2004) and putting them into chronological order. By Day 2, I was feeling homicidal, so I packed it up into my storage room and labeled it “Retirement Project”! I am still working on meals and recipes, but I am taking the time to relax and be with the kids and watch “stuff”

9. In my relaxing I came across an amazing find! A YW leader told Kayla about a book she just HAD to read. I ordered it through our library in March and Kayla never read it. One of Kaylas friends let us borrow it and its been sitting by my bed (I haven’t read a dang thing this summer- too worn out I guess?). So this week, to force relaxation on my broken down body, I started to read it. I finished within 24 hours and made Bob take me to Walmart yesterday to buy Book 2! Anyway, it is called “Divergent” (Book 2 is “Insurgent”, Book 3 should come out next year). It is very much like Hunger Games, but very different. I LOVE the idea of the factions and what they represent. Its my new obsession! Note: Yes, it gets violent. I don’t think more than Hunger Games, but it is more personally violent, than far away (like a bow and arrow). But if you like stuff I like, you must read!

*How sad that I forgot to take pics all week….