Bathoom Renovation

The last big area of our new home that we had been wanting to fully renovate was our master bathroom.

It had some issues that we never liked, and gradually grew to really not like, such as having the sink in the carpeted area that was part of our bedroom, having a lot of space being taken up by a jacuzzi tub we never used, and most importantly, having NO DOORS whatsoever.  So people (read, children), could just wander in from the office or hallway and see right straight through to the bathroom.  I was forever yelling out, "I'm changing! Don't anyone come in!" etc.  (It didn't help that the door from the office to our bedroom was essentially a non-door as well, since it was a French door full of glass!

So finally the day came when we could afford to do the renovation, and Amy and Pete jumped up and down with glee.

We found a good contractor who could help us re-imagine the space and figure out the best functionality, and even after being displaced for 6 weeks, we are quite pleased with his work!

Here are the changes....

BEFORE (no door, weird sink):

AFTER (a door!  No sink!):

BEFORE (unfunctional and weird):

AFTER (yet another door for the WC! Much more functional!):

It was worth all of the money and inconvenience.... Even having to make our bed like this 40 times:

MathCounts

Even though I didn't really get any good pictures of this event, I think it must be recorded for posterity.

Years ago Strider participated in the MathCounts program, and after seeing the benefit, I thought it would be good for Colsen to try it, too, now that he is beginning Middle School.  After the first team meeting Colsen was quite convinced otherwise.

All year he has felt very "stupid" as he would say, since most of the math is challenging even for 8th graders.  (In fact, most of the math is quite challenging for ME -- and I'm used to SAT and precalculus problems with the students I tutor)  But, I told him to stick with it anyway since he was bound to learn some useful things.

He's been anxious about it all along, knowing that the big competition was looming.  His coach reassured him that the team needed him - - without him they would have to compete with a man down -- so any points he could contribute would all be bonus.  We tried to tell him there was NO pressure on him at all.  I told him his goal could be to just score ONE point on the tests.

Well the big day finally arrived and the team assembled with a whole bunch of other teams representing most of the middle schools in the greater Charlotte area, at UNC-Charlotte.  There were a few rounds of competition, and as it turned out Colsen's team finished in 10th place... which was quite good considering they had 3 6th-graders and only 1 8th-grader, and presumably most of the other teams were comprised of all 8th-graders.

Poppa hung out with Colsen most of the day and the other kids and I just arrived at the end, long enough for the "speed round" where team representatives had buzzers and answered word problems in 5 seconds or less.  Pretty amazing minds are growing here in Charlotte.

This is the only picture we got of Colsen from the day -- Miles shot it from the back of the auditorium:

At the end of the day both Colsen and his friend Ethan were quite enthusiastic about the experience and talked about it all the way home -- and how they can't wait to compete again next year!

Another Cotillion conversation

On the way home from Cotillion tonight Colsen was talking a mile a minute (he won the table-setting contest, setting a record of 5 seconds!).  At one point I had to laugh, though, when he was relaying the harder steps they had been learning in the dance portion of the evening:

"There were some challenging parts, Mom -- like arm slides and twirls and stuff -- and then I had to dance against these really tall girls!"

"First of all," I told him, "You're not really dancing *against* the girls.... You know you're supposed to be dancing WITH them, right?"

"Yeah, whatever," he answered.

My One-Pot Meal

I knew tonight would be tricky because I would only have about 20 minutes to get dinner made and eaten between our various commitments, so I sagely started a soup early in the afternoon.  I had to cook the chicken first, so I decided to use the Instant Pot for that so I could also make the soup in the same pot afterwards – Yay for only using ONE pot!  I cooked the chicken, put in all the soup ingredients, turned it on “slow cooker—normal” mode and left it.

Three hours later I came back to check on it.  When I opened the top, it did not seem very hot, so I stuck in 2 different thermometers.  Both said the top few inches of the soup was only about 90 degrees!  

I immediately took the soup out of that bacteria-inviting danger-zone chamber and poured it into 2 different pots to put on the stove so I could get it boiling ASAP.  While it was heating up, I started worrying about how long it had been tepid, so I called the Instant Pot company (who was no help at all), and my 2 food safety experts (my mom and my sister), whose collective response was, “Hmmmmm…..”

I let it simmer on the stove for the next hour or so while I ran Colsen to a class, but in the end I decided not to risk poisoning all 6 of us tonight.  So in the 20 minutes I had at home for dinner, I pulled out some meager leftovers to eat, and poured the soup into smaller containers so that it would cool off quickly so I could put it in the fridge before I left for my next meeting.

My one-pot meal turned into a 5-pot disaster that we will likely never eat.

I’m sure there’s a moral to the story here somewhere, and I suppose it has something to do with me being lazy and trying to avoid extra work, but mostly my take-away is never to make soup in the Instant Pot on slow-cooker mode.

Double-Digit MILESTONE

Since Miles was turning 10 this year, we knew we had to make the day memorable... and I think it was.

The theme for the gifts this year became SHOES.  Since Miles was hitting a MILES-stone birthday, it seemed appropriate that we would give him the apparatus for traveling many MILES this year.  So, he got Skechers, Vans, and Nike Mercurial cleats (all of these words mean HUGE things to the young boys in my house).  We enjoyed watching his face light up more and more with each box he opened.

Then it was time to take OFF his regular shoes and put on this bowling shoes!  The Cousins came to celebrate and attempt to throw some strikes.

Then we all went to a Japanese restaurant -- big hit.

Finally, it was back to our house for ice cream cake...  I think we have a happy 10-year-old boy.

JOY Prom!

Rayna's first prom experience was one that will be hard to top!

 (Sidney came over to do her hair and get her all gussied up!)

Her class at Weddington all got tickets -- and a party bus! -- and they were all matched up with dates among the peer tutors, so essentially she got to go with all her favorite people. 

They went out to dinner at Chili's ahead of time, and then arrived at Carmel Baptist, where they found a fancy tent outside... which led to a red carpet entrance.

Needless to say, Rayna LOVED all of the applause and attention!

The whole operation - JOY Prom - is simply amazing.  There are hundreds and hundreds of volunteers, all there to make the guests feel special and loved.... and boy, are they successful.  I was only there briefly to take pictures, but I had to fight back tears the whole time.  What a taste of Heaven!

Rayna's date, Max, is a remarkable young man.  He helps out in Rayna's class regularly, so they were already friends, which made it nice.  He texted me throughout the night with pictures and comments... He said they had a great time!  And Rayna got home she definitely confirmed that!

I have to say, though, that one of the big lessons of the night for me came when Rayna started telling me all about her night.  While I had been a little "star-struck" by Max -- how talented (star football player) and good-looking and nice he is -- Rayna kept talking about Cooper as well.  Cooper is a boy in her class who has Down's syndrome, and apparently he loves to dance.  :)   So while she had a great time with Max, she was also just as delighted with Cooper.... which was a reminder to me that sometimes I'm looking only surface deep.  I'm so glad my daughter finds joy and beauty in all people... I can learn from her!

Alphabet Museum

Our CC group planned a field trip to the Alphabet Museum at JAARS, and even though we've been there before, we were excited to go again.  There is SO much information there.... I'm quite sure it would take many, many visits to really absorb it all.

Colsen had practice for MathCounts so he went to Wingate for the day with Pete, which meant I had the unique experience of going on a field trip with only TWO kids.  Quite fun.

We learned about how the various languages are connected or different, how people have developed languages, and how translation has been ongoing.

It's always inspiring at JAARS.... I texted Pete while we were there that I thought we should try to find a way for him to work in Armenia.  He just texted back a "thumbs-up" sign.  That's one of the reasons I love him.  :)

Tuesdays are our new favorite days

This semester we have managed to get some pretty sweet Tuesday mornings lined up.  Each week we go down to Waxhaw where the 3 kids all have piano lessons, Miles has a computer programming class (literally across the hall), and the rest of us spend some time at the local bakery.

Then, we rush back to our neighborhood for their homeschool PE class... all before lunch!

And then, sometimes, on Tuesday afternoons Colsen meets with his Anglers' Club -- and sometimes he can even walk over to fish with them at the park!

These are the kinds of days that make us thankful to be homeschooling.  :)