Our Week (or maybe month) in photos #39

It's been awhile!  It's time to do a little catch up before we get our full summer into swing!

 The last time I posted we had endured an April Ice Storm.  Well, one week later the boys got the hose out and played in the water because it was so warm! 

 On Wednesday, April 25th, the boys had their AWANA awards night.  They started with a pizza party and then a game. Josh is waiting to start.

 I never realize how tall my kids are until I notice that Nate is the tallest kid in line HA! 

 Nate receiving his special awards.  He finished his book, reviewed his book, finished another book and started the 3rd grade book for next year.  He has set a goal of completing 6 books in the next age group (over 4 years) in order to get the highest award. 

 Josh getting his awards.  He finished his book and also finished all of the silver sections in his book which was a pretty big deal.

 Next up came my birthday.  On April 27th we met my mom at my favorite Mexican Restaurant.  They do birthdays right - with a huge sombrero, whipped cream on the face and deep fired tortillas with cream HA! 

 The boys picked out some great gifts and got me balloons too. 

 Darryl and I spent Saturday out celebrating my day!  We started with a great Breakfast at a place called Wolfgangs.  Then went to a discount craft store.  We visited a great cupcake bakery and le bon Macaron for Macron's :-) Yummy!

 Finally we drove to the lakeshore because, well, I love it.  The wind was wicked!!  We sat in the truck because it was like getting sand blasted to step outside but it was still so beautiful.  We enjoyed our fabulous cupcakes while watching the waves. 

 And then. . . our well quit.  This happened on Tuesday, May 1st and it would take over a week to get it back on.  I have more photos somewhere but they aren't uploaded yet.  This was a true trial - not only did we have no water due to no well; we lost power on Friday of the same week due to a wind storm which delayed our well repair until the following week!  Thankfully our neighbors let us hook to their water AND their power so we weren't totally without!

 Hello kitty :-)  We love this cat!

 On Mother's day the boys made me breakfast all on their own.  It was fabulous.  They also got me some great gifts (Flowers and jewelry) before we headed to my mother-in-laws for the day.

 On Monday, May 21st we had a family day out.  We started with lunch at Pizza Ranch followed by the afternoon at Catch Air.  Nate had wanted to go to Catch Air for his birthday in December but he was fighting that awful cough and couldn't run around so we finally made it up! 

 Breakfast outside on the picnic table is always a good sign that summer is coming!

 We got to celebrate my mom's birthday with her with dinner, gifts and . . .the first swim in the pool of the summer!!!

My mom brought this chair to me and the cat claimed it HA!  He loves sitting on it and watching out the window!! 

I realized that I didn't take too many photos in May!  It was a pretty quiet month event wise - we were too busy with well problems and lost power I think! 

Summer Plans

A few weeks ago I took time to lay out a summer plan.  I went through all of the events I had saved on Facebook, searched some of our other favorite things, and used a list a friend made of ideas to come up with a tentative plan.

Using some printable calendars, I wrote done things that are for sure like camping dates and a trip for a wedding.  Throw in Vacation Bible School Dates, some crafts I'm hoping to include this summer and some other fun play things and the summer is full.  

Now, lets keep it real.  Not everything will happen - weather, time, and even interest may change some events but if you fail to plan guess what?  You plan to fail . . or at least you will miss things you had hoped to do!  I try to find as many free things as possible in order to make it easier to do things and the things that cost money, I try to keep as cheap as possible!  My big "splurge" of the summer (an Art Camp for the boys) has already been wiped off the calendar because she changed the times of the camp which no longer works for us.  In the end it's ok because I was sure I could pull that one off HA!  There is a kids Volleyball "camp" (1 1/2 hours a day for three days) that is a great price that I am hoping to send the boys too - Voleeyball is a great skill to learn since it's played at so many church camps and in youthgroups!  

Finally, I took my calender and I looked at week one (which is this week!) and made a daily plan.  This keeps me on track throughout the week of what I'd like to do.  I can always shift things if a certain day is going to be rainy and I can always call a "just stay home day" too.  What isn't always listed is swimming at the pool - the boys and I like to go almost every day but sometimes we will go in the evenings and some days we'll take our friends and go during the day. 

Hopefully I can share our plan, what we actually do, and, of course, some photos along the way. 

Weekly Menu and Summer Time

The unofficial start of summer hits this coming week with Memorial Day.  School will be done and it is time for the relaxing, fun days of summer time.  We are hoping to do a little more grilling now that the weather is nicer.   Last week we had some changes in plans so I have several carry over meals to use this week which is always a nice way to stretch the budget.

Friday - Today is my mom's birthday!  She has requested Hamburgers on the grill so that is what we are having!  I'll add a couple of salads and, of course, birthday cake!

Saturday - Lasagna Roll-ups, Salad and Garlic Bread

Sunday - As long as the weather is nice, we'll plan on having a campfire at my mom's and roasting Hot Dogs and Brats.  Add a few summer salads and stuff for Smore's and summer is officially here!

Monday - Memorial Day! BBQ Pork Chops on the grill, Baked Sweet Potatoes, Fruit Salad, and Strawberry Shortcake!

Tuesday - Broccoli Alfredo Stuffed Shells, Garlic Bread and Salad

Wednesday - Tacos!!!

Thursday - Stromboli, Chips and Salad

That's what's for dinner!

Weekly Menu

We have water, power and a working computer again and I feel like I finally recovered from a crazy week and a half I finally have things working a little more smoothly once again.  I did actually set a menu in place for last week even though I forgot to post it (it is still sitting in "draft" mode!) and we ate what I planned (which is always good!)  My mom arrived at the campground this past week which always brings good excitment!  That also means it is summer time and summer time brings a change to my cooking plan!  I try to keep things simple but I also scoured Pinterest for some menu planning blogs so that they can do the planning for me!!

Friday - The plan is to get KFC :-)

Saturday - Easy Garlic Alfredo Tortellini, Green Beans and Garlic Bread

Sunday - Broccoli Alfredo Stuffed Shells and Salad

Monday - Philly Cheese Steak Sloppy Joes and French Fries

Tuesday - Sausage Lasagna Rolls, Green Beans, and Breadsticks

Wednesday - Parmesan Baked Pork chops, roasted zucchini, and salad

Thursday - Tex Mex Chicken Casserole, Salad, Chips and Salsa

Unexpected Joy Stealers

What. a. week. 

We already knew this was a busy week but we had some extra things thrown in that made it a trying week too.

Monday was great :-)  The boys were still at my moms; the kids I babysit ended up being sick so I got to enjoy a wonderful day at home, reading, enjoying beautiful weather, and just relaxing I think it was a good thing because the rest of the week was stressful HA!

Tuesday - Josh had day one of state testing in Grand Rapids.  We took off nice and early.  Testing was done and we were all home mid afternoon.  The boys were playing in the sprinkler when they asked what happened to the water.  Oh. no.  That's right - no water.  Darryl investigated and found that our well was not working.  He made a call to a well guy who could come out on Wednesday and test it all.  Yes, we were discouraged but my goal is to not let anything steal my joy.  Lets keep it real, not taking a shower steals my joy HA!  BUT a blessing - my mom keeps her camper 10 minutes from us at a campground.  She's not technically "there" yet but we did go over and use the showers in the bathhouse to get our showers out of the way.  It's better than nothing!

Wednesday - Josh and I headed back to town for day two of state testing while Darryl took an unexpected day off to be around for the well guy.  Said well guy showed up and worked on getting the pump out.  Guess what - he couldn't get it out.  No can do.  So he dumped some acid down it and said it had to sit overnight.  Another day without water.  Blah!  Again, thankful for those showers and a great neighbor who let us fill gallon jugs at their house to flush our toilet. 

Thursday - The well guy came back.  He worked and worked and worked and we all cheered as the piles started coming up out of the well.  Until he pulled the last part out . . ... without the well pump.  WHAT???  Uuuggg.  The pump came off the pipe and stayed in the well.  We decided to try the acid one more time (He said, "I can't get here for at least a week to drill a well so we might as well try one more time"!).  BUT, the blessing this time is he ran a hose from our neighbors spigot to our spigot which gave us running water in our house!!!  So thankful for an amazing neighbor.  We also needed to practice tonight because the boys and I had to sing on Saturday at a Mother/son banquet with Darryl playing for us.  I was just hoping to be able to keep taking showers before Saturday!   Then, I tried to go online on my computer and my computer will not recognize the internet.  I researched it and researched and finally came up with the conclusion that I need to ask a friend of ours if it can be fixed because I can't figure it out!!  Talk about frustrating! Thankfully my husband's computer works fine and we have the school computer too.  I just want "mine" back and working!!

Friday - Friday we woke up to a wind storm.  All was good until 10:00 when the power went down.  Blah.  BUT at least we still had water since our neighbor still had power!!  The well guy came and worked, and worked, and worked until, guess what?  He got the pump out!  They quickly worked and got the new one in, came inside to flip everything on . .. oops!  We had no power.  So, he had to stop.  He's coming back tomorrow (Monday) to hopefully finish up.  My wonderful neighbors broke us steaks and salad for dinner (such a great surprise!) and we went to Mooville for an Ice Cream treat before heading to the campground for showers only to find that the showers had no water!!! (Seriously!! ) So we came home instead.  Our neighbors finally lost power at about 11:00 pm but at least we were sleeping :-)

Saturday - The power finally came back on at about 11:00.  What a relief.  This allowed the boys and I all to take a shower before the banquet (thanks to the neighbor!). 

It's so easy to lose joy in tough situations but if you try, more times than not you can find joy.  I have good hopes for this week - I'm hopeful that our well will be fixed tomorrow; I'm hopeful that our friend can not only look at my computer on Monday but that he can actually fix it (and that it is a quick easy fix).

With all of that said - I"m behind on posts that I always post because, well my computer is down leaving me even more limited with computer usage than before!  Welcome to May, right?