Five on Friday.

1. Another one bites the dust...ish. You may not have known it, but Noah fell to walking pneumonia at the start of the month. (Remember, Nathan had it mid-November, I got it a couple weeks after that, and Micah got it a couple weeks after me. We'd gone more than a month so thought we were in the clear. Shows what we know, lol.) Being a stubborn 13 year old, though, he managed to recover fairly well (thanks, also, to the drugs) and we held our breath to see if/when Asher would get it. Well, on Tuesday, we thought that was it. He started showing all the symptoms we'd come to expect. But. He doesn't have walking pneumonia. 

On the one hand, this is good. Who wants walking pneumonia anyhow? ;) But. On the other hand, I was kind of hoping it was walking pneumonia. The rest of us would have been relatively safe then and we knew how to deal with that. This new thing (technically I'm told it's adenovirus in case you care) doesn't have a treatment, is contagious and will last longer. Lovely. (Basically it sounds like a cold to me...just with a fancy name. But he also has more fever accompanying this than a normal cold and is pretty achy. I'm told he's contagious until he hasn't had the fever for a day...which means we're sticking close to home these days. If you don't see us, this is why.)

2. For the sake of recording it somewhere...Micah was recently rather distraught upon realizing that Koaly ends up on the floor most mornings...meaning that Micah's been kicking him out of his bed each night. :) He was actually feeling pretty guilty and upset. Asher came to the rescue, though, by quickly informing Micah that it must just be that Koaly sleepwalks. Whew. So. If Micah ever informs you that Koaly sleepwalks, you'd best agree with him. ;)

3. Noah and Micah had another JOAD tournament last weekend down in Denver. Noah did a fair job and felt pretty good about his shoot. Micah was just "off." At practice just two days before, he'd been shooting 9s and 10s aplenty and thought he'd be able to score really well, but things just weren't working out for him on Sunday. On the plus side, he should definitely win an award for math. Due to a lack of parent volunteers, he ended up being one of the scorekeepers (for his age group, they generally have parents tackle the scorekeeping for the kids, though Micah knows how to do it and practices at our team shoots). Not only did he do the normal scorekeeping, though (which is nothing particularly special for him), he somehow ended up keeping score for two groups of shooters...8 kids. And, I don't mind telling you, he still got all the math right and generally finished it quicker than the adult keeping score with him. (There are always two scorers for each scorecard to duplicate.) 

Incidentally, he still took first, as there were no other competitors in his division, lol. 

(Yes, this is his February pose again. Funny boy.)

4. I noticed while at the tournament that Noah's pants are too short again. Drat. That boy has got to stop growing. ;) So. Dilemma. Can someone please tell me where to find men's pants (we've passed the boys' sizing now) that are no greater than a 28 waist but at least a 32 inseam? From the looking I've done, you generally can't get the 32 inseam unless you go to at least a 32 waist. That would fall off my boy. (The 28 waist he already has is still too big but I don't think they make them smaller than that, do they?) Alternatively, any suggestions for putting some bulk on him? But I don't think he could possibly eat more protein than he already does. ;) 

5. The Olympics are almost over (and we've been thoroughly enjoying them!) so I may actually start posting more after the weekend. ;) 

Olympics

Love 'em. Will be spending a good bit of time over the next couple weeks watching them (and have adjusted our homeschooling schedule accordingly...love the ability to do that!). ;) 

Since we don't have cable or satellite, though, we're actually watching the BBC coverage of events online. I wasn't so sure how this would go but am finding it to work rather well. So far, here are the benefits we've found:

• Given the time difference, we've been watching during the morning/early afternoon...leaving our evenings still free, which is nice. (Live coverage happens at this time of day, though we still have the option of watching the broadcasts later...either the live versions or summarized pieces.)
• I got to do another impromptu lesson on time differences, lol. 
• I also got to do reminder lessons on converting metric to US measurements. ;)
• We've been very much enjoying listening to the British announcers (and explaining some of their lingo to the boys, lol).
• The whole experience is less US-centric than is normal for us, which is lovely. I think it's great for the boys to get to see from another point of view (particularly since historically they've been rather overly patriotic). 
• No commercials. ;)

And that's what we've been enjoying about our Olympic experience so far.

Progress report

1. Thankful for our van and its reliability. (The odometer hit this as I pulled into the garage on Thursday, 2/6.)

2. Thankful, too, for having a garage! So glad to not have to scrape windows.

3. While I'm at it, I'll even add that I'm thankful for treadmills...and the fact that I have access to some at the gym. My training for the half marathon this May wouldn't be going well without the ability to train indoors. ;)

4. Regardless of my gratitude...down with groundhogs! I'm sooooo over winter. Sigh.

5. Our official "off" week is almost over but the Olympics are on now, lol...so I'll be hibernating a bit, doing a lighter load of schoolwork, and trying to post some actual progress reports on how our school year's been going. Stay tuned. :)

For the record...

- Before the SuperBowl gets going, let me just say that I'm going to be happy regardless of who wins. :)

- To my mom and sister who were giving me a hard time about Micah's Broncos shirt, he'd wear a Seahawks shirt, too, but it's kinda near impossible to find one around here, lol.

- I'm pretty sure the only reason Noah enjoys the SuperBowl is because we get foods we don't usually buy (like chips and pop). 

Friday

Just documenting some things that happened on Friday...

1. I went to boot camp where we were all wearing our Broncos colors. :)

2. Came home and Nathan had to go buy a new snow shovel after ours broke from overuse, lol. Waited while Nathan finished shoveling the driveway and sidewalk.

3. Took Micah to the archery range. We generally go most Friday mornings anyhow. This week, we'd already been in on Wednesday because Micah felt he needed more practice. He's added a stabilizer, lengthened his draw length, and adjusted his stance a bit this week and is excited about hopefully improving his scores. (Noah wasn't feeling well so didn't join us on Friday...turns out he has a fever. Fun.)

4. Came home for lunch. Before we got started on afternoon schoolwork, I found this on the stairs: 

(Apparently, they were all listening to a concert or something...from the new music book that Asher's now practicing for clarinet. I counted 31. Noah got in trouble with his brothers later for adjusting the stuffies so that we could walk up and down the stairs, lol.)

5. Then we started afternoon schoolwork...where Asher decided this was comfortable: 

(Yup, the boy is pretty bendy, lol. I didn't get pictures of Micah pulling him around by his feet like this but the smile stayed.)

6. We finished schoolwork and later headed over to Karate West for Micah's promotion to blue belt:

We're so very proud of Micah! He's young yet and has lots of fun but still manages to take his lessons seriously and learn all the combinations and forms well. He's looking forward to learning the new belt stuff. 

7. Asher and I stayed after the promotion and pizza for demo team practice. (Asher had also performed during the promotion with the demo team. They performed again the next day for a black belt promotion ceremony.) 

And that was Friday. ;)