Charlotte's 9th Birthday

Charlotte turned 9 years old yesterday! We knew it was going to be busy on her birthday since it was on a Wednesday, so we celebrated it on Sunday. She went from really wanting a kitten for her birthday to really wanting a puppy. We did not want either. I had to make it clear to her as her birthday got closer that getting an animal wasn't going to happen. However, I think we were able to find some things that made her happy. This year she decided she wanted donuts for her "cake". She picked out raspberry filled powdered donuts and chocolate covered old fashioned donuts. Old fashioned are my favorite so I was happy, except I had never eaten chocolate covered ones before. After trying them, I decided I prefer the regular old fashioned better. I didn't really care for the chocolate part. Anyway, Charlotte picked them out and then she had this plan to make it into a big number 9. All I did to help was to put foil on the pan for her. She and Alice did everything else. Charlotte was so anxious all weekend and especially on Sunday. It was torture to her to have to wait until after church and after Curtis's meeting, which was at 3:00, to celebrate her birthday. Jack and I did however preoccupy her by playing her game she got for Christmas called "Exploding Kittens", until Curtis got home. She's starting to love that game and so is Jack. But the time finally arrived to celebrate and she was very happy!

All ready to sing. She also chose that balloon out. It was a little more pricey than what I usually pay for a balloon, so I told her that's why she didn't get a card from me. Half the time I don't get cards anyway!

Jack did the honors of lighting the candles.

Kit Kat bars and a puppy calendar.

Pokémon beach towel because she loves Pokémon now.

Three new shirts that were attached together so I didn't get a good picture.

New shorts for summer.

She wanted both of these. A newer and bigger water bottle and batting gloves for softball.

And her favorite was the snorkeling gear that included flippers.

Alice is the one that told me to get a Kit Kat for Charlotte, so they are basically from her.

Charlotte wanted to get her swim suit on so she could try on her snorkeling gear.

But I wanted a picture first.

All set for snorkeling and now super excited to get in the pool.

I like to have a special breakfast and dinner when it's the kid's birthdays. Since the boys had another game night last Saturday, we bought pizza for everyone and that counted as her birthday dinner since she wanted pizza. I cooked up pancakes for her yesterday morning. I also bought some mini donuts and dropped them off at her school so that she could have a treat to share with her class on her birthday. Then she got in the pool again after school, along with Alice, Jack and Jack's new friend. Eventually Garrett finally got in the pool as well. The weather was warmer than the first time (about 80 degrees out) so I think it helped but the water was still the same temperature, around 58-59 degrees. Too cold for me!

I had to get a picture of how much muck our little rover pool robot sucks up each time we empty the filter. We dump what we can into the grass and then have to spray it clean with a hose. It's so nice to have it though! Charlotte considers it a new pet and Rover is a boy. I'm good with that! He doesn't make messes, he cleans them up!

Garrett got in and even dunked his head!

But he was smiling and that makes me happy.

Alice didn't want to get in all the way so she was hanging out on the slide.

T-Ball/Softball, Bathroom and Pool Time!

The girls started softball and t-ball last week and are loving it so far. Charlotte's age group is 9-11 years old and so she's one of the smallest on the team but it doesn't bother her. She's just happy to be playing. I do like that they are doing this during the spring vs the summer, however I don't like that their practices and games are spread out across the town. They didn't have certain days of the week we could sign up for like they did in Nampa. I didn't find out what their schedule was going to be until the weekend before practice started. Both are on Mondays and Wednesdays and sometimes over lap. Charlotte's aren't at the same time every day. Their games will be on the same days as well and both at the same time. I'm not happy about this but I suppose it's the best they could do since it's baseball season for middle and high schoolers as well. The first couple of practices we had pretty cold weather. Alice only had one practice last week but she came with me to watch Charlotte practice. On Mondays, Alice and I go to her practice from 6-7pm. Curtis takes Charlotte to her practice at 7pm. Then Alice and I come over to Charlotte's practice so that Curtis can go home to work on projects like the bathroom. Charlotte's practice ends at 8pm. But on Wednesdays Charlotte's starts at 5:30, so I can drop her off and then go to Alice's practice. They both end at 7pm though and with Curtis being in Young Mens and taking both our boys to mutual, it makes it a little difficult but we'll try to make it work. I think we'll have to switch off on watching games since they are at the same times and days.

Wearing their old hats from Nampa's t-ball.

I decided to be an assistant coach but that was before I knew the schedule. I told the head coach that I would help when I could. Thankfully, several others have stepped up to be assistants as well.

Curtis has been busy and working hard on getting the bathroom downstairs finished, or at least finished enough to be able to use the shower. He got the tiles finished and grouted but we have to wait a week for it to set up before getting it wet.

Ready for grout.

Attaching the shower head.

Working on the grout now.

Finished and cleaned up.

Yay! It looks pretty good! The picture is stretched so that I could see more from close up, so the shelves don't look even and that's why. 

He used some extra tile for the back splash at the sink. 

And we at least got one mirror hung up. The other one will move down when we move out of our room upstairs.

Curtis had called a pool company to come get our pool up and running and cleaned this year. They came out last Friday and whoa, it was black! The pool hasn't been opened in at least two years according to our neighbor. It took the pool guys 3 days to get it done because the water level was too low and we had to refill it. Then when they vacuumed and washed some of it out they could only go until the water went below the skimmer. Then we had to refill again with the hose. But the transformation is amazing!

Taking the cover off. 

Starting to fill it with more water since it was too low to be able to vacuum on the first day. They did put chemicals in though. The water was actually pretty clear. It was the muck (algae, dirt, etc.) stuck on the bottom that made it look so dark.

It looked pretty nasty.

But there were some spots where we could see blue underneath the muck.

A couple of ducks have tried to move in now that it's open and looked like a pond. I let them stay long enough to get a picture but then decided we better not let them get used to it. Sorry, no ducks in our pool!

The pool guy had to carefully vacuum the muck so as not to stir it around and mix it in the water, so it was a bit slow.

This is where he ended on Monday.

Finishing up yesterday (Tuesday).

We are fortunate that the previous owners left us a robotic pool cleaner. It even climbs and cleans the walls! So we put it to work on cleaning the remaining dirt in the pool that we couldn't get with the vacuum.

It looks so much better now!

The pool guy, Dan, finished by putting some more chemicals including clarifier in to help clear it up. The remaining dirt will get sucked up by the pool filter and by the robot. 

The pool was safe to swim in even though there was still some dirt at the bottom. The kids were so excited and didn't want to wait. Jack took the plunge off the diving board. The water was really cold!

It was too cold for Garrett's liking. I'm amazed that Alice still got in. I'm not surprised that Charlotte was the first to get wet.

The previous owners also left us some water toys.

Charlotte tried out her new snorkeling gear. (She got it for her birthday but that will be a different post.)

Jack was catching "fish". He's sitting on an inflatable slide.

Even Curtis got in.

This is how it looked this morning. It's looking better all the time!

Most everyone had fun swimming in the pool. I was the only one who didn't even get a suit on because I knew it was too cold for me. Garrett got his feet wet but everyone else at least got their body in. We are hoping that we can get the pool water heater fixed so that we're not freezing all the time. It was a lot of work getting the pool ready and it will still be a lot of work to maintain it but I think it will be worth it. The kids are so happy (except for Garrett, who really wants the heater fixed pronto). Curtis had already told the pool guy that we wanted someone to come look at the heater, so we'll see when that happens.

Working Weekend

Because of our deck out back, it makes it much easier for our cats to climb onto the roof and Friday morning after getting back from taking Garrett to school, I saw Cocoa poking his little head over the top of the roof. As I parked and opened my door he proceeded to come closer and started meowing. He was so cute and it was the first time I had seen him on the roof.

All of the other kids were off to school by the time I woke Nikki around 10am. Curtis sent a text saying that we should come meet him and go to lunch and then play disc golf. We left around noon to drive over to Richland. We looked around the office and then drove around to find a place to eat. There was a Chinese Restaurant Curtis wanted to try but when we pulled up to it, it looked like it was out of business. Bummer! We opted for Jimmy Johns instead. Then we drove over to Kennewick to the disc golf course at the park by the river. We did 5 holes before Nikki and I were both in need of a restroom and the one in the park was out of order. We drove back to the office, used the restroom and then left Curtis to work. 

I had meant to get a picture with all 3 of us but I forgot.

Nikki and I both crashed for naps after we got back. I was itching to get outside to mow the lawn though because it was starting to get long in areas so I got myself back up and outside. When the girls got home I gave them an incentive to pick up pinecones for me. I told them I would give them 5 cents for every pine cone. They filled a whole 5 gallon bucket just from the front yard. I had to mow carefully around the mess from our water line. After finishing the front yard, I mowed the edges of the area around the pool and then taught Charlotte how to mow because she wanted to learn. She didn't get very far though before the battery died. We only have two batteries and we went through both just on the front yard and a little of the back. We're definitely going to need to upgrade our mower. The rest of the yard was going to have to wait until the next day so the batteries could recharge.

Nikki had brought us a movie called "Inception" and a box of fudge mint cookies so that's what we had for our movie night. The girls watched "Homeward Bound" again downstairs. They love that movie so much and wanted to show Nikki the movie. I told them that she was going to watch a movie with us tonight and that maybe she could watch their movie the next day. They were satisfied with that.

Saturday I was ready to get to work on back yard cleanup and I had the boys help. The girls still needed to count their pine cones from the previous day and played as well. They did pick up some more later though. I wanted to clean out the leaves and garbage against the back fence that has been piling up. It was a bigger job than we thought and took longer than we thought. We finished what we were going to do by lunch time and for the boys to have their Dungeons and Dragons game party. I'm so happy they did have this party and that they had 5 friends over!

We had to pound down the leaves into the garbage can. Jack used the two rakes to grab the leaves.

I had my turn also.

Sage found a nice spot on the rocks in the flower garden. She likes being outside where we are.

She moved around a couple of times. So cute.

I showed Nikki the pictures and she had to come out to see for herself. Then Sage came and climbed in her lap. 

Nikki had been inside trying to work on homework while the rest of us were outside and Curtis was working on the shower. but she was struggling with it. She decided she better cut her trip short because it was finals and she couldn't concentrate unless she was back at her desk in her apartment. She stuck around long enough to wash some clothes and watch part of the movie with the girls but then took off around 2:30pm.  It was nice to see her even if it was a short trip.

We raked up 6 big bags of leaves, garbage, pine needles and pine cones. So glad we got done what we did. There are still some other places around the house that need clean up but that will be another day.

The boys having their game party in the basement. I had taken Jack to the store after lunch to get some snacks and treats for them.

While the boys were having their game party, the girls got back to work with their pine cones and helping me mow. They picked up some from the back yard but they got tired quicker than they had the day before. In the end they picked up 640 pine cones and earned themselves $32. They knew exactly what they wanted to buy with that money and later had me take them to the store.

Sometimes I would hold on with Charlotte and sometimes I would let her go on her own. It's not too difficult since it's self-propelled and I can adjust the speed. She just had to get used to holding down the button while turning around otherwise it would turn off. 

Alice wanted a turn also. I stayed with her the whole time.

Here's all of the pinecones they picked up and the prize they bought with their money, a Pokémon toy called Pikachu that moves it's arms and the cheeks and tail light up along with sounds and talking. They were so happy!

Here are their papers they wrote down their numbers as they counted.

After they were finished with that, I got back to work on the lawn. There were lots of pine needles and little branches and pinecones in the yard that I needed to rake most of them out of the way first. I ended up filling 3 more bags by the end of the night. I made sure that when one battery on the mower died that I took it straight to the charger before using the next one. I was able to keep a charged battery when I needed it that way, especially since I had to stop and rake stuff up. It was starting to get dark by the time I finished, but it looked a lot better and I was happy it got done. I didn't have time or energy to trim the long grass around the edges. That was going to have to wait until Monday.

I'm going to have to clean up under these pine trees another day. And eventually we'll probably hang up our hammocks here.

Curtis stayed busy working on the shower the entire day and made good progress. He nearly finished covering the wall with tile but had to quit at 9:00 so he wouldn't bother the neighbors with the noise of his cutting anymore.

He watched a video online on how to make your own shelves out of the tile. It's definitely not perfect but not bad for his first time doing tile.