Our Lazy Days

My kids are STILL waking up at 10 am.  I thought they might want to start getting up a little earlier.  They eat "breakfast" at noon.  Crazy stuff.  I really thought we would be adjusting but we are stuck on lazy. 

But really they aren't lazy.  We made a summer contract and they do their responsibilities before noon and they have their fun.  (responsibilities = practice, make bed, clean room, and small chores.  Fun = video games, iPads, computer for an hour).  We have had minimal complaining over the last days.  And I am more prone to saying Yes to fun when our work is done (hey, that rhymes!) (oh, it is summer break here, school starts on Jan 28)

I am sorry (almost) to say that I feel like I am on vacation.  Sleeping in late.  Exercising when I want, for how long I want.  Kids in pjs sometimes all day ("Oliver, don't you think you want to change out of pajamas before it is time to change into them again?"  "Why mom?"  He has a point.)  The only bad thing is not having much food in the house, and not really wanting to take all the kids in the car and buying stuff.  We have survived on some bread and chocolate milk.  The kids are in heaven.

I am trying a No Added Sugar week.  And it is tough.  I have survived on carrots, grapes, pineapple, honeydew melon, tortillas with laughing cow cheese and pizza.  I really ought to get to the store to expand my menu.  No Sugar really isn't Tough as I thought it would be.  I am lucky to live in a place with great produce (and I did talk the kids in going to the street market on Tuesday).

We got to visit some friends with a pool!  It was so nice to enjoy being outside.  But I had to be in the shade or in the pool.  The ground would really burn your feet if you stood anywhere the sun hit for longer than half a second.  It has been about a year since we swam at our friends, and it was great to see the swimming skills of the kids really improve.

Grace and Felix.  Grace has been such an amazing helper this week!

Plenty of "open" space to run. 

Today I had to set up our own tiny swimming pool.  I used it sort of like an ice bath after all my "fun" with exercising.  The kids used it as a stage for lots of Pirates of the Caribbean scenes.  We had a Black Pearl, a Red Pearl, and a Green Pearl (that was supposed to be black but the marker looked more olive green).   Oliver really impressed me with his imaginative ship building.  He did it all on his own.

Oliver's is the one with all the pencil cannons. 

Tonight I finally made it to the store!  Sam's club.  I know it sounds pretty exotic.  I should be getting my own food by machete in the rain forest, I know.  But anyway, while I was filling up my cart the power went out during a thunder storm.  Luckily it came back on soon after.  It was fun to try to put the groceries in the car during the heavy rain.  I propped up the umbrella on the open doors and back of the car.  But the wind flipped the umbrella up and luckily it landed on top of the car.  After fetching it down, I decided to scrap the umbrella and just load fast.  But the drive home was so crazy!  I have never seen such crazy wind and rain.  It was truly blowing sideways.  And a point it was so crazy I wondered if it was a typhoon!  The power was out on all the street lights, but luckily traffic wasn't heavy.  I made it home only to find a orange cone in the middle of the only road I can take to get home.  Also luckily (it was a lucky night, right?) a security guy just moved it, I thought the road had possibly washed out since it looked a bit like a river, but the cone was just washed down from higher up in the road and happened to land right in the middle.

The power was out at home.  The kids were freaking out.  "It's the worst night of my life!"  says Oliver.  Yup, no electricity, no videos, how did anyone survive before them.  We had some candles and luckily a gas stove.  So we got working on dinner and then the lights came back on.  But the rain was now dripping through our light fixtures in three rooms inside the house.

I was glad for electricity because our friend was over so we could give him the snow that he asked us to bring.  We got to use our new shaved ice machine and give him a taste of snow!  It was fun.  And the machine actually worked!  But it was a lot better with the mango nectar that I had frozen, then just plain snow. 

Yup, goodbye blown dry sleek hair, hello frizz!