The Nelson Narrative

School starts on Wednesday and I've been thinking about what our daily routine is going to look like.  Of course, what's in my head and what it actually ends up being are most likely going to be vastly different.  But hopefully writing it out will help me stay on track (because that's worked so well for me in other areas of my life, i.e. weight loss). The new school will start a half hour earlier than the previous one, at 8:35.  We will have the choice of riding the bus, walking or me dropping them off on my way to work.  The school is just under a mile away but they are still providing bus service to certain neighborhoods because of having to cross a super busy 4-lane with a median road.  And the only reason I would let them walk (without me) is because there will be roughly 23 other kids all walking with them, most likely with a grown-up or two or eight in the mix.  Either way, we will all leave the house around 8:15.  So here is the schedule I'm hoping to adopt:

I used to LOVE shopping for school supplies when I was a kid.  And even more than that, I loved setting them all out when we got home and getting them all organized.  Back in the days of the Trapper Keeper with multiple pockets for different subjects and what not. And of course, we all always had several of these: And we didn't have to get Kleenex, hand sanitizer, anti-bacterial wipes, or dry erase markers like now days.  We have all that on our list and also post-it notes and 4 x 6 index cards.  Index cards?  What the heck are they doing with those?  Recipe exchange? Anyway, the last two years I took the girls school supply shopping and they like it ok but they don't love it as much as I did and they always insist on getting the fancier more expensive versions of everything, like spiral notebooks with a cute animal design instead of the plain $0.49 (or maybe $0.59) ones.  I think one store had these on sale for $0.19, even. So this year I went by myself.  T

This is the last full week of summer vacation!  I can't believe it. Paul had last week off so after soccer practice on Monday he and the girls took off for Crescent Bar, leaving me with the place and time to myself for the last several evenings to do whatever.  Unfortunately I didn't make as much progress on neglected projects as I would have liked, but it was still nice to have the (clean) house to myself. They rented jet skis one day and went to a water slide park one day.  They always get to do all this fun stuff while I'm stuck working (sigh).  I'm really hoping to have some PTO saved up so I can take a few days off next summer in addition to just our annual trip. They came home Friday and then we all went to the Mariner's game (see previous post). Saturday started off good.  We slept in, then I took then in for their back to school haircuts.  Just a trim, nothing drastic, but Olivia asked for her hair to be curled. We came home a

I've been wanting to take the girls to a Mariner's game for years now.  I thought it would be a fun sunny summer Saturday activity.  I figured we could get the cheap bleacher seats in the outfield and it would be a fun summer outing that wasn't too expensive and the seats wouldn't matter because the girls would get bored and want to walk around anyway.  But we never got around to it and then this year I was able to get free tickets through work!  And bonus, it happened to be during their Star Wars themed weekend and on fireworks night.  They do fireworks after a handful of Friday night games throughout the season but last night it was set to Star Wars music, with a few movie scenes on the big screen with Mariner's game highlights (all-time, not just from last night's game) mixed it.  It was really cool! The Mariner Moose (and btw, Kayley does have shorts on :) ) a "24" in center field in honor of Ken Griffey, Jr.

This week the girls started soccer practice.  Monday and Wednesday nights for the next several weeks.  Like usual, Paul was the one to take them because I don't"t get home in time.  But I'm going to start going straight there after work and watch what's left of their practice. On Thursday the babysitter took them to her mom's condo complex so they could go swimming in the pool.  Then Friday they got to swim again at a campground with some friends.  We have these neighbors that have been away for just under 2 years for the husband's job.  They rented out their house and now they just got back but were staying at a nearby campground for a few days while they got their house all set up again, so Paul took the girls over there for swimming (he had yesterday off). Last night we made a fire and had s'mores and then after dark we lied down in the grass to watch the meteor showers but only saw a few before giving up and going to bed. I was

The first half of the week was pretty plain and boring.  The girls had a new babysitter Monday-Wednesday whom they really liked, and their regular babysitter on Thursday.  She took them to the library and they got a whole stack of books they have yet to crack open. Thursday evening we went to our neighborhood's outdoor movie, Zootopia. Yesterday Paul was off and he was going to take them to the Blue Angels practice (they are in town for Seattle's annual Seafair) but Olivia didn't want to go and he ended up having to deal with some home stuff.  The sun's reflection off of two small windows in our bedroom keep warping the siding of our neighbor's house, so they've just have their siding replaced and we need to replace our windows or put some sort of shield on them.  In the meantime Paul covered them with tarp. neighbor's house I was at work and took a late lunch break on our 11th floor deck to watch the Blue Angels.  I tried to tak