Week In Review

Last week was the last week of school for the kids. Carolynn had a ton of year-end activities last week. She is now an elementary school graduate.

Catherine has now been promoted to 3rd grade. It is very exciting.

I am trying to keep the kids’ minds and bodies busy for the summer. Both of them want to spend a lot of time sitting in front of computers, TV’s and video games. Therefore, we now have a designated amount of book reading to do. (One whole chapter a day, unless it is Catherine and she happens to read a non-chapter book.) Carolynn is reading Are You There God? It’s Me Margaret. by Judy Blume and Catherine was reading Charlotte’s Web. I think she is now reading a chapter book about a puppy. Catherine is really into funny poetry. She likes Shel Silverstein and Jack Prelutsky. We have 1 Shel Silverstein book (Runny Babbit) and 2 Jack Prelutsky books (It’s Raining Pigs and Noodles and A Pizza The Size Of The Sun)

In addition, a new requirement to keep little minds busy, more website posting. The new rule is a minimum of two posts per week. That can include videos, pictures or whatever they want, but they have to come up with it by themselves and do as much of the work as possible. Right now Carolynn is working on a video. Catherine prefers to write hers.

Keeping bodies busy is proving more of a challenge. We have lived in this apartment almost 8 months and we have had no less than six separate apartment managers. Our current manager is the longest lasting, having been there since right after Easter. She is nice enough, she gets things fixed quickly (the garbage disposal, the dishwasher), and I get proper receipts for my rent. However, she has implemented a new “no playing” rule in our building. There is to be no bike riding, scootering, or skating anywhere. There is also to be no hula-hoops or jumping rope. There are no grassy areas. Our complex is small. To enforce these rules, and because all of our apartments are full and she has nothing else to do, the apartment manager has taken to patrolling the area and handing out violations to rule breakers. She has already warned both my kids to quit their playing. (One was running on the sidewalk and the other was drawing a hopscotch). We have not received any official “tickets” yet, but according to her rules, three violations and you are out. With all these rules, getting out and moving will be a challenge for the kids. We do have a pool, but they cannot swim all day.

We considered moving, however, I really do not want to. As far as apartments go, ours is pretty nice and we have yet to find anything better. We have plenty of room and we are all settled in. Therefore, unless something fabulous comes a long, we are staying here. That will probably be awhile because fabulous places do not drop out of the sky and we are not looking that hard.

Maybe we will get some good exercise in August when we are planning a vacation. The plan is to go on vacation to… San Diego. Seriously, this is a hot vacation destination and we live here and do not take advantage of it. Besides, we won’t have to pay for hotels, we won’t have to pay for eating out for every meal and we can keep gas prices down. We can go to the beach, Seaworld, Balboa Park and the zoo, Belmont Park, the Wild Animal Park, Seaport Village, Coronado Island, Old Town, and so on. We get plenty of local discounts. We already have Seaworld tickets and Zoo and Wild Animal Park tickets. We may even try Legoland tickets. Catherine wants to see a baseball game. It will be fun. I need to use up my vacation time during the slow season anyway. The plan is sometime during the first two weeks in August before the kids go back to school.

Tomorrow we are going to Disneyland. It will be our last trip before our passes expire. Technically, they do not expire until August 15, but they are blocked out for the whole month of July and the first two weeks in August. We are not renewing them, mostly because we cannot afford them. Oh well, we will still have Seaworld and the Zoo/Wild Animal Park. Tomorrow will be fun. We are leaving the house early and staying late. Everyone gets to pick one “must ride”. We are definitely riding the new Finding Nemo submarines. Carolynn wants to ride the Matterhorn and Catherine wants to ride Space Mountain. I want to ride Peter Pan’s flight. I also want to see the Electrical Parade, Fantasmic and the fireworks. It will be awesome. The kids are so excited. It’s the first “Summer Vacation” thing we are doing.

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On This Day…
1812- The War of 1812 began.
1815- Napoleon is defeated at the Battle of Waterloo.
1928- Amelia Earhart flies across the Atlantic.
1939- Baseball player Lou Brock was born.
1942- Sir Paul McCartney was born in Liverpool, England.
1942- Film critic Roger Ebert was born in Illinois.
1953- Egypt becomes a republic.
1983- Sally Ride becomes the first American woman in space.
1988- Sarah was born.
2007- Julia Roberts gives birth to her third child.