The last few days have been really hectic.
My Chevrolet HHR was recalled (nothing serious), so Tuesday Esme and I took it in to the dealer for its appointment. The mechanics were done in one hour on the spot, so they did exactly as promised...and they even washed the car, which was above and beyond the call of duty. I was quite pleased with the service I received. Esme was not. She was mad she had to wait SO LONG!!! Four-year-olds are not known for being the souls of patience.
Wednesday, after Aidan got on the bus to school, I quickly dragged Esme out of bed, pajamas and big wad of hair notwithstanding, and she and I went to Hansen Collision, so we could leave the HHR for its second appointment of the week - to have a dent repaired. We waited just a few minutes for the Hertz representative to bring us our rental car, and then we were quickly back home with a Mazda 6 for the rest of the week.
Then, Esme got her haircut! (See pictures below.)
Aidan had AWANA Sparks on Wednesday night, and he has only one Jewel left to go! By next Wednesday, he will have finished the WHOLE Sparks curriculum - Skipper, Hiker & Climber - all in one year! We are really proud of him - and for those who aren't familiar with AWANA, this is a HUGE accomplishment. Most children start Sparks in kindergarten and take a whole year to complete one book. Aidan has done all three books in one year.
Thursday Esme's preschool class went on a field trip to Frederick Meijer Gardens, and I went along. Esme was excited but unfortunately underwhelmed, as we visited the Gardens as a family not long ago. She also neglected to eat the breakfast that I so carefully laid out for her, so she was hungry...and crabby. Only a few minutes into our visit, she tripped and fell in the cactus room, scraping her knee on the concrete floor and landing with both hands on a particularly vicious golden barrel cactus. When she stood up, her hands looked like they were morphing into two itty bitty porcupines. We got all the stickers picked out and after a couple minutes she was okay. At the end of the visit, she was mad because she couldn't ride the bus home with the other kids, as I drove so I wouldn't HAVE to ride the bus! So...when we got home, after Esme had some lunch, she had a nap.
Grandma Margie came over Thursday afternoon and took us out to dinner at the Olive Garden! Thanks, Grandma! By the time we got home, Aunt Lori was here to take care of the kids while I went over to the elementary school for the 2008-2009 Kindergarten parent meeting. They had a great time playing outside, Aidan finished his homework, and the kids were all ready for bed when I got home. Aunt Lori is SO GOOD to us!
Today after a trip to the chiropractor (ahh, much better), I went to the urgent care office, as I wasn't able to reach my regular doctor. The sinus pressure of Sunday, the mucus of Monday, the fever of Tuesday, and the coughing of Wednesday and Thursday had not improved at all, so I figured I'd probably better get medical attention! I was diagnosed with sinusitis and bronchitis (big surprise there...), picked up my antibiotics and came home.
The IBM contract Jim is working on with the Bank of New York-Mellon requires him to work most of the week at Mellon headquarters in Pittsburgh. Internet access at the contract site is sketchy at best, and has lost even more reliability as the winter cloud cover has dissipated. Internet access being crucial to his work, Jim got approval to purchase an air card for his IBM laptop, and then spent almost all week this week trying to get it to work...only to discover that it wouldn't. Verizon apparently has no product compatible with both their service and Jim's laptop. So today we spent quite a bit of time changing over to AT & T - new service plan, new phones, a data system that actually operates properly, the works. Fortunately our cell numbers won't change!
I picked up the HHR today, also, and you can hardly tell there was ever a dent. Yee-ha!
Aidan's school had their Diffendoofer Day party today - a reward for the students' great accomplishment of reading over 448,000 minutes in March! Aidan reported that he played a racing game on the Wii, had a snack, got his face painted (a big blue "M", of course), and watched a Scooby Doo movie. No parents were allowed, just kids and teachers. The teachers all looked pretty tired when I went in to pick Aidan up... It was worth it, the kids all seemed really pleased with their party.
After we picked Aidan up from school, we got hot dogs and went over to the airport to watch the planes land and take off. You would have thought Jim had enough of that sort of thing (he was on six different flights this week), but it is much more relaxing to WATCH than to actually DO. It was quite busy this evening, lots of planes coming in, a few leaving, and a helicopter practicing taking off and landing whenever there was a break in the action. Cool!
As we are winding down for the evening, Aidan is playing Lego Racers 2 on his computer, and Esme and her dad went out to get some supplies for Operation No Robin Nest!!! We have a very determined robin who really wants to build his nest on one of the pillars of our front porch. We don't want him to, so we are trying to encourage him to go somewhere else - but he doesn't take hints well. We have swept his pile of brush down five or six times, sprayed all the pillars with Lysol, scared him away from the porch many times...but he just keeps trying to rebuild! Hopefully Jim's carefully thought-out scheme will work.
Have a great weekend, everyone!