Robotics Qualifiers

Saturday morning saw William and I up before dawn driving down to Mason to help prepare for the qualification matches.  I signed up to volunteer.  It wasn't a bad gig.   I was assigned to the practice field, which was mostly sitting around, but right before the competition started, we were timing teams and trying to give everyone a chance to practice before they went out to the competition field.  I really didn't see much of William.

But I did seek him out a few times.

William came home from practice Thursday night with concerns that they didn't have any pictures for their presentation board in their pit.  I hadn't planned on providing pictures for said board, so I only had a few pictures to offer, and they were all William-centric, but I printed them off to ease his mind.  Thankfully, someone had printed some pictures on printer paper of the entire team, but his pictures still made the board.

Next year, I'll try to take some team pictures as I can, just in case we find ourselves in the same situation again.  One of the pictures we printed was a picture of one of the pictures a coach took of the team. lol.  A large paper print of it was also on the board.  At least it was a good picture of the team!

Putting some last-minute touches on King Bob.

Some mid-tournament practice!

In addition to coffee and donuts for breakfast, they also catered some Chipotle for us volunteers!  No complaints here!

Go team black!

While his team did not move on to State, they did well for a team of seventh graders!

William is sad that the season is over, but I'm sure there will be a few off-season activities, and he can always go cheer on Alice, if he's missing it too much! Proud of my growing boy and his team!

later days 

edit 12-14-25: backdated for continuity. 

All the Fun Keeps Us Busy

September has had many goings on, each and every week!  

Emily was invited to a birthday sleepover, and since she was gone, we had Jacob over for the night, and then Juliet got to go spend time with her new friend Charlotte for a few hours.

Right after school started, they had an open house at the new Dimondale School, so we walked up to check it out.  The kids were impressed by how new and shiny it is.  It is a nice facility, hopefully it serves as well long and well as the old one!  

An "eat me before I go bad" spread.  They did a good job, collectively, of eating the food!

For Emily's Halloween costume, she needed four matching white buttons with the back loops. I had just the right ones in my stash!  As I sewed on the final one of the four to her costume, I found that the back plastic of the loop had broken. = (  I've repaired it with three rounds of glue and sealant.  So far, it took my sewing it on, and it's stayed put, so we'll see how it does Halloween night!

New shoes!  I was subbing at the girls' school last week, and so many of their peers have converse shoes!  It's no wonder that they picked these.

For exactly one week, William carried this massive lunch box, plus his backpack and trombone to and from school.  The next week, we found him a soft side lunchbox that he could fit in his backpack.

On Labor Day, I charged up my kindle, in anticipation of a day of reading!

The latest installment of CB Strike, The Hallmarked Man came out, so I marked the day off on the calendar, made myself a fancy cup of coffee in my new Texas Tech mug from Haley, assembled a 'German' breakfast, and spent the day reading.  I didn't finish, but I was able to finish before reading any spoilers!

WGJ had a Grand Rapids check up with their Endo.  Everything looked good.  On the return trip, we stopped at the awesome thrift shop in Lowell, and even found a rummage sale in Ionia. = )

Alice loved her handmade gift from the Helterbrands!

"Look, now it's holding a sushi!"

I purchased the ingredients for a Greek Salad to make at the murder mystery party, and just flat-out ran out of time to make it.  We had plenty of food, so it wasn't a big deal, but I did want to use the ingredients, so for dinner I put together a Greek-inspired Chicken dish.  It was good, if a little plain.

William has been working on his handwriting.  Noticing lots of improvement during practice, and a little bit of improvement when he's not focused, we'll keep at it!

I felt like this vantage point looked so much like the architectural mockup photo!  I'm guessing that they still plan to put on the letters of the name, so I plan to add at least one more picture to the blog, and then I'll be done.  Promise!  I took this one when I was subbing one day.  

We earned enough grocery points in August, that I got the full dollar off of a tank of gas at Kroger!

Since the band doesn't get to participate in the student paint out before the first football game, the band holds a paint out night after practice the week following.  Emily didn't plan to go, but ended up staying and getting covered in paint. = 0  She had a good time, if you can't tell.

Asian-inspired chicken with rice and carrots from our garden!

Billy's Halloween village is getting quite large, so I needed a new tub, and found one for $2 at an estate sale.

At the same estate sale, I also bought some replacement luggage.  On the final leg of our Poland trip, the handle of one of our matching set stopped lifting.  = (  I had been going back and forth on a set from Sam's club for days, ultimately deciding against it that morning.  So, finding a used set, of the exact brand in my cart, in relatively good condition, for a fraction of the price was exhilarating!  I will most likely buy the set in my cart soon, or maybe I'll get lucky again!

We've had the old luggage for so long, Billy was worried about recognizing it, so I used my last Texas Tech sticker on the luggage tag of the one we'll use the most.

Grace decided to sort the crayons one night.

I found her a pair of tiny glues at that estate sale too, she loved them!  Sadly, the plastic was old, and broke when she squeezed it.  So, we rescued the glue that we could into our existing bottles, and threw out the old, cracked bottles.  = (

Emily's top pick for her color guard picture this year was a memory mate.  If you ordered this expensive ($55) version, it would let you pick your photo and your team photo. The cheaper one just indicated that it would include the team photo, and we were unsure if that meant just the color guard or the entire band. 

I was super proud of Emily, when she came up with the idea of just ordering the group photo that she wanted, and assembling our own!  I saved the template to use for the next three years, and slid our creation into the memory binder! (After she approved it, of course.)

I think I mentioned how quickly my canvas came in during the Country Mill post, but in less than a week, I took a picture of my dear ones and then had that picture installed on the wall!  I'm still getting used to it, but it makes me happy every time I go by!

 

This past weekend we had Zoey and Kennedy over, while Emily was spending the day, and night, with Emma, while doing all things Homecoming.  Kristy brought us some tasty seasonal chocolates when she dropped off Zoey.  I don't think they even lasted until dusk.

Emily's Homecoming outfit*!  

Despite not shopping together, they did a nice job looking matchy!

She had a great time at her very first High School dance!

And, catching all the way up to today, I helped set up the Book Fair at Grace and Juliet's school today.  Thankfully, the person in charge was new to the position, and was very unpick about how we set it up.

We were given the back of the choir room to set it up, so it was a tight fit, but every bit as magical.

Shopping is held odd hours, so I don't know that my girls will be buying anything.  I'm helping at William's school later this week.

The next few weeks, heading into fall break are wildly busy, so I'm hoping to have my blog all caught up before the next round of fun!

later days

*One day, Emily came home telling me that her friends were planning a Homecoming dress shopping day.  I told her I would be happy to take her to socialize, but that I would only be giving her $20 to spend.  I also offered to take her to some thrift stores ahead of time, so that she could have her dress ready to go before the shopping trip. One free afternoon we went down to the palliative care thrift shop where she scored three dresses and two pairs of shoes for $12.  So, she still had $8 to spend on accessories when her friends went!  Which might only buy a clearance necklace at Claire's or maybe a pretzel, but her outfit was set!  And then, they didn't even end up going. = (

Country Mill

When the Crockers came to visit over the summer, they repaired and painted the very sad stairway wall.  I went with a solid color, because the two tones were not my favorite.  However, the new wall looked so blank, and instead of just picking out some random art, I decided that I wanted a canvas print of my dear ones to break up the empty expanse.  

I had some pictures of them that I could have used, but thought it would be nice to take a picture for this express purpose.  Country Mill is a yearly fall destination, so we rolled two tasks into one!

We had to stop and collect new height pictures first!

It was quite sunny that day, but there were some clouds moving in, so our next stop was actually donuts and cider, while we waited for the clouds to become natural diffusers.

Grace opted for Hot Chocolate instead of cider.

The clouds moved in, and it was time for pictures!

Or nor, Emily was stung!

They added a pressurized apple launcher!  Everyone took a turn, and I was so incredibly proud of Alice.  When William took his turn, he missed all five times, so Alice dug out her own money to get him a new bucket of apples to shoot.

We skipped over the sunflowers, and opted instead for some pretty yellow flowers instead.

Sadly, by the time we got to the field of flowers, the sun had reappeared, and there were squinty eyes and transitioned sunglasses.  

So, we tried to do the corn maze while waiting for the clouds to return, but they had stopped selling tickets, as it was after five, and they close at six. = (  

Since we had exact change ($21) cash, we were able to take the final trailer ride of the day, in addition to being a fun ride, was also helpful in scouting out photo locations. 

When we got back, we sent Billy, with our lists, to the store, while we returned to the best spots!  The flowers were pretty, but this pose felt really forced.

In the forest, I should have had William and Emily step in a bit, because it was a pretty spot, with lovely lighting, but they look so far away!

The best pictures were definitely on the deck overhanging the river!  Since we were there so late in the day, there were not many people about, and the lighting was just perfect!  This was the chosen picture for the wall!  We took the pictures Saturday, I ordered the print on Sunday, and by Friday the canvas had arrived!

This was the runner up, as I also really like this one!

Emily wanted to pose on the tree limb, which initiated the series of individual pictures. = )

Group shot, but the disparity of light took it out of the running.

 

I love this series of the girls pretending to throw William into the pond.  The final picture could not have come out more perfect! 

If Alice had been looking at the camera, this would have been the shot!

And just like that, it was time to go!  So, we started making our way toward the exit.

Attempting to level out their heights.  It didn't work very well.

I have a picture from years ago in front of this train, or perhaps a similar one, that I wanted to replicate, but apparently Alice was done. = (

Everyone got to pick a pumpkin, but Grace was the only one who wanted to carve hers when we came home.  Our porch looks pretty festive now though!

I am so glad that we have such a lovely place to visit for apples and cider, so close to home!  The leaves have started falling in earnest now, so we went on a good weekend for a green background. The temperatures are also dropping, and it appears autumn is right on time this year.

later days

edit 9-21-25: backdated for continuity.