March 24th 2019: Refrigerator repair, Canstruction & Scrotorotchies Game Night.
Thursday
I took Thursday off this week to help set up for an auction fundraiser at the kids’ school. Every year they have a themed auction with a dinner, silent bidding and a band. It is a major, if not the largest, fundraiser of the year for the school. So I took the day off to set up tables, move prize baskets and everything else in between. A lot of care and effort goes into this great evening – and it shows through in every detail. My hat is off to the many dedicated people that spend countless hours in the months leading up to this event to make it as successful as it is! That includes my wife – who is always willing to bake cookies for such occasions. We think it is important for the kids to see us volunteer and contribute – so I am happy to do my small part.
Friday
On Friday evening we headed over to the mall – where they had the annual can-creation / CANstruction to raise awareness and donations for the local food pantry. This year there were some great structures built with cans. We liked the Empire State building which was made with 3,890 cans and a rainbow ending @ a pot of gold constructed from over 8,000 cans! The most cans I have ever seen used was something like 11,000 for a can-replica of one of the original IBM buildings, or maybe the space shuttle (not sure how many cans – but it was huge!). Some years the creations are amazing, and other years they seem a little less than inspired. This year since they seemed pretty good I wanted to make sure we made it over there as a family to see the display.
Saturday
On Saturday Melani got to have some girl-time with Gracie. They did some shopping and got a treat @ Dunkin’ Donuts. I was very happy to see them get out to do that and we could see the benefits immediately in Gracie’s demeanor & attitude. Of course we realize that all the kids need some individual attention – and they do get it – in turn.
Annie spent most of the day on Saturday butting heads with me. She didn’t win -since I am both patient AND have a extremely thick skull! She really needs some individual time as well – but we just can’t accommodate each of them as often as we would like.
Dominick and I had to repair a shut-off valve behind the refrigerator. It should have been a quick job -just replacing one compression fitting- but it took a lot longer than expected because there was a little too much compression required and far too little fitting happening! Melani first noticed water was coming out from under the refrigerator. It got progressively worse over a couple of days towards the end of last week. When we first pulled the refrigerator out there were 3 fine streams of water spraying out from the ruptured tubing.
Dominick & I also grabbed an old laptop computer from the basement and wiped the hard drive clean. We then installed a lightweight version of Linux on it – and now Dominick has his own laptop that’s running really well!. So Gracie and Dominick now want me to make a hacking competition for them by hiding something on our network and seeing who can find it first and bypass any security / encryption I put in place. They now envision themselves being white-hat hackers.…
On Saturday evening we had game night. We played a few rounds of Scattergories – or what Annie used to call scrotorotchies (as an emerging reader she once tried to sound out the name of the game and that is what came out). It was fun – and I ended up winning. I think what vaulted me into first was something that begins with the letter “K” and is squeezable. I put Kardashians! I know! Brilliant- right?!?
Sunday
On Sunday we had our normal church and religious education routine. Dominick actually read in mass today and did a great job! There were strings of $50 words which he navigated and pronounced with aplomb. People were coming up to us afterwards to tell him/us what a great job he did. Immediately afterwards the kids made sandwiches for the homeless and cards for the shut-ins. We were so proud of all of them!
Gracie had to sell Girl Scout cookies at the mall in the afternoon. The scout leaders made a point of telling me what a pleasure she has been to have in the troop and that she has been a wonderful ambassador for the scouts – and a great cookie sales person to boot! It was really nice to hear such nice compliments about our wonderful little girl!
On Sunday evening after dinner I gave the kids one of my infamous vocabulary quizzes. Gracie and Dominick each tied for 6 and Annie got two. Give it a try – here are the words:
- Capitulate
- Cogitate
- Prognostication
- Vituperative
- Cryogenics
- Intellectual
- Epic
- Flabbergasted
- Foist
I hope you all have a wonderful week!
Sincerely,
Love the vocabulary quizzes, great idea. We are currently having Fear Factor Veggie Edition at our house. The parents are cooking veg that we’ve never cooked before and everyone has to try it. Isn’t parenting fun?