On Monday morning Dick and I had to get busy! We had an appointment on the calendar that had kind-of sneaked up on us. There were guys coming from Baker's Waterproofing at 8 am. Over the years we have noticed that the walkway along the side of our house (which leads to our side porch) was sloping down toward the foundation. Upon research Dick found this company that drills holes and pumps a foam that hardens underneath as it raises the concrete. We had to take the grill and water hose off the walk and move vehicles. Thankfully Dick was able to go in to work late.
It took them less than two hours, and they lifted the inner edge enough that rainwater will now drain away from the house instead of toward it.
I met Destiny and Elizer at Kid 2 Kid around 11 am. They agreed to take most of the things, giving Destiny $100 of store credit that she could use to get winter clothes for Elizer. A good deal!
I took Elizer home for his nap while she shopped uninterrupted. She had to start work at 2:30.
I enjoyed taking a walk around the house to visit my flowers. The roses are the only ones I see from the front of the house.
Destiny had to work till 11 pm, so Elizer stayed here over night. Grandpa gave him a long ride around the neighborhood on the mower tractor. Darkness comes earlier now, so the headlights were on when they returned. I feel so much sadness over the shorter days and the end of summer.
Tuesday morning was exciting! Elizer's first day in his new class! I wish I had thought of taking a picture of him before we left.
After I walked him in and came back to the parking garage I took pictures of the wall I was was stuck against on Friday and the paint that belongs on my van! GRRRR!
Here are pictures Elizer's teacher took during the day. She has so many things to keep them busy!
Look who else was having their first day of school on Tuesday! Hunter in 2nd grade and Austin in 9th!
I went to the laundromat and got some groceries. We were still waiting for the part Dick had ordered to fix my washer. I was just thankful I could bring my wet things home to dry.
That evening I made an old favorite for dinner - fried eggplant sandwiches. Even Elizer agreed that they were delicious!
On Wednesday morning there was a beautiful sunrise when I came to the kitchen at 6:30.
Sammy and Bianca had their first day of school Wednesday - Sammy in 6th grade, Bianca in 4th. Jenn said that Bianca wanted her to post the pictures of them holding cereal boxes and say that these were their sponsors, hahahaha!!
More pictures taken by Elizer's teacher that day.
I made Egyptian Moussaka - an eggplant dish somewhat like lasagna. I took most of it over to Anthony and Lori, but kept enough here for us to enjoy.
Dick fixed my washer that evening, woohoo! I'm so thankful he's an all-around mechanic and that there are such helpful YouTube videos!
Thursday pictures from Elizer's teacher. They even brush their teeth at school!
I love that his teacher incorporates music into the classroom!
After I picked him up from school on Thursday we stopped at "airport park" and played for quite a while. There was a guy there with his kids helping them to go down the fireman pole. Elizer wanted to try it. Yikes!! Now he will be wanting to try it when there's no one else there to help him but me!
At one point he started running - and running and running! This video is over a minute-and-a-half long and he still ran for a while after I stopped taking the video! He loves to run!!
That day was Alex's birthday, so we made a video to send him. He liked it.
No school on Friday. His preschool follows the State College Area School District schedule, and for whatever reason they had off Friday after just three days of school!
It was Destiny's day off. She's back to her schedule of having Friday and Saturday off like last school year. I took Elizer with me to Walmart in the morning.
We stopped at the new church construction site to take a look. The part that's up is the education and kitchen wing. The sanctuary has not yet been started except for the foundation which you can see on the right.
In the afternoon Destiny and Elizer left for Lancaster around 2:00. He's spending the weekend with Alex's family. His grandma Carmen is returning to Puerto Rico on Monday.
I made oven bbq chicken and steamed garlic broccoli in the afternoon and took some to Dick at work to take over to Anthony and Lori. He was going over there to do some brush trimming.
I went to the bank and came home to my very quiet house. I knew exactly what I was going to do! I had laundry to fold and a show to watch. I watched all the rest of season 11 of Call the Midwife. I started watching this on Netflix in August 2022. I don't have much time to sit and watch anything, but I have loved every little chance I could find to watch this show. Now I gotta figure out where I can watch season 12. Even Dick did not mind one bit watching it with me occasionally, especially last night when the last episode was quite dramatic and suspenseful.
And now it's Saturday and I'm finally caught up here!!
I just can't catch up here! But hopefully by the end of today I will.
Gotta start with a collage of my roses. I am tickled pink (and yellow and red) this summer with them!
Last Saturday around noon we picked up Destiny and Elizer, went to Giant to pick up Elizer's birthday cake, then hit the road for Lancaster. Elizer napped while we drove. Good timing!
His party was held at Bounce Kraze, same place as last year. Their three-hour party package is two hours of bounce time and one hour in the designated party room for pizza and drink, birthday cake, and gift opening.
A lot of people came this year!
Pictured above: Elizer with Destiny's little sister Alaya; with his Grandpa Orlando and Daddy Alex; with "Dada"; and Great Grandma Carmen. Alex's younger brother (curly hair) is on the bottom right.
Pictured above: Frank with J'von; Alex's sister and her son (Elizer's favorite cousin); Destiny with her mom; some of Destiny's maternal family.
It was kind of hard to coral the kids into the party room when their two hours of bounce time was up. It was even harder to keep them from escaping the room, haha!
First there was pizza and drink.
Birthday cake time! The party theme was Paw Patrol.
Singing "Happy Birthday."
Gift-opening time. No small feat when a three-year-old would like to open and play with each gift, but there's a deadline for using the room!
We did get a picture of Elizer with his mommy and daddy before we had to be finished. No wonder he's so darn cute with such beautiful parents! (Special thanks to Frank for making and designing their shirts!)
Destiny had brought a piñata along and SO MUCH CANDY! So we took that outside and improvised. It was still fun!
On the way home we had some gorgeous views of the sunset.
Destiny had to start work at 7 am on Sunday, so we took her home and brought Elizer home with us. We decided to deal with the van-load of gifts the next day.
Elizer went with us to church Sunday morning. In the afternoon Dick went over to Anthony's woods. Elizer napped, I worked on next Sunday's music, and later took him to the playground below our house.
In the evening we performed miracles, haha! Cleaned out Elizer's room of things he no longer needs (including the rocking chair, boohoo!) in order to make room for new birthday gifts.
Assembling his new work bench.
Destiny is good at assembling things too. She definitely has some of Frank's skills.
When we left that evening we had a van full of things to take to Kid 2 Kid (a consignment shop), Goodwill, and the trash. Felt like a major accomplishment!
On Monday Destiny and I would be taking care of it all.
Last Monday, August 14th, I had Elizer all day because he doesn't go to daycare on Mondays. It was a beautiful day, and we spent part of the morning at Benner Township Veterans Park. It's the one at the entrance to our community. It is so beautifully kept.
Elizer wanted to run the bases on the ball field. I was cheering him on and was surprised when he started around the second time. Home base was slippery and he fell both times he got there. The second time was worse and he really cried when he saw some blood on his knee. He usually doesn't cry when he gets hurt, but seeing blood is a whole different story!
Silly poses.
I brought our first tomato inside! There are a lot of green ones hanging on.
I was tickled when I saw three blooms on my red rose bush.
The latter part of the day was rainy and dreary. We sat on the porch a couple of times to watch the rain, but after dark it rained really hard.
On Tuesday I blogged and went to the laundromat. Our washer is still on the fritz because Dick ordered the wrong part. Thankfully I can bring my laundry home to dry.
After I brought Elizer home from daycare we went to the little playground below our house.
I caught this cute video of Destiny and Elizer that evening - she was showing him a video and explaining how tadpoles become frogs. She's a good teacher.
On Wednesday morning I glimpsed this when I came to the kitchen. I have rarely seen a sunrise this summer.
I made Jamaican Rice and Peas and Curried Chicken for Lori and Anthony that day and took it over to their place after I picked Elizer up from daycare. Anthony and the boys were there, and Elizer was happy to go inside to say hi to them.
A yellow beauty that day.
Then I met Destiny at Walmart and we had fun grocery shopping together.
On Thursday I went to the laundromat again and also to TJMaxx to look for birthday gifts for Elizer. Destiny knew he would be getting toys from other people and wanted me to get him size 3 clothes. I found several cute outfits, a pair of Spiderman pajamas, and a Spiderman soccer ball. He's all about Spiderman these days.
We saw a rainbow and a sunset that evening.
Friday was Elizer's birthday! Of course to him "birthday" is synonymous with "party." We had to explain that Friday was three years since he was born, and we would have a birthday cake at dinner, but Saturday is when we would have a party.
I had gotten strawberry frosted mini-donuts for him to treat his daycare friends. His teacher took this picture of him eating his donut with his birthday crown on his head.
It was his last day in the daycare class. He is now in the three-year-old class in a program called "Pre-K Counts." It's a free five-days-per-week program for eligible parents, which Destiny is. It is also held at St. Paul's Christian Preschool where he has been in daycare. After I dropped him off Friday morning I went to take a look at what would be his new classroom and met his new teacher, Miss Christy. She taught for Headstart for 30 years before coming to teach this program at St. Pauls a few years ago. So she's experienced, very animated, and fun. I felt so good after my little visit. I took some pictures to show Destiny and Elizer.
At home that day I was cooking the meal Destiny had requested, Creamy Lemon Spinach Ricotta Ravioli with Sausage. It's a recipe she had made when they lived here and it's been a favorite ever since.
My day was about to get much more interesting. Last week was move-in week for Penn State students. All week the amount of cars and pedestrians was increasing, and by Friday it was CRAZY town!!! It was only by the grace of God that I did not run over anybody when I would turn onto the street his daycare is on. The parents were as bad as the kids - just walking down the sidewalk, crossing streets without even looking if a car might be trying to turn onto it.
When I pulled into the parking garage across from his daycare it was PACKED!! I really thought there was no space available when I spied an empty one. It didn't look very big, and I didn't want to get too close to the car next to my spot because that's the side I would get out of, SO I ended up getting to close to that wall instead!
This was my situation when I looked at it more closely after bringing Elizer to the car.
I tried so hard to back up a little bit, pull front a little bit, turn a little bit. I tried to see if the rear view mirror would fold in, but it wouldn't. I ended up making my situation even worse, so I finally called Dick. It was 15 minutes before his quit time at work, which is just a few blocks away. He came to my rescue. And guess what - the mirror DID fold in for him, of course!! While Elizer and I stood back and watched, he carefully backed my car out of that spot. But this is what we saw. GRRRRRR.
This morning, in the much emptier parking garage, I took pictures of that empty parking spot and the white paint that belongs to my van.
Back to Friday - as planned, we had Elizer's birthday dinner that evening. Two of Destiny's friends, Lena and Jina, as well as Jina's 5-year-old brother, joined us. We were video chatting with Destiny's sisters Jada, Alaya, and V'anni as we ate. Then when we were ready for the ice cream cake we Face-timed with Lori and the boys who were at a cabin in Hershey for the weekend. He had a blast trying to blow out the candles!
Icing on the face and loving it!
I gave him the soccer ball I'd gotten, so of course there had to be some soccer practice outside before they all left. Elizer is really a natural, and I hope we can get him into a soccer program next Spring.
Meanwhile in Florida Sophie was all moved in to her new dorm apartment at University of Miami. She has a really sweet roommate, and her coach has two labradoodles just like Lisa and George have! Sophie has already met one of the dogs, which warmed her heart. Here are some screenshots I took from Lisa's video.
And here's the new college freshman!
Lisa has taken a first-day-of school photo every year since her first year of preschool. Some of you probably remember her as a cute little curly head!
Next time I'll have pictures from Elizer's birthday party at Bounce Kraze on Saturday.
