Tag: #weekendwrapup

Weekend wrap up

This weekend was a good mix of being productive, fun and relaxing. We were going to kick off the weekend with a football game but it was cold and rainy at game time so we opted to stay home and play Qwirkle. We play once a day, and I haven’t beat Brandon yet. I have tied and been close, but not a win yet.

Qwirkle is not a game for Natalie so we played a round of jenga first. Our table is the worst surface for that game. It’s wiggly and the girls are constantly leaning on it. Normally we play on the floor and quickly learned that would be site for all future jenga games. Natalie is surprisingly good at jenga. And that really annoys Morgan.

Saturday started off with me moving the girls desks around in their rooms. And cleaning up. Now, they both need a rug to play on and warm up the rooms. And maybe muffle the THUMP of them getting out of bed. While I was up there, Brandon worked on scraping and painting the porch.

That night we ate at Harley K’s (I always want to call it Harley Quinn’s) for some Philippino food. I was extra adventurous and got the pork stewed in pigs blood. It was good, but I like the pancit better. What was really amazing was the fresh rolls they brought us out to try. They were not as sweet as Hawaiian rolls but close and just delicious. They make them to order so we agreed they would be perfect for thanksgiving. Then we made a quick trip to Princeton for pumpkins.

Since the guys were combining on Sunday, we had my mom come down for pumpkin carving and lunch. We even fit in a game of Qwirkle.
We roasted the pumpkin seeds because Morgan insisted she liked them. She might have ate 5, but Natalie ate a small bowl. I tried both a salty and a sweet kind, but the sweet kind got a little crisp. I should have been watching them closer since it was brown sugar. I think the salty would still have been better. They were really yummy.
Morgan liked the scraping technique for hers. We eventually put it in a closet so she could see how much she needed to scrap for the light to shine through. These pumpkins were really thick this year.
Natalie wanted a scary pumpkin so this is her design. It took a bit to finalize the plans but it turned out really good.
Then we went for a little walk in the timber and checked out the deer stand. It’s really getting pretty back there now. We finished that walk with some hedge apple bowling in the corn field.

We plan on planting some pumpkins next year by a shed. I’m rethinking that plan after Natalie spotted a snake going into the tall grass there. We were walking up to the house and made a couple trips back and forth and the snake was out every time to sun himself. He would slither back in the grass and wait for us to leave before coming back out. I am not a fan of snakes. This was a small, harmless one, but I still didn’t like it.

Next weekend is a trip to Macomb for WIU’s homecoming and more packing. I made good start in the basement last time we were there so I’m hoping to wrap that up and move on to the kitchen. Moving is a pain but moving in chunks is really hard. I want my stuff in both places for when we are there. Eventually, everything will get to Wyanet and will will make due with paper plates and takeout in Macomb when we go there to work on THAT house. Some day we will just have one house to work on. 😁

Putting the Labor in Labor Day

It was a busy weekend to lead up to my first day of the new job. Since we want to finish up the floors downstairs while Brandon is off the next month, our bedroom needed to be sanded, primed, painted and carpet removed. So that was the main event with a lot of other stuff filling in the gaps.

How can you tell you are in the Midwest? You watch Friday Night Football next to a cornfield. We hadn’t planned on going but while we were eating supper, Morgan asked “is there a game tonight?” Which I knew meant her friends must be going, so we headed to our second game in two days. But it was worth it because both girls found friends to play with and had a great time. Natalie was not ready to leave when the game was over. 🙂
Another way to tell is there is an inflatable pig costume at the game for no other reason than it’s funny. We hope it makes an appearance at all the games.
View from my new walking route. I will soon be walking in the dark, so I ordered a lighted vest last week.
Then it was time to get rid of the yellow. Yellow ceiling, yellow walls, and yellow carpeting…

We had done a round of plaster repair but that was interrupted, so there were still spots that needed sanding and a couple that we had to put another layer on. While that was drying, we headed to the canal where Brandon and Morgan rode their bikes in pursuit of walnuts while Natalie and I threw some rocks in the water.

We finished up with priming and painting the ceiling Saturday and it needed time to dry before we could tape around the ceiling to add the paint to the walls. It worked out since we had family pictures then had to come through with the bribe and got ice cream after. Morgan would pose for hours for pictures while Natalie was done after one shot.

Morgan had a practice for the Storm Sweeties performance for the upcoming football game after pictures and ice cream. Brandon and I got the room painted while she was gone.

We explored the “West Place” Sunday night. It has a cool barn with a basement and some other interesting old buildings. The girls and I had explored there in the spring, but Brandon hadn’t checked it out yet.
Had to get a picture of the carpet before it went bye-bye.

We got the carpet up and are working on the tack strips and staples. We rounded out the long weekend with a trip to Menards to get fun stuff like a dehumidifier and water dispenser.

The girls are getting driving lessons down the long drive way. They have a long way to go. LOL!

Hope you all had a fun and productive weekend! I’m excited to start the job tomorrow!

Weekend Wrapup

We kicked off the weekend with a night at the Bureau County Fair. The girls were pumped to ride some rides and get cotton candy. I have never seen the appeal of cotton candy, but it’s their fair food of choice. Brandon likes corn dogs, and I personally go for the elephant ears. After moving to Macomb, I realized those are regional because I couldn’t find them at any carnival in that area. If I had been thinking, I would have started an Elephant Ear food truck because who doesn’t like fried dough with cinnamon sugar and a glaze of icing?!

It had been way too long. One of my favorite memories from the fair is going to the Queen contest as a kid with my parents and getting an elephant ear on the way out of the fairgrounds.

The girls rode rides until 10pm and there were still tears when it was time to go. Natalie had one meltdown when we stopped ever so briefly for French fries. It was unavoidable because she would have melted down later from lack of food. Morgan met up with a friend from her class to ride a few rides. I was happy to see that because she has bouts of homesickness missing her friends in Macomb. All in all it was a great night and they got our money’s worth of the armbands.

They rode this Dragon “roller coaster” at least a dozen times. Natalie is a dare devil with rides. She was incredibly bummed to not be tall enough for the big ship that swings way up and down.
Morgan still enjoys the younger rides but is starting to prefer the bigger rides. She gets motion sickness in the car (and bumpy plane rides) but the rides are okay for now. She wears bands on her wrists and goes for it. The last ride she went on was the Tilt a Whirl and I was holding my breath she didn’t hurl all over her new friend.
And this is what happens on a Saturday afternoon after a late night at the fair.

The rest of Saturday was spent on cleaning out the basement. While Brandon worked out clearing out some stuff, Morgan and I worked on ridding the basement of cobwebs.

It’s a good thing I’m not afraid of spiders. Morgan’s not a big fan but she stuck with this project.
This is the area Brandon was concentrating on so he could have a place for all the tools that were in the dining room. We needed to get those cleared out so we could start on the floors. See that big blue tank on the floor? He tried to attached that to my car and pull it up the stairs. Spoiler alert: it didn’t work. 🙂 We will need to enlist my dad and his tractor to help out with that and all the other HUGE things that need to get out.
All the tools in the basement! The girls liked helping out with this project. Natalie sat at the top of the stairs and handed Brandon the tools Morgan brought her. I just had to help out with the heavier stuff. One step closer to refinishing the floors.

On Sunday we headed to the fair to watch Blake and Lauren show their pigs. They did a great job and the girls had a good time with their cousins.

I grew up showing pigs and have attempted to explain the whole thing to non-farming people, but I think it still comes across as a little odd.
The girls even talked us into one more ride. Lauren was nice enough to ride with them. Natalie loved the Tilt a Whirl on Friday night, but was less impressed on Sunday. She must have been on a rider’s high on Friday.

One more week off for me before I start the new job. I still have a few things I want to get done this week, so I’m going to do my best to be productive.