Minecraft!

We thought that since the Wii dance party had been a big hit, we'd try another technological interest! As soon as I floated the idea of using Minecraft for the next church family event, the girls were all in favour! Their enthusiasm was promising and I talked to Julie about it and she was immediately on board as well and found some great table decorations plus a great big wearable creeper head! A friend of mine had used a Minecraft theme for her son's bday recently so I got some good ideas for party snacks from her and looked to Pinterest for decorations!

It was a lot of work and I may or may not have blown the budget but the room looked fabulous when the kids all arrived! I got there early and started putting balloons and things up. Julie & I had done a bit of decorating the night before but there's always the last minute stuff plus the food to set out.

Everything was awesome! One mom asked if we had any other games/activities lined up and when I admitted we didn't, she said "that's great! My daughter only wants to play Minecraft and she was afraid you'd make them stop to do other stuff!"  Until the kids all fired up their iPods/Pads/androids and could NOT get their games to join up. It was instant panic and stress! (and the kids were upset too!) THIS was NOT my department. THIS was the part that was supposed to take care of itself. I'd talked to my IT guy about having so many devices on the church wifi at the same time, no concerns there, and checked that off my list! We had more kids at this party than any other that I can remember! It had looked so promising, and did I mention the fabulous food and decor???? It was supposed to be fun and everything perfect!!! Everyone was going to go home and say our party was lame!!! The horrors!!!

Eventually Murray and Dale got things working so they could play but connections kept dropping and it didn't go as planned. I was upset but Dale cheered me up when he told me he overheard one little guy say:

"This minecraft party is awesome!!! I wish they'd have one EVERY week!!!"

and another boy had to leave early so the mom could get his sister to dance lessons and he was almost in tears he was so upset to go before it was over!

I talked to the kids on the way home and they all said it wasn't what they'd imagined but they'd still liked it and had a good time and would like to do it again. By the next day the sense of dismal failure had passed and I decided that our record breaking attendance was nothing to be disappointed in. Teena pointed out that to those who didn't know exactly what to expect were perfectly happy and it only seemed worse to me because I'd had a plan in mind. Those that didn't know the plan didn't care! and that's why she's my BFF! She fixes everything!   mmmmmwah!

iDisaster

If it's not one thing around here, it's another! This morning I was in the shower when Lovey came in to use the washroom. I reminded her not to flush or she'd burn me from lack of cold water. The next thing I know she's shrieking with utmost horror in her voice:

Mummy! MUMMY!!!!!! My iPod is in the TOILET!!!!!!!! MUMMY!!!!!!!!

I peeked out around the curtain and witnessed the disaster firsthand. The whole "don't flush" thing worked to her advantage as the ipod hadn't sunk all the way down and was resting on a pile of toilet paper. It was definitely wet but wasn't quite totally submerged.

Me: Get it OUT!
L: (paralyzed with fear for the iPod coupled with fear of touching toilet water & accompanying substances)
Me: Just grab it! You've got to get it out of there!
L: (stuck, except for the glassy eyed stare swiveling between me and the bowl of human waste)
Me: the longer you leave it, the less chance you have to get it working! (still no action) Get it OUT!!!!!!!!

She is suddenly spurred into action and makes a grab for it (extreme handwashing later!)

I told her to go turn both dials on for the oven and set it on the lowest temperature, I've got soap to get rid of and I race through the rest. (sorry legs, maybe next time!). While I'm doing that Lovey is so panicked and freaked out that she can't remember how to work the oven & screaming like a depraved lunatic does nothing to jog Sweetie's memory either. When I get to the kitchen they've set the temp but not turned the oven on (separate dials). Obviously we've slacked off on the cooking duties too long! We throw it in around 9:45 and begin the fun, time-filler game of "will it, won't it?!?!?". It was a long afternoon for one little girl!

Murray was out at the time of the incident but came home shortly after to monitor the drying out while we went to church and he stayed home with his bad cold.

On the way home from church, Sweetie starts pondering about saving up for a new iPod. She hadn't see hers since last Saturday and despite her "it always turns up" attitude. It hadn't. She wanted to know if we had any jobs she could do to earn extra money. I reminded her that hadn't worked out so well for us last time and she dropped that idea in a hurry!

She then wondered if we'd buy her a new one for Christmas. I told her that would take our entire shopping budget and no one else could get any presents if we did that. The other 2 quickly disabused her of that notion. She then decided it would be ok if we just gave her some cash towars it, like maybe $50. I said I didn't think that would be a fun gift to give.

Then they moved on to fundraising ideas. Hmmmm. They decided it was too cold for a lemonade stand but she still had a gum making kit from some Christmas past. The bonus being that even if she didn't sell any, she'd have lots of gum made up for herself to chew! Lovey was on board and started making signs when we got in the door. Meanwhile, Sweetie is outside playing with the little swing they made out of a stick and some rope hanging off the tree in the front yard (she'll make someone a nice manager someday!)

While she's swinging, she notices something on the platform. IT'S HER iPOD!!! Sitting outdoors for 8 days straight. More screaming ensues as she realizes this is not good, not good at all for an iPod. (check out their handmade swing to the right of the picture)

So now we have a two for one drying station and we wait and we wait. Lovey's was in there for almost 6 hours and Sweetie's was in for about one. To our utter astonishment BOTH turn on and are functioning fine so far.

Here are the two extremely fortunate and incredibly ecstatic girls.

More valuable lessons learned today:

-even though Mum says to never put the iPod near the toilet or sink, it doesn't matter, you can dry it out anyway!

-you don't have to really look hard for anything, you can either track it on "find my iPod" or it'll turn up eventually anyway and even if you leave it in the damp outdoor fall weather for over a week, Dad can fix it for you!

Camping 2013

Summers go soooooo fast! Every year we say "we should go camping sometime!" and most years we end up pitching the tent at GG's for the golf tournament and that's about the extent of our tenting time. This year we took a weekend and actually went to a real campground, woohoo!

The kids love it and lugged up all the sleeping bags, mattresses and pillows quite excitedly. Then I remembered what I hate about camping: the loading & packing of all the stuff! Gotta make sure to put the tent in last so it's the first thing on top when we get to the site. But the cooler should be packed last so it'll stay colder that way, but it's one of the biggest things so should go into the van first.... it was almost a paralyzing conundrum! Finally I had everything ready to load. Unfortunately it wasn't at 2pm as I'd planned, it was 5:30! I was going to take the girls out and set up the tent ahead of time and come back for Murray so we could eat at the site and have a bonfire. Another plan gone bad but not the end of the world.

We got everything set up and explored a bit and then turned in for the night. Checkers was incredibly restless and preferred to roam around and shake his head every 5 minutes. It was a looooooooooooong night! The kids were oblivious but Murray and I woke up not feeling too refreshed!

Nevertheless, we're camping and we're going to have fun darn it! But what to do? We shall go on a lovely nature hike and find the waterfall! We are certainly not sitting around in a tent to play iPods! I told them if they wanted to play video games in the woods, I could have thrown them over the fence in the backyard and saved myself a LOT of work! I didn't spend 5 hours baking, packing & loading to watch them do what they could do at home! They weren't very moved by my speech but didn't ask for electronics again.

We eventually found the start of the trail and began the hike. They were all excited at first, zooming along, racing around and chasing each other along the path. Then the novelty wore off after an hour and we still couldn't tell if we'd found the waterfall or not. We'd seen some water flowing over a small pile of rocks in a stream but were looking for something a little more impressive. The brochure mentioned it was "small but striking" so we kept looking, and looking and walking and looking. We ran out of trail and started back around the loop we'd taken and saw lots of other stuff in the woods but nothing that we'd consider "striking" !!! The girls weren't impressed either and made sure to let us know by subtly mentioning things like "I'M BORED. DO WE HAVE TO KEEP GOING? WHEN CAN WE STOP? CAN WE TURN BACK YET???" At one point, Murray overheard a grumbled "I feel like complaining my head off!" He lost it and said "we didn't have to come camping you know."  (<---- a="" br="" murray="" s="" that="" tirade="">
We got back to the campsite and had some lunch and shortly after that, Boo got dropped off for a sleepover as Teena & Dale had a party and we won the babysitting lottery :) They were quite excited to have her there and showed her around and got her bedroll set up. They spent the rest of the afternoon at the playground and activity centre while I cleaned up lunch, read my book and then got supper ready.

That night we did have a campfire and s'mores, roasted hotdogs, sparklers and a couple Dragons Eggs that we probably weren't supposed to have. (something about no explosives in the rules I realized after). Grammie and Grandad love campfires so they joined the party and supplied the hotdogs and stayed to enjoy the evening with us, hooray, a party!

By the time our guests left and brush & flush was done, everyone was wiped and settled down without too much furor.

Teena had saved the day and brought some ear cleaning stuff so I was able to get Checkers' ears in better shape and he slept better which meant we slept better. Somewhere towards morning, I felt Murray pushed up against me, so much so that I was barely on the mattress anymore. I looked over to see what was going on and Checkers had confiscated his mattress so he was trying to get off the ground and use mine! (despite the fact that I'd made a very nice dog bed with the removable trunk liner and some towels!!!)  Fussy puppies do not make great tentmates.

Lovey & Boo were awake at 6:30 and fairly chatty so that was the end of my shuteye! We tried to read quietly in the tent but that didn't last long and everyone got up for breakfast. They went for a swim while I dried out the tent and tore it down and reloaded the van. We grabbed a pizza lunch at the canteen and headed home!

Good times!!!

they got the "small" part right!

iPod Part II

So, Lovey gave the matter some thought (almost a couple of hours I think) and decided she too must have an iPod. She'd been saving her violin prize money from last year and then got the same cash influx when I cleaned house & sold off their toys/games/books so was easily able to afford the purchase. After watching Honey with hers in the van, she was pretty sure she needed one. By the time dance class was over that day and we were driving home, she was about 90% sure. By bedtime that night she was surely going to die without one!!!

On Wednesday that week we made a pit stop on the way to violin and snagged one for her and made her life complete ;))) I'm not sure that last bit is entirely true, but so far, she's definitely getting her money's worth.

Hi Tech Kid

Honey  has been saving her money from birthdays, little chores and when I sell their old toys, books, games etc.  Her sisters tend to go through their funds a little more quickly with buying things for  the online games they like. When asked what she was saving for, Honey didn't really know, until recently. Suddenly she was very interested in having her own iPod to play games on so she wouldn't have to borrow our tablet or let her sisters mess with a game she'd started etc.

When I gave her the most recent earnings for the used items I'd sold, that put her very near her goal. Then when we browsed the flyers this week to see what the exact price of an iPod was, they were on sale at Future Shop. Murray told her that if she had enough for the price tag, we'd pay the tax for her. She ran to count out her pile and it was pretty close. Lovey decided to raid the laptop savings bucket that never got used and gave Honey a $20 and suddenly SHE HAD ENOUGH!!! She could hardly get to sleep that night for being so excited about it. 

Mondays are very busy so Honey knew she'd probably have to wait til Tuesday to go to the store and was OK with that. I picked them up from school on Monday and made sure we had enough extra time before dance to make a detour at Future Shop!

She kept saying "I can't believe it!!! Is it real??? Am I dreaming??? Someone hit me!!!" It was pretty cute to see her excitement and enthusiasm. She was so worked up that she forgot to be shy in the store and told the sales guy what she was there for, how she was paying for it with her OWN money and everything. Even after she bought it and we were back in the van, she still kept saying "I don't believe it!!!"

This event of course has launched a major case of the "I WANTS" with other household members. Lovey actually had enough money since she never spent any of her violin prize money but I told her to think about it because she doesn't look after things as well as Honey. Only one day of watching Honey play her games and listen to music has solidified her position on the matter. She is getting one!!! The rest of the laptop bucket fund was quickly dissolved to enable this purchase.

Sweetie hasn't been as diligent in her savings and had no prize money to fall back on and was quite a ways behind on being able to make the purchase before the sale ends on Thursday. She is scrambling for jobs to do and her sisters are campaigning hard for her. Lovey counted out what she's going to need for hers and then donated the rest of her money so Sweetie would be closer (roughly $30 I think). They all did an hour of weeding tonight to add another $12.50 to her pile (we really hate weeding and pay the kids $5/hr if they'll do it but Honey lost interest after half an hour). She's taking the compost out every day ($0.50/trip) and plans to vacuum the vehicles tomorrow ($2/each). I may do some laundry so she can fold & put away and bring her a little closer. She's at $170 right now and needs to earn another $10 by the end of Thursday... stay tuned for exciting progress reports!