Culture Shock

This afternoon, Ronan was reading Diary of a Wimpy Kid to me and came across a term he just couldn't grasp; 'Seating Chart.' I explained to him how seating charts at school work and Ronan responded with "Bummer."
This sort of culture shock is a fairly common occurrence in our home. Noah was very amused when he first learned of bathroom passes. The idea of needing permission to use the bathroom! Even worse, the thought that permission might actually be denied! And the first time my older four saw a locker room shower at Grandpa's school the shock was overwhelming. (Now we are members of the Y, so the younger Enrights are very aware that locker rooms have their very own rules of propriety that just don't mesh with societal rules outside of a locker room. It is still shocking though.) Currently the kids have been discussing the disgrace of one 16 minute recess a day (a fact they apparently picked up from someone at church).

First Day of the Semester

This was the first week of spring semester at the college. What that meant for us was that while we had been doing school now for a couple weeks, this week we threw driving Erin and Bayley to classes into the mix. Wednesday was their first day of classes. So, our day went like this:

Erin, Bayley, Kegan and Rhys got home from Seminary a little after 7. The goal this morning was to be heading to the YMCA by 8:15. This is a huge deal for us, everyone up and fed and in the car by 8:15, but we did it. It was a little chaotic as we ran up and down stairs locating towels, swimming suits and duffel bags for everyone, not to mention car keys and cell phones. And the mess we left behind in the kitchen when we kissed our Daddy goodbye at the door (that was a switch) wasn't pretty, but we did it. Bayley had to work that morning (hence the early swim time) so she was our lifeguard instead of getting to swim with us. We arrived back home about 10:30 sans Bayley, to clean up our mess before we could begin school. The pretty little schedule I have put together for this semester says that we have an hour for math after swimming on Wednesdays, but I had Erin's class time down as starting at two. It starts at twelve.

I had just enough time to sit everyone down with instructions to do their math before I had to leave to get Erin to the college. I took Ronan and his multiplication worksheet with us. The drive to and from the college is about a forty minute trip. Erin's four hour baking class met for one hour on Wednesday, as the kitchens were under construction over the break and were not yet ready to be used. I was home long enough to sort out who had and who hadn't finished their math, and give some directions regarding lunch, before I headed back to pick Erin up from class. Erin and I were nearly home when we decided that a back tire was definitely making an odd clunking noise every time it turned around. In the driveway back at home I examined said tire and discovered a large bolt embedded in it. Driving left to do that day? Pick up Bayley from the Y, bring her home, take her downtown for her evening writing class, pick her up after class. Booger.

Aside from filling them with gas and occasionally scraping ice from the windshields, I have very little to do with the maintenance of our cars. I was vaguely aware of two things, one; a bolt in your tire is bad, and two; Kris had told me sometime in the past that he had a deal with some tire place somewhere in town to fix or replace flats for free. After interrupting Kris in a board meeting with several texts and phone calls, he was able to lead me to the proper paper work so I could contact the right tire place. I called them, they said they could fix it in an hour and a half, I had precisely an hour and a half before I needed to pick up Bayley. So, I put science class on hold, let Erin take over dinner preparations and headed out to the tire place with Ronan and his math again.

It took me less than 10 minutes to get there, then I stood in line for 20 minutes and by the time I got to the front, they were estimating a two hour wait now. I didn't have two hours. The tire guy looked at my tire, said he thought I could drive on it for a bit yet and scheduled me for a 5:30 appointment, the latest they had in the day, and only 15 minutes from the scheduled beginning of Bayley's downtown class (at least 20 minutes from the tire place).

At home again I hurriedly got chili cooking (Erin had the cinnamon rolls under control), before I had to pick up Bayley. Brought Bayley home for a twenty minute layover before I had to take her to class. Got her to class with only one wrong turn downtown (I know, big deal, right? But it is a big deal when you are driving a bus!) By now Kris had called and was on his way home from Pueblo, so he met me at the tire place and oversaw what turned out to be the replacement of both inner rear tires, because a bolt was not my only problem. See, a wise friend told us when we purchased a bus with dual wheels on the back, that we could have a flat back there and not know it, because the car will ride on the other tires. Guess what? He was right. Both inner tires were flat and we didn't even know.

A crazy first day of the semester. Kegan, Kris and I arrived home with our new tires and ate some delicious chili and cinnamon rolls. I picked up Bayley from class that night in the Honda, which is infinitely more maneuverable on the downtown streets. Fionn fell asleep in the backseat on the way there. And on Thursday, Ronan finally got that math done.

Kegan got His Braces Off!!!!

Yay! Three years and ten months in braces. Four Christmases with no caramel apples. Fionnula doesn't remember his teeth any other way.

December

Today we finally put away the Christmas tree. And removed the few forlorn looking stockings that were still hanging from the mantle (and fished the others out from under beds, we even emptied them of chocolate wrappers). The pyramid of wrapping paper rolls is gone from my bedroom. The popcorn and cranberry garlands are hanging in my backyard trees for any birds that may actually be willing to brave the freezing temperatures, and the gingerbread village is off of the schoolroom table and now rearranged out under the trees for the squirrels to enjoy. I am not really sure how good gingerbread houses really are for squirrels, with their concrete hard frosting and stale gumdrops, M&M's and peppermints, but it sure is entertaining to watch the squirrels towering over them, ripping off entire walls and greedily consuming every nasty morsel. And the squirrel fights that ensue over the rights to the gingerbread are impressive.


The Gingerbread Village waiting to be demolished

Yes, I let the Christmas decorations linger a little long this year, not so much because I wanted to enjoy them a little longer, (in fact I was really growing a little tired of the extra table crammed into my dining room and the futon blocking the bookshelves even if I did like sitting by the lit Christmas tree in the evenings), but because I just lacked the energy to actually take them down. In fact the real downside to an artificial tree has nothing to do with it's lack of authentic piney smell, but is all about the need to take it apart, cram it in an undersized box, and store it for a year rather than tossing it out the door.

We started our Christmas break this year at Thanksgiving. Made and mailed our caramel apples immediately after Thanksgiving day and then spent the next two weeks trying, unsuccessfully, to get all our Christmas shopping done before Kris and I left for Hawaii. We spent a Sunday afternoon putting up the tree and then making increasingly mal-formed gingerbread men. By the end of the evening Kris and the kids had made gingerbread men with multiple heads, extra limbs and several variations of aliens.

On the eighth, Kris and I headed to the airport at 4 in the morning, having said goodbye the night before, we just left everyone, including my mom, in bed and snuck out. Temperatures at home were in the single digits, but we didn't want to haul winter coats to Hawaii so we left them in the car at the airport parking lot and hurried to the terminal. About eight hours later we stepped out of another airplane into 84 degree weather. We didn't care to spend a lot of time around the resort area at Waikiki, but instead drove our little rental car around to the other side of Oahu each day. Interesting note here: the rental cars all had defrosters on their rear windows. So, we spent three days mostly hanging out on beaches that were primarily empty except for the sand crabs while my kids huddled in the house in Colorado and watched it snow.


Here is the view from my favorite beach.

Back home we rushed to finish Christmas shopping. We put up our new to us trampoline (after Kris and the kids drove up to Black Forest and took it apart--in the wind--at it's previous home)just before Christmas. Bayley worked constantly, and in her spare time at home managed to sew new jammie pants for the whole family, which we opened on Christmas Eve and all wore that night. Erin and I (mostly Erin)baked goodies on a daily basis. And we built the afore-mentioned gingerbread village (one house per kid, plus a castle by Erin). Rhys designed his gingerbread house to look like it was on fire. Ronan's and Kegan's each had Mario-Kart themes. On Fionn's birthday (the 22nd) we went to the Denver zoo and stayed late to see the zoo lights. Spent Christmas day cooking, playing lego and playstation, drawing, eating and visiting with one set of grandparents. Went to Greeley on the 27th and played with little cousins and Grandma and Grandpa. Were treated to a trip to the bookstore, doughnuts for breakfast and the joys of television! On the thirtieth we celebrated Noah's birthday with still more lego and still more food. Older kids had a dance on New Year's Eve, so we waited to play our traditional New Year's Game on New Year's Day, which meant more presents and lots more wrapping paper mess. So, when the January 2nd arrived, i just didn't feel very inspired to undecorate, but felt more like lying on the couch reading a good book, which is why the Christmas Tree lingered so long in my living room.

Halloween 2009

Fionn and Noah as Dorothy and the Tin Man. You can't see the ruby slippers in this shot, but she does have them on.


Aislin as Alicia Spinnet from Harry Potter.


Bayley and Kegan as Scully and Mulder from 'The X-Files.'


Liam as Yoda.


Ronan as Spock (He made his own Phaser with duct tape).


Erin is Pam from 'The Office, Rhys opted for the ever popular 'muggle in serious need of a haircut' costume.


Amik as Revan (a Sith Lord from the game Knights of the Old Republic, or so I am told).


A view of the ruby slippers, which Fionn will tell you came from The Wizard of Oz Store (aka Target).

Lots of Cheesecake

Two birthdays in one week. Despite our higher than average total number of birthdays in the family, we don't often have two within a week of each other. Okay wait... Bayley and Aislin, Erin and me... do Kegan and Rhys count? So maybe we do double up occasionally. Bayley turned 17 last Wednesday and Aislin turned 12 on Sunday. We now have more kids out of Primary than in.

The celebrations this week have mostly been about the food. There were balloons and the traditional Happy Birthday posters (custom made by the siblings)and the home movies of the birthday girls as babies, but the focus was definitely the food. The tradition in our family is that the birthday person gets to pick the meals for their special day. Several years ago we had to ammend this tradition to say that they could choose a breakfast and a dinner, but no lunch. We were just too darn stuffed by the end of the day to eat the desserts. So lunch on birthdays is on your own grazing, but dinner and breakfast tend to be fantastic. Oh...if you happen to have a twin, you each get to pick separate meals and they are consumed on different days. This went into affect after a birthday breakfast one hot July morning that consisted of chocolate french toast, chosen by Kegan, and strawberry cheesecake stuffed french toast, chosen by Rhys, or maybe it was the other way around. It is true that I still have a few children who will choose things like hot dogs or cheese sticks, but for the most part the tastes have become more sophisticated. And some children will spend literally months planning their meal, combing magazines and websites for the right recipes.

This year Bayley chose cinnamon rolls with cream cheese frosting and fruit for her breakfast. Her dinner was chicken cordon bleu with an alfredo type sauce on it, green beans with sugared almonds and garlic mashed potatoes. And the dessert was a white chocolate, raspberry and chocolate truffle cheesecake with a raspberry sauce on it. Luckily, our schedules were such that Bayley's meals had to be broken up over two days. So we could feel free to pig out on cinnamon rolls at breakfast and know that the cheesecake wasn't coming until the next evening. So we finished off Bayley's leftovers on Friday. We took the weekend to recover.

Even though Aislin's birthday was on Sunday, we ate both her meals on Monday. Sunday is just too crazy with church at 8 and then meetings afterwards and firesides in the evening. So, on Aislin's actual birthday, most of us probably missed breakfast all together, the lucky ones got some cold cereal before rushing out the door. And dinner was waffles, a very common Sunday afternoon meal at our house, we did put chocolate chips in them and made a fruit sauce to top them with though. Aislin's day late birthday breakfast was baked brown sugar cinnamon french toast and turkey sausage. The leftover french toast was consumed cold throughout the day by the deprived children whose mother wouldn't make them any lunch. Dinner was italian chicken with both spicy white and tomato sauces on top, tortellini with olive oil, spices and parmesan cheese and more green beans. Dessert was cheesecake again. This one was strawberry, Aislin wanted the cake itself to be strawberry, so I made my regular plain cheesecake but stirred in pureed strawberries before we baked it, so the cake turned out slightly pink. On top of it we had a strawberry sauce, a chocolate sauce and fresh strawberries.

We still have Aislin's leftovers to consume, so I shouldn't need to prepare much food tomorrow. And even when the rest of the food is gone we have one last birthday tradition--that the very end of the birthday dessert is consumed by the birthday child with Mom and Dad one evening after the big day has passed.

Backyard Funeral

Yesterday we held an impromptu bird funeral. I was sitting on the family room floor, leaning against the couch that is situated under the window when there was a terrific crash against the window. My first thought was that one of my children had hit a ball into it, and the looks of shock and gasps of horror from the children all around me, momentarily convinced me that someone had carelessly broken the window. Never mind that all the likely culprits were the same chilren who were staring in horror at the window behind my head--these were instantaneous thoughts. Then began the chorus of "It was a bird!" and "That bigger bird was chasing it!" Dreading what I would see, I went to look out the back door, as the majority of my children moved to look out the window. There on the back porch we watched a robin take it's last few spastic breaths before becoming completely still.

Our family room window looks out on a covered porch of reasonable size, this bird had to have made some calculated moves just to have gotten near the window. Then there is the matter of the second bird that was sighted. The younger eye-witnesses claimed it was a hawk. I think this is unlikely, as I have never seen a hawk in my backyard. However, we have Arizona Woodpeckers in the area, and one in particular that frequents our yard. The coloring is similar enough to a Red Tail Hawk, to be mistaken in a moment of excitement. So my assumption is that the other bird must have been our resident woodpecker. Another mark against him. This woodpecker loves to pound on my house! Usually in the early morning hours, right outside my bedroom. You may not know this, in fact it is a sign of the desperation this bird has driven me to that I do, but you can't shoot a woodpecker. They are a protected species. Interestingly, the woodpecker has ran into that same window before. So the prevalent theory among my children is that he purposely led the poor robin to its death, chasing it into a window he had previously ran into himself.

Well, we could hardly leave the bird lying just a few feet from the back door. So Erin and Bayley got shovels and picked a spot in the yard where the ground wasn't impossibly hard. Fionn was desperate to oversee every aspect of the proceedings. A bit of scientific curiosity/ ambulance chaser mentality/ honest sadness all apparent in her words and actions. "I want to see, I want to see!" "Oh...he was my favorite birdie." "He broke his neck!" Before the earth could be piled over the bird's body, Liam felt moved to proclaim "He was a nice bird, and the other bird was a meany bird." Erin and Bayley filled in the hole and Aislin led Ronan, Liam and Fionn about the yard finding violets, rocks and pine cones with which to decorate the fresh grave. Inside, the older boys had watched most of the proceedings through the dining room window, at most, faintly curious. When the funeral goers returned inside though, Kegan expressed the opinion that he thought it would be fitting if we took the rest of the day off from school. In honor of the poor bird, of course.