Pre-Christmas update
I'm at work this afternoon, but since it's the last day of finals for the semester, we're not very busy. Most of the questions we're getting are of the "Where do I return my books?" variety; nothing very challenging. We did have one Ask A Librarian email question this morning asking how to find a particular kind of psychology article, and that caused us to do a double-take: "Really?! It's 8:30 on the morning of the last day of finals and you haven't even found your ARTICLE yet?!" Ah, well, it's their problem. We did answer the question, of course.
I'm going to start this update with last Thursday, since that day was actually eventful. Andrew had the day off, so we started it out (well, after we took the boys to school, of course) with attending Ian's Christmas program at the preschool. We were joined for that by Andrew's mom, which was very nice. We got to chat with her for a little while afterward. The program itself was hilarious -- the kids (ranging in age from Ian's 18-24 month old class up to Kindergarten) sang several Christmas songs, all a capella. They had no sense of melody whatsoever, but most were extremely enthusiastic. Ian's class was only up front for the last two songs, and they all just sat there with their teachers looking bewildered, but cute, in their pajamas. Of course, Ian is still working on mastering talking, and I've never yet heard him sing (aside from a few random attempts that I could vaguely recognize the melody to, but his words were gibberish) even at home, much less in front of a group. I should probably count the fact that he even stayed put up there a victory. You know, all in all, I really enjoyed watching the kids enjoying themselves, some of them quite exuberantly. :)
After the Christmas program, Andrew and I did a little Christmas shopping, and then hit the Verizon Wireless store, where we finally entered the 21st century and got smart phones and upgraded ourselves to a data plan and unlimited texting and the like. I went with the Samsung Galaxy SIII, and Andrew is now proud owner of an iPhone 5. So far I am pretty happy with my phone, though still getting to know it and working some of the kinks out. So far, the biggest one seems to be that I can't get the Backup Assistant to work. Need to figure that one out so I don't lose my contacts -- especially now that I've reformatted them all so they'll sort correctly on my phone. We actually went to Best Buy after we left the Verizon store because we knew that they had the iPhones on sale for $50 less than the Verizon store did; turns out we could have gotten my phone cheaper there as well. Oh well...what I get for having decided the night before that I was gonna get an iPhone, too, and therefore not researching pricing on the Galaxy S III. I changed my mind in the morning.
Once we finished our phone shopping, we went to Wunsche Brothers in Old Town Spring for lunch. I had the fried catfish, which turned out to be quite good (if more catfish than I can eat in one sitting). And there was coconut cream pie for dessert. :) After that, we wandered around Old Town Spring for a few minutes, trying to find a store called The Spotted Pony that I'd been wanting to check out. They were advertising Ren Fest and Steampunk gear a few weeks ago, and I'd been wanting to stop in. By Thursday, all the signs touting that stuff were gone, but inside we did find the Ren Fest section, and nearby where they had some long skirts in the style I tend to wear, and one purple sweater dress that I really liked. Wish I had a good excuse to buy it. It would have been really cute with black tights and boots. :) There was also a section of fairy figurines (including some of Jasmine Beckett-Griffith's characters -- one a Halloween fairy with a jack-o-lantern that I now covet) and fantasy t-shirts, a couple of which I probably would have bought if they had come in a women's fitted style. They were a bit light on steampunk, though.
By the time we finished in The Spotted Pony, it was time to go pick up Ian from preschool and start the afternoon routine, so nothing else really worth writing about.
Friday afternoon, I had a hair appointment. I no longer have a purple streak in my hair -- instead, the streak is black! I'm still trying to decide if I like it -- it's not nearly as bright as the purple, and I kinda liked the way the purple stood out. So we'll see if it grows on me or not over the next month or so.
This weekend is going to be a busy one. After work today, I go home and cook a dish for our neighborhood progressive dinner party. I also have to get the food over to the house where it's going to be served, get our gift exchange presents over to the house where the gift exchange will take place, get dressed, feed the kids, and get the kids over to the "kid house" where they will be staying for the evening for their own neighborhood kid party. We'll likely get home (including the kids) around midnight tonight -- I'm very much hoping the kids (or at least, Ian) will sleep some at the kid house and not still be wide awake when we pick them up.
Tomorrow we'll have a few hours at home in the morning (when hopefully everyone will sleep late!), and then it will be time to take the kids to Ian's preschool teacher's house. She's going to babysit for us while we go to another Christmas party with some of our friends. Then we party, will pick the kids up around 6:00, and it will be time to start the dinner and bedtime routine.
On top of all that, Corwin came home from school on Friday with a "family project" we're supposed to do, that is due on Tuesday. I handed that assignment off to Andrew -- they're supposed to be getting it done while I'm at work today (Corwin has karate after school on Monday, so that's not a viable time to work on the project, either). It shouldn't be that big of a deal -- he's supposed to pick a country (preferably one he has some connection to), research how they celebrate Christmas there, and make a small (8.5"x11") poster about it. He's going to do Italy, and talk to his Uncle Filippo on the phone today to get his information. :)
I'm going to start this update with last Thursday, since that day was actually eventful. Andrew had the day off, so we started it out (well, after we took the boys to school, of course) with attending Ian's Christmas program at the preschool. We were joined for that by Andrew's mom, which was very nice. We got to chat with her for a little while afterward. The program itself was hilarious -- the kids (ranging in age from Ian's 18-24 month old class up to Kindergarten) sang several Christmas songs, all a capella. They had no sense of melody whatsoever, but most were extremely enthusiastic. Ian's class was only up front for the last two songs, and they all just sat there with their teachers looking bewildered, but cute, in their pajamas. Of course, Ian is still working on mastering talking, and I've never yet heard him sing (aside from a few random attempts that I could vaguely recognize the melody to, but his words were gibberish) even at home, much less in front of a group. I should probably count the fact that he even stayed put up there a victory. You know, all in all, I really enjoyed watching the kids enjoying themselves, some of them quite exuberantly. :)
After the Christmas program, Andrew and I did a little Christmas shopping, and then hit the Verizon Wireless store, where we finally entered the 21st century and got smart phones and upgraded ourselves to a data plan and unlimited texting and the like. I went with the Samsung Galaxy SIII, and Andrew is now proud owner of an iPhone 5. So far I am pretty happy with my phone, though still getting to know it and working some of the kinks out. So far, the biggest one seems to be that I can't get the Backup Assistant to work. Need to figure that one out so I don't lose my contacts -- especially now that I've reformatted them all so they'll sort correctly on my phone. We actually went to Best Buy after we left the Verizon store because we knew that they had the iPhones on sale for $50 less than the Verizon store did; turns out we could have gotten my phone cheaper there as well. Oh well...what I get for having decided the night before that I was gonna get an iPhone, too, and therefore not researching pricing on the Galaxy S III. I changed my mind in the morning.
Once we finished our phone shopping, we went to Wunsche Brothers in Old Town Spring for lunch. I had the fried catfish, which turned out to be quite good (if more catfish than I can eat in one sitting). And there was coconut cream pie for dessert. :) After that, we wandered around Old Town Spring for a few minutes, trying to find a store called The Spotted Pony that I'd been wanting to check out. They were advertising Ren Fest and Steampunk gear a few weeks ago, and I'd been wanting to stop in. By Thursday, all the signs touting that stuff were gone, but inside we did find the Ren Fest section, and nearby where they had some long skirts in the style I tend to wear, and one purple sweater dress that I really liked. Wish I had a good excuse to buy it. It would have been really cute with black tights and boots. :) There was also a section of fairy figurines (including some of Jasmine Beckett-Griffith's characters -- one a Halloween fairy with a jack-o-lantern that I now covet) and fantasy t-shirts, a couple of which I probably would have bought if they had come in a women's fitted style. They were a bit light on steampunk, though.
By the time we finished in The Spotted Pony, it was time to go pick up Ian from preschool and start the afternoon routine, so nothing else really worth writing about.
Friday afternoon, I had a hair appointment. I no longer have a purple streak in my hair -- instead, the streak is black! I'm still trying to decide if I like it -- it's not nearly as bright as the purple, and I kinda liked the way the purple stood out. So we'll see if it grows on me or not over the next month or so.
This weekend is going to be a busy one. After work today, I go home and cook a dish for our neighborhood progressive dinner party. I also have to get the food over to the house where it's going to be served, get our gift exchange presents over to the house where the gift exchange will take place, get dressed, feed the kids, and get the kids over to the "kid house" where they will be staying for the evening for their own neighborhood kid party. We'll likely get home (including the kids) around midnight tonight -- I'm very much hoping the kids (or at least, Ian) will sleep some at the kid house and not still be wide awake when we pick them up.
Tomorrow we'll have a few hours at home in the morning (when hopefully everyone will sleep late!), and then it will be time to take the kids to Ian's preschool teacher's house. She's going to babysit for us while we go to another Christmas party with some of our friends. Then we party, will pick the kids up around 6:00, and it will be time to start the dinner and bedtime routine.
On top of all that, Corwin came home from school on Friday with a "family project" we're supposed to do, that is due on Tuesday. I handed that assignment off to Andrew -- they're supposed to be getting it done while I'm at work today (Corwin has karate after school on Monday, so that's not a viable time to work on the project, either). It shouldn't be that big of a deal -- he's supposed to pick a country (preferably one he has some connection to), research how they celebrate Christmas there, and make a small (8.5"x11") poster about it. He's going to do Italy, and talk to his Uncle Filippo on the phone today to get his information. :)