This Week at the Remmers'

Well, so much for writing this update before church!

We were up late with John, who is super sick with what appears to be an ear infection.  Poor guy!  And tomorrow is his tenth birthday.  Double digits!

It reminds us of the time that John went into the hospital.  That was the day after his second birthday.

Anyway, we'll be taking him to the doctor tomorrow.  What a birthday present...

This week pretty crazy, but no more than usual.  Monday is our cleaning day, plus we've been working on our Christmas thank you notes.  They're almost done!

Tuesday is piano, which went fine.  That night I also headed over to LTA to help out the cast of The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee.  The show requires four audience volunteers, so during tech week they needed people to practice with.  Before the show, they took us backstage and explained the rules.  The first rule was "DON'T ACT!  It's the actor's show, not your moment in the spotlight, so just be yourself."  I have to say, that was the HARDEST thing I have ever had to do onstage!  When I'm up there and the lights are on me, all I want to do is perform!

Anyway, it was a lot of fun.  If you're in the area, get tickets here.  I think it's going to be a great show!

Wednesday was quiet.  No Scouts and no Activity Day.  (Though it was my mom's birthday–Happy Birthday!)

Thursday was ballet, but no Chess club, so it wasn't that crazy.

Friday was THE PINEWOOD DERBY!  John chose do another Mario car (surprise, surprise)–red with a little Mario inside the pinewood frame.  Again this year he won "Best Driver in Car," but he didn't have much speed due to the lack of aerodynamics.  In his four runs (each with two other cars), he won once, came in second twice, and came in third once.  Perhaps next year we can convince him to sacrifice looks for competitiveness.  LOL

Saturday was a busy day.  In the morning we all went up to Silver Spring, MD to pick up the Subaru.  It took about half the time and cost about half the price that we expected.  Yay!  As Dan said, "It's great when you find a mechanic that's skilled and honest."

That afternoon, the kids had a "meet your teacher" activity at the church.  In January, they all move up a class, so it was great to have the time to get to know their new teachers outside of the classroom.

After the activity, I played my first basketball game of the season!  A few years ago I decided to join the church league after having been off the court for 25 years!  I wrote an article about that first game, which was published a number of places, including here.

I played a couple of seasons, and then I sat out a couple seasons.  And this year, for whatever reason, I decided to play again.  We had fun, but lost 51-25.  I made no points (didn't even have the opportunity to shoot), and I fumbled a pass in a horrific way, but I did manage to catch one really awesome rebound.  Yay me!  And one of the team co-captains, who had never seen me play said, "Margie, you're good!  You're so quick!"  Wow.  I don't think anyone has ever described me that way.  Ever.

I spent the rest of the day preparing food for an event I was helping cater.  When I miscalculated how much time it was going to take to skewer all the fruit kabobs, I enlisted the whole family, so we had a nice little assembly line going.  I was really grateful for the help!  

In the evening, the boys and girls parted ways.  Dan and John went to a Noises Off! party (a show that Dan had designed and built the set for), and Lyn and I headed to LTA to work at the Opening Night Party for The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee.  Lyn had planned to just read in the office, but she got roped into helping.  She didn't mind, though, she really enjoys that kind of stuff.

During the party, Dan called to say that John was in a lot of pain and he was thinking of taking him to the emergency room!  I was pretty sure that it was just an ear infection and that no ER was necessary, so he brought him home and called the tele-nurse.  She told him to give him some pain meds and follow up with the doctor.

Dan got him the medicine, but when I got home at 1am, John was still awake and whimpering and crying in pain.  Poor guy.  He managed to get some sleep (as did we, though Dan said he got up a couple times with him–I slept right through it!) and stayed home from church today.

Today, in addition to church with Lyn, I hosted a little class in my office.  The church has created some really cool online tools for us to use to read, mark, and take notes in the scriptures, but I didn't want to take the time to figure out how to use them myself.  So I asked if anyone in the congregation already knew how to use them and if anyone besides me wanted to learn.  I found both, and we had a great little session before church.

And that about wraps up our week!  I hope you all are doing well and staying warm.  I hear the Pacific Northwest got some snow.  You're making us jealous!  :)