Weekend updates

(Actually, backing up beyond the weekend to Thursday, which was the last day I posted.)

Updates

Asher:

We’re now firmly settled into September. Although he started much later than Ethan, Asher’s school year is officially in that “underway” feel now (i.e. no longer feels like the “first week”).

Seems like all is going well at school.

Outside of school, he’s been very busy. His main activity schedule this fall is:

• Soccer= Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday from 5- 6:45.
• Swim= Monday + Tuesday 7:30-8:45 p.m., Wednesday 5:30 a.m- 6:50 a.m., Thursday 7:30-8:45 p.m, Friday 7:10-8:30 p.m. (Or sub one day out if there’s Saturday practice).

Note the very short turnaround from ending practice on Tuesday at 8:45 p.m. and being back on Wednesday at 5:30 a.m.! He doesn’t have to go to the early practice, but sometimes we have conflicts that remove another day from the equation…and there’s no Wednesday p.m. practice offered.

Also note: both Monday and Tuesday he has soccer from 5-6:45, then has to be to swim by 7:30 until 8:45. After school all day!

Anyway, it’s quite a lot. But he seems to be really enjoying everything! He’s my busy bee who generally thrives on being really busy and active.

But this week he ended up going to the early 5:30 a.m. practice Wednesday and the 6:30 a.m. Saturday practice….YAWN.

Work outing

Thursday afternoon I had my quarterly work outing. We’ve been doing some sort of social event once per quarter this past year.

This time it was a gathering at the Student Union on the UW campus. It was a gorgeous day. It’s nice that we do these during work hours. (Used to be evening hours, but they’ve moved to a work day afternoon.) Might as well get paid to sit and eat an ice cream.

I carpooled with my closest work friend/coworker. It was fun to be on campus during a school day, with a major “new school year” buzz in the air. Holy food trucks on Library Mall!! I do not remember them ever having that many food trucks parked there when I was a student there but man. It smelled sooo good.

It made me seriously nostalgic for my college days!! We even took a little detour into the Historical Society building to check out this pretty library another coworker was saying was her favorite, back in the day.

I’ll admit, sometimes I groan a little about these work events. I’m so used to just working from home that the idea of having to drive somewhere kind of far away, deal with parking, etc. just seems like a hassle. But at least this was a great venue, and overall, very pleasant.

Friday

A highlight was a beautiful walk Friday morning:

The geese were out in full force which is not unusual at this pond, but the honking and slightly crisper air is a very FALL sound and feel. 🙂

I also did a HUGE weekly review session Friday afternoon. I don’t know how there can be so.many.admin things that have to get done to run a family of 4.

Seriously!! I spent a good 2+ hours reading newsletters, responding to emails, updating the carpool calendar, updating the family Google calendar, checking off random to-do list items, making some phone calls, thinking about meals + grocery list for next week…

I ran across this funny TikTok video (I am not on TikTok but someone shared it on Facebook) that was of a mom, on the phone, saying, “Hello, yes. I’d like to place an online ad. I’m looking for someone to read the emails from my children’s school. Yes, they’ll need to read all the emails and then give me the condensed version. Oh, it will be a full time…full time position.” HAHA. Pretty much sums it up.

Friday night=

Soccer Saturday

Yesterday Asher had the 6:30 a.m. swim practice, and then we left by 8:15 for Oshkosh for a soccer game.

(Ethan was gone overnight Friday with his high school soccer team to a 2 game series about 2 hours away. They got released from school early Friday at noon, rode on a bus, played one game Friday night, stayed at a hotel (complete with a huge pizza dinner + pool time), and then played again Saturday. Major team-bonding opportunity!! Sounds like it was all great, though maybe not a ton of sleep happened… )

Ivan had his own play-off game for one of his soccer teams at 1:00, so I went alone with Asher to his game. We had the nicest day!!!

The weather was PERFECT. Like, perfect perfect. Full sunshine, warm and pleasant temps in the 70s, and an easy drive north.

The game was in Oshkosh, which is where my parents both grew up and my grandparents lived during my whole childhood. I decided to take Asher for lunch to this cute, old-fashioned drive-in diner that was near my Grandma’s house. My dad actually worked there a million years ago back in the day, and when my Grandma was older and not as well anymore, my mom used to always take her on drives there for hot dogs and hot fudge sundaes.

I, also, ordered a hot dog and a turtle sundae. Asher got a chili dog (I was a little nervous about him eating this in my new van…. it worked out) and a malt.

It was flipping delicious. If you’re ever in Oshkosh, Wisconsin, make sure to stop!

Then we did a drive by my grandparents’ old house (where my Grandma actually lived until she died). I have SO many memories at that house- we spent every Thanksgiving, Christmas, Easter and more there. Asher was there but only as a baby, so he doesn’t remember it, of course. It was fun to drive up and down the old street where I spent a lot of time long ago.

On the way home we stopped by some Outlets. We hit up the Nike and Adidas outlets, plus a shoe store where I bought myself some sneakers, and then Bath and Body Works.

They had Nike t-shirts 2 for $20, so Asher picked out 3 and we took one for Ethan.

I tried to stock up on some fall hand soaps, but I decided the Outlet store did not have a selection of fall soaps that I really liked. We’ll have to stop at the regular store this week. (I love getting holiday soaps for both fall/Halloween and Christmastime.)

All in all, a really fun day! This is why I’ll argue that youth sports activities are not always the “devil” people make them out to be. They often create some really nice 1:1 opportunities for me with my kids. They also create some natural anchors in our weekends, which is not all bad, either.

Workouts

No full workout recap today. I kind of fell off taking enough pics to make that interesting, haha. I also have been stretched fairly thin these last couple of weeks, and my perfect workout record did slip a little. Oh well. It’s fine. It’s really hard to keep everything “normal” when I have my house full of people and lots of “extra events” mixed in there.

I’ve still been getting in workouts more often than not, though my cardio sessions fell through the cracks this week.

This past week:

• Monday: Legs
• Tuesday: Off
• Wednesday: Full Body
• Thursday: Legs
• Friday: Off
• Saturday: Shoulders/Triceps
• Sunday (today): Planning Full Body so I can re-start my regular schedule tomorrow. Got a little off kilter from my preferred schedule last week and am not going to attempt any “make-ups”- just moving on.

Misc.

Today is a gloriously open day.

Ethan had to work this morning, so I rode along as he drove, and then settled myself in this little back corner of his McDonald’s for a while with a hot tea and a big ice water:

Read my book for a bit while sipping my steaming tea, updated my time log, did some other misc. computer stuff and writing this post.

Plans for today include: Watching the Packers game, cooking some ground beef that I took out of the freezer the other day but then never cooked, hitting the gym and some other household misc. I’d like to check out bathroom tile at a couple of other places, and I may do an inventory of my Halloween decor box to check status of my orange twinkle lights.

This week is Homecoming Week at Ethan’s high school! There are “Spirit Days” all week at school, and he is planning to attend the dance next Saturday with some friends. Details still pending. 🙂 Fun times, though!! I know boys might not always get as into that stuff, but I’m so glad he’s planning to go.

How has your week/weekend been? Any exciting plans for this week?

Daily Gratitude:

I am grateful for my day with Asher yesterday.