7 Quick Takes about Making Martial Arts More Fabulous, Cleaning Out My Own Car for Father's Day, and Making Rude Noises at the Science Museum

It's 7 Quick Takes Friday! How was your week? 

—1—

You know you're a girl mom when you find that someone in the house has bedazzled the handle of a sai, just because.

Raphael would have looked fabulous with a set of these.

—2—

It's our first full week of summer vacation, and the 14-year-old forgot (or maybe she "forgot," I don't know) to mark down her availability at work, so they gave her 0 hours and that's way too much downtime. 

I guess that explains the rhinestone sai.

Anyway, she's been working for me this week. She helped me defrost and organize the chest freezer in the basement, which she said "smelled like earwax" and she did not enjoy it, but she was very helpful.

—3—

Phillip and I had our 23rd anniversary on Saturday. We went out for mediocre Mediterranean food, ran an errand at the UPS store, went shopping for some new work clothes for him, and came home to plan some open-ended plans for this summer.

As we were sitting at the table going over the calendar, our 18-year-old's girlfriend came over.

"Don't tell her it's our anniversary," Phillip said, watching her pull into the driveway. "She shouldn't know this is what's in store for her 23 years into marriage."

I agreed.

—4—

For Father's Day on Sunday, we cleaned out Phillip's car and detailed it inside and out the best we could, as we do every year.

This year, I was so excited to use my new extractor attachment for the Shop-Vac to clean the upholstery. (It's even more satisfying than one of those timelapse videos where they pressure wash a driveway.)

The thing is, I've been driving his car around because the van has been unreliable lately, so it was kind of like a gift to myself. 

We also got Phillip a new wallet, so at least he has something until the van issue gets fixed.

—5—

On Father's Day in church, they honored all the men with a special brunch in the gym during Sunday School. I'm in the presidency of the children's organization which means I was technically responsible for arranging substitutes for our Sunday School class with male teachers, but unfortunately I only remembered that 10 minutes beforehand, so I subbed myself and taught an extremely impromptu lesson on David and Goliath.

It didn't turn out half-bad, actually, especially since someone in the other congregation that meets in our building had made this life-sized cutout of Goliath and left it on the classroom wall as a visual aid. 

So extra but I'm glad it was there.

We talked about what challenges we face in life, wrote down how God can help us with hard things, and then balled up our papers and threw them at Goliath. The kids had a great time and it went pretty well, considering.

—6—

My 10- and 12-year-old are almost too old for the children's science museum, but they had a free day so we went anyway. Some exhibits were not interesting for them anymore, but they actually had a great time.

They enjoyed burping at each other via the two large parabolic whisper dishes. 

I appreciated this very simple peg board with colored rubber bands. It was so simple yet it could occupy kids for a long time. (Maybe they were just tired from all the burping, though.)

We also spent a lot of time at a magnetic make-your-own marble run wall, and actually had to leave before seeing the whole museum so maybe we'll be back one more time before they completely outgrow it.

—7—

We took a year off, or maybe even two, but this time we're back doing the educational summer vacation! I'm both excited because it's fun and dreading it because it's a lot of work.

I had the 10- and 12-year-old each choose three countries, and we'll spend a week of our summer vacation learning about each of them.

The 12-year-old chose Sri Lanka, Malaysia, and an island country called Vanuatu that none of us have ever heard of.

The 10-year-old decided to be funny and choose countries with 'Republic' in the name so we're also doing the Czech Republic, Dominican Republic and Democratic Republic of the Congo.

(While researching this week, I found that Vanuatu is officially the Republic of Vanuatu, wait until he finds that out.)

I plan to post updates after we finish each country, hopefully in a more or less timely fashion. If you homeschool or are looking for some fun activities to do with your kids this summer (we try to make it as hands-on as possible with crafts and games), or just enjoy our kids' ability to say something ridiculous no matter what we're doing, I'd love for you to read along!

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