Photo Journal - Josie Boettcher

The girls were playing library for hours last night and today and it was the cutest thing ever. They have their desk set up and their books on display. I just love it. I'm not loving that it's now nighttime and they stopped playing 12 hours ago and everything is still out in the hallway though. 😅 Jonas went to BJJ today and then we had Seth and Max over to hang out with Jonas for the day. I worked on getting Jonas signed up for wrestling at Davidson for, literally, three hours. SO MUCH PAPERWORK. He's not even sure he wants to do it! It's absolutely crazy to me how many forms need to be signed and just how much work I had to put into getting the admin part of this process done. Hate it. I spent hours yesterday trying to get him registered for classes at Columbus State. Such a long process! Everything related to Jonas is hard work nowadays, it feels like.  In the evening, we had the Shauls over for a hangout. I got Aldi pizzas and made some caprese salad with basil and ...

Happy birthday to Ben!!! Things haven't been easy in our home for a while now, but I wanted to do my best to celebrate him today. I got him lots of great gifts and so did the kids and I went and picked up BWW for dinner for him. I made pecan bars...that I overcooked. But they were ok! Ben had a decent day. He had to go into the office, but midday his boss told him he could work from home for the afternoon, which he really seemed to appreciate. He was a little more sad today than usual. I'm assuming it's because of his dad, but I guess I don't really know. In the evening, we all sat and watched The Hail Mary Project. The book was incredible and the movie was actually great too. We really didn't think we'd all make it 2 1/2 hours to get through the entire thing, but we did! 

We had a CACH hang out today at the playground near the "big, big pool". It was really good time! I met two new members and got to talk to Leslie for a while, since she got into my co-op too. :) Time moved quickly and the weather was perfect for being out at a park. The weather was less perfect for going to the pool, but we went over there afterwards anyway! The upside was that there was nobody there. We basically had the whole place to ourselves. The downside was that it was cold. I was literally TOO cold in the shade. I had a jacket on too! The poor kids were freezing. And Jonas cut his toe. So we left after two periods and headed home.  In the evening we went to small group. Admittedly, I wasn't having a great attitude about it. BUT I tried to go in with some positivity and, it turns out, I actually missed some of those ladies! I had a really nice time catching up after the so-called teaching. I even stayed late and hung out until 9, which is not like me at all. Ben an...

We were all SO excited to go to Wild & Free today! I had texted with all of my closest co-op friends to make sure they'd be there, the kids were all prepped, and I had lunch planned. However, late last night, we realized it might be raining. This morning, the weather predictions proved true and it stormed between 9 and 11. *sigh* All of my people backed out, and we ended up staying home too. You know I'm not going out hiking in the rain. That's a big, fat NO from me.  I spent the day, instead, researching new curriculums! I'm good with our main subjects curriculum through Sonlight. I still love that. But we need a refresh for our extracurriculars. I found some really cool art, music, and French plans and also found a great science book that I'd love to do with the kids. It's more functional science, like our bodies and how they process foods - how foods interact with our bodies. It sounds really useful! I'd like to get it, but it's pretty expensive a...

  Today was about as perfect as the day after coming home from vacation can be. Laundry, relaxation, tea, lunch out with Ollie (more on that later), picking up the tortoise, and some gardening. It was a nice day. I did get my period and had a killer headache all day, but since I had nowhere to be, it wasn't so bad. Ollie, however, was a pain in the ass. She's been really whiny lately and getting this entitled kind of attitude. Ben and I are both feeling very frustrated with her. I had enough today though. I took her on a date to Panera, where she did not thank me for lunch. Then I took her over to Target to look for sparklers, which they did not have, and was complained to for the entire time we were there. I did her makeup in the little fancy makeup area and sprayed her with perfume, and we walked all around looking at art supplies and whatnot. On the way out the door she said, "I thought dates were supposed to be fun" with a grimace on her face. I told her our next ...

We drove home today and it felt like it took forever. We managed to get out of Cherrystone by 6:15am and Ben and I were incredibly tired, so we had to switch off a couple of times throughout the drive. Ben was very grumpy for the first half of the trip. I'm not sure what was going on, but I DO know that he drank waaaayyyyyy too much last night, so that could have had something to do with it. Zach was making these drinks he was calling "transfusions", which were basically huge cups of vodka with a splash of grape juice or fruit punch. 🙄 Anyway, we made it home without incident.  Jonas and Clem got home just in time to make it to their groups, which they were very happy about, and I was a little annoyed about since neither of them helped us unpack. We unpacked and cleaned up for about two hours, then I FINALLY got to go out to my garden to check on things! Yay! It's looking AMAZING. I'm so excited about it! I'm also excited to sleep in my own bed tonight and to...