Jenna's agenda for Monday, August 21:
1) [Kylee]
2) pool
3)
eclipse
4)
doughnuts
5)
library
6)
rays/goin’ postal
7)
little shop 8 games . . .
9)
something scary
10)
bed.
Allow
me to explain: First thing, we went to Kylee’s
house to pick her up at 8:30 a.m.. Check
off 1. Next we went to the pool. When we arrived, there was a note on the
door:
A
birthday bash is held at the pool each year on the Friday closest to the
21st. We have missed all three years
however. We were in Roseburg this year as I suspect other two as well. I thought it was cool that the pool was getting an eclipse for its birthday (LOL) It was just Jenna, Kylee and me in the
pool. There were three lifeguards
there. What troopers, allowing us to be
there. They had even allowed the girls
to go down the slide that had been turned on. Check off number 2.
 |
| the large slide hadn't been turned on. They went down this small one |
I
thought there would be more from the class as we had made reference to watching
the solar eclipse from the pool. Our
instructor had a much better view as she was watching from a city closer to Madras. We had accumulated several pairs of glasses
since summer began and Miss J managed to give away all pairs except for
one. I had already given those to Roland
figuring there were other pairs in the car.
 |
| hype |
 |
| this was taken earlier this summer |
Kylee
had a pair - which she had torn in half so that both she and Jenna could watch
at the same time.
Kylee had wanted me to take her home for a
half hour or so, but I thought we’d be watching the eclipse first. I ended up driving to the park by myself as I
didn’t know if I’d make it back in time to watch with Roland. As I had mentioned before, neither Jenna nor
I were all that impressed as we had been expecting to see the Corona. I think a lot of people were as we made our
way to Kylee's house and found many with paper glasses on their faces looking
towards the sky. They lost interest
before the passing was complete.
 |
| courtesy of my brother-in-law (view from Utah) |
The
skies seemed overcast. Not as dark as we
had anticipated. The skies were really
smoky that day and the next. Worse than
Medford was. I had a killer headache –
my breathing was almost as bad as it was in Utah. Even Roland has been affected. Check off
number 3.
Now
Jenna was hoping I could take them to Happy Doughnuts – which is on the other
end of town. I was willing to drive them
there, but did not want to make the drive just myself (I think driving up and
down Old Pacific all day is what contributed to my leg becoming sore in the
first place) and by the time I got to Ray’s (the local grocery store we call
Rip-Off-Rays) there weren’t any maple bars (or many doughnuts of any variety
for that matter) Jaime specifically
wanted maple bars because Monday was maple bar day at the Happy Doughnut; oh
well . . .) so no check-off for number 4.
I
had come home to change my pants and returned for Jenna and Kylee just before
11:00. I hadn’t planned on adding laundry
to the agenda, but realized that it needed to be done. Kylee loaded my car full of cans and bottles
to take to the recycling because each return of bar-coded bottle or can (has to
be readable and not bent) add up at 10 cents a can, but I had to go to the
library for summer reading before they could turn in the cans.
It
was our last day at the for the children’s reading program at the library and Jenna
and I have been volunteering each Monday.
I don’t know how I became the story lady, but I have told stories at
each event. After story time we have had
an activity except for the day of the solar eclipse. Story time felt like an afterthought. The children were more involved in the activities
they had already started - which is okay.
Here are some samples of most of the activities that we did for the last
two months:
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| we offered Lego activities two weeks in a row: July 24 and 31 |
 |
| Sponge Bobs birthday was August 10 |
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| Solar Eclipse activity Aug 8 |
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| display case as of August 8 |
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| pin the eclipse over the sun |
 |
| we created fairy gardens on Aug 14 |
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| house to go in the fairy garden |
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| learning the planets on Aug 21 |
 |
| this was our last day of summer reading |
 |
| tiles created on the last day |
 |
| making slime Aug 21 |
 |
| cover photo for facebook page; rocks painted at the festival |
Check
off library. So I took the girls to
Rays, dropped them off with the five or six bags of cans, and went to the laundry
mat. I told them I’d meet them at Goin’
Postal – which is just next door to the strip mall (I guess you could call it
that) where Ray’s is located. It’s still
a good walk.
So
we were home and up to number 7. Both
enjoy scary movies, though I don’t know why.
Little Shop of Horrors is not all that scary, but because the plant arrives on the day of the full
solar eclipse, Jenna decided they needed to watch it in honor of that day’s
eclipse. But they had wanted to wait until it got darker.
They started working on number 8. Asking questions from board games
mostly. Kylee did have an opportunity of
playing Balderdash with the rest of us as we introduced her to Family Home
Evening. Kylee fell asleep as they
watched Little Shop and started from the beginning the next morning (after she
had gone to the pool with us again of course - the smokiest day - not a good
workout because we did not breathe the air) The girls were well behaved and at
a lower volume than Jenna had been with Annette.
We
returned Kylee to her house just after three.
I'd forgotten that I had agreed to work a shift at the library, and so
had Jenna go with me as I did not have time to take her home.
The
smoke had lifted by Wednesday morning.
Back to a better pool workout.
