Survivor

This morning after the school girls left, I took off with Ellie and Hattie to aerobics. It was a great workout. I feel so great after I leave. Ellie and Hattie had fun playing together and with the other kids. I was thrilled that Hattie did well and didn't want me to hold her at all. After aerobics, we hurried home and I jumped in the shower and quickly got ready. Then we raced of to Rachel who graciously watched my girls so I could go to lunch with Eliza. She has been bugging for me to come, so I thought it would be fun to see her reaction to her jump rope. I caught Libby at the end of her lunch and gave her a hug and talked to her a little bit. I had to laugh...she was sitting at the lunch table surrounded by three boys. Brian said he has a feeling that is what we have to look forward to later. Funny thing is that she couldn't have cared less and was busy eating her lunch.

Eliza was excited to see me and thrilled to see a jump rope in her lunch box. She got a kick out of the fact that I measured it to her last night while she was asleep (it's an adjustable one, so we had to measure and cut off the excess). I went out to recess with her and she jumped away--both by herself and having other people swing it. Some of the songs were kind of silly for sure. After some jump roping, Eliza moved to the monkey bars where she showed me her newest activity--going backwards across the bars. I also got a glimpse of the girl that isn't so nice to Eliza. It was all I could do to not say something to her. Not really, but if she could read my thoughts she would know not to be mean to my girl!

I picked up Ellie and Hattie and we came home for a bit, then went out to the post office, gas station, school pick up, dropped of Libby at Sadie's, home, naps, Eliza went to singing group, Abbie came to babysit, then I was off to Enrichment. It was Survivor night. First off--it was so weird to have such a small group at Enrichment since the ward split. I felt like so many were missing! We started off by eating dinner that had been made with no electricity--it was both dutch oven and grilled. We had pork, potatoes, green bean casserole and biscuits. It was really good. We enjoyed some nice chatting while eating. From there we were put into "tribes" and had some challenges that we had to do for points. First we had to put up and take down a tent. Everyone surprisingly put them up so quickly! Then we had some trivia where we had to guess the answer. Then we moved to the taste testing...we had blindfolds and they fed us something that was made with a food storage item and we had to guess what it was. First was potato pearls that were made to taste like croutons. They did! You can toast them in the oven for about 3 minutes with some Italian seasonings and spray butter. I could eat those on salad if I had to. Next was pudding that had wheat in it. Sounds weird, but it wasn't too bad. Last was the best...I thought it was chocolate pudding with oatmeal in it, but it was the pinto bean fudge. After I found that out, it didn't taste so great, but it still was good. Lastly, Bishop talked about emergency/fire safety...like how to use a fire extinguisher and he took us up into the attic of the church to see some stuff. It was quite interesting up there. Then we met back for cobbler. It was a creative night. After, I helped my friend Jenny make a video for her husband's 40th birthday...for some reason the DVD stopped burning at the end, so we ended up at Jessie's house where she got it to work on her computer. So I got home late.

Tonight Brian and I divided and conquered. There was a reading strategies/curriculum night for 1st grade. So Brian got that duty. I wanted one of us to go to at least support the teachers who put it on because I know they put a lot of work into it. I would feel bad if I had prepared it and no one came! But Brian said it was really good. He came home with some helpful handouts. They also handed out little phonogram sets--like mini cards on a book ring. Way convenient to practice with those. Busy night!