Weekly Wrap Up - St. Nicholas Day Week

Our church has started a intramural coed volleyball league for teens on up.  We all went to the first open gym event last Friday night, and we had SO much fun.  My girls were stunned to see that I can PLAY volleyball. Somehow, my being a very successful coach for the last few years didn't make that clear to them.  Being on the court, and on an opposing team cleared things up a bit.  Olivia, who has one of the most powerful serves I've ever seen, was stunned to see that not only did I return her serve, but I scored a point on my well placed return.    Oh the joy of seeing stunned expressions on my children's faces.   It's the little things in life, right?

Monday morning I headed out early to make the trek out to my brother's house.  He's selling the homeplace, and goes to closing after the first of the year, so I went out to help him move big items and purge...and move some of his things here.  He'll be living in our basement for a bit until he buys his new place.   The weather was beautiful and we enjoyed being in and out of the fresh air and sunshine.   I will admit though, it was a bummer at the end of the day seeing the house so empty and knowing strangers will be living there soon.    The girls stayed home and worked on their school work while I was gone.  The beauty of having teens is they are relatively independent with their education at this point.    I started reading a new book this week, Unwrapping the Names of Jesus, it's an advent book and I'm  really enjoying it in the mornings before everyone is up.

Tuesday, Lindsey had an appointment with the owner of a local quilting store.  Her 4-H project book said she needed to interview a quilter, so that's what we did.  It was fun listening to the lady tell Lindsey about how she learned to quilt, and her suggestions for beginners.   School work went smoothly and then it was off to Mummer's Play practice.

Wednesday morning we awoke to snow.  It wasn't a heavy snow, maybe 2-3 inches, but it was lovely watching it fall.  By early afternoon it had stopped, and the roads were clear.    Lindsey ran into some difficulty with algebra.  By difficulty I mean sobbing over it, out of the blue.    Once I figured out what caused the tears (not normal, so I'm thinking we've got hormonal stuff in the works, ahem) I found her a few videos on line to help with the concept.  Then Olivia stepped in and sat down with Lindsey and patiently explained the new concept in more simple wording.   This was truly the high light of my week, watching how patient Olivia was, making sure not to make her sister feel dumb, and I realized that despite all of her own struggles with algebra, Olivia really does understand it well enough to teach it now.

We also spent time making a St Nicholas Day surprise for our Luxembourg native neighbor.   This year we made a Boxemännercher for her breakfast, and also included chocolate coins with St. Nicholas on them.

Thursday I was up early and delivered the St. Nicholas Day goodies to our neighbor's doorstep, then we headed out  to our monthly chiropractor appointment and then did a little shopping.   There's a going out of business Kmart near our chiro's office, and with things marked down to 60%, it was a great time to stop in.  I snagged a much needed new pair of snow boots for $11!  Once our shopping was done it was time to head home and hit the books.  School went fairly well, and quick, even with our late start.  Lindsey had absolutely no problems with today's algebra.  In the evening we were off to Mummer's Play practice again.

Friday was a museum work day for Lindsey.   Olivia and I worked on her driving skills during the day.  The evening will bring volleyball for us all.  Then we will wait to see if the snow storm we're supposed to get materializes over the weekend.

How was your week?