Other February

Feb 2:  We’re usually the divide-and-conquer family.  Typically that’s out of necessity – multiple activities at the same time in different directions.  I’d love for our family to support each other more though when we can.  In that effort we had the whole family attend Jason and Katie’s basketball games this morning.  They were at the same time, different gyms at the same school, so we were technically we still needed to divide up, but we were all at the same general location at the same time for the same purpose.  Worth documenting…

Feb 22:  Jason was getting stir crazy by the end of our SNOWMAGGEDEN/Mid-Winter Break extended time at home.  The kid knows how to push his siblings buttons, particularly Katie and Drew.  He found himself a little hideaway though that I was happy to let him escape to when he needed some time to himself.  He spent hours in our coat closet reading books by flashlight.

Feb 2019 – May 2020

We try to encourage the kids to be active and healthy.  This is easy for the younger kids because they play outside so much and Katie and Drew walk to/from school most days.  When Abigail and Carly aren’t participating in any sports we’ve told them they should do something active at least two days a week.  When Abigail was between volleyball and tennis seasons (Dec-Feb) she would occasionally go with me to the YMCA to get in a workout. There was one evening I was doing the elliptical and decided to watch a show for that hour instead of listening to music, which is my usual jam.  When I’d finished the hour, I noticed on my apple watch that I burned much less calories when watching a show because I was distracted and not motivated to move with the tempo of any music.  I made a comment to Abigail about how I thought it would help her to have a device that would track her workouts so she could know better when she was pushing herself or not.  Her response back was asking me whether I would purchase a watch for her.  We don’t buy much for our kids – nothing on birthdays and pretty low-key even on Christmas so to fork out $200+ on a watch isn’t really how we roll.  However, as President’s Day neared, and I noticed the watches on sale I decided to propose an idea to the girls.  It was a brilliant, complicated idea in the form of a contract.  I’d provide them a watch; they would have activity requirements which if not met would require them to pay a fee toward the cost of the watch.  The girls agreed.

My friend Sommer was traveling down to Oregon for the weekend and offered to pick up the watches to save us sales tax.  To thank her I made her family a pan of cinnamon rolls.  

Carly has been fantastic about meeting her goals and has only missed two in the 3+ months since we started (which have been covered by grace days or a mega-makeup day).  Abigail hasn’t been as diligent and has often opted to pay the fee instead of pushing herself.  Abigail also has the reputation for procrastinating all day and then at 11pm at night she’s literally running around the house trying to close her rings.  Not necessarily what we had in mind, but if she wants to end up buying the watch from fees so be it.  Overall, it’s been fun and I know the girls have loved all the additional perks that the apple watch offers.

Feb 26:  Drew celebrated his 100th day of school today.  His teachers sent the parents a picture of our aged kindergartener.

The teachers also played it up and looked a wee bit older as well.