First day of school!!!

Maggie started 4th grade today, Katherine 2nd grade. Chris started his 15th year of teaching, but he wouldn't let me take his picture.

 Couldn't take the usual picture on the deck today - had to improvise!

 4th grade

 2nd grade

After school both girls were non-stop chatter about how much fun they had. This was comforting, as Maggie had a mini-panic attack after I'd kissed her goodbye and left her with her class today. She came running back to me sobbing in tears that her head hurt and she needed to go home. She was near hysteria crying and nothing I said calmed her. I gave her ibuprofen and sent her in with a teacher's aide that she knows well.  (And then I cried)  Her classroom teacher emailed me at lunch to tell me that Maggie was fine and having a great day - I already love her teacher! It was bizarre, but I'm hopeful that it was just a fluke!

Abby goes to preschool tomorrow, here's hoping she doesn't cry. I'd be pretty surprised if she did!

After dinner, we all got to help Chris get ready for his 8th grade choir.  He will have 86 students this year. In order to take attendance quickly, he found an app that will take attendance by reading QR codes. So we set up an assembly line and got his choir folders all ready to go.

All in all, it was a successful day. And as Chris said when he got home, "1 down, 179 more to go!"

Our after dinner entertainment tonight was the world premiere of the play "The 2 Cinderellas"
Starring Abby as Cinderella
Katherine as Cinderella
And
Maggie as announcer, Fairy Godmother, and Prince.

It was just as bizarre as it sounds!



Scrubbing the floors


Meeting Godmother


Poof! Ready for the ball


And they lived happily ever after!



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A post in pictures.  On Sunday, we found we had the whole day, with absolutely no plans. (Once upon a time we cleared the weekend thinking we'd go away on vacation. Then we decided to do our Deck, and the vacation plans got scrapped!)  The kids had free day passes to the State Parks from the Summer Reading game at the library. So, we packed up a picnic, towels, swimsuits, shovels, buckets and sunscreen and went North to the Beach.  Kohler-Andrae State Park to be exact. It was gorgeous. We were there by 930, and were almost alone for the first hour or so. We took a trail hike over some sand dunes before setting up camp on the beach. The girls played in the water, dug in the sand, and even got to fly a kite. We watched a man setup and launch a sailboat, a woman launch a kayak, a family using a surfboard-type device - lots to see and enjoy.  Yes, Maggie got her first sunburn (her swim shirt wasn't quite long enough and her sunscreen application didn't go quite high enough) and Abby experienced sand in her eyes, "It's giving me eye-aches!" But it was an amazing day!

This post might only make sense to my Dad, but that's OK.

There was an editorial in our paper today that referenced the musical "The Fantastiks." Chris and I were talking about it at dinner and I mentioned that I really only paid attention to the article because no one ever knows that musical, but since my Dad had been in it, I was quite familiar with it.

Maggie perked up and asked, "Pop Pop was in a play?"
"Yup, PopPop has been in lots of plays, he likes to sing and act, didn't you know that?" (I truly thought we had talked about this before)
Katherine giggled, "I just thought he liked to be funny!"

We went on with dinner. We had show tunes playing via Pandora.

Then, "A Lil' Ole Bitty Pissant Country Place" came on as the next song.  I said, "Oh, this is a song from a show that PopPop really likes, but he hasn't ever been in it before."

"What's it called? What show is it?"

Ummmmm, "It's about a hotel, in Texas. The Best Hotel inTexas."

What a day we had. We were excited to welcome Gram, PopPop, Edward and Daniel to our house today. What fun the cousins had together. Just playing outside was exciting. (So exciting I didn't get any pictures! Outside pictures that is, I still took a few other pictures!)

 Having lunch together led to many giggles!

 And then it was off on a ride/walk to our elementary school to enjoy the playground. Daniel was quick to point out that their caravan was a pattern - Bike-scooter-bike-scooter.  I think it was Maggie who added it was also in age-order.

 I asked them to stop right when we got there to take a group picture, figuring I wouldn't get another chance. They were surprisingly cooperative, but bolted once the camera stopped clicking!
(That bolting  may have caused Daniel's belly flop off the playground. But he recovered quickly and jumped right back onto the monkey bars, no harm done!)

We came home for a cookie before sending them back to Skokie. The girls calling 'Come back soon!' as the car pulled away.

Everyone took 1/2 an hour of quiet time and during that time, the mail came.  You can't imagine the glee as Abby pulled a box out of our mail box, looked at it and squealed, "It's for us! It's from Aunt Janet!"
(Aunt Janet has been sending the girls occasional packages of treats for their American Girl Dolls.)

 I'm pretty sure Katherine's and Abby's arms were twitching here, wanting to rip open the tissue paper, but being told to wait while Maggie read the note.

I had a clue as to what was in the package, so I was trying to capture the moment that they realized that inside the little bags they would find a super-special treat.   If you look closely you'll see Maggie and Katherine smiling as they see that Aunt Janet made each doll a necklace with the doll's name in beads.
(The packages were not marked with names [that I saw at least] and yet each girl happened to open the package with her dolls' necklace!)

 Check out their fancy dresses, with tote bag and necklace to match!

 Of course the dolls had to get dressed right away.

 And then we had to pose with the dolls.

 And finally the girls took their dolls for a late afternoon stroll.

Yes, I'd say it was a super special day in the Sepersky house. Thank you to our visitors and Aunt Janet for making it happen!

We've been talking about our deck for a long time. It's old. It needs to be replaced. This year, it moved to the front of the priority list and we contracted with a builder to rebuild it.
(Yes, we talked about doing it ourselves, but luckily, Chris agreed with me that it was better to let a professional handle this one.)

In order to save a tiny fraction of the total cost, we agreed to do the demolition.

Maggie, Katherine and I started today, intending to remove the lattice work around the bottom edge of the deck. Because of the many nails and screws that were exposed, I didn't let the girls do too much and Katherine quickly got bored. But Maggie was persistent that she really wanted to help.

After we got the lattice off, we decided to attempt removing the railings. Chris got us started and pretty soon we were pros. We made a great team with Maggie using the socket wrench to loosen bolts and my 'strength' to remove the railings.

Because the deck is so old, it didn't take too much effort, and soon we had all of the railings off!

Once we hear a firm date as to when the construction will begin, we will remove the rest of the deck. But for now, it's been declared a work zone and the kids are not allowed back there anymore. Unless, of course, Maggie wants to get some more work done!

Video of Maggie's glee while demolishing the deck.

last section of railing to come down

DONE! she got that last section down!

we laughed that she only had Dora gardening gloves to use - we need to get her some real work gloves!

Look at my tools! Fun times!

I decided to clean out the glove compartment of the Red car today.
I found an Illinois map from 1989.
The Iowa Map was 1995.
The road atlas was 1999- which makes sense as the year we got married and started driving together?
The Wisconsin map was 2008.
Also, a map of Milwaukee bike routes. Because you need bike routes in a car?
Also a collection of individual county maps Chris has printed over the years-he likes to be able to take back roads.



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