Friday, August 7, 2026

Chase had a workout Friday morning from 10 to 11. He was happy about the fact that his friend Tucker would be in this workout also. Chase is always happy when that happens. On the way home from the workout, Chase told Nanaw that cousin Elias and his dad were coming to Columbia on Sunday to play golf. Chase said their tee time was 11 a.m. Chase sounded really happy about getting to golf with Elias. For lunch he had noodles left over from last night’s dinner at home. They looked kind of dry so Nanaw asked if she could put butter on them, and Chase finally agreed. It didn’t seem like much for lunch so Nanaw also fixed one of the Michaelina’s frozen fettuccine al fredo dinners. Uncle Mike came over in the afternoon to cut the grass. Nanaw gave Uncle Mike the candied orange slices Mama had bought for him. She bought them because last week Uncle Mike was reminiscing about candy from when he was little. One of the candies he talked about was the candied slices that looked like oranges. Mama knew which ones he meant and bought some for him. Uncle Mike shared them with Nanaw and Chase. When Nanaw took Chase home, she got to see the new floor in the hall and living room. It really looks beautiful. The only thing left to do are the steps. Nanaw didn’t get to see Mama because she stopped at Walmart and the library on her way home from work. She texted Nanaw that after she got home they all went to Play It Again in O’Fallon, Illinois and Chase bought a sand wedge golf club, and they had Chik Filet for dinner. Nanaw texted back that Chase was going to be the best equipped golfer ever. 

Thursday, August 6, 2026

Chase had a haircut appointment with Brittany today. They had their usual nice chat and at the end of the appointment, Brittany showed Chase how to style his hair with the Gorilla hairstyling spray. Mama had asked that they ask Brittany to do that. After the appointment, they went to Gibault to pick up Chase’s school schedule. At first, they just stood in the lobby, looking around, not knowing where to go to get the schedule. Then the school secretary came out into the lobby and asked if she could help. They told her they were there to pick up Chase’s school schedule, and she took them into the office and found Chase’s schedule on the counter. Mr. G. came out while they were there and said hello to Nanaw and Chase. The school secretary explained that Chase would find out more about his schedule and how things work during the orientation days next week. She said the two classes are made up of splitting the alphabet in half and that they don’t have any class lists like ICS did. Nanaw asked if her friend that she had worked with at A.G. Edwards still tutored in math there, and the secretary said yes so maybe Nanaw will see her sometime. When Nanaw took Chase home at the end of the day, they saw that the floor was done in the kitchen but nothing had been done in the living room, hall or the steps. So Mama and Daddy aren’t sure if the work will be done tomorrow. So maybe Tyler will have more sleepovers at Nanaw’s house. He certainly does like the baby food that the kitties get as their evening snack.

Wednesday, August 5, 2026

Mama brought leftovers for Chase’s lunch today: two potato cakes from Arby’s (where they had dinner from on Tuesday night) and mac and cheese from Burger King (where they had dinner from on Monday night). Chase liked his lunch but only had half of the mac and cheese; he’ll have the rest of the mac and cheese on Thursday, plus something else. Chase had a workout in the afternoon. Tucker was there, which made Chase happy. He likes when Tucker is in his workouts. He got to see Tucker again in the evening. Tucker and his family and Chase and his family went to a Grizzlies game. They had dinner there; Nanaw will ask Mama tomorrow what they had. Nanaw wanted Chase to do a Python lesson this afternoon but he said he didn’t feel like it and didn’t want to do it. Nanaw asked if he would promise to do a lesson tomorrow afternoon, and he said he would. Nanaw took the second picture below to show Mama Tyler stretched out on the kitchen floor with Charlie in Tyler’s pet taxi and a red toy on the floor between them. Mama and Daddy’s new floor is still not done so Tyler is still doing his sleepover. The floor guys have been working on the floor for two days and still have none of it laid down. Tomorrow Chase has a haircut appointment with Brittany, and then Chase and Nanaw are going to Gibault to pick up a copy of Chase’s schedule. 

Tuesday, August 4, 2026

On Tuesday morning, all on his own with no reminder, Chase told Nanaw he would take out the recycling and the trash. Nanaw was very impressed, and she told Mama what the boy had done, and Mama said she was so impressed. For lunch, Chase requested the chicken nugget frozen TV dinner so that’s what Nanaw fixed for him. Mama forwarded another email from Gibault, this one from the principal. Among the things it said were: Students will wear their full uniforms to orientation next Thursday and Friday. They can pick up their school schedules this week on Wednesday, Thursday or Friday. Chase wants to go pick his up on Thursday after his 12:30 haircut appointment with Brittany. They’re having a New Family Pot Luck next Friday evening, August 14, and Nanaw asked Mama if she could go with them. Mama said she had to ask Chase; Nanaw did, and he said, yes, she could go. In the afternoon, Nanaw asked Chase if he could help her get the suitcases and boxes up on the shelves downstairs, and he did. He also helped her move some tables around. He’s very strong because of the workouts, and Nanaw was grateful for his help and for his strength. When Nanaw took Chase home, Mama talked about ice cream before school starts, and she thinks they can go next Wednesday, August 12, the night before Chase’s first orientation day. The last picture is a basket of cat toys from the little house that Nanaw is giving to Tyler. 

Monday, August 3, 2026

On Monday, Chase had his usual healthy breakfast and snack, with a lot of protein and calcium – including cashews, almonds and sunflower and pumpkin seeds. His Lunchable wasn’t quite as healthy. He had his workout in the afternoon, from 2 to 3. It wasn’t as hot outside as it’s been but he came out very sweaty. On the way home, Chase and Nanaw had a really nice chat/conversation about Gibault and what high school is going to be like. It isn’t often that nice talks happen so Nanaw was very happy about it. They talked about how much bigger ICS is than Gibault. Nanaw looked up the numbers online and found that ICS has an enrollment of between 345 and 393 students, depending on the year, which makes sense because it covers 11 years, from preschool to 8th grade. Gibault has an enrollment of 170 to 192 students, depending on the year. Gibault has a teacher to student ratio of of 12 to 1. Nanaw will share those numbers with Chase. He talked about the day last school year when he shadowed Dante at Gibault, one of the students he knew from ICS. He said he thought the class length was shorter at Gibault than at ICS. He was very firm about not wanting to be in band anymore. He enrolled in a drawing class instead. He also was happy to be done with ICS and was looking forward to Gibault. Mr. G. sent out an email with information about the coming school year that Nanaw posted in the laundry room and gave a copy to Chase to read. They have early dismissal on the first Thursday of every month at 2:20 p.m. to make time for faculty meetings so Nanaw will have to make a lot of reminders so she picks Chase up on time. Nanaw printed out a lunch menu, and Chase looked at and said he thought the food sounded better than ICS. When Nanaw took Chase home, Mama wasn’t there because she was having a birthday dinner with Auntie LaLa. The picture of Chase at the laptop is him playing a golf game that’s on Roblox. The second to last picture is a little bowl that Mama used to eat out of when she was a little girl that Nanaw found downstairs. Mama said she wanted it if Nanaw didn’t want to keep it so Nanaw said she would give it to Mama. 

Saturday, August 1, and Sunday, August 2, 2026

Chase told Mama and she told Nanaw that Amelie never responded to Chase’s text. Mama said, oh, well, at least he tried. On Saturday morning, Daddy and Chase were going to go play golf at their regular place but it got flooded so it needs to dry out. They had to go to another golf course – Mama thinks it’s called the Bridges, and it’s off Mule Road, so it’s not too far. Of course, they had a good time. Mama said they said they had fun, even though they got rained on a little. They had Burger King for dinner. Chase is getting more and more interested in golf. It’s a shame that he can’t fit Gibault golf into his schedule this year because of hockey and baseball. On Saturday night, Nanaw went to a concert at her church and took the picture below. It was great and next time, she’ll take Mama and Chase. On Sunday morning, Daddy and Chase went to church. Then in the afternoon, Daddy, Mama and Chase went to a BBQ with the parents and kids from Chase’s new Columbia hockey team. The team is sponsored by Columbia High School but is open to anyone who lives in Columbia. They met the coaches and a lot of the parents. Chase knows a couple of the boys from years ago when they all played on the Khoury League baseball teams. After the BBQ, Mama and Chase brought Tyler over to Nanaw’s house for his sleepover while the new floor gets installed at the house. Nanaw was happy to see him – he’s such a sweet kitty. The last picture is Chase's first semester high school schedule.

Friday, July 31, 2026

Mama and Chase didn’t take the comforters and blankets to Helping Strays on Friday morning because it was pouring down rain. They’ll take them another time. Around noon, it had stopped raining so Mama and Chase picked up Nanaw to go to Bread Company for lunch. Mama and Chase had French onion soup, and Chase got a cookie with M&Ms on it. Nanaw had a half Caesar salad, a cinnamon crunch bagel and an orange scone. She tried to pay for her extravagant lunch but Mama wouldn’t let her. Next, they went to Target to buy high school supplies for Chase. He insisted that they call them high school supplies, not just school supplies. A while ago, Mama set up a debit card for Chase; she now deposits his $10 a week allowance in the debit card account. He stores the actual debit card behind his phone in the phone case. Chase picked out two kinds of plastic golf tees and paid for them with his debit card. It was the first time he’d actually used the debit card so he asked Nanaw to come along with him. He handled everything well, considering what went wrong. First, one of the packages of tees didn’t have a UPC barcode so Chase had to find a Target employee to help him. She was able to look up the tees and type in the barcode number. Then when Chase used the debit card, it asked for a pin number, which he didn’t think he had. The Target employee came over again and showed him what key to press to get the machine to bypass its request for a pin number. Nanaw was very proud that Chase handled all the problems so well. .On the drive home, Mama and Nanaw asked Chase if he’d ever heard anything from Amelie, and he said she texted him that she got a new phone and she sent him her new phone number. They asked if he answered her, and he said he texted okay. Then they told him he should text her something, and he sent a hello text but at first it didn’t go through so he did it again but Mama didn’t know if it went through or if she texted back, and Mama didn’t ask. Mama and Nanaw tried to explain to Chase that he had to talk to girls and people but they don’t think he understood what they were talking about: the importance of communication.