Wednesday, June 17, 2026

Today was a very sad day for Chase and his Mama and Daddy and Nanaw, too. Sylvester has been severely ill for about 10 days and has been unable to eat or drink water. Mama has been taking him to the vet, who has been doing all the necessary blood tests and X-rays. But they can’t find out what’s wrong with him and have been unable to treat him. This afternoon, Mama and Daddy took Sylvester to the vet to have him put to sleep. Mama, the dog-lover, is devastated, and Chase has promised to be extra kind and loving to his Mama. It was a quiet day for Chase. Nanaw had to go to a church meeting in the afternoon, and so there wasn’t any school or Python computer training. Uncle Mike came over to cut the grass but then on his way home, unfortunately his little Ranger truck died on the highway, and he had to have it towed home. He’s hoping to diagnose and fix the problem tomorrow. If anyone can do it, it’s Uncle Mike. Today was Pawpaw and Nanaw’s 66th wedding anniversary, and Nanaw had Taco Bell for dinner at the cemetery, where the third picture shows two of the tiniest baby deer Nanaw’s ever seen. For tomorrow’s lunch, Chase has proposed the following to Nanaw: He wants chicken strips from Schnuck’s to be served with Raising Cain’s sauce, that he and Nanaw are going to make. He has an online recipe for it. The ingredients include ketchup, mayonnaise, Worcestershire sauce and seasonings. Nanaw will report back as to how it turned out. Speaking of reporting back, Nanaw found out that Chase and Daddy played golf on Sunday at the golf course near Red Roof and the miniature golf course; Chase said it went well, and he had fun. BTW, Chase has changed his mind about playing golf at Gibault next year. The practices, meetings, etc. are more frequent than he and Daddy knew, and Chase doesn’t have enough time for them because his baseball and hockey schedules don’t leave much time for anything else. Chase says maybe he’ll play golf next year.

Tuesday, June 16, 2026

On Tuesday morning, Nanaw had to rush to get the house ready for the cleaning lady because she and Chase had to leave at 10:40 for his workout session. It was close but she managed in time. Chase’s friend Tucker was at today’s workout session and that made Chase happy. Tucker is going to spend the night at Chase’s house Thursday night because of the Juneteenth holiday on Friday. Mama and Daddy will be home then. After the workout, Nanaw took Chase to Sonic to get his lunch. Mama had given Nanaw her credit card to pay for the lunch. It was $14 and Mama texted that was sort of pricey. Nanaw texted back, asking if Mama was stalking them online. After he finished eating his lunch on the County library parking lot, they went inside to wait for the cleaning lady to finish. Nanaw found a Diary of a Wimpy Kid audio book that they started listening to on their way home. They had school from three to four p.m and managed to get everything done. Nanaw is still behind on the Python coding course with ChatGPT. Chase is on Lesson 7 and Nanaw is still on Lesson 6. But that’s okay – Nanaw will catch up. Sylvester is very sick and the vet can’t find out what’s wrong. Mama thinks they may have to put him to sleep, and Mama is extremely sad about that because she loves him so much.

Monday, June 15, 2026

On Monday morning, Mama and Chase brought the things that Chase took out of his locker on his last day at school over to Nanaw’s house. The idea was for Chase and Nanaw to go through them and decide what to keep and what to throw away. They did that, keeping the Children’s Bible Chase received years ago and school supplies he can use for next year at Gibault. Mama bought him a new backpack so he’ll have that for the coming year. Today, Chase announced to Nanaw that he felt a need to go to Sonic for lunch tomorrow. Nanaw told Mama about that and Mama gave Nanaw her credit card to pay for Chase’s $20 lunch. Nanaw misread Mama’s text about the times of Chase’s workout sessions this week. She thought both of them were at 11 a.m. but today’s was at 1 p.m. The weather was much cooler today and Chase didn’t get so overheated at the workout. In the afternoon, they did their usual schoolwork: weather, algebra, capitals, presidents, a Bridge workbook page, the touch-typing course, and the Python computer programming course. Chase is still doing really well with Python and doesn’t complain about it the way he complains about the touch-typing course. Surprisingly enough, they got through everything in just over an hour – amazing! In past years, school took them two hours. They’re going to add one more thing to school. Nanaw bought a Kindle Gordon Korman book from Amazon that they’ll have Alexa read to them. Nanaw figures Chase can listen while playing knee hockey in his room or in the dining room (but not on the computer).

Sunday, June 14, 2026

Chase and Daddy went to church on Sunday morning. The Bears baseball tournament was rained out again so they went golfing. Nanaw doesn’t know where so she’ll find out from Chase and also how the golfing went. Mama said he had some screen time and did some baseball in the back yard. She said she reminded him Sunday morning that he needed to clean off the top of his dresser and nightstand, and he did it in the afternoon without Mama reminding him. She was very proud of him for that. He did say he might not be able to keep them clean. LOL Mama sent the photo below to Nanaw for Days, and it looks like Chase had spaghetti for dinner. Chase loves spaghetti! Mama said Chase has two workout sessions this week: one at 11 a.m on Monday, and one at 11 a.m. on Tuesday. Friday is the Juneteenth holiday for Mama and Daddy so Nanaw won’t get to see Chase. Maybe she’ll go out to the little house a little early. Mama also said that she’s sending Chase’s school backpack and things from his locker with him tomorrow so he and Nanaw can go through them.

Saturday, June 13, 2026

On Saturday morning, Chase had a uniform fitting session for the Columbia hockey team. Then he went to hang out with Tucker because their baseball tournament was rained out. Mama thinks the fields may still be too wet to play tomorrow, so Chase and Daddy may go to play golf. Mama put their family calendar on Chase’s phone, and he’s started putting his things on it. The first one he added was his next haircut with Brittany on Thursday, July 9 at 11 a.m. Chase had told Nanaw he liked playing on the B team even though they lost a lot. It was because he got to play all the time, and he didn’t get to do that on the A team. Mama said Chase did his laundry today. Mama taught him a while back but he wasn’t doing it regularly. Mama said he only did one load; she did his whites for him so he could go to Tuck’s house. Nanaw will find out from Mama tomorrow how long he was at Tuck’s house and what they did. The two photos below show his laundry basket with Truman and Lars and Chase with Lars in Mama and Daddy’s room, folding his laundry. 

Friday, June 12, 2026

Chase had a workout session on Friday morning, and he said it went well. He said he thinks the workout sessions are helping him get stronger. For lunch, Chase had another Ramen’s soup; he seems to like it. Nanaw put it on his grocery list for Mama, along with a pizza Lunchable, another of his favorites. Chase and Nanaw had a full school session on Friday, only their second one since summer vacation started. First, Chase did the touch-typing lesson. He seems to like it okay, and hopefully he’ll learn to touch type this summer. Nanaw thinks he’ll like it if he follows through with it. Then they did the ChatGPT Lesson 5. As usual, Chase finished before Nanaw so she put her lesson on pause and did the rest of school with Chase. He recited the names of the first five U.S. presidents; he’ll memorize five names a week. He did five algebra problems and two of the assignments in the Bridge 8th grade to 9th grade workbook – one was analogy problems and the second was answering questions on a reading assignment about Henry Ford. They also did the third lesson in the Weather Academy. For some reason, Chase didn’t like reading the lesson online, so Nanaw printed out the lesson and had Chase read it out loud to the two of them and that seemed to work for him. In the evening, Mama, Daddy and Chase went to the big park to meet his friend Tucker from his Bears baseball team and Tucker’s parents. Tucker and Chase wanted to practice baseball. Mama said the boys practiced baseball for a bit, and then they all went to Millers on Main for dinner. It was crowded, and Chase had pizza, of course.

Thursday, June 11, 2026

On Thursday, Chase had his haircut with Brittany. It went well with Chase talking to Brittany a lot. She asked him about his girlfriend (something Nanaw is forbidden to do). Chase said everything was fine even though they hadn’t hung out lately because he had hockey camp last week. Brittany told them about the new house her family had just bought; it’s on Rapp, the same street that Brady lives on. Brittany also told Chase about something she bought for the pitcher on the baseball team for 11-year-olds that she coaches. It’s called a kinetic sleeve, and it helps a pitcher improve their pitching. It cost $300, and Brittany paid for it so Nanaw hope it works. Nanaw asked Chase if he thought he would want one. Chase said he’s really not interested in pitching anymore; he likes playing shortstop or second base. Chase’s workout session was cancelled because of the hot weather. He was happy about that because he was miserable in the heat in his last session. Chase and Nanaw did their Python course with ChatGPT in the afternoon, and it went well. Chase always gets his done faster than Nanaw but eventually Nanaw gets it done.