Wednesday, April 15, 2026

Chase didn't have anything to study before school on Wednesday morning.  He had two homework assignments to turn in on Wednesday: an Australia map in geography and the chapter 11 worksheet for The Hobbit. When Nanaw picked Chase up from school, he told her that his Great Depression test in history has been postponed to next Tuesday. His chapter 28 vocabulary packet is due on Thursday, and he's going to finish it up tonight. He wouldn't have time after school because he had to get his hair cut at 4 p.m. and then go home to get ready for his workout at 5 p.m. He has hitting after that but he'll have time in the evening to finish the vocabulary packet. He also got a worksheet for chapter 12 of The Hobbit but doesn't know yet when that's due. His class is taking a field trip on Friday to Camp Wartburg. The camp is Lutheran-sponsored and offers summer day camp, sleepover camp, family retreats, outdoor studies, and lots of other things. Nanaw is assuming that the field trip is to show the camp to the students in case they would like to go there. One of the coaches Chase will have on the Columbia hockey team gets his hair cut the same place Chase does. His name is Chuck and Brittany told him one of her customers is going to play on the Columbia team this year. She said she told Chuck that Chase is a good guy and will be a great addition to the team. 

Tuesday, April 14, 2026

Chase didn’t have to study anything Tuesday morning but he did have to get dressed in his fanciest church clothes. Mama sent along his black slacks, his black dress shoes, black socks, a tie, and a long-sleeved light blue oxford cloth shirt. All of this was for the graduation photos. Over their Sunday clothes, the 8th grade students were going to wear their graduation gowns and caps for the photos. When Nanaw picked Chase up from school, he told her all about how the photographer spent a long time trying to fix Chase’s tie and shirt so they looked good. Chase’s homework is a little up in the air. He’s not sure whether his Great Depression history test  is going to be Thursday or next week. He has a map due in geography on Friday but he said he has a field trip to some kind of camp on Friday so he doesn’t know if he has to turn in the map or not. Also, he doesn’t know if the science test on dissecting the pig is this week or next week. Hopefully things will be clarified tomorrow. At 4:15, Chase and Nanaw left to meet Mama at the orthodontist for Chase’s appointment. He has several related appointments in the next couple of months: a regular ortho appointment on  May 13; a teeth cleaning on June 9; and a special ortho appointment on June 10 where they're going to do a laser treatment on the tooth that's ontop of another one. The first picture below is Chase with Louis, his church buddy. Chase's school has a process where kindergartners partner with the older students to go to mass. Chase says his partner Louis is not as good and well-behaved as Henry, his partner before Louis. He says Louis is always getting into trouble. . In the second picture below of Chase and Mama on the parking lot of the orthodontist, for the first time, Nanaw thinks Chase and Mama look alike!

Monday, April 13, 2026

On Monday morning, Chase and Nanaw studied for today’s geography test on Iran. He had studied yesterday, which is a good thing because there was a lot of material to go over, and they only got through half of it. In addition to Iran, the test covered the rest of the Middle East and the Muslim religion. When Nanaw picked Chase up, he said he thought he did pretty well. At Nanaw’s house he did his only homework — The Hobbit chapter 11 worksheet and his AR reading so he’s done with homework for the evening. Mama and Daddy were at George Weber doing all the paperwork for. Mama’s new Traverse. Chase and Nanaw went to his house at 5, and he heated up spaghetti and garlic bread in the microwave for his dinner. Mama had texted him the directions, and he followed them and everything turned out perfectly. Daddy came home at 6 to take Chase to his Bears baseball practice. Nanaw stayed at Chase’s house to see Mama’s new car. They had planned to go to the library when she h g it home but the paperwork took forever so they didn’t go. Mama came home to get her W2 and a check so Nanaw got to see the car. It's very big and very impressive. Auntie LaLa said it looks like a SWAT car. It seats seven and still has some storage space in back. For the birthday dinners, everyone will be able to ride together. Nanaw tried to step in but didn't have any luck. Mama told her to sit on the seat and swing her legs in and that worked. One of the people at George Weber told her that trick for Nanaw. 

Sunday, April 12, 2026

Chase had an 11 o’clock baseball game in Fenton on Sunday morning. They lost, 9 to 3. Chase pitched today and gave up a few runs, and he had a good double. Mama texted the video below (the third image) to Nanaw showing Chase pitching -- very cool! After the game, he went to Wally’s with Tuck and his family. When he got home, he did his homework. He had to study for a geography test on Monday about the Middle East. He also had to do his AR reading and complete a Maui packet in English, which is due Monday. While Chase was doing his homework, Brady came over to see him. Chase had him come back a little while later. They decided they would go to see the new Mario movie. Nanaw is assuming they went the Waterloo Cinema. She’ll find out tomorrow. Brady’s mom took them to and from the show.

Saturday, April 11, 2026

In a text from Mama on Saturday morning, she told Nanaw that Chase had gone to the park last night by himself. Then she sent a corrected text saying Chase rode his bike, and Will went with him but didn't ride his bike. So Nanaw still has questions to ask Mama: Which park did they go to and did Will drive or walk? Mama texted back that they went to the library park and Will drove. She said Chase had just come into the living room when she got the text so he was able to answer the questions. Chase had a baseball tournament in Fenton today. Unfortunately, they lost both games but they played well. And Chase and Tucker got good hits in the first inning of the second game. They lost the first game 11 to 9 and the second game 12 to 6. They play at 11 tomorrow. Mama said Daddy and Chase went to 5 o'clock mass so she picked up Subway for dinner, which probably made Chase happy -- he likes Subway. Nanaw didn’t go out to the little house today like she'd planned. She woke up feeling tired and yucky so she slept a lot and felt much better. Today Mama bought a new car at George Weber: a Chevrolet black Traverse. It's black, and Nanaw thinks it's a 2026 (not a 2027 but who know) and that it has three rows of seats. She'll clarify that with Mama.

Friday, April 10, 2026

On Friday morning, Mama noticed that Chase had forgotten to pack his belt in the clothes bag. Mama volunteered to go home and get it because Chase said he needed to wear it. Nanaw would have volunteered to go get it but she wanted to quiz Chase on the vocabulary words one more time. He did pretty good on the vocabulary word run-through. When Nanaw picked Chase up from school, he said he thought he did a good job on today’s four tests. He didn’t work on any homework after school; he said he’d work on it over the weekend. He has a Middle East geography test on Monday and an English Maui assignment due Monday. He finished off his sour dough bread in the afternoon and had some root beer. He had texted Brady about playing basketball this evening but Brady was over at Cole’s house. So Daddy suggested Chase text and see if he could join them. Nanaw will find out tomorrow if he did. He’s sort of shy so he might not have done anyhting about it. The second picture below is Mama at the ball park. Her boss got tickets to the Wells Fargo box so a lot of the department went. And the Cardinals won! Mama must be so happy about that! What fun!! Uncle Mike dewinterized the little house today but Nanaw changed her mind about going out Friday night and postponed it to Saturday morning.

Thursday, April 9, 2026

On the way home from school, Chase and Nanaw talked about what tests Chase has on Friday. Chase said he has tests in religion, math, vocabulary and DLR. He said he thought he only needed to study vocabulary but Nanaw said they were going to study for all of them. She reminded him what happened when he told her they didn’t need to study for the English test in verbals, clauses and phrases because they’d studied so much in class. And Chase got an 84 on the test. So Nanaw told Chase the rule now was, they studied together for every test, no matter what. In the afternoon, they concentrated their studying most on vocabulary and then on religion. Next they looked at the math review of slopes. Chase explained how to do the problems, and he seems to understand it. Lastly, they studied the DLR paper from this week, and Chase went over all the sentences and their corrections. DLR stands for daily literature review, and it’s two pages of sentences with incorrect grammar and punctuation and misspelled words that the students have to correct. Chase also has a history homework assignment that he’s going to do tonight, along with his (AR) accelerated reading. He’s currently reading Diary of a Wimpy Kid: Hot Mess. He took the AR test the other day on Diary of a Wimpy Kid: Partypooper and got the three points assigned to the book. As he was studying Chase ate some of the sour dough baguette Nanaw got for him at the grocery store yesterday, along with some of the ham she bought. Earlier in the week, she had given Chase some of the ham Uncle Mike sent home with her on Easter, and Chase liked it a lot. So Nanaw got ham at the grocery store, and they're both eating lots of it.