Saturday, February 21, Sunday, February 22, and Monday, February 23, 2026

Mama sent the first picture to Nanaw of all the boys on Chase's hockey team. They're wearing tee shirts one of the hockey moms mad for them, showing Coach Dave with his hands on his head. This is something he does a lot. Everybody loves Coach Dave, and Chase and Mama are going to miss him a lot. Coach Dave and Mama went to high school together. The fourth pictures shows the work Nanaw's next-door neighbor did on Saturday, clearing out the brush in back of his house, to make a back play yard for his four kids. Chase had a hockey game in the Blue Note tournament on Saturday at 4:30 p.m. The team won, 4 to 2, which meant they got to play in a championship game on Sunday. They lost their game on Sunday, which meant they were out of the tournament. Chase is almost done with Affton hockey. He's going to play on the Columbia, IL hockey team when the season starts later this year. He's sad about Affton being over but looking forward to a new team and new teammates. Nanaw went over to Chase's house for dinner on Sunday evening. Mama made crunchy tacos supreme (that means with sour cream), and she and Chase made his package of Fiesta Rice from his class's special project last week. The students gathered in the Garden Room downstairs in the church and put together thousands of packets of a rice dinner called Fiesta Rice. They each got to take home one packet. The other packets were going to be sent to Guatemala as part of a project called Kids Against Hunger. (Nanaw kept mistakenly calling it Kids For Hunger and kept getting in trouble with Chase for doing that!!) On Monday after school, Chase and Nanaw worked in his room on his vocabulary packet. He never did find his original packet (the one he accused Nanaw of losing!), and he had to ask the teacher for another copy -- which must have been hard for him to do because he doesn't much like to talk to his teachers. He also brought home the worksheet for chapter 6 of The Hobbit so that Nanaw could make a copy for herself. He finished reading his AR book entitled Diper Overlode and will probably take the test sometime this week. Nanaw will look for some study material for him. He's has another Diary of a Wimpy Kid book at his house that he's going to read for his next AR book. This one is entitled No Brainer, and Nanaw will check it out of the county library in case she wants to see what he's reading.

Tuesday, February 17, Wednesday, February 18, Thursday, February 19, and February 20, 2026

Chase had a rough week, trying to get caught up with schoolwork and homework from being out three days last week. He worked hard to do all the assignments but unfortunately some of them were late and some of them he forget to turn in. So his grades are suffering a bit. He still has five As or A-s but he has three Cs, and he doesn't like that. The Cs are in Religion, Science and Geography. Geography was a surprise because he usually has As in that subject. But evidently he forgot to turn in one of the assignments and another one was late. But he says he'll work hard and get his grades back to where he wants them to be. On Tuesday night, Chase had a sleepover at Nanaw's house because Daddy was taking Mama to a procedure at St. Clare hospital very early on Wednesday morning. Chase had a workout before he came to Nanaw's. Nanaw had gone to Sonic to get pretzel twists, onion rings and a Sonic Blast with M&Ms for his dinner -- he ate every bite. On Wednesday, Nanaw went to pick up Mama from St. Clare, and then brought her Taco Bell for lunch. Chase didn't eat very much while he was sick, and he still doesn't have his appetite back so Nanaw is going to wait until the end of February to weigh and measure him rather than doing it at the regular time in the middle of February. On Thursday, Chase was excited when he got out of school and didn't have any homework. Nanaw gave him lots of fruit for his snack (that's one of his Lent things). He played pencil hockey in his room and watched the Olympics -- women's skating was an activity he watched and one of the skaters was the first US woman to win a gold medal since 2002, and Chase was excited about that. Two mysteries of missing things happened on Friday. The first one was that he lost the charging cord for his Chromebook so Mama was going to order a new one. The second one is that he can't find the Chapter 22 vocab packet. He told Nanaw it was in his agenda so she was going to make a copy of it but it wasn't there. Chase said she must have lost it because he put it there. Nanaw said she never saw it so now that's the mystery and also Chase has to figure out how to get another copy so he can do the assignment. His hockey team has a game on Friday night in the Blue Note tournament. Mama and Chase were both watching the US hockey team play in the Olympics and were very excited about it.

Monday, February 16, 2026

Today was President's Day so Chase was off from school and Mama and Daddy were off from work. Nanaw had a doctor’s appointment this morning and told Mama she’d be over in the afternoon to study with Chase. Mama said they were going to lunch at Pawz. That’s the place that used to be Dusty Dogs that Nanaw went to with Brady and Andrew’s grandmas. Nanaw went over to Chase’s house a little after two. First, Chase studied the English slide show for the test tomorrow on three parts of speech: adjectives, adverbs and conjunctions. Next, they went over about 15 worksheets about the same things. Nanaw had Chase read the information about those parts of speech out loud. A couple of the worksheets were missing, and Nanaw said she would go through the stack of Chase’s papers that she has for the missing worksheets but she couldn't find them. Next, Chase did the worksheet for Chapter 5 of The Hobbit. He will turn it in tomorrow. He has a stack of things to turn in that should have been turned in last week. He promised to turn in everything. The last thing he studied was capitals of Asian countries for a geography test tomorrow. After they were finished studying, Nanaw watched Chase play pencil hockey in his room for a while. Then she drove to the new little park by Chase’s house and did some walking around and investigating the little lake.

Saturday, February 14 and Sunday, February 15, 2026

On Saturday, Chase was feeling better so he was able to go to his workout session. In the afternoon, Nanaw came over to study with  him. They worked on his vocabulary packet, which is due on Tuesday. He did very well with it, and Nanaw was happy about that. He also studied a slide show for his English test on Tuesday. The test is over adjectives, adverbs, and conjunctions. After Chase finished going through the slide show, Nanaw went through it. The content is difficult, and Nanaw will have Chase go through it again on Monday, when she studies with him. They didn't work on the hobbit worksheet for chapter 5; they'll work on that on Monday. Mama and Chase gave Nanaw a two-toed sloth named Hoffman for Valentine's Day. He's a sloth at the Zoo, and Nanaw is now supporting him. Nanaw stayed for dinner for Valentine's Day, and she had Caesar salad from Imo's. Mama and Daddy had sausage and bacon pizza from Imo's, and Chase had provel cheese bites and cheese garlic bread because he doesn't like Imo's thin crust pizza. Nanaw gave Mama and Daddy Ferraro Rocher candy and Twizzlers Bites for Valentine's Day, and she gave Chase $20 worth of Roblox Robux. On Sunday, Chase and Daddy went to church, and then they all had an adventure. They went out to Silex so Chase could visit with his cousin Elias, which made Chase very happy. He'd been disappointed because the sleepover at Cole's house had been postponed due to more people being sick. Mama said Chase and Elias played hockey and basketball and on the trampoline; she sent Nanaw a picture of them playing hockey. She also sent Nanaw a picture of Fluffy, Cesi's big fluffy cat. Elias has a cat he named Monster Truck LOL Mama said Chase had a great time, and he must have worn himself out because he slept in the back seat of Dad's truck on the way home. Nanaw/s basement leaked again yesterday, and Uncle Mike came over today to clean it up. He's a hero!

Tuesday, February 10, Wednesday, February 11, Thursday, February 12, and Friday, February 13, 2026

Chase missed two more days of school this week -- Tuesday and Wednesday. He went back to school on Thursday, still with a cough. Each day he was off, Nanaw went up to school to the black box to pick up the homework the teachers had left for him. Each, day, the black box was packed to the top, indicating how many boys and girls were out sick. Chase worked really hard to keep up with his homework and to study for upcoming tests. Nanaw was very proud of him and knew how hard it was for him to study when he felt so bad. He had three chapters of the Hobbit to read and do worksheets for. He had two chapters of vocabulary to do and to study for next Wednesday's test. There were two science tests and a religion test, plus a grammar test and a geography test. He took some of the tests and will take the rest next week. Mama said she should have bought some Vick's, and Nanaw said she had some, and she put it on Chase. He said it helped with his sore throat and cough. His friend Brady was out three days with influenza B. Nanaw bought an electric blanket from Amazon like Mama and Chase have, and Chase wanted to try it out. On Wednesday, Chase went to Brittany for a haircut, and Nanaw took a picture. There was a sleepover and a session at Main Event planned for Chase's friend Cole's birthday but it was still up in the air. Cole had a fever last night but managed to get through school on Friday. So Chase is waiting to see if it happens or if it's postponed. On Friday night, Chase, Mama and Daddy were supposed to go out to dinner with Chase's hockey team at a place in South County called Hot Shots. But Chase wasn't sure if he felt well enough to go. Nanaw is waiting to hear what happened. Chase hasn't had much of an appetite or eaten much while he's been sick so Nanaw is going to wait until the end of the month to weigh and measure him because she's sure he's lost weight. Mama is going to fix a Valentine's dinner Saturday night, and she invited Nanaw. Nanaw hopes Chase gets his appetite back and eats something. Nanaw is going to go over early, before dinner, to study with Chase. They're going to work on the Hobbit chapter 5 worksheet, vocabulary chapter 21, and the geography notes. Mama asked Uncle Mike about Valentine's Day, and he said he and Aunt Becky had ordered dinner from Paul's: steak, twice-baked potatoes, salad and a cookie. Yum! Nanaw put up Valentine magnets on her gnome plaques.

Monday, February 9, 2026

Mama texted Nanaw on Monday to tell her that Chase wasn’t going to school. He coughed all night, his throat was hurting so she was going to get him into see the doctor. She got an appointment with his primary care doctor at 10 a.m. He doesn’t have Covid or strep throat and they didn’t test for flu because it’s too late to give him anything for it. Uncle Mike came over and he and Nanaw took down the Christmas tree. Then they went to Home Depot for vertical blinds but they didn’t have any. They found some at Menards but it took a long time to cut them down. Nanaw was sorry to leave Chase by himself so long. She texted him to see how he was doing and he said he was okay. On their way home, Nanaw and Uncle Mike stopped by Chase’s school to get his homework out of the box. When Nanaw gets home, he’s going to work on his Hobbit chapter 2 worksheet. Nanaw doesn’t know if he’s going to do any sports tonight.

Thursday, February 5, Friday, February 6, Saturday, February 7, and Sunday, February 8, 2026

Chase seemed better in Thursday, which made Mama and Nanaw happy. They worry about the bug when he’s not feeling well or not in a good mood. After school, Chase told Nanaw that he thought he got a 100 on today’s math test. At Nanaw’s house, Chase studied for his religion test. There are quizlets online for the religion textbook. Chase went through the quizlet twice and got all the answers correct both times. Mama has been making caricatures on ChatGPT, and she sent the two below — very cute. On Friday, Mama had a best friend adventure with Auntie LaLa. Mama took the afternoon off and they went to different bars and restaurants. Then they stayed at a hotel. Mama said they had a wonderful time. On Saturday, when Mama got home from her adventure, she said Chase wasn’t feeling well. He played in his hockey game and they won 4 to 0. When they got home, he said his throat hurt and he got into bed. Mama said he really likes his new electric blanket and that might be one of the reasons he was in bed. Mama said he went to his workout but then did a lot of chilling the rest of the day. For dinner, he wanted Thai House. On Sunday, Chase said his throat was still hurting. He and Daddy went to church, but Chase didn’t play in his hockey game. Daddy went to the game while Mama and Chase stayed home. Mama invited Nanaw over for dinner and the Super Bowl game. Mama fixed roast beef in the crockpot, garlic knots, and gluten free biscuits for Nanaw. Nanaw brought shrimp for Daddy and her. Mama and Chase watched the Super Bowl, and Nanaw worked on Days of Chase in the living room  with them.

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Wednesday, February 4, 2026

On Wednesday morning, Chase didn’t have anything to study for before school. But he will have on Friday. He has a religion then and needs to do as well as he can. He got an 80 on a past test, and he had to try to bring that grade up. His vocabulary packet is also due on Friday. After school today, for homework Chase had an English worksheet and a geography map due tomorrow. He also has a math quiz tomorrow. As he was working, he suddenly went into the bathroom and threw up. He came back and studied a little more, then threw up again. Nanaw is very worried about him and hopes his old stomach problems haven’t started up again. In the evening, she texted Mama, asking how Chase was doing, and Mama texted back: “ He did all his homework, ate soup, laid down for a few minutes and then talked on the phone - maybe to Tuck.  We don’t know what’s going on.  Will asked if anything was bothering him or if he wanted to back off of sports - like is he burned out? He said no, nothing is wrong.  So we don’t know.”

Tuesday, February 3, 2026

Chase was feeling much better on Tuesday morning and was in a much better mood. He ate his regular breakfast but without the chocolate milk. Mama brought a new flavor of Premier Protein for Nanaw to try: Chocolate Strawberry. Nanaw thought it was delicious and told Mama it reminded her of the ice cream they had for Mama's birthday. After school, Chase showed his homework to Nanaw. He had the chapter 1 worksheet for The Hobbit plus several English worksheets about adverbs. He still hasn't done the math assignment he missed from yesterday when he was out. Nanaw will remind him about again tomorrow morning so he can bring his math book home and work on it. After they were finished looking at homework, Chase and Nanaw did Wordle together, as a race. And Chase won! Nanaw is going to have to step up her game to keep up with him. Mama sent a picture of her Copilot Bot group at work to Chase and Nanaw. The three Bots in the group are named Al, Betty and Charlie (for ABC). Mama's outfit was red, she had a picture of Sam on her shirt so she was easily identified as Charlie. Because Nanaw liked the Chocolate Strawberry flavor of Premier Protein for Nanaw, Mama bought her a pack of them as a present -- Yum! 

Monday, February 2, 2026

On Monday morning before school, Chase didn’t feel well so Mama said he should stay home from school — at Nanaw’s. When Chase announced that he could spend the day with her, he gave her a big grin. Later in the morning, he took a short nap, then ate some crackers. Nanaw had to go to a meeting with her broker at Edward Jones and was sorry to leave Chase. When she got home, she fixed chicken noodle soup and saltines for his lunch and then he did his AR reading. Chase and Nanaw had fun playing Wordle together on the two desktop computers in the room Chase calls the computer lab. Chase showed Nanaw how to find the Wordle archive site and then they played that for a while. After 3 p.m., Nanaw drove up to Chase’s school to pick up his class work and homework from the box in front of school. Chase looked it over and said there wasn’t too much and started working on it. There was a math assignment that he couldn’t do because his math book wasn’t included in the materials they sent home. He was going to read the assigned chapter in the religion book in the evening after baseball practice. Hopefully, Chase will feel fine tomorrow and be able to go to school.

Saturday, January 31, and Sunday, February 1, 2026

Saturday was an exciting day for Nanaw. She drove Mama to Chase’s 1 p.m. hockey game at the Fenton rink. This was because Mama and Daddy were going to a surprise birthday party after the game, and Chase was going home with Nanaw. Uncle George and Aunt Sharon came to the game. Mama was in the score keeping box so she didn’t get to sit with the family. Nanaw sat next to Sharon and shared her blanket for sitting on the cold bleacher seats, and they had a nice conversation. It was an exciting, attention-grabbing hockey game, and Chase’s team beat the St. Peter’s team 3 to 1. After Nanaw took Chase to her house, she went to Taco Bell to get lunch for them. Chase had a chicken quesadilla and nachos with cheese. Nanaw had three crunchy tacos supreme. Very yummy. All on his own, Chase asked if he could text Mama to see if he could have a sleepover, and Nanaw said yes. So did Mama! After the party, Mama and Daddy brought Chase’s clothes over plus his trashed chicken wings from Bar Down for his dinner. Trashed means fried twice, according to Mama. I\On Saturday morning, Nanaw had done some rearranging for Chase. She moved a chair into his room and cleared things away from the piano keyboard in the computer lab. On Sunday morning, Daddy picked Chase up for church. Chase had to do double AR reading time on Sunday because Mama didn’t send his AR book to Nanaw’s Saturday night. But that was his only homework. Nanaw thinks Chase’s teachers are giving out less homework to the classes, which us a good thing. They had been buried in homework so less is a good thing. Chase’s team had a 5 p.m. game, which they won 5 to 0. Yay! Mama had Chase send Nanaw a picture. Chase and Mama made garlic bread together, and Mama sent picture. He’s really getting interested in cooking, which is a great thing.

Friday, January 30, 2026

Mama took Chase to school again on Friday morning because he had to be there early for Catholic Schools Week. When Nanaw picked Chase up from school, she parked in the far section and saw that they hadn't cleared the snow off that walkway so she had to walk to the end of the parking lot. Fortunately, she was able to find Chase before he started off in the parking lot looking for her car. He told Nanaw how they played volleyball as one of the Catholic Schools activities and that it was fun and he played well. He said because Cole is so tall, he can touch the top of the net without jumping. Nanaw asked him about the talent show and whether any of the crew performed. He said Drew performed in the talent show, playing the piano. Mama came over to Nanaw's house at 4:30 to take Nanaw to Dobbs to pick up the Escape. Dobbs fixed an oil leak for $800.00. Mama brought along Truman and Tee Tee wrapped in a blanket for Chase because he hadn't brought any of the guys to Nanaw's house. Nanaw is going to Chase's hockey game at 12:30 tomorrow, then taking Chase home with her. Mama and Daddy are going to a surprise birthday party at a winery.

Thursday, January 29, 2026

Mama took Chase to school today because he had to be there early to collect money for one of the Catholic Schools Week fundraising projects. She's going to take him to school again on Friday morning. Mama sent Nanaw some pictures of Chase from a visit by some of the Gibault students for Catholic Schools Week. One of the pictures had Chase front and center in the picture -- very cool. Nanaw decided to post it on Facebook. Mr. G. was there and took a picture of Chase with the huge Gibault Hawks mascot and another student. Because Chase told Nanaw that the snow on the walkways on the school parking lot had been cleaned off, she told him she'd be up at the front of the school to meet him. After school, Chase studied for tomorrow's religion test. He used a Quizlet to study, and it seemed really helpful. Then Nanaw quizzed him from the review questions in the religion textbook. He said he was okay for Friday's geography test on China but that he would go over it again. 

Tuesday, January 27, and Wednesday, January 28, 2026

On Tuesday morning, Chase was disappointed that his school didn't have a snow day and was open, especially when he found out that the Columbia schools were closed for another snow day. Almost always, when the Columbia schools are closed Chase's school is closed also because his school uses the Columbia buses. Brady's grandma texted Nanaw to say that Brady's sister Emma didn’t want to go to school but that Brady was okay with it. Nanaw texted back that Chase didn't want to go to school either. Debbie didn't have to pick up the kids because their Dad was home and would pick them up. Nanaw picked Chase up but stayed in the car like Mama and Chase told her to do. Nanaw texted Chase to tell him where he could find her car. According to Homework Central Chase didn't have any homework Tuesday but he has lots of tests and homework due on Friday. He has the Financial Literacy packet due Friday, a geography test on China, and a religion test on chapter 8. Chase forgot his backpack in the backseat of Nanaw's car, and Nanaw took it over to his house. On Wednesday, Chase was glad Columbia didn't have another snow day. Nanaw went grocery shopping at Waterloo Walmart and got more of the Jolly Rancher Gummies Chase likes so much. Unfortunately, they don't carry the 2 in 1 Gummies he likes best of all. Those Nanaw has to get at Telegraph Road Walmart. Nanaw also stopped at the Vet's office to check on what she should be doing about Taylor. She has to call a pharmacy about transdermal steroids to give her for her asthma and to keep up her appetite. Nanaw waited in the car again for Chase and texted him how to find her. When he got there, he told her that they'd cleaned the snow off the walkways so now Nanaw g so now Nanaw can go up to meet him. Mama sent Nanaw two pictures from the school Facebook page with Chase in them. In one of them, Nanaw and Mama thought it was Chase sitting at the front table but it was someone else and Chase was toward the back of the picture. Chase told Nanaw they played Trivia, and that his team came in third but should have been higher. He said he did well and answered lots of questions correctly.

Sunday, January 25 and Monday, January 26, 2026

On Sunday morning, Daddy went out into the cold and shoveled their driveway. He didn't want Chase to help because it was so cold. He planned to come over to Nanaw's on Monday to shovel her driveway. But Nanaw had two boys from down the street shovel her driveway and sidewalk. They did a really good job, and Nanaw paid them lots of money. Mama reported that Daddy went sledding on the other side of the hill in the park behind their house. Later, Chase went out into the park and went sledding with Daddy. They both said they had fun. Mama and Daddy got an exciting announcement from Chase's school saying he was having a snow day on Monday. And Mama and Daddy got a message from work that said they should work at home on Monday. Mama and Chase worked together to fix dinner for Sunday night. A friend of Mama had given her a new beef stroganoff recipe using hamburger, and Mama wanted to try it out. Mama sent Nanaw a picture of Chase at the stove, stirring. He really seems to enjoy cooking. Nanaw found the long lost Gnome decoration in the Christmas decorations and sent Mama a picture of it with a dog paw and a snowflake. On Monday morning, Daddy brought Chase over to Nanaw's house to spend the day with her. Mama sent the watermelon she bought for Nanaw from Walmart and leftover beef stroganoff for Chase's lunch. Mama told Nanaw she should have had a bite of it but Nanaw didn't. Chase carried about eight  boxes of Christmas decorations downstairs for Nanaw as part of his service work for his confirmation. Nanaw planned for him to take stuff out of a kitchen cabinet that she couldn't reach at 4 p.m., also for his service work. Chase played on the computer in the dining room and on his phone. Nanaw stuck by him while he played, in the living room and dining room. For a while, they went into Chase's room. There, Nanaw did crossword puzzles and read a Kindle book. Chase played on his phone, watched hockey on DirecTV and ate snacks, lots of snacks. He was waiting anxiously to hear whether he would have another snow day tomorrow. It all depends on what the Columbia schools do. Chase's school uses the Columbia buses so if Columbia has a snow day, so does Chase's school. All on his own, without prompting, Chase did his AR reading. In the evening, he was still going to have his regular practices -- they weren't cancelled. Chase's cousin Lindsey had her 28th birthday today, and Nanaw texted her Happy Birthday!

Friday, January 23, and Saturday, January 24, 2026

Chase didn't hear back from the email he sent to Mrs. H, about not having vocabulary lesson 16 to use to study for Friday's vocabulary test. The whole mystery was solved in AR class when Mrs. H. explained that somehow the graded vocab packets weren't returned to the class after they were graded. She passed them out and gave the class time to study the ten vocabulary words from lesson 16. Chase told Nanaw all about this when she picked him up from school on Friday afternoon. He said he thought he did okay on the vocabulary test. At Nanaw's house, he finally had his leftover pizza for his after school snack. He was happy that he had very little homework over the weekend. Nanaw was sort of surprised about that; she thought maybe the teachers would assign lots of homework in case they had a snow day on Monday. The forecasts were for lots of snow on Saturday and Sunday. On Saturday, Columbia had an inch or an inch and a half of snow, not as much as predicted but it’s supposed to snow overnight and on Sunday. Mama said Chase's workout session was cancelled because of the snow, and he stayed home all of the day except when he and Daddy went to 5 p.m. mass. In the morning, Mama had gone to Red Roof around 9 and she said the roads were getting covered. At 11, Nanaw was tempted to go to Schnuck's to get a newspaper but decided it was better to stay home and not take any chances and to read the paper online, even thought she doesn't like to do it that way. Mama said that during the day, Chase played video games and floor hockey with pencils and the miniature plastic hands that Nanaw doesn't like. They had potato soup for dinner. Mama, Uncle Mike and Nanaw exchanged the photos of their fires below.