Friday, June 7, 2024

Chase and Nanaw went for their walk Friday morning. Chase was disappointed that there seems to be so few cicadas around. He's fascinated with them and enjoys watching them. So far he hasn't done anything on the cicada report he said he wanted to write. Nanaw is pretty sure he isn't going to do it but she'll encourage him to at least try. On their walk, they looked in the library box, and Nanaw found two interesting books, one for Chase and one for Mama. The one for Chase was The Ultimate Trivia Book for the Cardinals. The one for Mama was California Girls by Susan Mallery. On the way to take Chase home, they stopped at the library box to put in two books. The idea is take a book, leave a book. Nanaw is having a wonderful time with Chase this summer. Somehow he seems to be in a good mood all the time and isn't complaining about school. He actually seems to like it a little bit. The new way of doing math is working out well. They work the problems together, with Chase telling Nanaw how to work each problem. Nanaw is very happy about it. They also started doing the multiplication and division flash cards to reinforce Chase's math skills. He won't have any school next week because he's going to hockey camp. Hopefully, Nanaw will get to see him for a little bit some days after hockey camp. Chase and Nanaw both forgot to take his phone along home so Nanaw went back to get it. Chase's friend Brady called Chase to see if he could do something so he came over to Chase's house as Nanaw's was leaving. Nanaw will have to find out tomorrow what Chase and Brady did. 

Thursday, June 6, 2024

Daddy took Chase to running club on Thursday morning at the big park. Nanaw picked him up at 8:45, and then they went to Schnuck's to get Nanaw's daily newspaper. Chase's plan was for them to go to La Fiesta for lunch. Nanaw suggested that they leave at 11 but Chase said that was too early so they settled on 11:30. Chase was so cute at the restaurant, explaining everything to Nanaw. He'd been there lots with Mama and Daddy but Nanaw had never been there before. Chase said Nanaw should order some cheese dip to go with their chips and salsa. He directed Nanaw to the a la carte part of the menu where the cheese quesadillas were listed. Chase decided to have one cheese quesadilla, and Nanaw said she would order two, and Chase could have part of her second one if he wanted. He ordered a bottle of red Mexican soda that has a j in it that's pronounced like an h. Chase had a big piece of Nanaw's second quesadilla, and she ate the rest. The quesadillas were delicious, and Nanaw wants to have them again. After they finished the quesadillas, Chase kept eating the chips and cheese dip. Nanaw loved their lunch adventure, and they'll go back there again. In the afternoon in school, they did their math the new way where Chase tells Nanaw how to do the problems, and it works really well. Nanaw is looking forward to doing it that way when school starts in August. Chase was supposed to have a hockey lesson Friday afternoon with Dakota, the hockey coach at DeSmet, but Mama texted to tell her that the lesson was cancelled. 

Wednesday, June 5, 2024

Nanaw and Chase had planned to have lunch at La Fiesta today, with both of them planning to get cheese quesadillas. Nanaw has never had a quesadilla but Chase gets them all the time and loves them. For some reason, Chase decided to reschedule the La Fiesta lunch to Friday. Then Mama reminded them that Chase has a hockey lesson with Dakota at 2:30 in the afternoon on Friday. So Chase changed his mind again and said they'll go to their La Fiesta lunch tomorrow, Thursday. Chase has running club at the big park at 7:30 on Thursday morning, and Daddy said he would take him. In the afternoon, Nanaw went to the County library to get Slugfest, the book that Alexa is reading to them. They listened to Alexa reading Slugfest for about half and hour, then worked on math problems from Chase's 6th grade math textbook. Nanaw came up with a new way to work with Chase on math. Yesterday, they worked the problems together with Nanaw taking the lead. Today, Nanaw had the idea to have Chase take the lead and tell Nanaw how to do the problems. And it seemed to work really well so Nanaw is going to do math with Chase that way from now on. Chase did his state capitals, a vocabulary assignment in the summer book and other assignments in the summer book. Uncle Mike and Aunt Becky came over in the afternoon to put in a new screen door in Nanaw's upper deck sliding door. It turned out wonderfully, and Nanaw was very happy. It was a great day with Chase, and Nanaw really enjoyed it.

Tuesday, June 4, 2024

Well, Tuesday was a confusing day also. Nanaw decided to drive the Escape to Schnuck's to buy her daily Post-Dispatch newspaper and discovered that the new battery from Dobbs was dead. So she knew something was wrong somewhere. She called Uncle Mike for his advice, and he said something in the Escape must be draining the battery. Nanaw said it might be the motor to the rear window wiper because the car needed a new one and maybe it was causing the problem. Today was cleaning lady day so Nanaw decided to get the battery jumped before the cleaning lady arrived, if possible. She called Triple A and the same great guy who came yesterday came again today. He said he thought maybe there hadn't been time yesterday to get a new battery but Nanaw told him that she'd gotten a new battery from Dobbs. She told him Uncle Mike's theory about something in the car draining the battery and her theory about the wiper motor. At the end of the day, Nanaw and Chase took the Escape to Dobbs, and Mama took them home. During the afternoon, Chase and Nanaw went downstairs while the cleaning lady was there. They had school downstairs, and it went well. They read in the new Gordon Korman book, Slugfest, that Nanaw bought from Kindle and set up for Alexa to read to them instead of Kidnapped. To Nanaw's surprise, Chase said maybe later they could read Kidnapped; she didn't think Chase had much liked that book but evidently he did. Chase sort of resisted doing the math, only wanting to do half of it. Then Nanaw had the idea that they would do the problems together, rather than having chase do them by himself. And it worked wonderfully. That's the way they'll do the math in summer school and the way that Nanaw will help Chase during the school year when he's having trouble with math. They did the five state capitals and a couple of reading paragraphs. Nanaw was surprised that Chase didn't complain about all the reading paragraphs and questions but he seems to like them all right.The picture below is a selfie Chase took

Monday, June 3, 2024

Monday turned out to be quite a confusing day. Nanaw took Chase to running club at Metter Park at 7:30 a.m. Back at home, she discovered that the battery on the Escape was dead. So after she picked Chase up from running club at 8:45, she called Triple A. They came out and jumped the battery. The Triple A guy said Nanaw needed a new battery so Nanaw went to Dobbs, and they put in a new battery at no charge because the battery was still under warranty. While Nanaw was at Dobbs, Chase sent her a series of texts about making oobleck, Dr. Seuss's gooey mixture of corn starch, water, and food coloring. Then Chase texted that it hadn't gone well. He used all the corn starch (two containers) and made a mess of the kitchen. Nanaw laughed out loud in Dobbs' waiting room when she read the texts. When Nanaw got home, she saw what a mess the kitchen was, with corn starch everywhere. Nanaw wished she had taken a picture of the kitchen. Nanaw cleaned everything up and told Chase she would buy more corn starch so they could try again.

Sunday, June 2, 2024

Because of Chase's baseball tournament, Daddy and Chase couldn't go to church on Sunday. Chase's team did very well in the Sunday games.  The tournament was moved from Alton to Bridgeton, which was a little closer for them to drive. The team won their first game by the astounding score of 23 to 0. They won the second game 9 to 8.  Unfortunately, they lost the third game, the championship game, and the tournament, 12 to 0. But they did well the first two games. and the boys had lots of fun. Mama, Daddy and Chase got home from the tournament about eight o'clock, and Nanaw came over to visit. She brought new treats for Sam, Sly, and Tyler, and they seemed very happy about that. Chase and Nanaw went downstairs so Chase could play on his VR, and Nanaw could watch him on the Meta Quest app on Chase's phone. Nanaw still could not get the app to open on her phone. Nanaw left around 9 p.m. when it was time for Chase's shower.

Saturday, June 1, 2024

Chase's baseball tournament at Alton on Saturday was rained out. The tournament games were moved to Sunday. Mama, Daddy and Chase went to El Paso for dinner. Chase had a cheese quesadilla that he liked but he said the cheese quesadillas at La Fiesta are better. Mama and Daddy each had burritos but different kinds. Nanaw came over to visit in the evening. She and Chase went downstairs so that Chase could play the keyboard for Nanaw. He did some of his piano lessons but stopped because it was all about chords, and he doesn't like chords. Next he did his VR baseball game for Nanaw to watch on the Meta Quest app on her phone. But it had been such a long time since she's used the app that she couldn't get logged in. He ended the evening by watching the hockey game.