Another week gone

Wednesday the girls and I ventured back to Lowe's. How I do love Lowe's this time of year with all the flowers! That afternoon we planted the flowers we bought, planted some seeds (which are now sprouting and need to be replanted). Thursday was more work outside. John wanted some "color" next to the garage, so we bought some marigolds then planted them.

Friday was a mild day for us. We met some friends at Rita's for free Italian Ice. Rita's was celebrating the first day of spring with free Italian Ice. Woohoo! The girls baked a homemade cake for Grandpa's birthday. The funny part came while they were decorating it. They were taking turns with the words. Chloe wrote "happy". Jesse wrote "birthday". They then decided to share "Grandpa"; Chloe wrote "Grand" then Jesse wrote "ay". LOL  She scrapped it off then wrote "pa", but we had a great laugh. And Grandpa enjoyed the story on Saturday.

Today, we went to CCT to see "Hairspray". We all loved it! We know so many talented people who were in this show:

Kaitlyn was fantastic as the female lead, "Tracy" One of our favorite people!
Taylor, with his guitar, was awesome as, "Link". I adore this young man; he is sweet, polite and multitalented (acting, singing, and playing the guitar).
Noah B., as "Edna", and as I predicted he rocked being a woman. I also found out it was his mom who suggested he try out for "Edna". It was his dad who was disturbed by his son walking around the house for three weeks in high heels. LOL
Riley, as Mr. Edna (I can't recall their last name); he had me laughing so.
Grace, as Tracy's best friend, had her best role yet and did so well.
Olivia, and her fantastic gymnastics.
Josh, who needs to stop growing because it wasn't until near the end that I realized it was him.
Noah D., who has finally found himself on-stage (rather doing the sound board) and is totally rocking the parts he has had in the last couple of shows.
Anthony, "Corny Collins", who we will miss so much next year as he ventures to Tulane to be a Musical Theater student.

I know I forgot someone but there to you. I will say that was one more, I don't know her, but her soulful voice would bring tears to anyone...I'm an easy mark. ;-)

The end of the play and a beautiful day

The last play was yesterday. The girls had quite a group there to see their final performance: three great-aunts, two-great uncles, grandma, and John and myself (Grandpa is anxiously awaiting the DVD). I believe most of my aunts were amazed by her performance. I know Aunt Dian was because she talked to me about it. They went backstage to see the girls, and take some pictures. I headed backstage to help prepare all the costumes for their journey back to Columbia.

The girls had a great time in the theater, as always. They love seeing old friends and making new ones. They exchanged emails with a few new homeschool friends and made sure old friends are going to keep in touch. Jesse is looking forward to this fall when she starts doing the jr/high school productions, even though she doesn't know what they are going to be doing yet.

Jesse told me a few days ago, she felt she was doing a good job (with her role) if she scared kids or made them cry. She did both several nights. TJ (our "Oz") had her talk to one boy who was terrified of her. She reassured him she was not that evil and he was safe. She really enjoyed all the compliments from everyone; one even suggested she go into acting for a career. She said she is not going to do that. haha

Chloe enjoyed getting all the laughs! Her role was the "not so with it" storyteller. Some of her lines were just funny. Other times it was her "not paying attention" that got the laugh. She did great with role. And as always she loved being with Gabby for all the rehearsals. But this time she made a few new friends, who also homeschool. And I think she is really looking forward to talking to them more.

Today is one of those days when I am so thankful we homeschool. It has been beautiful all day! We started this morning doing some school work. However, after lunch, we decided outside was calling us. I had already planned a few chores for outside so we started on the list after lunch. We managed to get quite a few things done and the girls even had time for a water balloon fight.

I am hoping to get to Lowe's in the next couple of days to pick up a few things. I want to look for some tall plants to go in back of the azalea bed (in front of the fence). I also need another African Violet pot and some plant food. John always has a reason to be at Lowe's so I he may want to go too.

I am super excited about our plants this year. The azaleas are all covered with buds. The hostas are beginning to poke of our the ground. The two surviving irises are already about five inches tall. And, what I'm most excited over, is our blueberry plant is covered in blooms! It is going to be a grand year.

An icky week

This week I've been feeling icky. I finally went to the doctor yesterday (I was holding out for Monday when I had an appointment, but I didn't make it). She confirmed what I already knew: my allergies are wonky and both my ears are "gunky". It just means more antibiotics for me. Woo...hoo. {sigh}

The girls are having fun at their rehearsals. Jesse is enjoying being "evil" and Chloe is loving seeing Gabby almost every night. They even got to go to taekwondo Tuesday night. All the students were sad to hear the girls would not be back until graduation, but excited knowing Master Mike was going to teach tonight.

I am getting ready for a funeral tomorrow. My cousin's husband passed away last week after a long battle of COPD. I liked Vernon. We didn't get to see them much, but I always enjoyed talking to him when we did see him. Some people make you smile and he was that way for me. Tomorrow I'm going down toward Savannah to say goodbye. John will fill my shoes here to get the girls where they need to be and when they need to be there. Your thoughts should go out to John. ;-)

I haven't mentioned this yet, but our daffodils are coming up. I do love this time of year when the green of the daffodils start showing. Some of them are about six-inches tall now. There was a lady (I believe she is one of the two Barbaras) at book club last night who was worried about her plants. I asked her what kind of plants. She told me daffodils; I explained they are suppose to come up this time of year and they should be okay with the cold.

I haven't talked about book club much, but I have to say I am enjoying it. The ladies are getting used to me, and some even know my name now. Mr. Jim, who runs the meeting, knows me too well. lol Ms. Regina cracks me. She was trying to get my attention from across the room last night to let me know she agreed with me. lol  I'm not sure anyone else heard my comment. There was a lot of talking at the same time last night. I will miss it next month, which is sad. Ms. Regina said I'd be missed, which made me smile. But I'll be at the theater that night for the last dress rehearsal.

Our LAST day of school!!

Both girls had a history project due today.

Jesse's diorama

Chloe's diorama

The dioramas were only part of the project; they also had to give an oral presentation. Chloe was able to choose anything she studied this year in Story of the World III; she had to create a diorama and give a report explaining what she chose. She chose The War of Jenkins' Ear. Jesse had to create a diorama and give an oral report on how life changed for people during the time she studied this semester. Her diorama depicted nomadic people and her oral report explained how people lived prior and after. She also explained how there are still people who are nomadic. They both did very well.

The rest of the day was spent in total bliss. lol  We ran a few errands this morning, including a celebratory trip to Tiffany's. I mean really when you only have a two week "summer" you need to enjoy every single moment. Right?

I am also happy to say last weekend I was able finish most of the homeschool association's paperwork. We just need to grade the history projects and one English test. :D  I've already switched out most of this year's books for next year's books.

I posted a picture of one of the new verbena with a few blooms the other day. Well, today I saw the other verbena now has quite a few blooms. Oh, yeah! (Remember I paid $1 each for them.) We also bought a couple of new plants today: a bee balm (which I planted by the garage, near the fence gate) and a parsley plant (in the kitchen). John said the parsley tasted awesome. :)

Unfortunately, I did not get the house organized this week. Boo! I think it is actually dirtier, except the kitchen. I even reorganized a kitchen cabinet the other day, so food would stop falling out onto my feet. lol I hope I can get everything I want done next week, so the following week I can relax. Because the week after that, we start school again. But that is in two weeks, so I choose not to think about it right now. ;)

Blooms everywhere!

I love this time of year when everything around the yard is blooming. Well, almost everything, the hydrangeas are taking their time this year, along with the butterfly bush. But still there are blooms almost everywhere you look.

Another iris bloomed.

The snap dragons on the deck table.

Begonias in the front and petunias in the back.

(This picture turned out a bit weird looking) The new verbena I bought for $1. It looks happy now.

In fact, the same verbena has more buds on the other side.

This is my prettiest lily every year! This year it will have eight blooms!

Sadly, it is official

My verbena, by the mailbox, is dead. I talked to Dad when we visited Sunday; he agreed that by now it should be showing some green. {pouting} Well, life can be short. We enjoyed it for about five years. Today, the girls and I bought some petunias to fill in the space...for now. I'll come up with a plan for it by next year, hopefully.

This morning, the girls and I ran errands. The first stop was Dr. J. Jesse has had a wire continuously come out all weekend. The clipped it. Her back tooth has moved much faster than the one in front of it, so once the second tooth catches up, they will put the wire to the back tooth again.

We also went to Lowe's. Yes, we live there. lol  We bought the final bags of dirt to fill the raised bed. We planted the marigolds we bought last week. A steal! Those marigolds were in the bigger pots and were marked down to $1! All they wanted was water. Of course, they wanted that today too. I watered them this morning, but by the time we planted them (3 hours later) they were dry as a bone again. I watered them again tonight, and fed them, and found them dry again. I need to put the soaker hose on the raised bed tomorrow to get it nice and wet.

Yard work

We spent today working on the yard, or purchasing things for the yard. We started out this morning by filling the new raised garden bed. We knew we wouldn't have enough soil, because we were just guessing on the quantity. I admit I also raked up all the leaves in the two beds at the garage. I seriously don't know where the leaves come from! There are two trees on that side of the house, but the front is always covered in leaves. I raked them up twice last autumn before I gave up. Anyway, I raked the leaves in the bed and added it to the raised bed; it should be great for the soil.

The girls put out grass seed. They were so cute doing yard work. They both went over their sections of the yard twice, going in different directions to get it covered well.

We were actually at Lowe's last night. I was going to buy some French marigolds, but found some regular marigolds on clearance. They were dry as a bone! So, I actually got twice as many flowers for $4 less. Woohoo! I watered them last night with some plant food and by this morning they were looking great. We are going to plant those inside the raised flower bed. We planted marigolds around our tomatoes last year and it worked great for keeping the bugs off the tomatoes.

John and Chloe worked on their garden patch today. They prepped the soil, then planted plenty of corn. I'm hoping we'll get plenty of fresh corn to freeze.

The bearded irises I planted a couple of weeks ago, now have buds. Okay. One plant has three buds (I thought there were two, but there are three), but still at least one plant is very happy to be here. I also had to, finally, tell my Dad today the irises he gave me a few years ago never came up. We thought they may not, but we were still hoping they would. But now I finally have a few. Oh, happy day.

The hostas are beautiful! John finally went to that side of the yard to see them today. I love that entire side of the house. It just looks beautiful over there, probably because it is the only place in the yard that is completely finished. The only thing we do there is maintenance.

We finally bought a couple of bags of mulch for the azalea bed. Late last year we had a bad storm, after the yard next door was cleared again. It washed away all of the mulch in that bed and made a total wreck of the front yard. John is finally feeling confident with his decorative fence he built to put mulch back in that bed. (We are keeping the silt screen up just a bit longer.) Two bags just went around the actual azaleas, but with the dirt for the raised bed we didn't have enough room for much mulch in the van (one day John will have a nice truck-we can't wait!). I told John one day the mulch for that bed is going to have to be the priority for a Lowe's trip. It made a big difference in the appearance with just two bags.

I'm a little worried about my verbena by the mailbox. It has not started growing back yet. It looked beautiful last year. There is an ant mound in the corner of that bed and I'm wondering if they have anything to do with the plant not coming back this year. I'm going to have to look into that if it doesn't start growing soon.

Along with all of the above, we also did school work today. I hope they will sleep well tonight. I know I will.

Another beautiful day!

We started a little earlier today, than we did yesterday. We made our Lowe's trip early. Of course, that store was out of the mulch we needed too. But they'll have more Tuesday. The sale ends Monday...of course! Oh, well. We'll get mulch later in the week, or try a third Lowe's. lol

We bought quite a few plants today: a tomato, marigolds, pickling cucumber, dill, basil, green pepper and three irises. The only plants that have been planted today, so far, are the irises. If you know our yard, then you know where the hosta/hydrangea bed is located. We had a few hostas that were in a part of the bed that got too much sun for hostas. I moved them this morning, then planted the irises in that spot. The irises should love it there. The hydrangea is growing nicely and the hostas are too.

John and I started working on clearing the area around the fence. John actually worked on it yesterday. Today, we split up. John continued working on the side he started yesterday and I started working on the pool side. It looks pretty good. We still have about 100 feet left to clear, then we'll start felling more trees. We are mainly going to get rid of the pine trees. (I'm allergic to their pollen, so they need to go!).

We finally got the girls to agree on a color to stain the swing set. While John and I cleared land, they started staining.

The one plant in our yard that didn't need any work done was the phlox. Every year they spread out more and more. I just love them!

I also realized today that I mentioned, months ago, about starting to use our Disney cups for utensil holders. I can't remember if I ever put a picture on the blog, so I'm adding one now.

Jesse goes tomorrow morning to get her braces. She is more focused on her favorite things she won't be able to eat for awhile: Dots and Milky Way Midnight bars. We bought her two boxes of Dots last week. She's had quite a few Milky Way Midnights lately too. I'll try to remember to have her some waiting in the car when she gets her braces off.

A little...decorating

Here we are the end of September. Again! It amazes me how quickly times goes. We started working on our Halloween decorations this weekend. We did a couple of things yesterday. Okay, one thing. We put Scully out on the porch. Scully is the name, John chose, for our new skeleton. He is sitting on the front porch in one of our rocking chairs. He likes to rock and wave at passersby. He is quite alarming.

Today the remaining decorations came out of the attic. Somehow I thought we had much more than what we actually have. We did a little more shopping today; John had a new idea for the living room, so we needed a couple of items.

John and the girls made a spider. We actually saw the idea in a magazine. John and I both loved it. The picture was a yard with a skeleton (standing), wearing a hat, tie and carrying a poison sprayer. The skeleton was surrounded by spiders, BIG spiders. We can't afford to do a swarm of spiders this year, but we are making seven (one a little larger than the rest, the queen I suppose).

Jesse has also been creative. She found another picture in the same magazine of decorated pumpkins. But they were not decorated like you would think. They were wrapped in fabric. Well, the picture was next to a duct tape ad, so we put the two ideas together. She found some great white duct tape with black mustaches.

Chloe has also been using duct tape. She came up with her own idea by making witch hats, with cardboard and duct tape. She even put one of them on our nutcracker. lol

Of course, John's Halloween town is back out. And again, two years in a row, it has a new home. I like where we put it this year because last year it was in the dining room. This year it is in the living room, so we get to see "live" with it. You know?

Anyway, John and the girls are working on the last project. They are sewing a curtain. Yes, John can sew. In fact, my sewing machine likes him better, everytime I try to use the tension is wonky. He won't change anything, just sit down, and it works perfectly. Of course!

I'll post pictures once everything is done.

Eventful day.

We headed out early, for Charlotte, this morning. Just short of our regular exit we hit construction. Three lanes out of four were closed. You can imagine the insanity! Twenty-eight minutes later we finally hit the first exit (about 1 1/2 miles up the road) and we were out-of-there! It was the Carowinds exit. lol Anyway, we took the path I remembered, which led us right through the middle of downtown Charlotte. My girls have not been through downtown Charlotte in a long time. In fact, I don't think Chloe as ever been through there. They were amazed by the buildings lurking over us! I guess the traffic was worth their excitement and John's.

We spent the day at my parents. We actually went up for a particular purpose. Dad is redoing his daffodil bed, so he was giving us the bulbs. We just had to dig them up. :) Dad, Chloe and I found so many I couldn't count them. They probably weigh close to ten pounds those. He also let me have about a dozen irises (white). Yeah! Now, I have to plant them here. Boo! LOL Next time I am hoping to get another butterfly bush too. My trunk was too full this trip.

For my Dad (and anyone else who wants to read it)

I took a tour of the yard yesterday. I know I should do that everyday to water our plants but I do not. (The girls do a lot of the watering.) What I found out was I need to weed! John has been telling me this for weeks now, but honestly I have been thinking of so many other things I just wanted to put it off.

I did weed one of the smaller beds in the garden the other week. Yesterday, I pulled a lot out of the hosta bed, but there is still so much more in that bed. I will get to the weeding again tomorrow morning, but I thought I'd share some of the pictures I took.

Not the best picture (with the weeds) but you can see how much the hostas have grown.


My hydrangea seems to like its new home AND some magic happened. (keep reading)


I really didn't think the butterfly bush was going to make it a few weeks ago. But wow, it looks great now!


The apple tree is a blooming! There are several leaves beginning to pop out all over!


This is one, of my two, hibiscus that have been attacked by caterpillars. Poor baby!


How this hibicus survived the attack, I don't know but it sure is lovely.


Here is my hydrangea from last year. See the difference?

It is pink!!!! I just moved it from one locale to another (no, I didn't check the soil at either place). But the tag did say it was blue. lol I was talking to my friend Masayo on FB and she had the same problem. She wanted blue (which was on the tag), but got pink. I can't believe I didn't remember it was pink last year!

Well, that is the tour for now. I will be posting a before (again) and after picture of the backyard very soon. The difference between last year and this year is staggering.

Getting there?

I think our (my) goal to reorganize is coming along. We now have one shelf done in the classroom closet and it, alone, has made a big difference. We decided to add a shelf per paycheck. Sounds weird but that way I can live with one shelf, two shelves, etc., for a couple of weeks to know if I really need another one or not. I know I need two, but from there, I'm not sure.

School is going okay. Jesse is great as usual and so is Chloe, except for math. Chloe is struggling with multiplication and division right now. I think it may be the lack of book work the last few weeks with all of our field trips and yard work going on. We still have a good bit of work to do before the end of school (and maybe beyond a bit), but I think she'll get back on track soon.

Cal (our injured kitten) is still in the house. His leg is healing nicely and he is doing a bit better about not meowing, which is good when you are trying to do school work. I am hoping when I take him back Monday they will say he is good to go back outside. I know he is missing all the other cats and I'll be glad not to have kitty litter duty.

I cannot recall if I mentioned this. John has been thinking about painting the classroom. It is one of many rooms that needs painting. Face it, flat paint is terrible and that is what is on most of our walls right now. The fun thing is he liked the laundry room so much, he is thinking of painting the classroom the same color! It would definitely make it brighter in here for school and everything else we do here. I'll keep you posted on that one.

Another project!

Yep, we have yet to finish the yard. John says we are done until next year. :) The laundry room IS done. The reorganizing of the house did not get complete by Easter, but we're still working on things. And now another project.

John is irritated by the classroom. The classroom/office seems to be our next project. I will admit it was getting stuffy. We had a desk (for sewing), a cabinet and a Foosball table in the middle of the room and all the wall space was covered by a desk, bookshelf or tall plastic drawers. It was feeling cramped. Saturday night we worked on rearranging some things in the room. John and I went through our books and are donating some. Other items were rearranged or trashed depending on if they were still needed.

We cleared out a tall, skinny bookshelf that Chloe is now using on the other side of the classroom for her new collection of Goosebumps books (the 43 we bought a few months ago have been living in the box they came in). The cabinet that was once in the center of the room is now where the tall, skinny one was.

Today, John decided the closet needed a makeover. I think it will be the third, or fourth, time that one closet has been redone in three years. LOL I will admit I am looking forward to him finishing this one. Since we moved the classroom upstairs, the closet was the one thing we did not put back the same as we had it before. Organizing that space has been next to impossible without shelves in there. You have no clue how much stuff it takes to homeschool, unless you homeschool. :) I now understand why all the homeschool bloggers have so many bookcases(shelves). What is sad is just as I got rid of some things, our new English books arrived and math has to be ordered this week. {sigh} I think I will get caught up in 2021...when Chloe graduates.

Yesterday was Easter and we spent the afternoon with my family at my Aunt Delane's. We had a good time seeing everyone. The girls did an egg hunt Aunt Hilda. Then the girls hid eggs for the smaller children, of course the girls neglected to factor in the height of the smaller children. What do ya do? I only wish Cal was not in a kennel, in the house, so we could have stayed longer to talk. Seems like I don't see my family much and when I do I don't always have time to down with each person to talk. I miss them.

Whew!

This morning the girls and I ventured into the yard. I watered (and fed) all the plants recently planted. And the girls watered their plants. I was still watering/feeding when the girls asked for more work to do. Of course the actual garden needed to be weeded, so that became their new task. Once I finally had everything watered, the three of us came together to plant the strawberries in a second bed. We still have a good bit of weeding to do, but we'll get there eventually.

My Dad brought down a butterfly bush yesterday. It was pitiful before my parents left, by this morning it was very sad. I am hoping, now that it is in the ground, it will become a happy plant. Fingers crossed.

Some pics of what I've been up to

Remember to always dress for the weather when working outside. :) It was 34 degrees when I started, and yes that is me. This is half of the lillies I planted, the bed continues around to the steps of the deck.

This is the hydrangea tree thing. No, I still don't know its name, but I love how it looks here.

I've never seen a plant grow through a leaf before. I thought it was interesting.

Note: Jesse and Chloe took all of these pictures. I think they did a great job!!

Yard work...again :)

So I took advantage of no rain today. I have planted the third, and final, hibiscus. I planted fifteen-to-twenty lilies (I lost count), sixteen hostas (I divided some), one hibiscus tree thing (I need to learn its name) and put the strawberries where, hopefully, they will be happier until I can plant them. I cannot wait to get all the mulching done in the front. The bed with the hostas and hydrangea looks great, even though it is not finished. I just put mulch around the hostas as I planted them. I need more mulch and more edgers. We are so close to finishing. I am hoping to have it all done by Easter. Hoping. There is still so much to do but we are SO close right now. It is just exciting. I put the hydrangea tree where the other hydrangea was. I hope the tree thing likes more sun than the other hydrangea. It looks so good there! It really makes a statement. And the lilies are in a place where they can expand for several years before I'll need to thin them out (same goes for the hostas too).

Whew, I'm tired (you have to do the southern drawl on tired)

I don't think we stopped for very long today. We started the day at Lowe's, of course. We needed mulch for the front yard and some plant food. Chloe got her six-pack of marigolds (Jesse took the first six-pack) and one orange french marigold.

So, what was accomplished today:

second hibiscus planted
hydrangea moved to new location
mulched half of new hydrangea area (11 bags) - ran out of mulch
mulch on the up hill side of the house (in the front yard)
girls' hummingbird feeders out and filled
most of Chloe's plants planted (Jesse is finished, until early April)
all plants fed/watered
weed block/mulch in backyard (15 bags)
all weeds and kitchen scraps (able to) put into compost bin
two trips to Lowe's (one tonight to prepare for in the morning)

A think we accomplished quite a good bit of work today. The yard is looking great. Just need to finish up all the mulch and get the garden prepared for this year.

Also, we believe Morgan was in a pageant tonight (the text message was a bit vague). We hope she did great and are hoping to hear about the outcome.

Not as much as before

I was in the backyard tonight, unloading mulch from the van. I stood up on the hill looking down across the lawn and realized as much as we have left to do it is still much less than where we were last year at this time. Last year we had no yard. Okay, a front yard, but it ended where the house started.

Remember this?

Today, I am happy to report, we saw our brother-in-law, who had back surgery a few weeks ago, and he looks great! And we were very happy to see him doing well.

We actually did get out to do some yard work this afternoon. The girls have all of their plants in the ground. I have one hibiscus planted. (I had forgotten why planting anything in our yard is so difficult...roots! Tree roots between one-to-two inches in diameter everywhere!) John has his boards up at the base of the deck, to keep mulch in the garden. And we finally put the composter together and have started using it, though I need to do some reading up on the subject.

I unloaded fifteen bags of mulch for the backyard and we need a few more for the front yard. We also need about twenty-to-thirty more pavers for the front yard. I need to move my hydrangea (it does not like its current home). I have more leaves that need to meet my yard vac. There are weeds and a paver that need attention in the verbena bed. Grass needs to be removed from around my Japanese cherry and pavers placed around it, to prevent the grass from growing there again. Just a lot of small projects that add up to a lot more work.

A few new pictures (for you Dad!)

I tried a new setting on the camera yesterday and I found spring. I'm a little worried it is too early, but it was nice to see.

I'm not thrilled with this one because the pine was blurred, but I still like it.



My beloved Japanese Cherry Tree!

I love evergreens.

This is gorgeous!

I think this was the azalea, but I could be wrong.

And the yardwork begins again...finally

Today we started back on the yard. Yep, it was cold! John wanted to decorate the front yard for Christmas and I wanted the front flower bed to look nice.

We went to Lowe's last night and came home with some new decorating ideas and, of course, the things to decorate with. We bought some of the big ornaments to hang on the front porch and some new garland too. We also purchased a big bow for the front door (and some for the garland). I think it looks nice. John did a great job!

I worked on putting out the edgers for the bed around the porch. Of course, when it came to the curved part I did have John help break the edgers for me. I'm not so good with a chisel. lol We just need a couple of more bags of mulch and that bed will be done. Yeah! We will start back up on the backyard now that all the things that go boo from under bushes have, hopefully, gone to sleep for awhile. I am so hoping we get the bike trail finished this winter so the girls can use it next summer. It is one of the things they were looking forward to when this whole process started in February.

An update on their school work: We are still up to date!! They have been finishing everything everyday just as planned with most of the afternoon to do as they wish. I am really hoping this continues, at least through the holidays. ;)