Bein’ Franklin

Posted by mommyfranklin at June 19th, 2008

Emily has been gone to GA camp since Monday.  She’ll be home this afternoon.  With the exception of times that she has visited grandparents, this is the first time she has been away from home for more than one night.  We went to visit her last night for family night, and she is having a great time. 

I am looking forward to her return.  Her absense has made me realize how much the boys depend on her for entertainment.  They have kept us busy.  On Monday, Timothy decided he wanted his bed to be turned into a bunkbed again.  We had taken it down last Fall because he was having some trouble getting off the bed to go the bathroom in the middle of the night.  Now that he’s older, that shouldn’t be a problem.  So, we put the bed up and rearranged toys to occupy the space that his bed used to have.  We installed some pet nets for stuffed animals in each room and arranged their toys on them. The rest of the day was spent playing with toys we had pulled from the closet to fill the space in their room.  It was a fun day.

On Tuesday, the boys and I went to a local library where Kenny’s Korral had set up a petting zoo.  Kenny’s Korral is Lubbock’s answer to not having a zoo.  Timothy’s class had gone there on a field trip in May, so he was very excited to get to see Kenny and the animals again.  Zachary really liked seeing the animals.  He even fed a goat from his hand. He said it ticked.  An added bonus for Zachary was getting see a friend from school.  The two of them hugged for a long time and even exchanged a couple kisses.  This really disturbed the friend’s older sister, who said she would get in trouble for doing that.  Her babysitter and I told her it’s okay at 3, but not 7.  She seemed okay with that.

The rest of the day was spent running some errands and more playing.  We had considered going to see Emily, but decided it would be better to go on family night so she wouldn’t be one of the few kids without parents there.

On Wednesday, we went swimming.  The boys had been begging to go, so we finally consented.  We knew we had to leave town by 4 to go see Emily, so we decided to go to the pool as soon as it opened at 12.  We were the first ones there.  Scott was quite proud that he was the first person in the water that day.  We swam for a couple hours, then decided to head home for lunch and then off to see Emily.  We were at camp for about an hour and a half before heading home.  It was wonderful getting to see Emily and hear about all the fun she’s had.  When it was time for her to go to worship, we tearfully said goodbye and headed home.  When we got home, we changed the bedding in Sneakers cage and gave him fresh food.  We put him in his ball and let him run around the first floor of the house for a while.  He moves fast!

That has been our week with only two kids.  It’s been a little quieter and a lot less exciting without Emily.  She’ll be home in just a few hours, so I better get some things done so I can spend some quality time with her.  I am sure she will have lots of camp stories to share.

Posted by DaddyFranklin at June 9th, 2008

We had big plans for this past weekend  Most of them went off without a hitch. On Friday we attended an Amarillo Dillas game as part of an Alumni get-together for Wayland.  Three players on the Dillas are Wayland alums themselves.  There was a barbecue dinner before the game got started.  We arrived a hair late but still enjoyed a lot of good brisket, sausage and potato salad.  The only downside to the meal was the wind blowing upwards of 20 mph.

When the game was about to start we moved from the picnic tables over to where our seats were.  We all decided (our kids had already latched on to the Petty’s so this had to be a joint decision) to move up to the “nosebleed’ section and enjoy the game in the shade.  We would have cooked to a crisp in our original seats.  Fortunately it was not a sold out crowd so we had our pick.  Plus, I’ve never heard of the “seat police” coming to move someone from the worse seats to the better seats.

We left around the fifth inning because we had a long trip ahead of us.  Little did we know just how long.  We had planned to visit my parents in Canadian for the weekend.  After picking up all the pets from my grandparents house in Amarillo which we had dropped off before the game, we made our way toward Canadian.  Just about 8 or 9 miles shy of Pampa, disaster struck.  The front right tire on the Trailblazer had a blowout.  It didn’t shred itself but it went flat suddenly.  The first of the bad news was that it was well after dark, almost 11:00 pm.  The second item of bad news was that we never obtained our owners manual for the Trailblazer so we were left to figure out how to get the spare down from under the cab, where to find the jack, and how to properly use the jack.  Finding it was easy, lowering the tire took a while, and piecing together the various bars to make a crank for the jack was a long time coming.  But it all happened leading up to the real bad news.  The spare was flat.

At first, I thought it was only low and maybe I could drive it the next 9 miles into Pampa and fill it up.  This was a bad idea.  I managed to ruin the tire after a couple of miles.  At this point, I was at a loss.  I called up Dad and asked for some help.  I managed to catch him well after his bedtime so good ideas on my plight were not easy to come by.  Suspecting that the spare might still hold some air, he agreed to bring me a tank and an air compressor to see if we might be able to make it into Pampa and perhaps all the way to Canadian.  After an hour’s drive from Canadian, we quickly learned that the tire would not hold air. 

I finally reached the last resort.  I called the wrecker service and they sent out a tow truck.  He tried to air up the spare tire as well but to no avail. It had quite a large hold in the back, I am supposing from my driving on it.  He hauled the Trailblazer into Pampa, while all seven of us (Mom, Dad and my crew) followed in the Impala.  Now, the Impala is a spacious sedan but 7 plus three pets is probably beyond its specs.  The tow truck left the Trailblazer at Walmart at about 2:30 am and I wrote him a check for $115. We finally made it back to Canadian around 3:30 am. 

First thing next morning, I made sure the Wal-mart Automotive Department would be open all day.  Dad and I headed to Pampa, where I had them put two new tires on the front of the Trailblazer and move the extra tire to the spare.  This ran me about $285.  Add in the gas, and that made for a pricey weekend to see the folks.  The rest of the weekend was great, we took it easy, celebrated Mom’s birthday with some cake, and watched a few superhero flicks.  Kids had a great time as well and I just about caught up on the missed sleep by the time the weekend was over.

Lesson learned: When checking the pressure in your tires, don’t forget to check the spare!!!

Posted by mommyfranklin at June 2nd, 2008

With temperatures reaching the 100s the last few days, I can safely say that summer is here. We’ve got a lot planned for this summer. Today, Emily signed up for the summer reading competition that she participated in last year at the Wolfforth library. She got first place for her grade last year. Hopefully she can hold on to her title and beat her own personal goal. The library has weekly storytime that I imagine we will attend when we can. It’s a good opportunity for Emily to log the books that she’s read and get new ones, plus the kids get do a little art project.

We decided to get a membership at the pool of a local homeowners association. We went swimming there for the first time yesterday. We knew Emily and Timothy would have a blast, but weren’t sure how Zachary would respond. He loves wading pools, but did not like swimming in the lake last week, so we weren’t sure if he’d like a big pool or not. It took a little coaxing at first, but he soon discovered that he loved going all the way under. We all had a great time. Emily went off the diving board a few times, Timothy went down the slide and jumped off the side in the 4 ft water, and Zachary went down the slide and walked around in the 3 ft area. We’ll be spending a lot of time at the pool for sure!

Emily has aspirations to be an author. She is always writing stories. She even entered the Reading Rainbow Young Writers and Illustrators contest this year and got 2nd place for the 2nd grade in the local competition. Since then, I’ve been trying to find ways to encourage her in this dream. When looking through the Summer Leisure Guide published by the City of Lubbock Parks and Recreation Department, I came across a creative writing class. The description stated that it was for ages 8 – 10. Emily won’t be 8 until August, so I called to see if she could take the class. They let her in and she started today. She meets each Monday in June. The guide has lots of great activities that we plan to attend.

All this plus some camping, attending a couple weeks of VBS, and making some trips to see family should make this a great summer.

Posted by mommyfranklin at May 26th, 2008

  On Thursday, Scott and I realized that the next day was our tenth anniversary.  We both knew it was coming, but have been so busy that we made no plans to celebrate.  Neither one of us are really the type to worry about such things.  We threw around some options to celebrate and explored some childcare options, and finally decided to go bowling as a family.  We decided this since it would be near impossible to locate a babysitter to come to the house on such short notice and taking the kids to a kids’ night out place would cost in the neighborhood of $40 plus food.  So, instead we went to buy a bedspread for our new bed, went out for dinner, and went bowling as a family.  Well, I should say that Scott and I bowled.  The kids pushed the ball down the alley.  We had the gutter guards turned on for them and, for the second game, they rolled their ball down a ramp pointed at the pins.  We’re not great bowlers, but we had a really good time.  Parent’s night out at church is in a few weeks, so Scott and I will get our date night in then.

For Memorial Day weekend, we went on our first camping trip of the season.  Now that the kids are old enough that we don’t have to take a lot of extra things for them, we plan on taking several of these trips.  That’s one of the reasons bought our Trailblazer a few months ago.  The Montana would not have made it on many of these trips.  We had hoped to be able to get a pop-up camper, but that is going to have to wait at least another year.  In the meantime, we are set up for tent camping.

Our first camping trip was to Lake Colorado City State Park.  We didn’t want to go too far from home in case of inclement weather, but didn’t want to be so close that we wouldn’t feel like we actually went anywhere.  Lake Colorado City is just over two hours from here.  When we arrived on Saturday afternoon, we found that all the campsites had been reserved so we were smart to have made reservations.  We found our spot and got our tent set up about 10 minutes before the rain came.  It rained off and on for the rest of the evening, so we spent most of it in the tent.  When the rain would stop, we’d get out and move things in from the Trailblazer.  During one reprieve, we cooked out hot dogs on our propane stove (campfires weren’t allowed).   It was a lot of good time spent as a family.

Saturday morning, we woke up and had eggs, bacon, and Texas toast.  We checked out the interpretive trail not far from our campsite.  About halfway down the trail, we decided the end would take us too far from our tent so we turned around and made it right back to our tent.  Going to the end of the trail would have meant walking back along the road instead of the trail, so we thought this would be better anyway.  We’d already drank all the water we brought, so we headed in to town for more ice, water, and some other camping essentials (broom for the tent and a can so Emily wouldn’t have to hike to bathroom in the middle of the night).  Then we went swimming in the lake for a few hours before heading back for a sandwich lunch.  After we cleaned up the campsite and tent, Scott and the boys went fishing while Emily and I stayed at the tent to read a bit.  I had been taking pain medicine for an awful crick in my neck all weekend, so I was ready to relax.  After about an hour, Scott came back and asked if we wanted to go home.  The ranger had come to the pier to tell them there was a storm coming.  We talked about it and decided we’d done everything we had planned to do, so we packed up and came home a day early.

It’s 11:00 on Monday and we’re still in our pajamas.  I wonder what we’ll do today?

Posted by mommyfranklin at May 26th, 2008

Our tax rebate was deposited at the same time as our pay for the online classes we teach, which was good timing for us.  They say the purpose of the rebate was to stimulate the economy, so we didn’t see putting it into savings as an option.  In the past, we’ve used such items to pay off credit card debt.  We finally don’t have any of that, our online class pay paid off my surgery and some has gone to savings, so we got to use the rebate for some fun things instead.

Since the amount of the rebate was determined by the number of children, we wanted to get something the whole family could enjoy.  So, the first thing we got was a new dinette.  We have had our old one for 9 years.  It’s served it’s time.  It was falling apart and we had really outgrown it.  It had gotten to the point that the five us did not fit comfortably around it even with the leaf in and were tired of the chair with casters.  We did some shopping around and finally arrived at an upscale consignment shop just down the street.  It was here that we got a beautiful 6′ solid wood table that we just love.  It came with two leaves that we will pull out when we have company.  It has 6 chairs, 5 of which we keep at the table.

Our second purchase is a new box spring and mattress set for our Queen Size bed.  Eight years ago, we bought a water bed.  After five years, the tubes started leaking on a fairly regular basis.  After replacing a couple of the tubes, we decided to get rid of all the tubes and get some foam inserts for the bed.  Over the past two years, the mattress sagged and the sides of the box spring began to collapse.  So, after shopping at the high dollar furniture stores, we headed to a mattress outlet store and got a Distinction Pillow Top mattress.

Just doing our part to help the economy.

Posted by DaddyFranklin at May 26th, 2008

Posted by DaddyFranklin at May 21st, 2008

I attended Timothy’s Hawaiian end-of-year party at his school.  Despite the fact that Timothy was proud to wear his grass skirt (hula) and some “jewel” stickers, it was a lot of fun for me.  I followed the class around as they went on a scavenger hunt finding each element of their outfit before going back to their classroom for lunch.  I, then, entertained a few kids by dancing my own version of hula dance and sticking paper umbrellas in my cap.

Tomorrow will be Zachary’s party.

Posted by DaddyFranklin at May 15th, 2008

Today, I went with Timothy’s class on a field trip to a place in Lubbock called Kenny’s Korral.  It was a blast, as you can probably tell from the pictures and videos.

Posted by DaddyFranklin at May 13th, 2008

Timothy celebrated his 5th birthday last Wednesday and we gave him the privilege of being in charge most of the day (like choosing where to eat.) We had his birthday party at Ready, Set, Go! in Lubbock which is a gymnastics place like the one in Plainview. Several of his friends attended (all girls, if you must know). We had a great time. Check out the pics below:

Posted by mommyfranklin at May 7th, 2008

Timothy is 5 years old. Where did the time go?

It’s been a great day. We all woke Timothy up by singing Happy Birthday to him. He wore a Spider Man ribbon that says “Birthday Champ” on it to school and made sure everyone knew that he was 5 years old today. He pretty much got to celebrate all day. We took powdered donuts and yoohoo to share with his friends at snack time (Sorry Mrs. R! I didn’t get to join in for snack time because I had my follow up appointment with my surgeon.), he got to wear the special birthday crown, Scott had lunch with him, and we went to Chuck E. Cheese (Timothy’s choice) for dinner.

Zachary started the day being less than enthused about it being Timothy’s birthday. When I noticed he was bit down, he told me that he was “still three.” Poor guy wants to be 4, and he won’t be for 7 months. He cheered up during the school day, and was really excited when Timothy chose Chuck E. Cheese.

Emily is so proud of her little brother turning 5. She let her whole class know, and they all made him a birthday card. The book fair is this week at her school, and Emily used her own money to buy a book for both boys and one for herself. What a great sister!

As if I need an added reminder that Timothy is growing up, today happened to be the day for Kindergarten registration. He is so excited about going to Kindergarten at Emily’s school. I don’t know how we’ll break the news to Zachary that Timothy will not be going to school with him next year. Timothy wanted to start today since he’s 5 now. He told me he’s ready to learn how to do things that big kids can do. I’m not sure exactly what that means, but I think he understands now that he won’t start until August.

I am so proud of Timothy and am anxious to see where life will take him next.