Just Another Day…

Category: Text Post

The Days of Summer Vacation
I’m SO lucky. Never in my life did I think I would have the opportunity to have the summer at home with the kids instead of working full-time. Yet due to the unexpected turn of events of the last 12 months fate has delivered just that to me.

The short answer is that, due to Brenda having the full-time job with benefits and me being the freelancer now, I have to work around her schedule – thus I’m taking care of the kids this summer. I’ll still be taking jobs that I can do at home in the evenings, but I will be more limited over the next 2 months than I would otherwise be. Gone are the on-site freelance jobs or traveling gigs for a short while.

I’ve been making a mental list for weeks now of what I want to do with them over the summer and in typical style I’m probably being overly ambitions. However, here are just some of the things I’ve come up with.
- Learn to swim, at least well enough to not sink like stones in the water (they start next week).
- Learn to tie their shoes (Andrew is the only one so far that can do it).
- Rock Climbing (did that today)
- Learn to ride bikes in the next 10 days or so. Andrew has that down and has been practicing and getting better every day.
- Home Schooling – I want them to still be learning every day through one thing or another. It can be fun too, but I want them to get into the habit of always wanting to learn.
- Introduce them to martial arts. Maybe an introductory class of some kind.
- Have them help create and be the stars of their own music video (we’ve already picked a song and I’ve started planning it out).
- Weekly field trips to somewhere educational, but something that ties into other things we’ve been learning about.
- Try some new hobbies.
Even as I write that out I’m feeling like I’m overreaching! But a plan that gets cut down is better than no plan I guess. I’m just excited and want to make the most of it because this could be my only summer to ever do this, who knows! A year ago I wouldn’t have imagined this was even possible.

We’ve been having fun this week but they’ve only had 2 days off so far. Fingers crossed I pace myself and don’t have a mental breakdown before we even get to July!

PS… If you’re wondering why there are no pictures of Maximus on the rock climbing wall, it’s because he made “bad choices” earlier today and part of his punishment lost some preferred activities. He was sitting with me pouting the whole time.
June 3, 2016
Sydney Turns 6, but Andrew Steals The Show

I’m finding that doing these videos on a regular basis is getting more and more difficult. And that’s too bad because the process of making these videos is so satisfying. I feel like I’m smiling the entire time while making them.

But time is always in short supply, and keeping priorities balanced is always a challenge.

This video took a long time because I was trying something new (I won’t go into it) and after several months of experimentation it didn’t work and I had to cut my losses. So the video itself is very simple and does not reflect the time I actually put into it.

At the end of the video is a special dance performance by Andrew. It may seem like a weird addition to the video, but it happened after her birthday celebration and nobody else danced that evening so he’s the only one that got the love on that. I think Sydney is secretly not happy about it.

AppleTV Download

May 17, 2016
Saturday Night Special – A Unscheduled ER Visit

One minute we’re all on the couch eating popcorn and watching a movie, the next moment we’re in the car driving to the ER.

Max hurt himself in a way that I won’t get into because even I wish I could forget it, but it turned out fine in the end and it was a good thing that I took him because it could have been serious and I wouldn’t have really known.

By the end of the night the kids were feeling way better, relieved for Max and kind of slap happy. When they’re like that they are just pure entertainment.

I feel very lucky that we have a great hospital so close to the house.

Original 4K Video

April 10, 2016
Easter Weekend in Michigan

What a great fun filled trip to Michigan this weekend. Because of the kids being on spring break we had more time than usual for our visit.

March 28, 2016
Hour of Code 2015

Last year I had the idea of taking Andrew to one of the many Hour of Code classes in the area, but found out about it too late. Everywhere I looked classes were already full. If you don’t know what the Hour of Code is, you can find out more at their website. It’s an initiative to promote learning how to write computer code and to get children interested at an early age.

I signed up for an apple store event at one of the downtown Chicago locations and picked one that had a special guest. In this case it was Danny Yaroslavski, creator of the popular coding app for kids called LightBot.

We started our day having breakfast at Lou Mitchell’s, one of my favorite breakfast spots in the city.

After that we hopped on the subway and headed to the apple store, which just happens to sit right on top of a subway stop.

As soon as Danny started talking to the group you could see the kids light up. I think in part because he himself is not much older than a kid and they could relate to him. He talked about how computers not only run the internet, but virtually every aspect of our world.

He called out Pixar specifically. He pointed out that while Pixar is about creating 3D characters and animation, it’s all done by code written at Pixar. A lot of their software is created in house to help solve specific problems they want to overcome. It was a good tie in and spoke to everyone.

After that it was all about grabbing an iPad (several were provided to the group) and playing LightBot. The game does not teach actual coding. Rather it teaches concepts, methods and problem solving skills that are part of writing code. Even as an adult, I found it fun and challenging to play at times. It’s more of a brain teaser as you get into the higher levels and have to find more efficient ways to perform the same task. Once these concepts are mastered, learning to actually write code will be easier to pickup.

After the one hour was done we went out front and took a group photo with everyone in the class and then back inside to look at some of the toys on display. We spent another 90 minutes playing with the toys which were pretty awesome. It’s amazing the level of technology that we take for grated these days.

We had planned to do a few more things in the city but the day was already half over and we needed to be back by 3pm so we headed back to the car and drove home. On the way back we took a quick detour to check out the Harold Washington Library. A library that’s so big it could probably hold 4 full size copies of the Wheaton library.

All in all is was a pretty awesome day with Andrew. We never seem to get enough one-on-one time with the kids so when we do it’s pretty special.

I don’t know if Andrew will be interested in writing code as he grows up, but for now he’s interested in it. If he does end up a coder, he will have a nice jump on what will be a very promising career by the time he is out of high school.

I have a small photo gallery on SmugMug from the days events.

December 13, 2015