Jesse's Friday of fun

“I want to go swimming.”

My son’s request made me pause. Swimming? Where? I knew there were public pools here in Eugene and also in Springfield, but I wasn’t sure if visiting one for a day was even possible. I had recently been perusing a catalog for Splash!, a waterpark, and was upset to see that they charge an out-of-district fee for visitors. I thought that was really unfair for people who just wanted to have some fun in a pool! So I decided to ask friends if they knew of a more affordable place we could go to for Jesse to have some pool fun. Unfortunately, our friends weren’t sure, and also unsure about what was available at the Y.

So, I hit the Internet. I Googled local public pools and checked out what came up. One public pool did charge an out-of-district fee to get in, another one had some really bad reviews, and another one was closed. Fortunately, I did find one that DIDN’T charge an out-of-district fee and, better still, the one day pass was MUCH more affordable (under $5!). So I told Jesse we would go there. I had also discovered that they offered swimming lessons and ALSO at an affordable price! I have been trying to sign Jesse up for swimming lessons for years but I was always too late. By the time I looked up swimming lessons for him, they were always full.

Well, not THIS time! In fact, there were 4 spots left for the swimming class I wanted to sign him up for, so while we were there, I got him signed up. Yay!!! He is FINALLY going to learn how to swim! At age 9, I think it is high time he learned how to swim. (Sidenote: We don’t have our own swimming pool.)

So I drove Jesse out to the public pool today. Thankfully, I managed to get there without getting lost! (All that time I spent on Google Maps figuring out the route paid off LOL)

When we got there, I got Jesse registered, signed him up for swimming lessons, and paid for the one-day pass. Jesse was too nervous to go into the men’s shower room by himself so they told him he could just go on in to the swimming pool. He was so excited when he got into the pool! His face lit up and he said, “Wow!” He started swimming around and I stayed there at the side, watching him. There were two lifeguards on duty at all times but I kept an eye on him anyway. I advised him to use a floatie at all times, even though he was in the shallow area, and he had lots of fun with THAT! He also bought some goggles and he thought it was cool to see underwater. The first time he did it, he said “that’s cool” and “it’s awesome.” He really had a blast playing in the pool. He was only able to play in the pool for an hour, though, and he really DIDN’T want to get out of the pool! He was having too much fun! But I assured him we would come back sometime.

After he got out of the pool, he was more comfortable going into the showers with the other kids and he also changed clothes. After that, we went home, grabbed Trevor, then headed out for froyo at TCBY.

Then after Jesse finished eating his froyo, he went across the street to play at his friend’s house.

Now we’re ending the day camping out on the couch, eating gummy worms and watching the movie How to Eat Fried Worms.

Jesse sure had a fun day today and we are looking forward to doing more fun things tomorrow. His last day for Spring Break is on Monday so I’m hoping to squeeze in as many fun activities while I can.

Here are pictures I took at the pool. It’s an indoor pool, by the way.

Salvaging Spring Break

This week is Spring Break but before this week rolled around, we made plans for things to do. But you know what they say: “Man plans and God laughs.” Well, I guess the Almighty got a good laugh when it was the first day of Spring Break, because … we were all sick!

That’s right. All four of us were sick. We actually started getting sick on Saturday but by Monday, Jen was the fourth and final victim of when sickness invaded our home. She and I both had a cold, Jesse had a bad cough and my husband has also come down with something. Things were pretty lousy for a while there. We were all feeling pretty yucky and also feeling pretty down that our plans for Spring Break were ruined. (Well, I like to say “compromised” instead of “ruined,” because I am too stubborn to throw in the towel so easily!) We were also too “out of it” for much of anything to do at home because we were all taking medicines. I barely got any writing or reading done, and the movies and TV shows I planned to watch were put on hold. I wasn’t on the Internet too much, either. I could hardly concentrate. It was a cycle of sleep, medicine, eat, sleep, medicine, eat. Wash, rinse, repeat!

Now I have said this before and I’ll say it again: DayQuil is good stuff! If it weren’t for DayQuil, I wouldn’t have survived attending my daughter’s basketball game some years ago when I had the flu. So when a cold hits – a cold, not the flu – I grab the DayQuil! Seriously, it’s the one medicine that helps me get back on my feet when a cold is kicking my butt. (And it really did!) Today is Day 5 of my cold and I was finally feeling human again. Jen has been surviving on chicken noodle soup, yogurt and water, and she too is starting to feel better.  Jesse was taking Delsym twice a day for his cough and he was also feeling better.

So since the kids and I were feeling functional again today, I decided, you know what? It’s STILL Spring Break! Let’s try to do SOME of the things we planned to do.

So today I took the kids to Skate World. They had fun rollerskating and playing Air Hockey. I took many pictures and here is one of them:

For most of the stay at Skate World, I was fine. But after a while, I was starting to cough and feeling a little sluggish. (I’d been hacking up a lot of gunk today. Ugh!) But at least that happened close to the time when we would leave. The kids were having so much fun, though, they asked to stay a little longer so they could skate some more, so we stayed for a half hour longer. After that, I took them to McDonald’s so they could get a McFlurry (a rare treat they love).

I am glad that I was well enough to take the kids somewhere for Spring Break and I’m also glad they had such a good time. I hope tomorrow and Friday we will be able to do the other things we hope to do, but it really depends on if my husband is well enough. But if not, we’ll come up with something else to do instead. I know I am at least well enough to drive somewhere (and it’s too bad I can’t drive to Salem!), so if Plan A is a bust, we’ll just go to Plan B and have some other kind of fun and adventure. We still have two days of Spring Break left, so we’re gonna make the most of it!

Spring Break

My kids had Spring Break this week. While lots of our friends were heading out on the road, we decided on having a “staycation” this year. As someone who is a big homebody, I was VERY happy to stay at home for Spring Break. I’m not against taking the kids on a road trip or going somewhere fun during Spring Break, but it just wasn’t in the cards for us this year.

Since we were gonna spend most of our time at home, I decided to take advantage of that opportunity. I was relieved I wouldn’t be spending yet another week of jumping in and out of my car to drive kids back and forth to two different schools, to appointments, run errands, etc., so I pretty much stayed home as much as possible. I also slept in on a few of those days (that was nice!!) and stayed up later than normal. Aside from this, I got some things done around the house. I sorted through dressers/closets and got rid of clothes we don’t wear or that don’t fit anymore. I also organized Jesse’s room and cleaned the garage. Jennifer had been bitten by the “Spring cleaning bug,” too. She rearranged her room and also went through all of her clothes to get rid of the rejects. 

In addition to that, I also took the time to get caught up on things I had going on but hadn’t found the time to finish. I had some items in my “to-do” drawer that had REALLY needed my attention, and I also got caught up on reading.

Another thing I did was finish up some projects I had to sew. I have not done any sewing for a long time because I didn’t like it before. But this time around, oh my gosh, I LOVED it. It was just sooo relaxing. I really enjoyed sewing and plan to do more of it. Jesse also got in on the sewing. For the very first time, he gave sewing a try. He did make one mistake but he did pretty well for the most part. He also got to learn how to be patient when threading a needle.

Here is Jesse sewing for the first time (I am in this picture too):

I also made the kids pancakes for breakfast on a weekday morning. I usually don’t have the time for THAT when we have the school morning rush!

Jesse got to play with his friend a lot this week and Jennifer got to have a sleepover with one of her besties. Jen being a night owl, she also enjoyed not having a bed time!

The kids go back to school next week and I’d say their Spring Break was not so terribly bad. We did get to do some things and that’s good. Now we’re ready to get back on track for a busy school week – and, me, a busy writing week!