Day 20: The Red Sky

 Today I was at, surprise surprise, someone's sports practice. 

Calen's swim practice, actually. 

I hate sitting at the pool deck if I'm not actually swimming. It's loud, echoey, and no less than 215 degrees Fahrenheit inside. 

No, thank you. 

And since the sun had come out for the first time in actual months, I decided to walk down the hill to the football field and walk the track. 

I mean, the sun came out, as in it was clear skies, because it's still winter in Alaska and it was dark by 5:15pm. 

The sunset, while brief, was beautiful. 

Looking across the field, with the ice rink and North Sister behind it. 

Day 19: Family Game Night Sunday

 The family has been consistent of having Sundays being board game family night, and I'm a big fan of it. 

We've also attempted to have every Sunday be something "fun" to eat, the idea being appetizers or a snack board (because "charcuterie" is an overused Pinterest word nowadays) that can sit on the peninsula counter and we can have small plates at the table here and there. 

This week, a Raddish Kids recipe box was waiting for this moment. It's like it knew. The recipe was breaded chicken sandwiches, and we morphed the recipe into breaded chicken sliders on hawaiian rolls. 

Because smaller is better! Or something. 

Calen made the chicken and secret sauce, expressing loudly his disdain for both mayonnaise AND mustard, which was the bases for the secret sauce (which turned out to taste like Chick Fil A sauce so I don't see the issue here), while I prepped the snack board with sandwich toppings, dips, rolls and buffalo cauliflower (which was NOT a hit in the house but hey, you can't blame me for trying). 

The sandwiches were a runaway success (everyone said we should make them more often), and we added an expansion to one of our favorite board games: Castle Panic! (this time adding the engineers of war pack). 

This is the only day of the week where we don't have some sort of activity, and I'm cherishing it. 

Day 18: Its Not About The Size of The Dog In The Fight

 Saturday in winter means hockey!

Camden played in back to back games, the first 12u/14uA vs the 12u Presidents Day team (as we decided not to travel to that tournament this year). 

Even though it was just a scrimmage, it was probably the best game had ever played. He split positions, the first two periods playing defenseman (his usual position), and then shifted to winger. Cam got on the board twice with two epic setup goals, including one self-rebound goal (against the 12A goalie!). It was a lot of fun, clean, aggressive gameplay. 

And he was tiny compared to his cross-ice opponent and fellow 12U winger Lucas. 

This kid is only 6 months older than Camden.

Size matters NOT.

Day 17: Twenty Dollar Friday

 It's Friday, and Friday's are ridiculous. 

Camden has hockey practice at 3:45. Calen has swim at 5:15. 

So, why not add some madness to the madness? I mean, why not have a contest of how much madness we could actually add?

The boys have been asking for a return trip to Safeway, since they still have a little bit of a remaining balance on their Safeway gift cards my mom bought them for Christmas. And since I needed to go grocery shopping, and we'd all be in town anyways for 283 sporting practices, why not add in Safeway trips?

We did this in segments, because I didn't want to leave overly early or stay late. So, we drove to the ice rink and dropped Camden off for hockey practice. Then, Calen and I headed to Safeway. I did some basic grocery shopping (which, I mean, basic still equates to $250), while we wandered the aisles looking at sales and making clever decisions. His goal was to only spend $20, so that he still had $10 or so left for one more trip. He absolutely refused to buy anything that wasn't on sale, which made me giggle, and his outcries of "why is food so expensive?!" were appropriate and relevant, after all he's just announcing what we're all feeling. In the end, he bought a bag of chili Doritos, a huge box of Honey Nut Cheerios (his favorite), a Mountain Dew, and a fruit roll up. And a Hot Wheels car, of COURSE. He paid $19, so he was right on the money. 

Furious at the cost of salt and vinegar almonds. I agree. 

Then, we zoomed to the pool, dropped Calen off for swim practice, headed down the hill to the ice rink, picked up Camden from hockey, and then he and I headed to Safeway so he could have his own one on one shopping experience. 

Cam, unlike his brother, has much harder times making decisions. He knew he wanted chips, so he headed there first and got Cool Ranch Doritos. Then he went to the produce section and thought long and hard about a large, crispy Honeycrisp apple, but then decided to put it back and got a large can of sliced pineapples instead (for the same price as one apple). And after hearing his brother chose a box of cereal, Cam decided to avoid breakfast envy and picked up a huge box of Frosted Flakes, and then a Hot Wheels car also, spending $20 and delighted he has just enough for a couple snacks next week. 

This has literally been the best present they could have ever gotten. 

Day 16: Never Too Old For Disney

 I'm one of those select few lucky parents in the world that have kids that have zero interest whatsoever in growing up. 

Like none. 

And yes, I know it's coming eventually. I know that this phase of being too cool for anything is inevitable, but if it's shorter lived than other kids, that's good, right?

We have been doing a long year-long science unit on oceanography. We are getting down to finally almost maybe finishing it, and since we had been discussing cephalopods (specifically, octupus), I thought it would be fitting to watch Finding Dory. 

We have, for several years now, rewatched almost every relevant Disney movie in one calendar year. I even keep track of which we have watched already on my phone, because I'm OCD like that. 

The boys, edging extremely close to the ages of 14 and 12, and should, by any other account in any other teenage home, be way too cool for kiddie baby movies like Finding Dory, for the love of all things. 

But instead, upon suggesting this, the boys were both excited, asked if we could watch it during lunch, and then spent the next 97 minutes laughing their heads off at keystone characters like Hank the octopus, and Becky. 

Maybe, if I'm lucky, they'll never actually outgrow this. 

I mean, they sure don't plan on doing so. 

Day 15: Night Skiing

 It snowed today, for once ever. 

This sounds insane, because it's Alaska, for crying out loud, but it has been the rainiest, stupidest winter ever. 

Cam was so excited that it was snowing that he asked around 7pm if he could go "night skiing" instead of reading Harry Potter together tonight. 

You bet you can. I understand the premise and glory of snow days. Let's do it. 

There's something about going outside at night when it's actively snowing that is magical. 

I went out to watch him a bit later. The mini ski tracks cracked me up, and he lasted about an hour before finally decided to come in. 

And then we read Harry Potter anyways. 

Bonus points for using that headlamp beanie

Day 14: The Lego City Autobahn

 It was another low key day today. The boys are basically recovered from their video game campout, Cam has hockey practice tonight, and so we just laid low today after school. 

Calen was exceptionally quiet today, and I went upstairs to check on him and saw that he had basically taken every single Lego set he had, sprawled them very strategically around the room, and laid out his Hex car track boundaries in between to connect all the sets into a sprawling, eventful, Lego City street track. Then he drove his little RC car through the streets, and even took it a step further by taking several short videos of various turns and straightaways with their phone and put them together in a super fun slideshow. 

I love his innovation. 

Note: Cam took it a step further and added dinosaurs, because why wouldn't you add dinosaurs. 

Day 13: Recovery Day

 The boys stumbled home this morning, dragging their bags with black under their eyes as if they had just walked across the meadows of Gettysburg after a six month dragon slaying battle. 

I'm probably not too far off from the truth, other than the Gettysburg part. 

Brad/Scoutmaster Dad ran the overnighter very smartly. He set a one hour alarm the entire campout, and when the alarm sounded, each Scout needed to drink half a glass of water to stay hydrated to prevent misery the next morning. He also put the kabash on the evening at 2am, which of course is more than appropriate considering they started at noon the previous day and that means fourteen hours of video games. 

They spent the day at home lounging around, playing Legos and having no screen time whatsoever. 

Since they were absent for Sunday Family Game Night, we played another round of Sorcerer's Arena as a family, and pizza for dinner, because to heck with it. 

 

Day 12: A Different Kind of Campout

 The boys are good about being "all business" when it comes to Scouts. 

I mean, mostly good. 

Scoutmaster Dad keeps a "one campout per month rule" that was instilled well before he took over Kodiak's Troop 626, and so they do so, summer, winter, rain, snow, wind whatever. 

I mean, that's what builds character, right?

However, he's not a ruthless leader. He listens to his people, his tiny, mouthy, middle school people. 

They ask, beg, plead, demand, a campout dedicated solely to video games. 

Because of course they do, they're teenage boys. 

And so to calm the masses, to stop riots and revolts, he throws them a bone, and once a year, just once a year, he allows an overnight, indoor, video game campout. 

And this is how leaders are re-elected. Take notes, US Government. 

Generally this pops up in January or February, because it's dark, gross, and either raining or snowing or somewhere in between, so it's a perfect month for an indoor campout. 

And this weekend was the celebrated annual holiday that the Scouts had been waiting for. 

Conveniently it's MLK weekend, so school was out on Monday. They arranged it for a Sunday-Monday campout, so that no Scouts involved in their winter sports (hockey, basketball, wrestling, whatever) would miss it. 

It's been the buzz in my house all week. 

Sunday morning came and the boys promptly and excitedly packed up their consoles, controllers, games, power cables, etc, and had to be reminded to bring essentials like you know, a sleeping bag, and lightsabers, because obviously. 

Off they go. Camping chairs and lightsabers. 

Brad took it one step further and yanked the TV out of the boys' room, walking out of the house with it like he had brazenly robbed me in broad daylight. 

Quick, before anyone catches you

Then they headed to Walmart for chips and candy, and will probably not even bother to sleep tonight. 

Good for them, I'll be in bed by eleven and NOT have an overtired hangover tomorrow. 

Day 11: Hot and Cold

 If yesterday was busy, today was almost busier. 

Almost.

As things always work, the boys both had sports at the exact same time today.

Of course they do. 

It was a divide and conquer day. I drove to the pool first, tossed Calen and Brad out of the car, and then drove down the hill to the ice rink for Cam's hockey game. Cam's game went great, was super exciting and ended in a tie. Then we hauled balls as fast as we could up the hill to the pool, where Calen's swim meet had already started. 

The difference here, is that the rink was probably 30 degrees, and the pool, in contrast, was probably 130 degrees. 

Or at least it felt like, as we desperately stripped off our jackets, hats, hoodies, wool socks, battery-heated socks, and hockey gear. 

Can't like, they have fans or something? Crack a window? Open a door? It was a stuffy as a windowless attic in death valley and I was pretty convinced I was going to melt into a puddle of mush on the floor. 

I went from hypothermia to heat stroke in 5.6 minutes. 

The things we do for our kids. 

As for Calen, this is his second all time swim meet, and he did so. much. better. His confidence is growing and he accomplished a Personal Record (PR) on each of his three events. He even got first place in his 100 Freestyle heat!

He's built for swimming!

Calen (under the 2 flag), gaining confidence to start the race from the platform today

I'm learning that photographing swim meets is impossible. Calen (top) midway through the race. He held the lead the entire race

As for Cam, he stripped the top half of his hockey gear and hung out in the lobby near the front door where the cold air come wafting in, happily playing Nintendo and not-for-one-second walking into the actual sauna of the pool deck. 

Good for him. 

The post hockey/swim meet march to the car.