what's up weekly. (this is the week that doesn't end, yes it goes on and on my friend.)

This was the week that wouldn't quit.  There was just a ton going on.  

Last Friday night was the Psalm Sing, but since it was out of town, I stayed home with the babies, Oey, and Penelope.  We had nachos for dinner, and then after the littler kids went to bed, Penelope and I stayed up watching You've Got Mail while I ironed what felt like all the world's laundry.

On Saturday, Todd took the kids to a swim party for one of their friends.  Again, I stayed home with the babies and Penelope (and Atticus this time).  It ended up raining while they were in the pool, so they all came home frozen.

Monday, our school day was cut short because Penelope had an appointment in Kansas City in the afternoon.  Maybe you remember that a couple of weeks back she needed a follow-up with a specialist after her most recent eye appointment.  Our family eye doctor thought she saw some swelling behind Penelope's eye that concerned her and she wanted a second opinion.  So we went to Lawrence to get some further scans done, and that doctor said she was potentially concerned as well, so she referred us to Children's Mercy to get an MRI of her brain, just to make sure there wasn't a tumor or anything growing back behind the eye.  We prayed about it and thought about it for a couple of weeks, and ended up deciding to move forward with the MRI.

After the scan, the nurse-lady told us that her results would be posted to our online medical chart by the end of that day or sometime the next day.

Unfortunately, the next day the medical portal wasn't working, and I also woke up to discover my phone had no cell service, so I couldn't call tech support.  So I first navigated tech support with my phone to get it back up and running, and then I spent the afternoon trying to navigate tech support with the medical portal.  (Who kept saying I didn't HAVE a medical chart account, which was patently false, and also infuriating when you're trying to double check that your kid doesn't actually have brain cancer.) 

Luckily, in the middle of all that, the eye specialist called me (on my phone that now was willing to receive calls) to give me the rundown of what the next plans are now that the tests came back looking good, which allowed me to deduce that the tests, in fact, came back looking good.

That was Tuesday.

Wednesday, the air conditioner "froze up" (the technical term from the HVAC guy) so we spent many hours with no air conditioning waiting for it to thaw.  It's back up and running for now, but we're waiting to see if it becomes a recurring pattern in need of fixing.

Thursday, for the second morning in a row, I ran out of hot water in the shower, which tells me our tankless water heater is potentially on the fritz.

In between all of the items of note, we've tried trucking ahead with school.  A couple of the kids are a little behind with their read alouds because of the time I was away with Penelope, and the time spent on the phone with tech support.  But we did our Wednesday school for the first time since the school year started - math drills, maps, memory work (including our new Bible memory system), composition and geography in the morning; Shakespeare, poetry and Family Read Alouds in the afternoon.

Last Friday we had our first art class of the year as well.  We're studying Norman Rockwell this term.

Wednesday Table Time.

Wednesday afternoon read alouds.  We're reading A Midsummer Night's Dream, and Swallows and Amazons.

Today will hopefully be the day we're able to get caught back up on what we've missed.  Friday afternoons are reserved for science lab every other week, which is probably my least favorite part of homeschooling, so wish me luck.