Remember When... We Got Stuck In an Elevator?

 We were moving boxes. Stuff that had been stored with us by a friend of a friend of a friend going on furlough. We needed the space back as we are losing our office apartment at the end of the month. As they were away on holiday, we did the moving for them - thankfully within our condo complex, but still, a full afternoon of shuttling back an forth with trolleys piled high with boxes and garbage bags full of another family's treasures.

On one of the back and forths, Mom and Dad noticed the kids were taking an unusually long time to show up for the next load. Dad took over another load. Still no kids. Thinking through the routes between the apartments and possibilities, mom suddenly wondered if they were stuck in an elevator. Perhaps not quite as random as it sounds, since we have had multiple "under maintenance" incidences with elevators in all the buildings here recently. Mom called Dad to suggest the possibility. He got a hold of a guard and persuaded him to check. Sure enough, a yell up the shaft produced a return yell from our three!  It was a brilliantly underwhelming, casual rescue, with no one particularly fazed, surprised, or upset. All the same, it was Mom and Dad who did the rest of the elevator rides with the stuff that day😊

The kids came back to our apartment rather flushed and excited - and thirsty as (as far as we could tell) they had been stuck for about 40 min in a powerless elevator car! Through a tangled tumble of words, we worked out what had happened.

A power cut to the complex happened just after they entered the elevator to come home. The emergency generators kicked in, but not with power enough for all three elevators in that tower... and they were not in the one that kept power. The lights went out on them, the elevator car fell a little, and then stuck between floors.  When nothing more happened, they used the emergency call button (that simply rings a fire alarm like bell) but got no response. They repeated this until finally they heard a call coming up the shaft. Shortly after that the doors were forced open and there was enough overlap with a floor for them to climb out. An adventure to remember - and not repeat!

July Moments

Summer School

    Everyone mostly finished school, but they each have one or more courses to finish off to finish the year or even up the grade spread of courses for next year. Aiden is doing an Language Arts course, Jasmin is finishing up math and Creative arts, and Grace just as a theology course to finish.

Project Rock

    We finally got to use our family birthday gift! Mom took the kids to the new Project Rock in the mall. We invited another homeschooler to join us. Mom ended up doing a fair bit of shopping and other errands in the mall so there are no pictures this time. The kids had the place to themselves most of the morning, but when we came back from lunch, it was much busier. We look forward to going back as there is a lot of bouldering routes and challenges along with the top rope routes.

Sales

    We learned early on in July that the landlord of our office apartment wanted it back at the end of the month. So Mom has been busy with organizing and selling off the contents (left over from the friends who couldn't return after Covid). Her strong conclusion is that online yard sales are much harder to manage than the one morning of driveway chaos of onsite yard sales. Mainly because you have to keep straight multiple inquiries via text and phone calls and not sell the same item more than once! Still, much progress has been made and the stress is reducing.

Holiday Planning

    As Covid travel restrictions in this area of the world are finally lifting, we are planning a trip to our favorite place in Thailand and a visit into Cambodia! The planning has been much more involved and stressful than ever before as the train and bus systems are not fully recovered and it is difficult to find truly up to date information. But we have now pieced together an itinerary and have booked most of it. By the time we get back home we will have travelled by taxis, minivans, trains, sky train, airplanes, city buses, and ferries! And there is potential for a few other types of transport as well...
    One difficulty we encountered was in trying to book Thai train tickets online as the site wouldn't take any of our cards. After mom spending hours seeking solutions, Grace, watching, causally pointed out the card number needed spaces... and that worked! Grr for all the wasted time and angst, but thank you God for Grace's observation skills!

Physiotherapy

    DNS physio has done wonders for Mom, and then Dad when his neck was seizing for days of pain. They continue to go, dealing with the root issues that are now showing up. Grace and Jasmin got curious and we decided to go for a check up with their on again-off again joint issues. In doing so, we discovered some slight scoliosis, unnatural stiffness, and other foundational issues. So now it is a near whole family affair to stop to phone alarms and do physio exercises during the day!

4th Birthday - Jasmin is 15

 Our rock wall climbing plans didn't work out as the gym delayed their opening date until July... so that birthday present from Mom and Dad and Nini and YeaYea for the three is still yet to come. 

Instead, Imma's contribution went to an afternoon of exploring archery... research for the books the girls are writing, right? :)  It also happened to be a very fun afternoon, another "extreme sport" for that HS credit, and something that has been desired for some time. And this time no age restrictions holding us back!  

Although, we did cause a pause when we showed up with three left handers out of the four of us... especially Aiden, who should have used a kid's sized bow but they didn't have any lefthanded bows that size so he managed an adult bow! It never occurred to Mom to tell them ahead that we had 3 lefthanders... but the modern bows have a notch to rest the arrows on so handedness matters.

It surprised us how easy and how hard it was to shoot with relative accuracy. Jasmin, who has never held a bow before was the best of us, even getting a perfect bullseye! Both girls had the strength to shoot at the far targets, but after the first hour (we were there for 3 hours!), Mom and Aiden stuck with the closer targets. Aiden persevered and managed some very passable rounds, even including a bullseye!

Jasmin and Mom suffered the results of the common mistake that snaps the bowstring along the inner elbow... ouch!

After biking the 28km roundtrip and 3 hours of archery, we were all pretty tired - and hungry!  So the evening of watching The Fellowship of the Ring while eating shepherd's pie, chocolate covered sponge cake, and orange Andes chocolates was just right for the end of a great birthday. It was a delight to watch a movie (the first in nearly 4 years!) and listen to the commentary from the girls who's career paths and interests intersect with cinematics.

And while we were watching, a neighbour stopped by and left us a whole jackfruit as a present for Jasmin! Yum!

3rd Birthday - Aiden is 10!

 Aiden wanted a pool party. It took him going to round up his friends, but he got one! They played foot fish, water fights, diving for bones, and defend the ship. 

  Then we met up in our apartment for some more games and supper as party at the pool was not allowed.  We did Minute to Win it games with Lego creations that went over really well. There were some ingenious creations!

We did some Kahoot games as well that were fun as Jasmin had made them.

And then tuna melt supper and cake with a sword in it, of course! We finished up with a game of four on a couch that had everyone laughing.

And the "best" present he received was a roll of silver duct tape for his many swords and some gauntlets to add to his warrior look.

The main family present is a 10 day pass for rock wall climbing when the new gym opens this summer.  That was Saturday. This is actually his birthday day and we'll be having shepherd's pie for lunch as requested and Mom will take him out for a burger at the night market.

A fantastic birthday for 10. Jasmin did a great job planning and pulling off the party, and we all commented how nice it was to host such an event. Maybe we'll have to make excuses for another one :)