Book: Half a Chance

Half a Chance
by Cynthia Lord

Length: 224 pages

Format: Hardback
Price: Free - checked out from the school library

How I heard about it: it's a William Allen White Award book (I'm taking a break from my list and reading some of the William Allen White Award nominees for Battle of the Books at school)

Basic Premise: Lucy is the new kid...again. This time, it's to a lakeside community in New Hampshire while her photographer father heads off to Arizona on a job. Convinced she will be bored stiff all summer, she discovers that perhaps things aren't what she perceives, if she'll only give them half a chance.

My Take: 6 out of 10 (scale here)
This book was fine. If I taught 4th grade, I would probably have liked it more because I would have thought of specific kids to hand it off to, but because this book was so elementary, I don't have many of those. I did like that the book focused a lot on photography. That is something I don't know much about, so it was interesting to explore through the eyes of this young photographer. I did get to the end of the book and feel a little let down, though. It felt a lot like the book Hoot by Carl Hiaasen, where you get to the end and you're like, "That's it? Really?" When I was a kid, I remember reading William Allen White Award books and being BLOWN AWAY by how amazing they were. Maybe it's because I'm an adult now, but I didn't feel like there was anything particularly special about this book.

First KU Game

Having been raised in a KU household and graduated from KU, Husband is a *huge* KU fan and always has been. It's no surprise, therefore, that he is raising our children to be the same. It is also no surprise that we have not taken our kids to a KU basketball game because there is no way on God's green Earth we could ever afford it. So when our great friends (the same ones who invited us to BILL SELF'S HOUSE and Husband got that awesome new job) suggested a road trip to an away game, we were in!

The game was in Stillwater, so we went down on Friday night and spent the night at my brother's house a few hours away. The kids spent the morning playing with their cousins (have you heard of Doggie Doo? It's their new favorite game. It was...actually really fun!) and then we met our friends at the Pioneer Woman Mercantile. We had grand plans to eat there, but this was the line, folks:

And with four kids between us, we opted for the store and the bakery upstairs. Somehow I don't have any pictures of the bakery, but it was really cool and fun. We got the kids a snack and hopped back on the road to Stillwater. We ate Hideaway Pizza (which was NOTHING like the one I'm used to) and went to check in at the hotel. We decided we wanted to get to the game early, so we headed out on foot to Cowboy Arena, or whatever was called.

These were our seats, but they were great! We were surrounded by OSU fans, which was to be expected, but they were super nice and friendly. Jo had the great idea of going and seeing if we could find where the players would run out on to the court. Even if we somehow got tickets to go to Allen Fieldhouse with the whole family, the place is packed and the kids never would have been able to see, so this was a GREAT idea. And, lo and behold:

The kids got to high-five EVERY PLAYER WHO LEFT THE LOCKER ROOM! It was amazing! The highlight of the trip, for sure!

We were a little nervous that the kids wouldn't want to watch the game, but they did great. Brother was yelling and hollering like a maniac, and though Sister asked me a few times when it was going to be over, she did really well, too.

What a fun trip. We are planning to go again next year!

New Bathroom!

As if paying off debt wasn't already the highlight of our spring...Husband finally finished our bathroom! And words cannot adequately express my level of elation not only at the fact that it is finished, but that it is SO. AMAZING.

Let's start with the shower:

 

This is what you see when you enter the room (eventually there will be a custom glass door for the shower). The shower is what was once a half bath. A before picture would be really great right about now, but we are super bad at those. The sink was along the left wall you see here and the toilet was opposite. Where the shower curtain is were two walls and a narrow door. When Husband redid our bedroom, he reframed our bedroom with a different entrance so that what was the hallway was now room for the toilet and vanity in a master bathroom. A year ago, we tore it all out and started from the studs.

Husband designed and framed the shower and then tiled the floor and walls. With some help from Brother. He then installed THREE spouts - one standard spout, one rainfall shower head, and one handheld. At any given time, two can run simultaneously using any combination. It. Is. Amazing.

It is also interesting to note that the exhaust fan pictured does, in fact, double as a Blue-Tooth speaker. Husband likes to scare the you-know-what out of me by waiting until I'm in the shower and blaring loud metal music.

Next is the vanity and mirror. Lighting design is husband's bread and butter, so when he found this back-lit mirror from Ikea, he decided it would be perfect for our space. He also installed overhead lighting which has a name I don't remember, but it's cool and is on a dimmer switch. Which is awesome for early mornings.

This vanity was also purchased from Ikea and is so roomy! I love all the space in the drawers. And they are soft-closing (I think that's what it's called when they close quietly on their own?). I think we may buy another and replace the sink in our downstairs bathroom with this one as well.

The toilet was the one thing I really wasn't sure about. Husband wanted a "tankless" toilet where the tank is in the wall. This was mainly to save space, but I must admit, it is pretty cool. The lid is also soft-closing and the controls are on the panel shown. The small one is for Number One and the large is for Number Two. The other day, Sister told me she pushed both because she did both. Ha!

And I think my favorite feature (though you can't tell from the picture) is the tile. It's HEATED! There's a control panel on the wall and it's automatically set to start heating before we get up so it's nice and toasty in the mornings.