His official Family Day is June 13th, but this year the celebration got spread out. On Thursday, the 13th, Daniel went in to work with Tim (Tim is teaching a summer class) and checked out the equipment stored in the physics lab. He had fun. Then on Friday, after our two extra kids were picked up for a weekend visit with family, we officially began the family activity of Daniel's choice. Last year, it was a trip to Home Depot. This year, it was a home wiring project. (Do you spot a trend??)
When we moved into our house, we had in the living room two switches that did not seem to control anything, and one outlet that tripped two fuses if you plugged anything into it. Tim, who teaches circuits, had an idea of how they might be (mis)connected to each other in order to produce that effect. But Daniel is hands-on, and for months he has been bugging us to let him take the outlet cover and switchplates off the wall, see how they are actually wired, and fix the problem. We knew he could probably do it, but would need some supervision and guidance from Dad. And we know from experience that a small project can become a bigger project once started. So Tim has been putting Daniel off for months, but this was Family Day and when Daniel decided that what he most wanted to do was rewire the living room, Tim agreed.
It was a good thing he hadn't agreed to the project earlier. They worked on it for eleven hours! (Well, they took a quick break to eat lunch, and two trips to the home improvement store for supplies, but that was it.) I do believe they enjoyed themselves. :-) Tim said they made a good team. Tim figured out how the circuit functioned and drew diagrams of how it was and how it needed to be, while Daniel did most of the actual testing and labeling and (re)wiring. And in the end, we have two newly-functional outlets (one switchplate got converted to an outlet) and a switch that actually controls a lamp!
Meanwhile, Esther and I spent much of the day cleaning her room and putting in a new garden bed in our backyard. Esther also did lots of art projects and fell in love with a cat that came to visit us while we were gardening. So we all had a good day, except that Esther was bitterly disappointed that we couldn't keep the cat.
Monday we finished the last bit of Daniel's Family Day celebration: the meal. He had requested mashed potatoes and turkey (or maybe the turkey was Tim's idea!), but I didn't get the turkey in the refrigerator soon enough to cook it on Friday. Then on Saturday we didn't have celery to stuff it with, and by the time Daniel and I got back from grocery shopping it was too late to start. Sunday I didn't get ready in time either. So I finally got it made today. Not, perhaps, the ideal meal to be preparing when temperatures are in the high 80s! But oh, it was yummy! And now we have lots of leftovers for the week.
And now we have to start thinking about our other summer celebrations: Daniel's birthday on Thursday (tomorrow!), my birthday next week, and Esther's birthday the week after that. Plus we're attending a family reunion next weekend and Princess and Little Guy are due to move back home on the 28th. So, lots going on!
