This school year the girls joined the Math and Chess Club. They learned to play chess at my parents house over the course of a couple of visits (Mom and Dad still don't have cable, and the children NEVER seem to miss TV there - amazing - anyhooo.) and were excited at the prospect of learning strategies and going to tournaments. Unfortunately, I didn't ever really hear about 90% of the tournaments, and the ones the girls made sure I heard about were in early February when, ahem, we were a bit ... preoccupied.
Our school got a last minute opportunity to host the last tournament before state (kids must attend 2 tournaments to go to state) and I was able to get the three big kids signed up. The day ended up crazy ... Enrichment planning meeting for the birthday dinner that morning, hosting dinner for the new bishopric and their families for dinner before bishopric training that evening, I still had a lesson to prepare for Sunday, and a handful of other things I had hoped to accomplish in a single day ... ha! when will I learn.
For the schools very first tournament hosting, it was hugely successful, and TONS of kids were there ... 80 maybe? Which from what I understand from other parents who actually know what's going on, is big for most Kansas tournaments. And the kids who attended were really good. There were lots of very high scores. Each child played 6 rounds of chess. And if you win or loose or draw, (hee hee) you are awarded points. For their very first tournament ever, our kids did well, especially considering the competition. Their Chess teacher, said she hopes that kids get at least one point or half point at their first tournament. Becca got a half point from a draw (she was playing 4-6th graders); Emily got 2 points (K-3rd); Sam got 2 points (K-3rd).
They had a really good time and want to attend tournaments next year. We've already placed an order with a friend who's attending state for a nice portable chess board with large weighted pieces like they use during club meetings and at the tournament. And GR is looking up legal chess moves to teach the children to improve their strategies.
And for those considering your first tournament here are some survival tips, cause you'll be there for at least 6 hours, possibly longer.
- Take a laptop and something to do on it. I did the Relief Society newsletter and updated the ward website, but don't count on having wireless access. Some parents were playing games, others watched tv shows or movies (bring your headphones), others caught up on work.
- If you don't want to mess with the laptop, take a book, a couple of magazines, hand sewing/crocheting/knitting, note cards for writing letters, etc. You basically want something simple you can take in a tote bag to keep you busy while your child plays any of their six games. You want it to be simple, because you are going to be distracted and interrupted on a fairly regular basis throughout the day. Think 40ish parents plus all those kids in the commons area of an elementary school sitting at the cafeteria tables.
- Bring bottled water. A couple for each person in the family.
- Bring a cooler of snacks and lots of them. Boredom = hunger = paying $20+ over the course of the day for JUNK at the concession stand. Bring a variety of healthy snacks and let the kids pick 1-2 things from the concession stand to round out the day and make it fun, plus the money raised supports the host schools chess club.
- Check in to what the team is doing for lunch. Our team was hosting, so they provided pizza for all the kids from our school and their parents. Other teams/parents could purchase pizzas to be delivered. Others brought lunch, or sent a parent out to a fast food joint.
- Have your kids bring a "church" bag of simple activities. Mine were pretty content to play chess between rounds, talk with friends and generally goof off a bit, but books, coloring books, puzzles, hand held games, etc. are good time busters between rounds, and keep your kids within arms reach rather than running the halls in an unfamiliar area.
- Make sure your kids know about some of the basic legal moves for tournaments ... ask one of the more experience players in their club, or do a google search. It will help level the field just a smidgen and they won't feel quite so new and awkward.
Yesterday the Realtor called with TWO offers on the house. Both offers were for about the same ... less than the asking price, $$$ for closing costs, closing dates in May and one wanted home insurance. I have to say this was discouraging, that we got two offers wasn't discouraging, but that they were asking for SO much. We worked so hard on that house, putting a lot of time and money in it, and then we were very careful in how we priced it. We did not over price the home because of the work we put into it. We priced it dead on, to sell quickly, and yet no one has offered full price, and everyone is asking US to pay for lots of additional costs.
Our Realtor told us not to feel like we had to settle. Counter with what was best for us. And so we countered, and countered hard to both parties telling them whoever responded first would get the contract. We countered with full price, 1/2 their request for closing costs, no home insurance, and upped the closing date to April 1st. Very quickly we got an acceptance to our terms and last night we signed the papers to make it official!!
What a blessing. The house is going to a really nice couple from NE with three boys. They are all older (college aged) which I'm sad about (really changes the dynamics of that little end of our street), but hopefully that will mean grandchildren in the coming years.
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Some of you asked if I had before pictures of the house ... I don't really, other than pictures we've taken of the kids in the house. You should be able to just browse through the blog to find pictures of the 2 red accent walls in the dining room, the pale sun yellow on the rest of the walls on the main floor, the horrid gray carpeting, the bluish gray tile in the entry way and around the fireplace, the old whitish cream counter tops in the kitchen and the white, stained cream vinyl flooring in the kitchen. It was a cute house, that was well loved and worn by out little family that nearly doubled in our 7 years there.
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Yesterday afternoon Alexander christened the new house with our first accident. The kids were playing a rousing game of hide and seek in my bedroom. All of a sudden Alex comes running to me in the kitchen holding his palm and screaming. He had tripped and his hand ran down the edge of an unfinished square of colored glass used in stained glass work. It had been left behind by Grandma and Grandpa, and not knowing if they needed it or intended it for something specific, I moved it out of the general path of daily activity until I could ask and "deal with it." The glass did not break, it was not jagged, but the cut was deep and ugly (be grateful I didn't photograph it - :).
Poor kid, he wasn't doing anything wrong, he wasn't being silly or making poor decisions, he just tripped, and his hand touched the wrong then when trying to brace his fall. Thankfully, there wasn't a lot of blood! Monday night we couldn't tell if it needed stitches or not, so clean it, and bandage it ourselves ... this morning when GR was helping Alex get ready and the cut broke open and started bleeding again. GR took him to work for a couple of stitches to keep the skin flaps together, and insure the cut would heal correctly. Anna and I were right behind him, meeting up with them at the ER just before the stitches. He was so brave!
So his left hand (his dominate hand) is pretty thoroughly bandaged in an effort to keep the stitches covered and clean, nearly impossible when you're a 3.5 year old who now lives in the land of mud and shovels. We also discovered a good sized wart on his right pinky during all of this yesterday. So like his left hand, his pinky is also bandaged ... it all looks so much worse than it really is! He's getting lots of sympathy from people at the store!
ETA 4/6: Alex's hand took a while, but it's finally healed. We had the stitches taken out a week later during Sam's quarterly ENT check-up. It still wasn't completely healed, but the skin was getting irritated by the stitches, so they definitely had to come out. We kept it bandaged for an additional week using the sticky ace bandage type stuff -- that is fantastic stuff! So wish we'd had something like that with the stitches. Instead we were using masking tape - such a nuance for Alex and after a week, it started to really irritate his skin. The other stuff is now permanently in our first aid kit! The wart ... well we're going to start a second round of treatment. We didn't get all of it the first time, so it's come back.
And the closure on the green house went off without a hitch on Friday!! GR's had a couple of conversations with the couple who bought the house and really likes them ... so much so he invited them to Easter dinner. They ended up declining, but it feels good knowing we're passing on that home to good people.
Our open house got pushed a week. The window instillation was delayed thanks to a myriad of issues. And there was a lot of clean up work to be done once all the work crews finished up inside and out. So we waited a week. Sunday I called my mother to see if she could come stay a couple days while I cleaned the old house. Miracles of miracles she was able to arrange her schedule such that she could come. I spent most of Tuesday and Wednesday at the house, late into the night, cleaning. Every wood surface in that house got rubbed down with Old English. It did wonders for repairing the scratches that the baseboards and mantel suffered during the remodel and before. So after many, many long hours and more elbow grease than I thought I had to give, Thursday the house went on the market and we had our Realtor open house. The response from the dozen or more Realtors who walked through, was really favorable.
Mom and GR (and a couple neighbors who came to the open house) are the only ones who have seen the "improved, depersonalized" inside of the house, so I've created a slide show of picture so you can see all the changes. I didn't photograph the basement ... it's no longer deep blue, but the same color as the bedrooms, and the floor got painted the same color as the coffered ceiling in the master bedroom (which is also the same color as the far wall (garage wall) of the dining room. It looks really nice with the bright white wood work down there.
Saturday afternoon we had a public open house, and again the response was favorable. A couple minor things that needed to be addressed, but they are simple fixes. There were lots of open houses in the neighborhood so we had more than a dozen interested parties walk through! Apparently of the 8-9 comps in town, ours is by far the best house for the price.
We know of one very interested family who came Friday, and spent an additional 45 minutes at the house Saturday. We'll see how this shakes out. We did have an offer after the open house ... it's rather telling when your Realtor closes his conversation with you that you have an offer on your house, instead of leading with that bit of information. Needless to say, we rejected it out right and didn't even bother to counter.
Mom had a cute story about Alex from her week with us. One night when he was sad that he couldn't say goodnight to us, mom told him that we were at the old house working really hard to get it ready to sell so a good family could purchase it. Alex looked at her and said, "Grammy, WE could buy it!!"
It's going to take a while for the kids to see Grandma's house as our house and home.
For the schools very first tournament hosting, it was hugely successful, and TONS of kids were there ... 80 maybe? Which from what I understand from other parents who actually know what's going on, is big for most Kansas tournaments. And the kids who attended were really good. There were lots of very high scores. Each child played 6 rounds of chess. And if you win or loose or draw, (hee hee) you are awarded points. For their very first tournament ever, our kids did well, especially considering the competition. Their Chess teacher, said she hopes that kids get at least one point or half point at their first tournament. Becca got a half point from a draw (she was playing 4-6th graders); Emily got 2 points (K-3rd); Sam got 2 points (K-3rd).
They had a really good time and want to attend tournaments next year. We've already placed an order with a friend who's attending state for a nice portable chess board with large weighted pieces like they use during club meetings and at the tournament. And GR is looking up legal chess moves to teach the children to improve their strategies.