Weekend, Weather and 'Wim Lessons

Well this was a week of three parts.  We'll start off with the weekend.  Being a holiday, Monday was part of the weekend, and we were having a party of it up in Dallas.  It would appear that Biskit really took a liking to Grayson, as Monday morning he found Grayson's sock and was carrying it around.  We had to wait for him to set it down to get it back because we didn't want to rip it, and once we got the sock he just went over and picked up Grayson's other sock he left out.  You can't get upset though, just look how cute he looks!

I don't think I captured a video of this before, but Oriah's boys love to ride on their hover boards around the house.  They'll even get stuck in situations where they need to go sideways and just wiggle back and forth and slowly slide their way out of a tight situation.  There wasn't a moment like it this weekend, but last time I went up a month ago when they got home from school they all hopped on their hoverboard and started going around the house.  I thought it was hilarious, but ever since that moment passed I've only ever been able to catch one of them at a time.

There was a lot of rain and big storms coming on Monday, so we had to take off around 11 am to try to miss the most rain.  We stopped at the Buc-ee's close by for gas, and also explored around inside a bit with the Albrights.  We grabbed lunch while we were there since we were hoping to not stop at all on the drive.  On our way out everyone got close with Buc-ee for a picture.  Also, I'm just realizing Cameron isn't here...

And now, weather.  We only hit a couple quick downpours on the drive and made it home an hour or two before the rain kicked in Monday night. Then we had quite a bit of weather over the next few days.  On Monday night we even got a warning about 80+ mph winds and large hail expected in the area, and to stay away from windows.  The warning conveniently came around 8:30 pm until 9:45.  So we got Grayson up before he really fell asleep, and tried to work on sleep arrangements for all the kids away from windows.  That essentially means closets, and it was just not working for everyone, so instead we watched Phineas and Ferb, right next to our wall of windows, while waiting for the weather advisory to pass so we could put the kids to bed in their rooms. (aka the kids would stop being too freaked out to go to bed in their rooms).

The wind was never crazy by our house that evening, but the storms and advisories continued on.  Wednesday night we got a hail warning with up to baseball size hail.  All youth activities got cancelled for the evening, and the storm that came over our house had at most marble to quarter size hail.  No apparent damage, though the garden might have taken a beating.  I don't actually think I've talked to Monica about this yet.

Check out our nice lake out front!  I'm waiting for the day I see the water spill over the side of the retaining wall.  It has a small drain in it, and it'll probably be bad news if we actually ever get rain to the point it overflows, but ya know, we're getting close, so gotta shoot for something.

Our first non-w update is that Grayson got a really long cheese in his dinner... and that's all.

And finally, 'wim lessons.  Look, I wanted them all to start with W once the first two did, okay.  And now that I'm here, I'm thinking Sibling, Storm and Swim, but it's TOO LATE!  The kids started 'wim lessons this week.  They've been going every day, and then will have some next week.  It's like a Mon-Thurs for 2 weeks kinda thing, except we were gone Monday, and their teacher, Zoe, is going out of town next Thursday, so we're following the also typical Tues-Sat, Mon-Wed schedule.  Anyway, the key there is Saturday lesson, meaning I got to go watch!  

Brooke was able to swim some on her own before, but now she can do actual proper strokes and is able to swim across the pool.  She was diving to the bottom, and doing glides and floats and treading water.  She definitely learned a lot and now we've gotta make sure we keep taking her to the pool all summer so she can keep practicing.

I don't know that Winry could swim at all when she started, or at least not without floaties or a life jacket.  She's learned a lot of the same things as Brooke and was able to swim the pool the short way.  I think she's still working on back stroke, so maybe that's coming next week.  She's doing awesome.

And finally Grayson.  This has been really great for him.  When we moved to Texas he loved jumping into the pool and didn't care about his face getting wet, etc.  It was just fun to jump (which was a danger back then).  He has since developed a healthy fear of water.  He learned to float on his back, and on Saturday floated with no fingers helping hold him up!  They haven't been able to work on swimming yet, but still working on getting him more comfortable getting his face wet, grabbing stuff underwater low enough his face goes in, and being dunked underwater super fast in the deep end.  I think he needs a little more comfort with water overall, and then we could go back for another week and learn swimming strokes or something.  I mean, there's still 3 days, so there's still room for progress.

And that's a Wrap on the week.  Hopefully I'll have more great swimming news next week, and maybe the storms can calm down a little bit too.  Oh, it's the girls dance recitals next week!  That'll be fun, so look forward to those videos!

BGG CON

Let's jump to my morning commute.  The train was SO CLOSE! But then it broke down, so I ended up heading home and working from home this day.  My first thought was that's too bad, the train was so close, but then I realized if it broke down a little later I would have been stuck on it... so I guess it broke down in a great spot.

The kids have really been liking this pinball board game lately.  I've played it a few times with Brooke, and Winry saw us once and wanted to give it a try.  She really likes the game too, and Grayson just loves pinball.  Grayson doesn't have the attention span for a game like this yet, but he loves being on a team and helping make choices for a while before running some laps around the room and returning to make some more decisions.

Monica has started efforts to fancy up our bathroom.  She did some painting and then put up these... accent features?  I don't know what to call them.  Anyway, she put them up herself, but some corners were sticking up a little, so I was showing her how to use the nail gun and helped get the one behind the toilet put up. It was really easy to reach back there.

It was the last week of school, which means class parties on Friday.  Grayson got to go with Monica, lucky duck.  Here's Brooke with a bunch of her friends.

Winry didn't have a group picture, but did have many with various friends.  I picked this one... I don't actually know the other girl's name, maybe Monica can edit this if she knows... but party all around.

As soon as school ended we all crammed into the car and headed for Dallas.  We dropped off the kids at Oriah's house, because Michael and Oriah are the heroes of this weekend, and then Monica and I headed to the temple!

After the temple we stopped for dinner at Velvet Taco, and then headed to the board game convention at the DFW airport.  Our friends, the Weeks, were also at the convention, and they actually were volunteering and helping out.  On Friday night they came over to our hotel room for a game of Doomlings before we all headed to bed.  When Monica and I woke up Saturday morning we played a few games we'd checked out from the game library the night before, and then headed out for breakfast and the game bazaar!  It was fun to walk around and buy some new games for great prices.  OH! And when we checked in we were each given a game too.  All in all we ended up with 7 games to bring home.

Meanwhile, back at Michael and Oriah's house everyone was having a blast on the trampoline and getting sprayed by the hose.  Biskit was really loving the hose too!

Back at the convention we're just finishing up playing this fox breeding game.  Other than playing games, we also went to the bazaar (as mentioned) and did some mini painting, which was a load of fun.  I don't have a picture of the minis we painted though...

Here we are in the game library!  There were over 9600 games in here, and each of us could check out one a time.  We spent Saturday checking out games, playing them and returning them for another.  As a whole, we probably played around 10 games while we were there.

We headed back Saturday night after bedtime, so pretty good timing!  The kids were great the whole time, which was wonderful to hear.  I'm glad everyone was able to have a great time.  On Sunday, the kids were excited to see the the games we got and wanted to play some.  Monica saw Scattergories, and that was a huge success.  The kids loved it and wanted to play it all day.  Also, I believe in attempt to cheer Grayson up while he was sad and being held by Monica, Oriah held Biskit in just the same way.  So cute!

And that's our week.  We're heading back tomorrow and have had a fantastic time this weekend.  I hope we weren't too much of a burden to Michael and Oriah!

Grayson's Last Day of Preschool

This little buddy has finished his first year of school!  He's got another year of preschool before kindergarten, but his first year is now under his belt.  He got a class picture where they took a picture of every kid inside this box (one at a time), and the teachers got in too.  They put them all next to each other and Grayson got to bring home his whole class photo, so I figured I'd include his school picture from the year.

I'm going to take a stab at this one and guess that this is the Austin temple!  That's pretty awesome progress!  I at least think the steel frame fits the shape of a temple.  Monica can correct me if I'm wrong. (it IS the temple!!)

We were able to go visit the girls for lunch this past week, and while there they brought out some of their school work from the year that we could look over together.  Winry brought out a whole bag of stuff from the year.

Brooke brought out some of their bigger projects they did towards the end of the year.  We got to see the report she wrote about Aphrodite, as well as a math activity they've been doing where they got to make a restaurant.

Grayson had his last day of school on Wednesday.  Here he is with Ms. Megan, his teacher.

They had a nice little place to celebrate the last day of school.

He also snuck in with the grad signs.  Not this year buddy, not this year.

The lizards are back and crawling all over the (outside of the) house.  I saw this guy out my window while I was working.  This is the kind that has the big red thing that can puff out from his neck.  Don't know if it's the exact same one, but it's been frequenting my window ledge to Jelly's delight, though I'm sure she'd appreciate the glass not being there.

Friday evening we had a preschool graduation for the co-op preschool that Grayson has been doing with some other kids in the ward.  Here's Grayson walking up to get his diploma.  Brooke really wanted to read off the names, so she was our master of ceremonies.  Book her now for your upcoming graduations!

Here are all the grads together.  After the diplomas we had food and hung out for a while.  Everyone had a great time.

On Saturday we found our sunflower getting overrun by these dumb things.  On Sunday all the leaves were brown, so I'm guessing the sunflower is going to die... I hope it makes it through, and I hope these bugs don't come back!  Get out of our garden!

And that's a wrap on this week.  Next week the girls will finish school, and then I'll need to sound proof the office for my WFH days!!  Good luck to Monica.
 

Happy Mother's Day Monica

Happy Mother's Day!  We're all so grateful for everything Monica does for us.  She always has such wonderful dinners for us each evening, she manages the household, loves the kids, and serves us in so many ways!  I am so grateful for her and for all she does.  Grayson is also grateful, and wanted to bring Monica lunch in bed on Sunday!

Boy did we ever have some thunderstorms this past week.  I don't think I've ever seen our front walk this flooded before.  There's a little drain in there, but, obviously it doesn't always keep up.  I've been enjoying the storms, and trying to get the most of it before we hit the 100's next week... :(

Jelly wanted to be a surf cat, so she started working on that.  Winry's class is doing a special thing each day until the end of the school year, and they had a Hawaiian day, so we got out some stuff.  Winry wanted to take a surfboard, but it was raining that day and we didn't want it to get ruined.

Here's Grayson helping Monica in the kitchen.  Monica got some goldfish cookie cutters and they made homemade goldfish.  Here's Grayson rolling out the dough.

And here they all are!  Yum.

When Grayson sees Jelly in his room at bedtime he usually asks me to get her out, but I pointed out to him this past week that she loves his window because she likes to look at the tree.  This is his beloved window that he looks at acorns from.  Once I pointed out that he and Jelly had a shared interest, he really wanted to spend some time looking at the tree with Jelly.  They had a grand time together, and the squirrel in the tree helped keep things lively.

The girls had field day this past week.  Monica went with Grayson and got to watch.  Grayson spent time playing over on the playground while they were there.  The girls had a wonderful time at field day and playing so many fun games.

On Friday evening the carnival was rescheduled, and it was so much fun.  Grayson really loved the inflatable obstacle course and spent most of our time there looping through it again and again.  The only downside is that they chose to put the speakers for the music right at the line, so it was really loud over there.

Grayson also got some glitter tattoos.  He got a ladybug and, uh... shoot I don't remember what the other one was...  Anyway, I spent my time going around with Grayson as you might have noticed.

The girls were with Monica, and they tried out the trampolines.  We walked by and I tried to get Brooke to do a flip, but she didn't want to try it.

The girls also wanted to do the climbing wall.

Brooke really wanted to try the dunk tank when her teacher was in it.  While we were in line waiting for her turn I looked over and saw Winry doing this run forward and get yanked backwards thing.  Seems like she was having fun.

We caught a glimpse of Wally, and the kids were excited to say hi and take a picture, especially Grayson.  In my mind I imagine there's some random high school kid in there getting volunteer hours, and I just wonder what they think when little kids run up and hug them.

We finally got out the Buc-ee waffle maker one night for dinner.  Monica took Brooke out for a date, so I made waffles.  I would say you need a waffle batter that rises a lot.  They were pretty dense, and I think the gap in the waffle maker just made too thick of waffles.  Maybe we'll have to try a pancake batter in there next time.

On Sunday the kids all got to go up to sing, yay!!

Grayson filled out an awesome questionnaire about Monica at preschool for Mother's Day, and his answers were just too good to not share!  Please enjoy.

And for Mother's Day we got Monica a bread maker, and I took it for a test run.  Yum.  Thanks volleyball for getting us hooked on homemade bread.  Oh, and if I never said anything about that, after Winry and Grayson's volleyball they always had homemade bread for the kids after.

And that's the end of our week.  Thanks to all the Mothers out there!