Happy ?? Birthday Monica!

Why hello!  We had a birthday in our house last week, and it was Monica!  It was a stellar day, and I was even able to surprise Monica a time or two!  It was a pretty busy day with school and dance class, but we enjoyed our time we had together and made the most of when we could.  Here we all are at the end of the day after just having brownies and ice cream, so of course it was easy to get smiles!

I don't know if I mentioned this ever, but they repaved our neighborhood, and Monday was the day they redid in front of our house.  Those roller cars that flatten the road are SOOO loud!  When they'd roll by you could hear that the whole house was shaking.  It was especially loud down in the basement where I was working.  The new road is nice, and it was exciting while it was happening, but I'm glad they're done!

Grayson loves climbing into the blanket basket.  No, we didn't get rid of a bunch of blankets, the kids always dump it all out.  This past weeks edition of the basket was wiggly feet.

Speaking of Grayson, he also loves pushing the toy shopping cart around, and this past week was parking it under each chair around the kitchen table.

For Monica's birthday I made German pancakes for breakfast.  The sides apparently stuck this time, which resulted in mountain ranges.  Never seen this before, but it was pretty cool looking.  It ended up being a lot denser then usual, and we're guessing it's because the sides didn't go shooting up.

Monica opened presents at breakfast.  Here she is rocking her new neck pillow.  I'm honestly surprised this hasn't stayed on her day in and day out for the last week.  She also got a blanket thing for our bed, and new shoes!  Surprise 1 - I put the wrong shoes in the present, so she was surprised to open those shoes!

Monica made mint brownies in place of cake, and we had that and ice cream after Brooke's dance class.  Of course we all sang happy birthday, and then we all enjoyed the treats!

Grayson was being a cutie, and while he was jumping on Monica's lap he was singing Baa Baa Black Sheep!  The kids got a bit wild that night and were running around.  Couldn't be sugar related.  Anyway, Grayson was darting around singing Happy Birthday to mommy!

One day Winry asked Monica if she could make a car for Grayson with a box we had in the house.  So she took some tape and the box and got to work.  She needed a steering wheel and asked to use another package, and here's the car!  There are also twine seat belts, and Grayson actually loves to sit down and "drive" it.  It's both a car and a trolley, because I was given a trolley ride on it.

I took Jelly to the vet last week and it was pretty rough on her, so we decided to put a better effort into getting Jelly more comfortable going places, and outside.  We got a harness and Jelly's already liking to go outside.  She'll sit at the back door and meow and meow and meow sometimes wanting to get out.  She has snuck out a time or two without her harness, but I'm trying to teach her it's not okay without it, but it's fine with it.  We're still working on it.  Brooke LOVES to take her out, and want's to go out with her every day!

Here's Winry heading to preschool.  She was pretty nervous before the first day, but she is absolutely loving it now.  Also, Monica got Winry this new dress at a consignment sale, and she absolutely loves it!

Oh my... Grayson is such a stinker.  When he's in the backyard he mostly just plays, but he'll happily go check the strawberries all on his own.  For Grayson, ANY strawberry is a good strawberry.  That one he's eating has red spots on it, but was also VERY white, but he sure didn't care.

Before Brookes soccer game on Saturday they took team pictures!  Here she is with her whole team.  Brooke has been loving playing soccer, and it's SO fun to watch her.

Winry came with me to her game.  She brought some activities to do, but the sun was too bright in her eyes, so she actually sat backwards away from the field.  She did a great job cheering for Brooke, and even turned around and watched the game at times.

Here's Brooke out on the field.  She's number 5.  Of course I also got a video of the game as well.  I will say I wasn't watching the game on my phone while I took the video, so sorry for the times I missed things...

After Brooke's game they had a team party!  I don't know if this is just for picture day, or if this is going to be a new thing, but it was great.  Here's a booth packed with her teammates.  We went to place called Fuzzy's Tacos, and it was pretty good.  We've never been before, but everyone loved what they got.  Winry and I sat together at the table next to Brooke, and Brooke really enjoyed sitting and chatting with her team.

I think that's everything for this week.  I got started a day early this week, so maybe I'll have an update tomorrow.  I've got quite a headache tonight, so I think I'll call it here.

Too Much for Two Weeks

Well hello!  Last Sunday ended up being a bad week to miss writing the blog.  Brooke started soccer, the girls started school, Monica and I had our anniversary, and Monica had her birthday party!  Whew!  It's not every two weeks that that much stuff happens!  

On our anniversary Monica and I went to a restaurant at the local airport called The Perfect Landing.  You can see the runway and some of the planes while you're eating, and we even were there for sunset, how romantic!  Here we are at the end of our meal right before we headed back home.

We've still been playing with the stomp rocket.  One of the fins broke off, and after we took them all off (for balance) it flies MUCH higher than before!  Winry can even get it over her head now.

Brooke has soccer practice on Mondays.  Here she is at her first practice.  She's loving soccer right now, and it's a lot of fun to see her out there with her team.

Winry has preschool in the afternoons Tuesday-Thursday, so Monica is still on the hunt for fun things to do in the morning every day.  Often this involves parks, but each of the libraries in Douglas county has a different play area, and this market/kitchen one I took the girls to a while back is still a favorite!

Monica's sciatic nerve is still bothering her, and laying on her stomach helps.  Sometimes that means laying on the floor so you can keep an eye on the kids.  She was on her phone, and Grayson was VERY interested to come see what was going on.

The cozy corner is still as popular as ever!  You never know who you'll find back in there having a bottle, or just hanging out.  I even saw Jelly in there tonight after the kids went to bed.

Brooke has been sleeping with her panda sleep mask!

Grayson has been wanting to wander outside during sacrament meeting lately.  He really likes to walk along the cement right next to the building.  Also, in that evergreen bush you can see there's some plant growing in the middle of it.  Grayson would point at it and say "uh oh!"  He was concerned about something being a different color.

On Sunday Monica had a bunch of stuff after church and I took the kids up to Tyson and Tina's house.  We had a lot of fun up there.  Luke was off at obedience training, so we were out playing in the backyard and got to see the bunny.  Brooke even got to feed it this... thing.

Grayson loved the swing, and we also spent a bunch of time on their slide.  It was disconnected, but set up on a wall.

On Monday Brooke started school!  She was so excited and had a great time.  She likes her new class and her new teacher, and everything's been great so far.

It's been raining a lot lately, which has been awesome!  I really like the view down in the basement while it rains.  I've got a window well cover now, and it's fun to watch the drops splash!

One morning Monica took Winry to a park, and Eleanor came as her school hadn't started yet.  They found a bird on the ground and made a nest for it to keep it safe from the rain.  Hang in there little bird.

Here's Winry on her first day of school!  She was a little nervous about school, but she's been loving it and has so much fun every day!

For our anniversary there was work and school, which makes for a good majority of the day... Anyway, we got a babysitter and headed out to dinner.  We had a lot of fun.  We got a grilled Caesar salad and when I was squeezing my lemon onto it, lemon juice sprayed into my eye.  Oof.  It took a while, but the stinging stopped eventually.  A rather outgoing gentleman from a neighboring table came over to make a funny comment, don't remember what it was, but it made the night more interesting knowing we had a buddy watching over us.

Monica took Winry and Grayson to the creek to play.  They had a great time there with the other kids, and we brought our new bug net!

On Friday Monica had her birthday party.  They had some great snacks, sang karaoke, and opened presents.  Everyone had a great time, I would know, I was in the room below them.

On Saturday morning I took the kids to the mayors day of service.  They had Crumbl cookies which I let the girls get.

As we pulled up we saw that there was a car show right next to us.  While we were waiting for the kickoff to start we went over to see some of the cars.  I'm not really a car person, but there was still some fun stuff to see.  We didn't quite make it back in time for most of the kickoff, but we did get to hear the end.  Then we headed to the trail to pick up some trash.  The girls did a great job picking up while I carried Grayson around.

Of course the girls HAD to do karaoke!  So we did some karaoke.  Some a lot of karaoke.

Later on Saturday Brooke had her first soccer game.  She did great!  She got the ball a bunch of times, and did a good job hustling with the herd.

Grayson got to wandering eventually, and we wandered our way around the field.  Brooke happened to be taking a break while we were over there, and Grayson went to give her a hug!

Then, Grayson found a playground and headed over there.

And here was my view for the second half.  I told Monica I might need some binoculars in the future so I can watch the game.  I could kind of follow along, but I couldn't tell who was Brooke or anyone else.  The game ended tied 0-0, so still undefeated!  Winry eventually wandered over and then I ended up pushing her and Grayson on the swings for the rest of the game.  Everyone had a great time though, especially Brooke!

That's everything for now.  Hope you're having a wonderful day!

Vacation at Bear Lake!

What a week!  It was amazing!  Honestly, it's crazy to think that we headed out Monday, and back Friday, so we were only out at Bear Lake for 3 full days, but we had SOO much fun in that time.  It was a week packed with great adventures.

We somehow ended up being the first ones to the house, so we got to do some exploring.  It was a pretty awesome place to stay.  There was a 1.5 story slide, some arcade games, and a playground inside!

Grayson wasted no time testing out the motorized beds.  Fortunately he never found the "zero-g" position or else he probably would have boycotted his pack-n-play!

On Tuesday we headed to Minnetonka Cave, which was about 30 minutes away.  Only Brooke and I went, but it was really cool.  I wish Winry had come with us too, I think she would have liked it.  There were something like 444 stairs one way, and the cave is always about 40 degrees F.  It was really neat to walk through and see the various rooms in it.  I even saw three bats!  I wanted to get a picture/video of one, but they just shot by.  Something that surprised me was how "nimble" bats are.  If I wasn't down in a cave seeing a black blur go by, I would have thought the first one was a butterfly the way it fluttered off in the corner of my vision.

Brooke spent most of the cave hike with her cousins, but she did walk back out with me!  When we got to the very back they turned off the lights so we could see it completely black.  They said the only place that happens naturally is in caves, and the bottom of the ocean.  On our way out there was also a stalagmite that we were allowed to touch.  You're not supposed to touch anything in a cave because the oils in your hand clog up the formations and stop them from growing, but they had one set aside to let everyone touch.

When I got back in the car to leave I opened my door to ask another car if my dad went with someone else and found this little buddy waiting for me.  Yes, I know it's a chipmunk, that's not why I said little buddy.  I did the natural thing you'd do when a chipmunk is considering jumping in your car with you, and I threw it a peanut from the trail mix I was eating.  It probably REALLY thought about jumping in the car then...

After the cave we headed to the Bear Lake scenic overlook for lunch.  We were met there by my mom who brought Winry along with her.  It was quite windy, but also I didn't want my mom to eat alone, so I got in the car with her.

I got a picture with the girls up at the overlook.  Niki even reached as high as she could to get a picture were we didn't block the lake.

Back at the house that afternoon, it was slide time.  We were very careful not to take Grayson on the slide until the last day so he didn't get slide crazy and start crawling in by himself.  We instead were passing his stuffed animals through the slide.  Andrew would throw his shark up, and I'd catch it and pull it through the grate that was up a floor and a half and toss it down the slide where Grayson would wait for it.  A few times I ran down the stairs and grabbed his big kitty to throw down too, but mostly it was just the shark.

When we were ready for a break from the slide, we headed up to the playground so Grayson could go on the slide.  He would climb up it and then slide back down.  He had a lot of fun on that slide.

There was a pretty nice pool that was shared between several units, and we spent several of our down times out there swimming.  The girls loved it, and Brooke even practiced some swimming without her floaties!  Cameron taught her how.

Grayson found the arcade upstairs and was delighted.  I didn't turn the machines on for him, in fact, this one didn't even have it's power cord, but he loved shaking the joystick and pressing the buttons.

There was a little fountain outside the house and Grayson wanted to touch the water every time we went out.  This was my favorite picture of all the times.

We went to a park for family pictures on Tuesday.  It's the same place that the first picture was taken.  After we took pictures we had some time to play on the playground, and Brooke and Winry really loved this climbing area.

I was invited to do a handstand in front of the sign, and I did a surprisingly good job.  I mean, I was leaning on the wall, but I'm not really a hand-stander.  Maybe I should work on that.  Anyway, the next obvious thing to do was to get an upside down picture of Grayson for his handstand.  He wasn't a very big fan.

Tuesday morning Niki tried to lead a group yoga from her watch, which went ok-ish.  So Monica spent some time Tuesday getting a yoga class ready for Wednesday morning.  It was well attended, and everyone had a great time.  It has inspired me, and I think I want to start doing at least a little yoga in the morning.  Guess we'll see if that becomes my new thing.

On Wednesday we headed out to the lake.  When we first got there, we had some time to play around on the shore and in the water.  My dad brought up his canoe.  Someone he knows made it and gave it to him, and last time I was out at the start of July we patched up several holes with duct tape.  It seems like everything held well, because I didn't sink!  I struck out with Grayson initially.

Here are the girls with Niki and Cameron.  Out in the shallows.  The lake was actually pretty shallow, and was only about waist deep 100 to 150 feet out.  So there was a lot of room for kids to play.

Eventually I swapped Grayson for Winry and continued around.

While we were out there, we ran into some hooligans on a stand up paddle board.  It was Monica and Brooke!

After a little time paddling around, we climbed into a boat my dad rented.  I was part of the team that pushed us out to open water.  Turns out that at first we were moored on the bottom of the lake, so it was REALLY hard to get the boat going.  Once we moved everyone to the front of the boat so it was floating, it was much easier to get the boat the rest of the way out.  We had a fun time on the boat, and were out for about 90 minutes.  Winry was a little scared when we first started riding, but she got used to it and enjoyed it a lot in the end.

Brooke even went out on the tube!  Spencer drove the boat nice and slow for her at first, and after she was out for a little they sped up some.  Brooke had a blast back there, and when she got back on the boat she exclaimed "that was the most fun I've had in my whole life!"

Winry enjoyed sitting in one of the captain chairs on the way back, and looked real cute.

After the boat ride, we had lunch, and then played on the beach for a while.  It was Grayson's nap time, but he was having such a great time we just couldn't take him back quite yet.  On the beach, Grayson was VERY excited by the seagulls, and really wanted to catch one (or maybe just pet it).  He, unfortunately, stopped just before the video was taken, but he was chasing the seagull saying "catch the birdie!"

Brooke tried a kids kayak all by herself.  She had a lot of fun on it.  The kids had so much fun we're considering getting some similar items to take to one of the reservoirs around us.

Winry wasn't sure what you did at the beach, and Monica gave her the same advice she gave me my first time out to San Diego.  Dig for sea shells.  Here's Winry's bag of shells she found.  She liked looking for them, and we rinsed them all off and brought them back home with us.

After all the lake fun was done, we had to pack everything up and head back to the house.  My trip back with Grayson was uneventful.  We brought his car out so we could head back early for his nap, which ended up being around 2.  We had the boat rented until 5 pm, so everyone else was out for quite a bit longer, though I fell asleep on the couch, so it seemed really quick to me that everyone was back.  Everyone made it back smoothly... except my dad.  He had the trailer with his neighbor's SeaDoos they let him borrow.  Well, pulling out of the marina he hit something and popped one of the tires on the trailer, so he pulled over to change the tire...

And hit a road sign.  Tyson and I came to help, but things were pretty stuck.

That is, until Tyson backed up the trailer and Spencer pulled the post out of the ground!  Tyson quickly made his escape, and Spencer put the post back in just before the Sherriff arrived to see if we needed help.  My parents' bishop's wife also drove by while we were stuck and called out "hello" to my dad!  Perfect timing.

Thursday was the start of the raspberry days festival.  We headed to the park where it was at and there were a bunch of inflatable things for the kids to do.  We bought some tickets and the girls got to do a Frozen bounce house and slide and an obstacle course.  Monica had to leave after about 5 minutes to take Grayson back for a nap because he was just having a rough time.  We met up with everyone to play Bingo for a little, and then Winry was done so I took her home, and came back to spend a little more time at the festival.

Brooke went on this really big slide, and we tried the "Balls of Doom."  It was a balance thing where you try to run across all the balls.  A lot of the adults gave it a go, and it was great fun to watch.

After the festival, we went back for lunch, and then swam in the pool for the afternoon.  My mom came out to join us (or take a nap)!

That night there was a parade that we went to.  The kids had a lot of fun and got a lot more candy than we need.

One float was throwing out Otter Pops.  Grayson really enjoyed that.  He ate the whole thing!  Actually, his first one had a hole in it and was leaking, so he ate more than a whole one.

That night we had a pie eating contest.  They were mini pies, and it was a speed contest.  When I had my turn the current best was about 31 seconds, and I finished mine in around 16!.. but took second place in my heat...  Sad day.  Brooke had a great time eating her pie with her cousins.

That night Monica and I went out to have s'mores.  Monica said no one else wanted them, but she really did, so out we went.  Pretty quickly the whole fire was surrounded, so sometimes you just have to be the person to start things.  Also, Niki had some Sarris chocolate, and I put a chocolate peanut butter bar on my s'more and it was fantastic!

Friday morning we packed up to head home.  Once we were all ready to go, that meant it was time to take Grayson on the slide.  He loved it as expected, so I took him a few times.

I also went down with Winry before we left.

Once we were outside, it was time to say bye to everyone.

We got a picture of all the girl cousins, and some of my sisters before we took off too, and then it was into the car.

We stopped at Rock Springs on the way home and got lunch and ate it at a park.  The kids also had fun playing on the playground and a little on the grass.  We made it home, but it sure felt like a LONG day.  Monica's sciatic nerve has been really hurting her, so I drove the whole way out and back.  That's not really why it felt long, we didn't get home until around 6:30, and I feel like the later in the day you get home the longer the drive feels.

Saturday was a busy day.  The girls had a birthday party in the morning with their friend Eleanor.  When they came back, we got out the stomp rocket I won at Bingo and had fun launching that in the backyard.

After some serious stomping, it was time to go to Winry's dance recital.  The tickets were oversold, so even though we got there right when they asked, it was already standing room only.  Not exactly what you want to pay for.  Brooke sat in the back with us during the show, but sat up in the front for Winry's dance so she could see it.

Winry did an amazing job!  She was worried she'd forget her dance, etc. since she missed the last week of class, but she did fantastic.

After Winry's dance, I escaped to the side to let Grayson wander around.  We got a picture at the dance picture spot while playing.

Winry got a picture with her teacher on our way out the door too.

There was a snow cone machine outside, so we stopped for a treat.

We got one for both of the girls.

And one for the rest of us to share.

I don't know that we used our snow cone machine this summer, and that's a wasted opportunity.  We'll probably have to get it out soon.

While Monica was grocery shopping in the morning, she picked up a splash pad for the kids to play with, so we set that up in the backyard in the afternoon.  The kids really liked it, though it gets really slick and Grayson slipped and fell twice on it, so we've definitely got to keep a close eye on things.

Saturday night when I put Grayson to bed, we were reading Itsy Bitsy Reindeer and he was singing along!  He was doing better before I took a video, once my phone came out he was really interested in what was on the screen.

I think that's everything for this week.  It was a super fun week, packed with adventures.  We've got school starting up in just over a week, so we'll have to close out any last minute summer plans to be ready for school to start this next week.  Hopefully things aren't too crazy.