Back to the Pool

Summer is back!  Well... just for a day, but seriously, it got back up to 90 already!  That's pretty nuts.  When the girls heard it was warm they were super excited to go back over to the pool, though it should be noted that the air warms faster than a pool full of water...  The water was still very cold.  They had fun playing in the water, and they got out some reusable water balloons they got for Christmas and gave those a try.  Looks pretty cool, but, maybe just a little cold still.

Brooke and Grayson continue to do homeschool together.  On fine motor skills day they build blocks together, and Brooke helped Grayson make this giraffe.  Brooke is head of the class!

There's a homeschool day at the library that Monica's started taking everyone to.  Their first day was about 3d printers, which was pretty fun for Brooke.  This past week they went outside for some fun activities, and Grayson just couldn't help but blow a dandelion... errrr... eat a dandelion?

Meanwhile Brooke was making some giant bubbles.  I don't know what the topic for the day was, but something about bubbles, or surface tension, or small game trapping.  Something like that.

Joy spent the day with us as well!  Her parents took her brother to the temple while everyone else was at school.  She had a great day hanging out with Grayson and they did all sorts of fun things together, like going to the park, or riding in the wagon.

Looks like Winry and Grayson had stuffed animal school again and it was group picture day to boot!  They seem to enjoy this particular activity.

Saturday was a whirlwind of a day.  I ran out to do several errands in the morning, including picking up some wood so that I could make shelves for the garage.  I finished them just in time to get ready and head to a stake leadership meeting, and when I got home they were full of food.

We got to church early for stake conference to try to make sure we got a soft seat.  We were 40 minutes early and still just barely got a spot.  Since we were there so early we felt it best not to have Grayson sit while waiting for church to start, so I walked around the church with him.  I took him outside to show him that we have a firepit, and he had a lot of fun throwing leaves in and walking around the area.

That afternoon I made a big discovery.  I found Grayson's special blanket.  It had been missing for a few DAYS!!  Glad he's a champion and still went to bed well without it, but it was great to see it again.  Where did I finally find it?  It somehow ended up behind my computer in the office...

Well, that's all the news I've got.  Till next week.
 

San Antonio or Bust

Back to the zoo baby!!  We headed to San Antonio on Saturday, and our first stop was the zoo.  It was a lot of fun and great to be back.  It was a pretty chilly morning, which was nice because I think it kept the crowds low, but we had a wonderful time.  The trip was really centered around getting to go to the temple, but to sweeten the deal for the kids (and me) we went to the zoo.

Winry and Grayson were playing together one evening, and I believe they were playing school with all these stuffed animals.  Then they started lining them all up in front of the fire place for a picture, and Grayson sat in his spot for a lot of the time while Winry arranged animals around him.  Eventually they asked me to take a picture.  Also, Grayson has been potty training, so he's only got a shirt on, thank goodness he carries a blankie!

Valentines was fast upon us to everyone's delight.  Winry had a great time at school and came home with a neat little crown, and a warp pipe full of goodies!

Brooke's valentines box was a Bulbasaur, and she did an incredible job!  It's extra fun when your kids like things you like, so it was great helping them with their Mario and Pokemon box designs.

At dinner we revealed our secret valentines, and swapped gifts.

Monica and I sent out the word that Brooke was hoping to get some valentines since she wouldn't be at school for an exchange, and pictures and texts came flooding back in.  I printed them all out, and we filled Brooke's valentines box since she didn't get a bunch at school like Winry did.  She was very excited to look at her valentines.  Thank you everyone that helped out!!

Monica and I went out for a special Valentine's date on Friday night.  We went to a pottery painting place.  I think the hardest part was picking something to paint because there were so many great options.  The second hardest was that I'm not very good at painting... but I think things turned out well.  We left them there to get glazed and fired and will pick up the final product soon.

After painting we headed for dinner... at 8 pm.  This limited our options because apparently restaurants all close between 8 and 9 on weekends now.  We found a new place we'd never been, and it turned out to be Italian.  The food was pretty good.  I got a chicken sandwich, can't you tell?  It was a bit messy, but good.

Saturday morning we got up, got ready, and got in the car.  The ride went well.  It was about an hour and half drive, but everyone did well with it, and we had snacks in the car as well.  Grayson looked real cute with his water bottle too.

While in the car, Monica talked about our ticket options and I ended up buying a membership while we were on our way.  Here we are at the front gate, next to this cool gorilla statue.  Ironically, there were no gorillas in the zoo...

We were immediately greeted by the flamingos to everyone's delight.  I don't know if it was just that we hadn't been to the zoo in so long, but the kids were loving the flamingos.

Grayson was very excited to see the fishing cat, and we lucked out and they actually have one here too!  Speaking of cats, when we were by the lion he started... I guess huffing.  It wasn't really roaring, but it was still pretty loud.  That was really cool to be there for.

The wild dogs enjoyed running by the kids over and over, and the kids really enjoyed the attention they were getting.

After the zoo, we dropped Monica off at the temple and I took the kids to Kneaders for lunch.  After lunch we headed to the temple, and Monica was just getting out, so we swapped and I went in while she walked around the temple grounds with the kids.  Once I got out we headed back home, and watched movies in the car, including "How the Grinch Stole Christmas" at Grayson's request.

So, little did we know, but when Brooke started homeschool we started a timer.  We checked in on that timer on Sunday, and that timer was a lunchbox timer.  It's been this much mold since the last time Brooke went to school, and therefore, since she used her lunchbox.  Yikes.  It ended up getting on/in the seal on the lid, so the whole lunchbox had to get tossed!

I'm going to have to give a shout out for William for this next one, because I just don't know where else insulin talk would be coming from.  These post-it notes were on Winry's desk, and part of some game she was playing with Grayson.  I wish I knew more details about what they were actually playing though.

And that finished up the week!  We had a fun Valentine's day, and a superb trip to San Antonio and the temple.  I hope everyone else out there had a great week as well.
 

Valentines Build Up

I wouldn't normally think that Valentine's day is the type of holiday that is going to extend into the previous week, but looking over the pictures there was actually quite a bit of Valentines action this past week.  That includes a ward Valentines dance on Friday evening!  We let the kids stay up so we could all go together, and we had a fun time dancing and playing with balloons.

The dominos were "found" recently, and became the hot toy for a few days.  At one point I showed the kids how to make a domino wall, and Brooke was working on setting up a wall using all of the dominos in the box.  I'm really glad I took a picture, because it fell with just a few left to put on.  So no video...

Grayson was up in his room for a nap one day, and he typically plays for a while before actually falling asleep.  When Monica went to get him up he had fallen asleep just inside his curtain.  I guess he was enjoying the view out of his window for a bit.

At work this past week they had window washers.  It was kind of fun to see them outside the window.

Grayson got the cat wand to play with Jelly.  He thought it was a lot of fun, and did a pretty good job. He always said he was going to catch her, so I think he thought he was fishing for her... I was trying to help him a little with actually getting her to play more, and with not hitting her or hurting her.  In the end I think it went well.

This past week we we had secret Valentines from the ward.  We took them a surprise a few times over the week, and then revealed ourselves at the dance on Friday.  Monica was our getaway driver, and here I am up at the door with the kids putting hearts on their door.

Monica took Brooke and Grayson to playgroup this past week and they had some pretty cool swings there so that Brooke could swing and swing Grayson at the same time.

Niki sent us a valentines package, which had some various valentines and toys for the kids, including bouncy balls.  Grayson really loved playing with his bouncy ball, though he pretty quickly wasn't sure where it went.  We had one of them, and were playing with it by the front door where it could be more contained and not get lost.  He was loving it!

Friday night was the dance, and it was 50's themed.  There was a little swing dance instruction at the start, and then we got to dance the night away.  I had a lot of fun dancing with Brooke and Winry, and spent about half the dance chasing Grayson up and down the halls and throwing balloons in the air.  I think everyone had a good time in their own way.

We prepped valentines on Saturday.  We got them ready early so that the kids could take them to church for their classes.  We melted broken crayons into hearts!

We started doing our family secret valentine this past week to great success.  On Saturday the whole family went to Target together so we could pick out a gift, supplies, etc. so we were ready for the rest of the week.  It was raining a little when we got into the car, but when we got to Target it was DUMPING!  we were all completely soaked by the time we got into the store.  Kind of fun, kind of chilly.

Saturday night I went to check what the breakfast plan was for Sunday morning and was greeted with this message.  I appreciate the freedom to pick, but biscuits and gravy sounded good...

The Ellers came over for the super bowl on Sunday evening.  We had a great time watching the game together, and Joy started to warm up to me.  I'm guessing she won't talk to me again when I see her at church on Sunday, but if we're together for 4 hours she eventually opens up a little.

The kids were roaming during the game.  The Ellers have some older boys who wanted to watch the game, but I think everyone else wandered upstairs at times to play.  Towards the end of the game Grayson was up playing by himself, and Monica went to check on him.  He was sitting at the table with play food on a plate with a fork, enjoying a fine dining experience.  He also spent some time treating us all to a rousing rendition of the Wonka soundtrack!  That's been some pretty hot music around our house lately.

As for the game, it was great!  Down to the wire basically the whole way through.  Congrats to the Chiefs.  Aaaaand that's the end of the week!  Happy almost Valentine's Day, Valentine!
 

Winry's Birthday Party

It took a little while to get a good weekend without sickness, but we finally had Winry's birthday party!  She was super excited, and we had a great time at her backyard luau!  Since we couldn't get us all to Hawaii, we brought Hawaii to us.  It was just too windy for a candle to stay lit, but we sang happy birthday and got the candle lit for her to blow out.  Most importantly, everyone had a great time.

Grayson is so silly.  Lately if he thinks he's being naughty or might be getting in trouble he'll hide his face.  He'll either cover his face with his hands, or try to hide his face in a corner.  I heard him upstairs one day playing and just came up to see how it was going.  I don't think he was doing anything wrong, but when he finally realized I was there he hid his face behind a toy house.  When I peeked through the doorway he looked down at the floor and covered his face with his hands.  What a silly boy!

We went to the school one day to chat with Brooke's teacher.  She's been having some hard times with some various things at school.  Anyway, while we were there we walked by Winry's classroom on our way out, and saw her ouch story!

I took the kids to the park one afternoon after work.  I twisted me knee on the walk while pushing the stroller and that hurt really bad.  It fortunately went away by later that day, so at least I didn't make things worse.  As for at the park, Grayson brought his new pull back car and loved sending it down the slides.  It made him pretty popular and he quickly picked up a new friend who wanted to drive the car down the slides too.  I also played pirate ships with the girls, where the different playgrounds were ships and we had to keep swapping the one we were sailing on, and eventually we headed home for dinner.

Speaking of dinner, what a lucky lion!  He got to eat all our valentines candy.  You can't really tell in this picture, but he's also wearing a night gown.  Pretty fancy.

The 100th day of school was on... Wednesday maybe.  The kindergarteners were all asked to wear a shirt with 100 of something on it.  Winry made a shirt with 100 pieces of yarn, and we shaped them into a heart.

Here she is in the parade, walking like a champ.  Actually, and ironically, the parade ended up stopping for some reason with her right here next to us.  That was pretty cool because we got a chance to say hello.

And Saturday was the birthday party.  Winry invited over the girls from her school class and church.  As everyone arrived we had food out, and we gave people leis too.

We went to the beach for a picture!  Here's everyone that came.

We had a vacation relay race.  There were suitcases with a towel, and leis and sunglasses in them.  The kids had to run down, unpack their suit case, relax in the sun, and then hop in their surfboard.  After packing everything back up they ran back to the next person in line.

The weather was mostly good, but it of course it had to rain.  Fortunately only for like 5 minutes.  While we escaped the drizzle we opened presents inside.

Grayson was over here on the side playing with a balloon.  He seemed to be having a REALLY good time tossing the balloon in the air.  Sometimes I wish I was as easily entertained.  I guess that's my own expectation issue, but it would be awesome to be able to be so entertained and so happy with such simple toys.

The Ellers stayed a bit longer than everyone else.  I believe they helped clean up some, and Grayson and Joy also had a lot of fun playing with our nativity set.

Winry gave the talk in primary on Sunday.  I probably wouldn't have taken a picture, except look how cute Grayson was being too.  He's been having a hard time going to primary recently, but once he finally got up there next to his teacher he was so happy.

It's nice reflecting on some of these events from the past week and seeing our family making connections and finding our place here.  It's nice to see the kids having good interactions with friends and other adults.  Anyway, that's all for this week.