Pinewood Derby!

Hello party people!  We begin this week with a sneak peek into co-op preschool!  It was Monica's turn to host this past Monday.  Grayson goes to a preschool T, W, Th and we do a co-op on Mondays. There's a good crew of kids this year, and it appears they all had a fantastic time.  They made cheerio necklaces, and I think I remember painting supplies being out.  They weren't even that loud, and I was able to work right through it all no problem.

Brooke continues to love volleyball, and has been making great strides.  She's gotten a lot better at bumping, and being able to control where she wants the ball to go.  They also work a lot on overhand serves, and Brooke still needs to work on generating more power when she hits the ball.  We've also been working a lot with her on being excited and congratulating teammates after plays.

Wednesday was a pretty crazy day.  It was school, then dance, and then straight from dance to the pinewood derby, and we were even late to that!  But, we did get to drive next to the Jurassic Park jeep all the way there, so that was sweet.

The Pinewood derby was a ton of fun.  It was just a two car track, but they had lots of time to let everyone go several times. After the race heats, they let the kids line up and keep racing as much as they wanted.  There were a lot of really fun cars there too.

The kids were really enjoying the racing.  Most of the time, kids were running along the track racing the cars to the finish, but eventually being a bridge became the thing to do.

Brooke hasn't been loving her new school.  It's a little too strict and suppressing fun for no real reason, and she wasn't loving it.  It's also at least 20 minutes away, and turns pick up and drop off into an over an hour drive, which has been too much for Monica's back. So when Brooke said she wanted to home school, Monica was pretty willing to listen.  We asked Brooke to make a pros and cons list, which you can see here, and well, now she's homeschooled again.  It's going better this time though, because Grayson goes to preschool.

And speaking of Grayson at preschool, here he is with Lincoln, his new best friend.  We actually know Lincoln from church, and they sometimes play together.  They're also both in the co-op preschool.  Lincoln has never been much of a talker around us, but apparently Grayson is the only one he talks to at preschool, and they're great friends now!

On Thursday, Grayson's school had a teddy bear picnic, and Monica even got Winry out of school to go.  And of course Rainbow attended as Grayson's plus one.

Winry and Grayson have started mini-volley again.  It's just a weekly volleyball class without games.  Winry is old enough to do a volleyball league, but wanted to do mini volley with Grayson again this time.

On Friday, Winry didn't have school, and Monica scheduled for them all to go to a farm nearby.  The kids LOVED it!  They got to help collect eggs from the chicken coup.

And Brooke got to hold a chicken.

And they got to pet the goats.

And even feed them!  I don't know if Monica will want to add any more details, but they had a great time taking care of animals and learning more about what it's like to have a farm.  It was Winry's dream come true.

When Monica was out in the garden she got a hecka splinter!  Yikes!  She was able to get it back out without much trouble, but that's never fun to see.

And that's all for this week.  Things are going well, and it's nice to have a solution for Monica and carpool, even if it's only a solution for this year.  I hope everyone is doing fantastic! Ta ta.
 

Dog Days of Summer

Ok, so I don't actually know what the dog days of summer are, but we're coming to the end of summer, and it sounded good in my head.  It's still plenty hot hot hot down here in Texas.  In fact, one day this week it was about 100, and Monica decided to check the weather in Parker and it was a mere 50 degrees cooler there! So I guess fall happens somewhere in the world, just not here.  The lizards have been enjoying the long summer, and are bigger than ever.  I think this is the largest garden lizard I've seen since we've come to Texas!

Grayson has found a new, clever way to go up and down the stairs.  He stands on the edge of the board and uses the railing to keep his balance.  You do you kid, and enjoy that while you're still able to.

Grayson is loving preschool.  Monica actually took this picture when she picked him up.  He's being a koala, and honestly, he's doing a really good job.

The lizards have just been everywhere lately.  When I go out to mow the lawn and weed whack, they're running this way and that way across the house, through the garden, and on the playground.  It's a lot of fun, and I really hope I haven't hurt any of them.  Also, we've always gotta keep an eye on Jelly now when she's outside, cause she's always on the hunt.

I've been helping with school drop off and pick up this week.  It takes about an hour and 20 minutes, and Monica's back, or really nerve pain radiating down her leg from her back, has been hurting a bunch lately, so I've been helping out while we try to get things under control for her.  Most of the days were pretty uneventful, but then there was the day this bus pulled out and blocked half the road while waiting until it could pull the rest of the way through the road... yay... And on this day, this was not the only instance like this, I feel like there were 3 or so... sigh... Texas driving.

Over by the library there's a little duck pond, but the count of ducks is anything but little.  Grayson sure loves to go feed them.  I'm a little surprised we don't have a picture of him trying to pick the ducks up.

Grayson had to go to the dentist this week.  He had a great time, and his teeth all looked good.  He's getting close to tooth losing age, but everything checks out for now.

I don't remember what I was changing for, but Grayson went running ahead of me into my closet to hide between my laundry baskets!  Crazy kid.

Grayson has really been loving Mario Wonder lately and asks to play it every day.  I don't know how often Monica actually plays with him, but he talks to me about things in the game every day, and loves any chance he gets to play.  Maybe next time he asks, we should tell him he has to be wearing pants to play.

On Saturday, Brooke had a volleyball game, and we all went to watch.  It gets really loud in the room with all the courts, so Winry and Grayson like to wear these earmuff things to keep it a little quieter.  Grayson was rocking them on his forehead on the way out.

Brooke and I spent Saturday afternoon working on her pinewood derby car!  We didn't finish it, but we were able to shape the wood and sand it.  She wants a koala, so we're going to do a koala holding onto a tree.  I decided to work on it by hand as I thought the randomness would help it look more natural like a real tree, and it was also a good way to let Brooke help doing it as well.  I'm excited to finish the car this next week.  The pinewood derby is on Wednesday, so we don't have too much more time.

On Saturday night, we had a ward activity with our old ward. It was our end of summer ice cream social.  There's no way I'm not showing up for ice cream!  I took Grayson to the bathroom, and we usually use the one in the nursery. When we went in, I found Winry playing with Abigail!  They were playing with the wood puzzles mostly, and had a few other toys out too.  At the end of the activity they worked together to clean everything up even.

And that's a wrap on this week.  The first week in the new ward went well.  It was a little funny because there were many people from our previous ward who came to say hi at church who don't usually stop by and say hi.  It was nice to see some familiar faces, but it was also nice to meet new people too.
 

Working in Chicago

Hello from city-y Chicago!  I was going to say sunny, but it really doesn't look sunny in this picture.  The sun hasn't set yet, but it's behind the buildings, so it's after city sun set.  It also rained a bunch Saturday morning, which isn't when this picture was taken, but I just was thinking about the rain and writing sunny felt weird... Anyway, I headed in to Chicago on Tuesday night to work in the office there and to attend the company 30th anniversary party on Saturday night.  I stopped by the bean (technically Cloud Gate), and there wasn't a barrier constructed around it this time, so I actually got to see it and go up close.  It's pretty cool to see in person.  It's fun to look at the reflections, and I walked under it and the curves underneath are real cool.  Hard to describe, but fun to walk around.

Here are some pictures of Grayson from preschool.  These are technically from last week or something.  They post them, and then I download them, and then they always show up at the wrong time as the dates for the pictures get changed somewhere in the process.

I just picked some pictures I really liked.  He just looks nice and happy above, and I really like him hanging on the tree branch here.  It seems a decent distance from the slide, so I'm not exactly sure how he got on there, but Grayson really likes to hang on things.

This year we found out how to walk from the parking lot to the airport because there were no shuttles and none came for like 20 minutes, so when I showed up I just wanted to walk in.  It was a little funny, because there were actually waiting shuttles in the lot, and when I walked past them they started honking at me thinking I missed the pickup spot.  Here's a fun sculpture thing in between some parking structures on the way.

On Wednesday morning, when I was walking in to the office, I saw this elevator that a construction crew was using.  They just plopped it up right next to a building.  I've never seen an outdoor elevator like this and I thought it was pretty cool.  While I was walking by, they were actually riding it to the top.

My hotel had a historic mail slot.  They've actually glued a cover on it. So while there is a sign, you also just can't put anything into it.

Perk of the Chicago office, they order in ice cream sandwiches!  Yay!

On Thursday, I went for a walk over to the lake with some co-workers.  We went to see Buckingham Fountain, which is close by the lake.

And then we headed over and sat by the lake for a little.  While we were there, this guy came up and started fishing.  I stood up to get a picture after he almost hit me with his pole... but Minghui was having a real great time talking to him about what fish were around, etc.  Minghui really likes fishing too.

It's really nice to be able to get on a video call and check back in at home while away.  Thursday evening we were into bedtime when we talked, but it was nice to see all the kids and get to say good night.  While I was talking to Grayson and Monica, Grayson tripped backwards and fell into the empty bin that had had blocks in it, and couldn't get out.  It was really funny, and I fortunately was able to get a screenshot.

Brooke has started back into volleyball and had her first game on Saturday.  I'm not sure why she doesn't have her team shirt on.  Monica said she did really well, and that she did incredible at serving.  Brooke told me that none of her serves got returned and she was able to get her team a lot of points!

After her game, everyone went to the church as the stake was putting on a community preparedness fair.  As part of it, there was a service project for the animal shelter where you could help make toys to be donated for cats and dogs.  I wasn't there, but what Grayson made what looks like something Jelly would play with, so I'm guessing this is a cat toy.

Brooke and Winry look like they're having a good time making a scratching board for a cat.

On Saturday I went for a walk.  I went back over to the park where Cloud Gate is, and saw this big fountain.  I thought the faces on it were a little weird, but every once in a while they'd spray water out of their mouths!

I walked along the river for a little bit, and then stopped for gelato for lunch on my way back to the hotel.  They made it into a flower!

Grayson got some Bronco's gear from another family in the ward that also moved here from CO.  He's looking ready to go, and it looks like we'll have to start watching Broncos games.

The company party was a concert, and the headliner was Foster the People.  They didn't announce the band before hand.  I don't really know Foster the People, and it was hard to actually hear the lyrics, so I don't really know that I can say I liked their songs, but I did like the music.  There were some fun beats, etc. going on.  I didn't stay too late as I needed to get up early Sunday morning to fly home.

Speaking of heading home, my Uber in the morning was a wheelchair accessible van.  I don't think I've ever been in one before, and the seat was high enough, or more likely the floor was lowered enough, that my feet didn't touch the ground.  It's been a long time since I sat in a seat and my feet didn't reach the floor.

I got home with enough time to eat lunch, get dressed and head to a special church meeting with the family.  They announced last week that ward boundaries were going to move, and this was the meeting to find out what the changes were.  We ended up getting cut out of our ward, and will now be part of the Crystal Falls ward.  I'm optimistic about the changes and am looking forward to meeting the new ward.  We also combine second hour with the Spanish branch, so that will be fun.  I guess I shouldn't have stopped doing Duo Lingo...

Dance Begins

Let's jump into this week and catch up with how Grayson is doing with school starting and having to be up in the morning... hum... Well, he looks really cute!  He actually usually wakes up around 7:30 in the morning, but has had the occasional sleep in.

Monica went to the library with some assortment of kids, and there was a chicken wandering around at the library.  There's a duck pond there, so maybe it just got confused and thought it was a duck.

Dance started, and Brooke couldn't be more excited.  Technically she's already done some dance.  She's doing a duet which already had a class, and for company they had a week long camp at the end of summer, but this week started dance classes proper.

On Wednesday we brought Brooke dinner when we picked her up, and went straight to get snow cones at Bahama Bucks for a Valor fundraiser.  While we were there, Vivian showed up!  Her little sister goes to Valor, and she's on the waitlist and close to getting in.  It was great to let the kids catch up and they had a great time together.

Just to round out that night, we got home and Brooke still had to do her homework!  She was up late, and technically, we didn't actually finish all her math, but I figured it was good enough.  Turns out she's only supposed to spend up to 15 minutes on it, so we were working on it a lot longer than needed, but I made sure she understood it all well before we were done.  It looks like her Wednesdays and Fridays might be a little crazy, though we won't always be getting snow cones, so hopefully there will be some homework time available most weeks.

Grayson still loves to play board games, and I feel like he really enjoys a game with fiddly bits, such as Ticket to Ride!  I actually think he first started playing this with Monica on her phone, but we have the Europe edition, and he's been wanting to play it every day.  He does a good job, plans out his route and builds his own trains.  Monica said he's started actually trying to complete his routes, which means you connect between two cities with your color trains to score points at the end of the game.  He's pretty advanced in his ability to play board games right now.

Winry had her first day of dance on Friday.  She has a class on Monday, but she didn't have it this week because of Labor Day... Anyway, still the first week.

I often find some random pictures of the garden.  I decided to pass on the picture of bug eggs on the bottom of a leaf, but there's no way that won't be exciting in a week or two...  Here's a giant cucumber.  Somethings going on with it, which I'm sure is why it wasn't picked back when it was ripe.  Things still tend to grow like crazy here, or at least I'm aware of the things that grow like crazy.

On Saturday, Brooke took Olivia to Pinballz for Olivia's birthday since she missed her party.  They had a good time wandering the arcade and playing all sorts of games.  They're doing a duet together in dance this year, so naturally they had to play a dance game.

I think we tried a little of everything, and eventually ordered some lunch.  While we were waiting for lunch, there was an air hockey table right by us that we gave a try.  It ended up being super cool. On the side wall, a ton of mini pucks were stored, and would dump out in the middle of the game.  It was quite the surprise the first time it happened.

Eventually our food came, and we had a good time eating.  After lunch, we wrapped things up. The girls were gracious enough to let me play pinball one time, and we hit the ticket counter and came home.  Olivia came over to our house for a little while after the arcade, and I think she and Brooke spent almost the whole time dancing together.  They even dug out old recital outfits and put on a show for us.

Jelly was taking a nap on the chair in our room and I wanted to take a close up of her.  I think I was wiggling my phone too much, because she kept looking in focus, but never quite was in the pictures...

Sunday night for dinner we had spaghetti, and Grayson wanted to show off how much he loved the noodles.  He just needed this picture, so now you do too!

That's a wrap for this week.  We're still getting back into the swing of things, and I think this is the busiest our kids schedules have ever been, especially with Valor pickup taking Monica about an hour and a half in the afternoon!  We're still easing back into being busy.