First Day of School

Second grade for Mason he's getting so big.

Max didn't start preschool until two weeks later.

Max went to Miss Karla's preschool for a few weeks, but one day I heard that Mason's school was looking for a teacher's aide, I sent my resume over and the next day they called me for an interview and then hired me right afterwards. Its for just a few hours in the morning, but the best part is that Max gets to come with me and attend the kindergarden class while I'm working. Its a great program for Max, although its taken him some time to get used to going everyday. We've all had to get used to being a little more scheduled in the mornings, and we don't have as much time at home, but so far its been totally worth it.

 

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Max's Birthday

The last adventure of summer this year was Max's birthday. It was Max's first friend party so we tried to make it special, while still keeping it simple so that I didn't loose my mind. In the past I will admit that birthday parties have caused me a bit of stress so I tried not to go crazy on this one. We kept the guest list limited to the few friends that Max plays with on a regular basis (and cousin Ethan of course) which I think helped the most to keep things manageable for me.

Max decided he wanted to have a dinosaur party which was so much fun. We started with lunch, then we went on a dinosaur safari... We started with the dinosaur dig, the kids loved this and could have done it for hours.

Then we had to hurry over to "Volcanium" where it looked like our volcano was ready to erupt. Max and I had made this volcano out of salt dough a few days earlier.

I wish I had a better picture of the volcano, because Max was really proud of it. We spent a long time building it and decorating it with dinosaurs and palm trees, Max even suggested that volcano have a cave at the bottom with a dinosaur in it. I think that is what he is pointing out to his friend Jake in this picture.

After the volcano eruption we had to head over to the dinosaur hatchery to make sure all the dinosaur eggs were ok. We found that the large eggs had made it through ok, but the small dinosaur eggs were missing (gasp) and we would have to go find them

This was by far my favorite activity. The "eggs" were made out of a mixture of flour and water and used coffee grinds that dried hard on the outside and were soft on the inside. In the middle of each egg was a little dinosaur. The kids thought it was to great that they got to smash their eggs on the ground so they could get their dinosaurs out.

After that we opened presents and ate cupcakes, the kids had all collected a little pile of mini dinosaurs by that time, and so we spent the remaining party time playing dinosaurs. When everyone left they took home a large paper mache dinosaur egg filled with treats. The kids thought this was a especially cool.

 

The party turned out great. I think everyone had a good time especially Max. Later that night we had Shane's family over for dinner and cake, which was also a lot of fun. Max got to choose what we had for dinenr so it was chicken nuggets of course...

Ethan mowed the lawn for us

We opened presents again

And of course had more cake, it was a lovely day.

 

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Max's Birthday

The last adventure of summer this year was Max's birthday. It was Max's first friend party so we tried to make it special, while still keeping it simple so that I didn't loose my mind. In the past I will admit that birthday parties have caused me a bit of stress so I tried not to go crazy on this one. We kept the guest list limited to the few friends that Max plays with on a regular basis (and cousin Ethan of course) which I think helped the most to keep things manageable for me.

Max decided he wanted to have a dinosaur party which was so much fun. We started with lunch, then we went on a dinosaur safari... We started with the dinosaur dig, the kids loved this and could have done it for hours.

Then we had to hurry over to "Volcanium" where it looked like our volcano was ready to erupt. Max and I had made this volcano out of salt dough a few days earlier.

I wish I had a better picture of the volcano, because Max was really proud of it. We spent a long time building it and decorating it with dinosaurs and palm trees, Max even suggested that volcano have a cave at the bottom with a dinosaur in it. I think that is what he is pointing out to his friend Jake in this picture.

After the volcano eruption we had to head over to the dinosaur hatchery to make sure all the dinosaur eggs were ok. We found that the large eggs had made it through ok, but the small dinosaur eggs were missing (gasp) and we would have to go find them

This was by far my favorite activity. The "eggs" were made out of a mixture of flour and water and used coffee grinds that dried hard on the outside and were soft on the inside. In the middle of each egg was a little dinosaur. The kids thought it was to great that they got to smash their eggs on the ground so they could get their dinosaurs out.

After that we opened presents and ate cupcakes, the kids had all collected a little pile of mini dinosaurs by that time, and so we spent the remaining party time playing dinosaurs. When everyone left they took home a large paper mache dinosaur egg filled with treats. The kids thought this was a especially cool.

 

The party turned out great. I think everyone had a good time especially Max. Later that night we had Shane's family over for dinner and cake, which was also a lot of fun. Max got to choose what we had for dinenr so it was chicken nuggets of course...

Ethan mowed the lawn for us

We opened presents again

And of course had more cake, it was a lovely day.

 

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Salt Lake Vacation

In August we realized there were two consecutive weekends that held events in Utah that we wanted the attend, so we decided to cap off our summer with a week in Salt Lake.

The first weekend we were there Shane went to a car race. He loves racing his mustang. The kids and my dad and I met him there for awhile, but it ended up being a break so we didn't see any racing. Since we were already in Toelle though we stopped off and visited my uncle Don, who has recently taken up bunny raising. The kids thought the bunnies were great and really wanted to take one home. I asked Don if we could borrow one for a few days, but he said there was a no return policy on the bunnies.

The best part about the trip was that Shane was able to stay with us during the week, although he did have to go the library and work on their speedy internet connection, every afternoon he came home and we set out on a family adventure. We had a great time, every night we were busy with some kind of adventure. Many of those adventures involved swimming so I didn't take a lot of pictures. One night we went swimming at the local pool. One night we went to Seven Peaks Water Park. I didn't know if the kids would love this one, but they had a blast. Mason who generally doesn't like thrilling rides LOVED the waterslides, he coudl not get enoug of them, and even went on some that made me a little uncomfortable. Max was a little more timid and spent most of the night in the lazy river with me.

One of the things I miss most about the Salt Lake valley is the easy access to the mountains, so one night we hiked to Donut Falls. It was a beautiful hike, and I was especially pleased to see how much the kids enjoyed being outside in the mountains.

Of course the thing that I was looking forward to the most that weekend was on Friday when Shane and I went to see Wicked. We left early and went downtown and had a nice dinner and then walked around the City Creek Center. It was so nice to spend time together, and the show was fabulous, even Shane really enjoyed it.

It was such a great week, I think we'll have to make it a summer tradition.

 

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Boat Ride

Last summer one of the kids favorite things was the boat ride we took in Island Park. We all enjoyed it so much we decided to make it an annual tradition and so before summer was over this year we headed up to Island park. Going later in the summer meant that the water was fairly low. So low in some places that our little friends had get out and push, which Mason and Max thought was GREAT!

About halfway down the river there is this great rope swing that the kids and Shane had fun swinging on until the swing broke free of its counter balance. There was a large family reunion there and one of the teenage girls in an effort to get the smaller children out of the way of the broken swing was hit by its heavy load. There were a few tense moments, the girl was unconscious for a few minutes and was unwilling/unable to move for a few minutes more. Shane who had been swinging on the swing felt terrible and we had a tense wait while the girls situations was assessed. Thankfully (and in an answer to my prayers at least, and probably those of others). The next boat to pass by had a doctor in it. He came over and was able to assess the situation, and pronounce that the girl would be fine, and she was able to get up. We were all so relieved. Shane felt really terrible, and apologized to the girl, who told him the same thing the rest of the group had also said, that it wasn't really his fault just bad timing. So we moved on, but I was happy a few weeks later when I saw one of the family members of the girl and she told me that by later that day she had made a full recovery and was now fine.

After all the adventures of the day we pulled our boat into shore and went across the street for what Mason tells me is the best pizza in the world. It was a good day.

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Gluten Free?

The other day Mason was looking at the Chex box and said, "I know why all the people are smiling, its because they have something that's gluten free to eat that isn't gross."

 

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Baseball

In June both of the boys did a T-ball/baseball team. I decided I was crazy and volunteered to coach Max's team. It was just short of absolute chaos, but we made it through the season, and almost everyone had fun (there was one kid that cried at every game). Unfortunately I was so busy during all the games that the only picture I have is the official team photo. So when I get around to scanning it in, I'll share it with y'all.


Mason had a wonderful coach, and for the first time ever really got into the game and loved it.

The kids had so much fun with baseball that we decided to celebrate the end of season with a Chuckars game. It was my first ever real baseball game and it was fun to watch, the kids really got into to it too, and loved running the bases at the end of the game.

 

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