Bye, Dad.

I have a ton of stuff I need to catch up on--Miles' birthday and Thanksgiving at the very least--but my dad passed away on the 15th. As I'm sure you'd understand, blogging is pretty low on my priority list right now. At some point I will sit down and catch up though.

Will's growing up!

The boys got some money at Halloween from my grandma and aunt, so I told them we could go to Target today to spend it. We were looking at toys while we were there to get ideas for Christmas, and Will saw some Silly Bandz on an endcap. He said, "Mom, they have Silly Bandz. Everyone in my class has them, can I get some?" I was so taken aback...everyone in his class has them, can he have some?! He's not even five yet...this isn't supposed to happen yet! Now I know what it was like for my mom in middle school, "Can I have some Guess jeans? All the girls in my class have them."

Only my mom never bought me Guess jeans, and I bought Will the Silly Bandz. ;)

Dress Up

Will loves to come up with crazy costumes from our bin of dress-up clothes. He got me in on it awhile back and chose what I should wear. When we went downstairs to show Daddy, John felt he needed to capture our costumes for posterity. I can't believe i'm going to post a picture of me dressed up like this.

Elephant Appreciation Day at the zoo

September 22nd was Elephant Appreciation Day, so we headed to the zoo after picking Will up from school for all the festivities. They had the elephants' "house" open for viewing and the Phoenix Fire Department was there to hose down the elephants. It was pretty funny to watch. The elephant loved it! We even got to see her go into the pond in the habitat which I'd never seen any of the elephants there do.

Payson

Wow I can't believe I did so many posts yesterday and only got through the month of October! I would have kept going, but I couldn't find our September pictures. I had somehow put them in the June folder...I was glad I finally found them!

We had such a great time going to Payson, AZ (about 90 minutes north of Phoenix) for 4th of July weekend with my mom that she booked the same house for us for Labor Day weekend. Sadly it wasn't as amazing a time because the creek was dried up and the yard of the house was kind of overgrown with weeds. We were all pretty disappointed and almost left early, but we ended up staying and making the most of it. It did end up being fun, just not as fun as the first time. At least this time the burn ban was lifted, so we were able to have a campfire which was really fun. I got the fire started before John--woo hoo! My dad would have been so proud. Will really liked the fire; Miles was already in bed. John won the award for "coolest dad ever" by putting the hose down the slide to create 1) a water slide, and 2) mud pit at the bottom. The kids were a mess but had so much fun!!

Click on the album below to see pictures from the trip.

Payson Trip September 2010

hockey

Our local NHL team sponsors a free hockey clinic for kids ages 4-8. Even though Will can't play hockey because of his kidney issue, we figured it would be fun for him to try and see what he thought of ice skating. All the equipment is included too which is great. His best friend Connor did it at the same time. Will didn't take to hockey or ice skating very quickly. There were four lessons, and he spent the first three sitting on a bucket too scared to get up and try skating. Finally at the last one he got up off the bucket. He did great skating around holding onto a hockey stick held by one of the instructors. Too bad he waited until the last day!!

My Ikea boy

Miles had fun riding around with my mom and me at Ikea while Will played in the kid play area.

Late season swimming

We bought a solar cover for our pool so we'd be able to swim in it after the overnight lows started dipping down (for those of you without a pool, that's how the water starts to cool down). We went swimming John's birthday weekend (his birthday is 10/16) mostly to say we did, but the water was really nice.

Painting Pumpkins

Will has never enjoyed carving pumpkins, so this year I figured we'd just paint them. Miles hadn't ever painted before and had a blast!! He was so pleased with himself getting paint on the paintbrush and then putting it on the pumpkin. Every time he got more paint he'd hold up his brush to show us with a huge smile on his face.

Pumpkin Patch

Will and I had a great time on his class field trip to a local pumpkin patch. I took him to school and got to spend some time in his classroom before we left. I really like his teacher, Ms. Vasquez. She's so loving to the kids and so patient. I rode on the bus with the class, and Will's friend Joey wanted to sit with him, but he said no he was going to sit with his mom. Cue heart melting!! :)

When we got there, the kids got to pick out a pumpkin and decorate it with stickers, then we went on a hay ride around the farm. When we got off the hay ride there was a petting zoo, including a bunch of baby pigs that were only two weeks old! They threw pumpkins to some hogs, and it was so funny to watch them dive into eating the smashed pumpkins. The kids went through a hay maze and played in bounce houses. It was a fun day!

Will and his friend Madison (I think Madison "likes" him)


Will's class


Feeding a goat


Will and his friend Molly in the hay maze (he's quite the ladies man)


The hogs with the pumpkins

A date with my oldest son

Will's class went on a field trip to a pumpkin patch, and I was able to go along as a chaperone. My mom kept Miles for the day, so Will and i made a date day out of it. After the pumpkin patch we had lunch at Taco Bell (his choice), went and saw Toy Story 3 at a dollar theater, had ice cream at Coldstone, and then went to the dollar store. It was so fun getting to spend the day just mommy and Will!

Soccer...go Laveen Sharks!

Will decided he wanted to play soccer this fall, so we signed him up with his friends Josh and Connor. Josh ended up having to change teams, but Will and Connor had fun...most of the time. Their team was the Laveen Sharks and they ended their six week season victorious with an unbeaten record!!

Halloween 2010

I guess it's easier to start at the most current and work my way back. since Halloween was just two days ago, I'll start there. Will was so excited for Halloween this year. Actually he's been excited about it the past two years as well. I still can hear him saying "come on guys, let's go trick or treating!" when he was two!!

Will got to wear his costume to school on Friday. his school doesn't celebrate Halloween, but they do have a festival called Arizona Day. The little kids (preschool, pre-K, and I think kindergarten) get to wear their costumes, trick or treat to the various classrooms (the school goes up to eighth grade), and then have a carnival put on by the fifth graders. the PTA sponsors lunch for all the kids, so he also got to stay for lunch with his friends, which he was so excited about!

Saturday was our church's annual Trunk or Treat event. We signed up to decorate the trunk of our car this year. I spent most of the morning getting all the decorations ready--including making an awesome curtain type thing out of four colors of crepe paper to hide the inside of our car--only to arrive to set up and find out there were massive wind gusts, so my curtain wouldn't stay in place. Our car was definitely the lamest there, but I don't think any of the kids cared--they just wanted candy (and some adults, too, but that's a huge pet peeve of mine, so i won't go down that road). The boys had fun going from car to car and playing the games, and they both liked handing out candy. Silly Miles would go get candy from his own bucket and put into other people's as they came by our car. They said at church Sunday morning that there were roughly 1500 kids that came through!! Amazing, especially since that was double the number they esitmated.

Will in his Mario costume, waiting for Trunk or Treat to start:


Dragon Miles (or Yoshi as Will was calling him):




The past two years we've gone to my friend Laura's for Halloween, but last year it got to be too many people. We split it up into two groups this year and had one group at my house. It was our friends the Bowmans and Syntaxes and their kids, plus my mom and grandma. Jen and I made pizzas for dinner that were a huge hit, then the kiddos went trick or treating. It was Will and his best friend Connor, Miles, and his buddy Michael. They all had so much fun running from house to house, although both my kids kept spilling their candy buckets somehow. It was fun--and it's nice to live in a neighborhood where we feel we don't have to be armed to take our kids out on Halloween!

It's nearly impossible to get a good picture of four excited boys.

Massive updates!!

Hello, poor neglected family blog. I've been in the process of trying to reorganize pictures on my computer, so I haven't updated in awhile. Now I'm stuck in bed with strep throat, so I got the laptop all set up on our wireless network so I can work on some massive updates while I lay here moaning and groaning. Not really--that would hurt my throat too much. but I am whining in my head a lot.

Will's First Day of School 2010

I figured since he had a first day of school last year I should differentiate somehow. We had a little last minute change-up for where Will was going to attend Pre-K this year. When did it become Pre-K, by the way? When I was little I thought it was just all preschool until you hit kindergarten. Anyway, we ended up deciding to send him back to the same school he went to last year. He got so excited when I aksed him if he'd want to go back there. We didn't consider it a whole lot last year because it's five days a week, and we worried that would be too much for him. But, he's a smart kid and loves school, so I think it will be fine. Plus in talking to a teacher friend of mine, she thinks it will really help him adjust to kindergarten next year since he'll already be used to going to school every day.

The school has an ice cream social the night before school starts so kids can bring their supplies, see their classroom, meet their teacher, etc. Will and I went, and he was so excited to see his friends Ryan and Jimmy in the classroom. I checked out the names on the cubbies and saw that of the 11 kids in the class, nine of them (not counting Will, obviously) were in his class last year, and they were all nice kids.

Will was so excited for his first day!! We went to Kohl's and picked out a new shirt for him and got him a new backpack. When I picked him up on Wednesday and asked how his first day was, he said, "It was great! I love Pre-K!" I'm really excited for him and for the class. They're working on writing letters, and in the four days he's gone he's really come a long way on writing his name. He could write it over the summer, but now it's a lot neater and more put together. He even had homework over the weekend--a worksheet on writing the letter A. When I picked him up on Friday he told me he had homework and that he needed to do it that afternoon. I don't know where that motivation came from because I'd always wait until Sunday night after dinner to start my homework on the weekend! :)



Will was very excited to find a Mario backpack!!


A rare treat, lunch at McDonald's after school!!

Our annual Seattle pilgrimage

We recently got back into town after our annual trip to Seattle. This time we were able to go for almost an entire week, and we were there during Seafair! We had a great time and were able to do a lot and see a lot of friends. Oh yeah, and we ate a lot. But it was worth every bite!! Pictures are at the bottom of the post, well, a link to the album with pictures. Here's a rundown on our trip:

Saturday, July 31st: The boys and I flew to Boise, ID to spend the weekend with my best friend Brooke, her husband Donavon, and their one year old daughter Alison. My mom decided to drive for the trip, so she met us in Boise later that day. Stupid US Airways lost Will's car seat (normally I wouldn't have even checked a car seat, but Miles was on my lap, so I figured the extra space in our two seats would be nice so Miles could sit in the seat with Will during the flight) so our trip was off to a rocky start, but thankfully it ended up arriving late that night and we were able to get it Sunday morning. Still a total PITA, though. Anyway, Brooke picked us up at the airport then we spent the afternoon at her house letting the kids run around and play outside. Her daughter Alison is absolutely adorable!! This was our first time meeting her...when we were in Boise last summer Brooke was still pregnant. My boys had so much fun playing with her, although I imagine she thought they were a little crazy.

Sunday: My mom offered to take everyone out to breakfast, so we tried to go to a restaurant called Goldy's, which is apparently the best breakfast in Boise. Donavon dropped Brooke off there to get our name on the waiting list while we went to find parking. Brooke called D while we were parking and said there was a two hour wait!! If it had just been adults that wouldn't be a big deal, but none of us wanted to deal with a four year old and two one year olds waiting two hours for a table. No thanks!! Brooke and Donavon suggested some other places nearby that might have brunch, and thanks to my trusty iPhone I was able to find places that were indeed serving brunch. We ended up at a place called Red Feather Lounge that was amazing. The prices were really reasonable, and the majority of the food on the menu was from local sources. I love that!! I had eggs benedict with salmon that was just amazing. It took me forever to decide what I wanted because literally everything on the menu sounded awesome. After breakfast we went to the Boise Zoo. Brooke kept "warning" us saying it wasn't going to be as good as the Phoenix Zoo, but I think she overestimates our zoo. It's not bad by any means, but it's nothing spectacular (phoenix, not Boise). The kids had a great time seeing the animals, and there were a ton of play areas, too. From there we went to a Boise institution, Fanci Freeze, because Brooke and Donavon said we had to try a Boston Shake. It was pretty awesome--a milkshake with an ice cream sundae on the top! There were too many flavors to choose from for both. I picked blackberry for each, and then Brooke told me I'm not very creative. But I was completely overwhelmed!! And I was going to share it with Will, so it had to be something he'd eat too. We spent the rest of the day hanging out at Brooke and Donavon's, the kids played in the backyard and their little pool, then we had pizza for dinner, and Will and Brooke made vanilla ice cream together. It was so good!

Monday: Saturday and Monday had been my big concerns about the trip--Saturday for flying alone with both kids and Monday because my mom and I were driving from Boise to Seattle with the kids. I wasn't sure how six hours in the car with two kids would go (especially since Miles is still rear-facing in his car seat), but they did amazingly well! My mom and I had both stocked up on books and little toys to give the kids in the car for when they got bored. The drive went by really fast. We stopped and had lunch in Yakima and were in Seattle by 3 or 3:30 I think it was. Ryan came over to our vacation house not long after we got there. Since we'd spent most of the day in the car we didn't really do much once we arrived...hung out, went to a park down the street, I went to the grocery store to get a few things, we had teriyaki take-out for dinner. Pretty uneventful.

Tuesday: My mom was meeting some friends for lunch in Madison Park (just down the hill from where we were staying), so we took her down there and then went to the park across the street with the kids. Ryan and I played with the kids at the park (Seattle has awesome playgrounds, by the way!) and played "who's a mom and who's a nanny." Madison Park is a very, very wealthy Seattle neighborhood, for those of you unfamiliar with the city. After awhile we took the kids to Eastlake Grill for lunch, which is right by Ryan's house and overlooks Lake Union. John's flight got in a little after lunch, so we went and picked him up at the airport. Ryan had a meeting that evening, so once my vegetarian brother had hit the road, the rest of us went to see the Ballard Locks and go to Totem House Fish & Chips for dinner. It's my most favorite fish & chips and chowder ever. After the kids were in bed we met my friend Teri for a couple beers at a bar on Capitol Hill.

Wednesday: We decided to be tourists for a day which always sounds like a good idea but rarely turns out to be. We parked at the Seattle Center, and my mom took the monorail downtown to do some shopping while the four of us went to the Experience Music Project (EMP). John and Will had gone last summer when we were there, but I had only been once, the first time I took John to Seattle while we were still dating. It was pretty fun...Will and Miles loved trying out the different instruments you can play, and they both liked listening to Jimi Hendrix music. When we were done there we took the monorail downtown and met up with my mom and brother. We had lunch then walked around Pike Place for a bit. When we reached the end of the market we happend to see the Navy fleet coming into Elliot Bay for Seafair, so that was kind of neat to watch. We went down to the waterfront and went in all the cheesy tourist stores and took Will to see Sylvester at Ye Olde Curiousity Shop. Then of course we had to hike back up the hill to downtown. What a walk! I'm pretty sure I was pushing the stroller up a 45-degree incline! My mom took the kids back on the monorail while John, Ryan, and I went to meet my friend Sarah for happy hour. It's always fun to see her and catch up, and she had some exciting news to share with us. :)

Thursday: By far, Thursday was the most fun day of our trip. We got an early start and headed to Mukilteo to catch a ferry to Whidbey Island. The last time I was on a ferry ride was in college, and the kids had never been on one (except the water taxi to West Seattle, but that doesn't really count). The ride itself wasn't very long, but it was fun to be on the boat and see the kids' reaction. I realized, however, when we were getting out of the car on the ferry that Miles didn't have any shoes. He's in the horrible habit of taking his shoes off, and he had done it right before we were leaving the house. I grabbed them to just stick in the car instead of putting them back on him, but apparently I set them down before leaving and forgot to grab them. Oops. Once we were off the ferry I stopped at every place that might possibly have kid shoes, flip flops, or socks. The only shoes I found were $50, so I kindly said "How about some socks instead?" Poor kid spent the first half of the day walking around in just socks. Mom fail!! Our destination on Whidbey Island was Fort Casey, an army fort that was active during the late 1800s through WWI. We went up in the light house, had a picnic lunch, and then explored the fort. The boys had a blast running around the different rooms and climbing on the guns. From there we headed north, driving through Deception Pass (so gorgeous!), and on up to Bellingham, where I went to college. We stopped at WWU and walked around a bit, but John was itching to get to happy hour, so we didn't get to stay very long. We went to Boundary Bay Brewery. John had had their beer before in Seattle but never from the source. We were in heaven! We purposely planned our trip for Thursday because they have a BBQ in their beer garden on Thursday nights, and it sounded really fun. The beer garden was awesome--tons of picnic tables, a stage with a great band playing, and there was even a play area for kids with little slides, teeter totters, hula hoops, etc. We all had a blast!!! Miles was insanely dirty from all the playing. Will had fun making new friends. John won a contest for a free beer. I drank pint after pint of my all time favorite beer. A good time was had by all. We even got a growler to bring home that John and I drank in the back of my mom's minivan on the drive home. ;) Never in all the times I've driven from Bellingham to Seattle has the drive gone by that fast! It was so fun...I think I could easily sell John on moving to Bellingham, at least for the summer if we're ever in the position to have a summer home somewhere!

Friday: This was the big Seafair weekend in Seattle with hydro races and Blue Angels air shows. We love when it works out that we're there for that weekend. To actually go to the hydro races on Saturday or Sunday costs from $25 per person up, but Friday the admission is free. It's something I had actually never done. We made our way to the park where the hydro pits and main festivities are and walked around for awhile, then we went and found a spot to watch the hydro qualifying races and wait for the Blue Angels. It was really overcast, so the Blue Angels had to do the low show (then we found out later they had to switch to the flat show partway through, which apparently is very rare to see). It's just amazing to watch them fly--at some points of the show the planes are as little as 18 inches apart! Friday night my mom graciously offered to keep the boys so John and I could have a date night. We met my friend Jess and her boyfriend Phil for pre-dinner drinks and then went to a fantastic restaurant, Steelhead Diner, for dinner. It was fantastic!! We shared some red beans and rice as a side, and it was probably the best I've ever had. Who'd figure that would be in Seattle?! We hit a couple bars on our way back to the house and had a great night out on the town.

Saturday: The original plan had been to go to a Seafair parade in the morning then have a BBQ at my brother's on Saturday evening for his friends and some of mine to come over. And we woke up to find it overcast and raining. Not ideal parade nor BBQ weather. John and I were pretty hurting from the night before (as was my brother), so my mom offered to take us out to breakfast. John ended up staying at the house, but we went to a really great diner-style restaurant in Wallingford. It was just what I needed, and they had some of the best breakfast potatoes I've ever had! We went into Archie McPhee's (a crazy store with all sorts of random stuff that no one really needs) and walked around, then we headed to my brother's to figure out if the BBQ would be on or not. I went and picked up John, and by the time we got back to Ryan's, the kids were going crazy. We loaded them in the car and drove down to Boeing Field to get a closer look at the Blue Angels. Both kids fell asleep in the car, so it turned in to mostly just driving around while the kids slept. Needless to say, the BBQ did not happen and we got Chinese food instead. Fine by me as I love Chinese food, but it's hard to find any in Phoenix that's really good. It was an early night for everyone after the festivities the night before and the rainy, cloudy day.

Sunday: Our tradition when we're in Seattle is to go to Ivar's Salmon House on the north end of Lake Union for Sunday brunch. We thought about not going because Ryan turned from a pescetarian into a vegetarian, but then we figured why should the rest of us miss out just because of him. ;) It's such a feast and something we always look forward to, although we leave completely stuffed. With the rainy day we didn't really know what to do with ourselves, so my mom ended up dropping us all off at the Science Center and she went to check out some quilt stores. I love the Science Center...it's funny that some of the exhibits have been there since I was little. We all had a really good time. When we had been at Boeing Field the day before we saw what time the Blue Angels take off and land, so we planned for my mom to pick us up in time to get back down there and watch them land after their show. We got down there with a few minutes to spare...to find the planes already back and parked. No idea what happened, maybe they cut the show short because of the weather. Major disappointment. We headed back to the vacation house to gather up our stuff for the flight, we ordered pizza from our favorite Seattle pizza place to take with us on the plane, grabbed one last burger from Dick's, then headed to the airport.

We had a really great time on our trip, and it was so nice to get out of the heat of Phoenix for a week! I was sad we didn't get to see some of my friends, but it seemed to be a bad week for a lot of people. Next time, I guess!! Or we're always up for visitors and have plenty of room!!

Kudos to you if you made it through reading all of this!!

Seattle 2010

Baba's Birthday

I really need a new system for organizing my pictures. I have theme folders (birthday parties, zoo, playing outside, etc.), but I forget to check them for pictures. Of course the idea of switching up everything is daunting too. I'll have to give it some thought.

I opened up Picasa to upload pictures from our Seattle trip, and it opened to pictures from my dad's 61st birthday. Since Baba (as my kids call him) doesn't get a lot of billing on the website since he's not at family functions anymore, I thought I'd post some pictures of us celebrating back in April. His caretakers, Paul and Maria, have a party for him every year with pizza and cake. They're so generous...my family is blessed to have them taking care of my dad!

Miles and my mom having some pizza


Dad blowing out the candles


My grandmas helping with the candles