Sunday/Monday: family

Nathan and his family came over for a night this weekend.  It was very, very nice.

Evelyn and Isaac played very well together.  They played a bit Sunday night, but then for a long time on the beach this morning.  I expect they would have played even longer if it wasn't time for lunch.

Joshua really liked Jameson.  Jameson got many Duplos from Joshua.

So it was a nice time.

Saturday: door knob

A bit ago Isaac asked how doorknobs work.  I tried to explain it to him, but words aren't that great.  I asked Dad if he happened to have one...it seemed like the type of thing he might have.  And he did.

So now we have a doorknob floating around the house (until it is returned).  We looked at it for a bit and Isaac looked at it bit on his own.  He put it down rather quickly, but has returned to it a few times too.

You'll notice in the picture that Joshua actually has the latch part.  He's enjoying the door knob too.

Friday: librarians

We often go to a smaller branch of our library that is very close to our house.  Sometimes I see four people working there and wonder what they all do all day.  Now, it's not that I think they aren't doing important work, I just don't have a good feel for what they do.

But as Isaac has gotten older and we have more questions on this book or that topic, I start to understand the in depth knowledge they have of the books they carry...knowledge that would take many hours to be able to call up.

Airplane books?  They go to several different authors and find them.  I-spy books?  They know the location.

Today's questions was, "Do you know what the book is called that you flip through it and it becomes a monster and then it goes away and there are holes in the pages?"  Yup.  "'Go away, big green monster.'  I think we just checked it out to someone."

Sure, they need to look things up sometimes, but to even have a starting point with a silly question like that is amazing.  (And it had been checked out.)

Thursday: busy day

Today was a busy day.  We left the house at 8:45 and didn't get back until 7:45.  Now, there were a lot of fun things that happened, but it was still busy.

Joshua was the only one at swimming lessons (usually he's one of two) and he took full advantage of that fact.  He was hamming it up so well.  He was imitating the teacher better than I've ever seen him do.  Although he still won't blow bubbles...he keeps sticking his tongue out instead.

Wednesday: Critter barn, quiet day, flurry, exercise

Today's activity was the critter barn.  Isaac enjoyed it but didn't want to pet much...some of his comments made me think he didn't want to wash his hands.  After I told him he'd have to wash his hands anyway he got a bit more into it, but not as much as I had been expecting.

Joshua, on the other hand, seemed to love it!  He was a bit scared at all the noises from the big goat and sheep aisle, making a scared face I've never seen, but loved the birds and was not the one always ready to go to the next animal.

(After the picture Joshua really wanted to hold Isaac's hand but Isaac wouldn't hold Joshua's any more.  It was a bit sad.)

***
At lunch we had the following conversation:
Isaac:. Let's have a quiet day.
Amanda: OK.
Pause
I:. But we can talk.  And laugh.
A: what makes it a quiet day then?
I: well, it was a quiet second

***
Flurry's blood work came back and the vet said it was excellent, especially for an 11 year old cat.  She's probably just trying to show us who's the boss in this house, but it will backfire.  Especially as we get pills in her mouth to increase appetite.

***
We had our training day at the gym.  We have had a hard few months getting on a consistent schedule with our own exercise, so that's been a bit annoying.  Hopefully everything will calm down soon.  However, our trainer is moving away so we had the new trainer with us today too.  Ok, that wasn't all that interesting.  What is interesting is that in the time that we've been meeting with the trainer I've gained eight pounds but my body fat has gone down a bit...so I'm gaining muscle.  I was a bit surprised to get that result this week as I ate a lot at Disney, but was still happy.  It's hard to remember that muscle is better though, because I'm about at a milestone on the scale that I'd prefer to not hit.

Tuesday: melting

And the summer activities have begun!  I'm going to try it a bit differently this year...we're going to pull out the activities for the week at the beginning of the week.  I could still see pulling out an extra one if things aren't going well one day here or there, but this way I can schedule the week better.  The big things can happen on days that don't need to have errands or other pre-planned activites, while the small ones can be fit here and there.

I also let Isaac put several back when doing the first pull today; I don't know if we'll keep that up.  It seems like an easy way to just to the fun activities and not the work ones.  Oh, I put all the activities together this time.  If we have a work one scheduled I will probably try to do a fun one too.

Today's was "what things melt in the sun?"  It might have been better in the middle of summer, but was still interesting.

We started with a glob of wax, a rock, a dishwasher soap pack, frozen peas, cheese, hummas, bread, toast, soft butter, hard butter, chocolate, and and ice cube.  We checked it at 10 minutes, 20 minutes, an hour, and at the end of the day.  (We made a chart too, but I don't have a picture of that.)

I don't know if there were any earth-shattering revelations, although it's sometimes hard to tell.  Isaac did notice how hot the rock got and we talked about how people sometimes would put rocks by a fire and then in their bed.  At the end of the day we saw how the things that didn't melt got rather hard.  I found it interesting, which is half the point too. :)

After a trip to Target we stopped at the PetStore to look at all the animals.  The cats were gone, but Joshua especially loved the birds.

We also went to the vet.  Flurry hasn't eaten much the last two weeks.  (And she's down to about 8.5 from 11.5 pounds.)  Nothing serious at this point, although we'll get the blood work back tomorrow.  We did get some special food (which she gobbled right up) and some pills to help her appetite.

Ben had a last minute band practice tonight, so I put some water in the water table.  Both boys played well with it and the squirters.  Isaac seems happier to spend time on the deck when Joshua is out there with him, even though I hear a lot of "no thank you!"s.

Monday: close beach

This morning Isaac asked a few times if we could go to close beach today.  I said maybe after school...we'll have to see how things are going.

Fast forward to after school, and he asks once before getting in the car.  I still hedge.  I'm not against the idea, but not ready to commit yet.  We're in the car and he says, "I've decided we'll go to close beach."  Oh really.  But at the same time there was no reason not to go.  So we went.

Isaac had a great time.  Joshua had a good time for about a half hour and then lost it.  He was having problems last night too, so I think something is going on.  (Or he really misses Zach and Jenny.)  Even food and TV didn't calm him down until we were several minutes into the movie.  I was hoping that Joshua would last a bit longer since Isaac showed no signs of slowing down, but as I told Isaac, "We're a family so we have to work together."

I also had my yearly doctors appointment today.  I got there a bit early, but was out twenty-five minutes after the scheduled start of my appointment...and that included going to the lab for a blood draw.  I was rather amazed.

Weekend

Zach and Jenny left this morning.  We had a very nice time with them...some frisbee golf, some games, and lots of talking.  I don't have any pictures.  Some of the things we did to entertain the boys while we did something else, like going to Ben's parents' house to play a game while the boys played with the toys.  We also went to close beach because Isaac's been asking to go for a while, but that kept them entertained while other conversations could go on.

But don't be fooled; Isaac talked to them plenty too.  He got a secret ingredient from Jenny for his dirty water and brought Zach down to the basement to play golf.

Friday: boys

We started out the day slowly.  Well, by slowly I mean it took us a while to get dressed.  I had moved the duplo table into Joshua's room, and it was a hit.  There isn't a ton of room in his bedroom, but I'm thinking about how it can stay in there for a bit longer.

Isaac made a porcupine with toothpicks.  He included a head, which I wasn't expecting.  I'm not sure I would have included a head.

Then we went to the playground.  I thought it was going to be a bit cold, but with sun and no wind it was actually rather hot.

Some friends came over for the weekend.  I got a puzzle out (because I like to talk over puzzles) and we proceeded to stay up until 1am working on it.

Thursday: jumps

Joshua had some swimming lessons again today.  It took him a while to warm up.  Last time he was doing the things right away; this time he was a bit clingy.

Until we got to the jumping part.  He loved the jumps.  It was interesting to watch his face.  Big smiles as I was about to jump him in and then as his feet hit the water a look of worry.  But then his face didn't go under and he was all smiles again.  We did some extra jumps at the end of the lesson just because he was enjoying them so much.

Wednesday: misguided priorities?

I read black book three times yesterday and Ben read it once.  It has no words, but I'm sure they'd be memorized by now.  I usually try to read a book only once a day, but Puppy Dog was just so excited about the book.

I, however, am not.

Tuesday: priorities

I didn't go grocery shopping yesterday, so we still don't have a lot of food in the house.  I worked today, so one option was to stop by the store after work to at least pick up some milk.

Instead we went to the library.  I had finished my latest book and the book I had on hold had just come in, and Isaac started talking about the "black book" today and wanted to read it again.  So between those two things I decided that the library was more important (and more fun) than the grocery store.

Lights out by Arthur Getsert

And the squirt bottles came out again when we got home.  I do love those things.

Monday: home

We're home!  We had a super early flight today.  It was nice to get it done with early, but it did mess up the day for us a bit.  (And Ben and I didn't sleep well last night, as normal with early flights.)  Joshua was rather wiggly on the plane.  Both boys fell asleep on the ride home at about 11am.  So we had an early nap time.  Joshua woke up after a normal length nap and Isaac didn't want to wake up...I think we talked to him twice before going in a third time and actually making him wake up at 2:30.

It meant that Joshua was cranky earlier than normal - he went to bed right after a late dinner.  Isaac was doing ok, but he also fell right to sleep tonight too.

It was nice to have most of the day to laze around though.  I started unpacking and doing the laundry.

Friday: relaxing

Today was a relaxing day.  We played in the pool, took naps, etc.  Isaac and Joshua played with some boxes of styrofoam peanuts for a bit too.

Wednesday/Thursday: magic kingdom

Last night Cheryl let Ben and I go out after putting the boys to bed.  We had a late supper, watched the fireworks by the castle, and then rode as many of the rides as we could.  They had extended hours for resort guests, so we had about three hours.

We made good use of them!  We weren't sure we'd stay the whole time, but we weren't up much past or normal bedtime, really.  We did the haunted mansion, a mineshaft one, pirates of the Caribbean, space mountain, seven dwarves, and the Stitch thingy.  My favorite was the seven dwarves... It was so smooth, although too short.

Today we went back.  The only ride we did again was space mountain.  But we still did a lot!  People mover, Winnie-the-Pooh (this was really cute), it's a small world, fantasmic, Peter pan, Dumbo, buzz, and a train.  It was hard to get a read on Isaac as to what he liked, although it wasn't the people mover because the dark part was to scary.  However, in the buzz ride his score was about 300 one third of the way through it and then I looked over and it was 301000!  He beat Been by about 3x, so must have hit something amazing.  Joshua liked Pooh (and Owl), and small world the most... I think.

And while we had a great time, I think we also left at just the right time.  Joshua had a small melt down in the car as we were driving home, but finally fell asleep if my hand was by his cheek.  Isaac had a headache but finally fell asleep with his head leaning forward on my hand.  (Luckily I was able to extract my hand from Joshua by then.)

Isaac asked to go to bed shortly after dinner even though he hadn't really been awake for very long, but Joshua is still awake.  I'll probably try to put him to bed soon.

Wednesday: Epcot/mk

Today started with Ben waking Isaac up... "Wake up Isaac!". " I'm not Isaac, I'm a talking rock, " said the lump under the sheets.

We again started with a character breakfast.  Joshua liked the characters from far away, but if they got close and interrupted his breakfast, he was not happy!  Isaac was excited about Pluto, since we learned his favorite animal is a dog yesterday.

Well, the boat just came to pick us up from the after hours in the magic kingdom, so I guess the rest will wait.  It's now 1:30, but ben and i went on a lot of rides tonight!

Tuesday: animal kingdom

Today we were of to the animal kingdom!

We started with a character breakfast.

Joshua's look shows how he felt about most of them and Isaac was OK but not super excited.  Donald actually made it around twice and since we weren't trying to do so much the second time I think he enjoyed it s bit more.

Then we went one an animal walk.  There was a bird house that we got to go in and Joshua loved it.  He's really enjoyed all the birds, from exotics to sparrows, this trip.

On the walk we also picked up an explorer book for Isaac.  Her could learn about different things and get stickers for doing so.  It was pretty cool and he really got excited about it.

We watched the Nemo show... Well done but a bit loud.  I especially enjoyed the actors who got to be big ocean plants.  I think I would enjoy that part.

Then a quick ride and onto the safari!  Joshua, of course, feel asleep about the minutes before the safari until the minutes after.  I tried to wake him up, but he wouldn't.  Isaac got excited by some of the wildlife and kept asking us to take a picture!

We slowly made our way back to the hotel where the adults napped ( or tried to) and the kids had their screen time.  Then to the pool and dinner and just like that it was way past bedtime!

Made it!

We made it to Disney!  The trip went rather smoothly... It helped that Joshua slept for a good part of it.  After an early dinner at Disney springs we went to the hotel (where the boys enjoyed making pillows mountains until the luggage came).  We followed it up with a swim and some dessert.

My phone app doesn't seem to let me do pictures, so they might have to wait again. :(

Ha.  Take that app.

Saturday: a proud parent

This morning Isaac and I ran the Kids' Fun Run, a 1K.  Last year we came in second-to-last and barely made it.  This year was so different!  I don't think that we ever stopped moving, although we did take a few short walking-water breaks.  But for the most part we were running!

We did tell him that we would go to the playground if there was enough time after the race and before our next thing.  So I think that he ran mostly so that he could go to the playground.

Joshua did his normal belly button push to show me that he pooped and then walked to the bathroom.  I put him on the toilet, mainly trying to just get him used to it.  (BTW, he doesn't like going on the same toilet as Isaac, so that might be annoying for the next year.)  And he went to the bathroom while sitting on the toilet.  Hooray!

Friday: a rough day

Today was one of my more annoying days.  Let's just face it...it happens.

It felt like Isaac was four going on thirteen.  He was rather whiny and wouldn't stop asking for things even after I told him no and to stop asking.

The monitors were out and the boys love playing with them.  (It makes no sense to me either.)  But then Joshua was just getting frustrated by his side when it wouldn't power on.  There was a one minute spell when they both had them on that was kind of cool, but mostly Joshua was just really upset.

I was trying to get some work done and had four places to go today.  That's a bit more than I like, and then one of the places didn't have jean shorts for Ben and had huge lines.  So I went somewhere else, but that meant five stops.

(I went to JCPenny.  I asked a guy working in the men's section if they had any jean shorts.  He didn't seem too sure but then pointed to these.  Yeah.  Can you see Ben in those?  It turned out that there were normal jean shorts about 4 yards away, but I didn't see them until we had paid for other shorts.  So we grabbed them and got back in line.  They didn't fit.  (But the first shorts did, so we're still in business.)  While we were at JCPenny Joshua was just starting to wander off so Isaac grabbed his hand.  It was cute.  Then later, when we were in the line the second time, Joshua didn't want to hold my hand so I gave him the choice of my hand or Isaac's.  He chose Isaac's, who of course wasn't interested by that time.)

By dinner time I was done and told Isaac in no uncertain terms that he could eat off the slightly broken plate or not eat.  Ben proceeded to ask if I needed to eat alone.  I declined the offer, but did pretty much ignore everyone for the hour before bedtime as I tried to finish stuff up.

Isaac did pick a bunch of nice dandelions for me today.  It's rather sad that they wilt within hours as I do find them rather beautiful.  Oh, Isaac also really wanted me to take a picture of his milk with the cap upside down.  He asked yesterday too, so I figure it really was interesting to him.

Thursday: who wore it better?

Isaac or Joshua?  (Joshua is about six months older than Isaac in the pictures.)

I was happy to finally get Joshua smiling.  I asked him to and then got a whole bunch of "cheese"-es.  He seemed to enjoy his swimming lessons, although he kept trying to drink the water instead of blowing bubbles.

Thursday: pictures

Here are some pictures from yesterday.

We're trying to get rid of our pavement (sugar) ants and read on-line that cornmeal is one way to do that.  So Isaac enjoys shaking cornmeal on the ants' homes.  I'm not sure that he tends to shake enough to make a difference, but sometime when it isn't going to rain we'll make bigger piles.  He enjoys doing it and I don't have to worry about harmful affects (to medium to large animals) so it's a win-win.

Joshua was playing with the shopping cart.

Today we had popcorn for our snack...our snack shelf is surprisingly empty, but it's good to get rid of stuff sometimes.  The boys thought it was hilarious to watch Flurry eat popcorn.

Tuesday: squirt bottles

Today I would like to thank Roger Drackett for inventing the squirt bottle.

The boys love them!  I was able to get a bunch of work done while the played outside with their assorted squirters.  I was thinking it was a bit too cold for squirters, but they managed not to get too wet.

Monday: exam day

Today was the final exam in my class.

I got the question that I get every semester and never know how to answer: "Will the exam take the whole two hours?"   Well, I did it in about 30 minutes and skipped a few steps, so I expect that the people that know what they're doing could finish it in an hour.  If you don't know what you're doing it will take longer.  Some students always take the maximum amount of time.  So I don't know the answer to your question; it depends on how prepared you are.

Then, as I was grading and falling asleep, I tried to decide which was better from a sleepy point of view: exams that were very good and could be graded quickly or exams that weren't so good and required some thought with the grading to help keep me awake.  (Obviously, from the rational point of view good exams are better.)  I decided on a short nap instead.

Sunday: Bible Study

Bible study was at our house today.  It was rather nice - due to some odd housing arrangements for one of the couples they brought lunch so we only had to have a clean house.  We had had someone over for dinner on Friday so it was already mostly clean.

Joshua and one of the other little girls are in the same class at daycare.  Joshua kept saying her name whenever he saw her and it was super cute.  I was impressed that 1) he recognized her in a different setting and 2) that he remembered her name.  I know they work on names a lot at daycare, so it must be working.