Saturday: by ourselves

Ben and I had the day to ourselves.  We played games, got some work done, and spent a lot of time together. :D

I had found out that a local place now sells Dole Whips (pineapple soft serve) so we also stopped for some of that.

The boys seemed to have a great time too.  It's fun to see updates on what they're doing while not being responsible for them.

Florida vacation

Last weekend I went to Florida with Cheryl, Jamie, and Allison.  It was a lovely time!

The first day we went to Fort Myer's Beach.  Being the off season, nothing was very busy was was very nice.  I had an umbrella, and stayed under it most of the time.  With a nice breeze it was lovely on the beach!

And the water was perfect!  I do find that I get cold so fast in water often, but apparently the water temp was about 84 deg. and I felt comfortable in it the whole time we were in the water.  Of course, this is also the time I got a sunburn too.  It looked so pink because I'm so white, but it didn't feel too bad most of the time.

The next day we went by boat to Captiva.

We ate lunch at the Bubble room, which usually has the best desserts ever.  One that we got was a dud though...chocolate mint cherry cheesecake.  There was something wrong with it.  The orange crunch and red velvet were delicious as always though!

The sand was super hot.  We quickly went in the water, which was slightly cooler than the day before but still nice and warm.  I took a little walk down the beach and by the time I got back everyone was ready to go.  (Did I mention the sand was really hot and our umbrella was rather small?)

Unfortunately, sort of, only one engine would start for our trip home.  This means that we crawled along at a slow pace, but it was rather lovely.  There were no kids that were getting bored, there were clouds so we weren't too hot, and a little breeze.  We also had some dolphins jumping behind us for a bit!

That night after dinner I convinced Jamie and Allison to come on a walk around the loop with me.  The night before I had taken a walk and it had been lovely.  This night, though, was definitely a mistake.  We went right as the sun was setting and the flies were out!  We'd walk a few steps and then suddenly spasm as a fly bit us or flew by our heads.  (While not fun, it was hilarious to watch.)  I went around a second time...by that time it was dark and the flies were all gone.

The next day we had a lovely brunch and relaxed by the pool until it was time to come home.

Friday: the day

This morning I turned on the sprinklers and put out the tunnel.  The tunnel needed a rinse; Isaac didn't crawl through it as much as I thought he might though.  Joshua was the one excited about the sprinklers, but then only spent about two minutes in them.  Isaac spent close to an hour.

I was peeling paint of Joshua's lost.  He joined me for a while.

Joshua also made this puppy, and I thought he did a really good job.  It has a tail, feet, and a nose.

The boys left for a weekend with their grandparents.  I got some work done and then Ben and I went to a Brazilian steakhouse.  Usually the thought of it doesn't sound so good to me, but it did today...and it was delicious.  Afterwards we came home and played a computer game together.  I had been thinking about maybe only playing for an hour or so, but we played for significantly longer.  But it was ok, because I don't have to get up for anything tomorrow morning!

Thursday: playground

We went to a natural playground for a bit today.  The boys liked it, but didn't love it...about the same as last time.

I also finally got this photo from the birthday party.  (Photos have been slow getting into the shared feed.)  I love it.

Tuesday: 6 1/2 birthday party

There were streamers, as always.  Isaac made a "kid area" where the streamers hung vertically.  He and Joshua had a great time running through them and getting boosters.

Isaac got a bike from us.  It wasn't a surprise as he was there when we picked it up, but everyone kept pretending that he had no clue what it was. :D

And the cake!  We got it from the store because I had no time to make one, but it was an excellent choice.  Isaac picked out a yummy one.

Monday: home

I got home late last night after a lovely vacation...of which I hope to post soon.

Joshua saw me in the morning, seemed rather disappointed, and proceeded to ask when I was going on vacation again. :)  I got more love from Isaac though.

We ran a bunch of errands and then started the second session of swimming lessons.  Did I mention that we decided to do another set?  Isaac was progressing so well that we were afraid he'd lose it if we didn't do just a bit more.  I got to swim in a lane too.  Swimming is hard work, but I took plenty of breaks.

Wednesday: new playground

The local Timbertown playground was recently remodeled.  Everyone was rather sad to see the old one go as it was one of a kind.  The new one is almost as cool.  Not quite as many places to climb up, several cool new toys.  Isaac especially liked the zipline.

Tuesday: friends

Amy, Brian, their kids, and Amy's brother & family came over tonight.

The was cooler than we were hoping, but a great time was still had by all.  The kids played so well together.  The adults talked well and played a game.  And it was lovely.

Monday: marble art

Isaac came up with the idea of painting with marbles.  Well, it seemed worth a shot.  I covers some trays in press-n-seal, gave them a cup with paint and away they went.

It actually worked a bit better than I expected.  The paint isn't super runny, so they could pour the marble onto the tray without touching the paint.  By the time the marble was out of paint they could use their fingers to put it in the cup with minimal mess.

Of course, the marbles escaped a few times, and by the end Joshua was doing more playing than marble painting which got his hands all messy.  But it washed off.

We did find that the larger, heavy marbles work a bit better.

Sunday: Happy Father's Day

I'll admit, for the most part it was a pretty normal day.  But we did get Ben a gift.  It was the most poorly kept secret ever.

Joshua decided that Ben should get a penguin lovey, because Ben is always inserting penguins into conversations in which they don't belong.  Unfortunately, all the penguin loveys are currently discontinued.  So we got him some pajama pants instead.

Joshua told him the day we ordered them.
Isaac mentioned it when he opened the box.
Joshua brought it up randomly one time.
Ben saw them "hidden" in Joshua's closet.

When I asked Joshua if he thought that Ben knew what he was getting, Joshua seriously said, "no!"  Joshua especially was super excited about this gift, which makes it a perfect Father's Day gift. :D

We also played on the beach for a little bit.  A hole was dug and Ben's legs were buried.  I had left my camera inside, but there were several cute moments.  The boys love their dad a lot, as it should be. (I wanted to put a heart here, but blogger interprets it as html.  So you should just think of a heart.)<3 p="">

Saturday: scooters and bikes

We had a bit of a hard morning.  We're in between house cleaners for a month, and so I made the boys help pick up.  It didn't go over well.  Well, once I gave them five minutes on, five minutes off it worked ok...but they weren't as useful as I had hoped.  We might need to do more cleaning in the middle of the week too.  Anyway...

Ben brought Isaac to practice bike riding.  He did an awesome job and almost got around the whole loop.  Yesterday he could only get around about 1/8th of the loop at a time, so there was a big improvement.  They celebrated at Captain Sundaes.  (To be fair, I think they were going to go there no matter what.)

Joshua and I went for a walk around the lake.  He started out on his scooter, which went better than I had expected.  (Staying on the side of the road was our biggest challenge.) Half way through he stopped, and then we found some puddles to splash in.  We both enjoyed the squelching of my sandals.

Friday: play date, Ben & Joshua

This morning we visited some friends.  The boys played so well with two of the boys that were there.  I saw them a few times, but for the most part they just played together.  (The friends are new to the area, so this is only the second time our boys have met.)  It was one of the easiest play dates I've ever had...I'm not sure if everyone meshed well or if my kids are getting older or there were new toys.

Isaac went back to the bike store today.  There was a bit of improvement...he got the pedals around a few more times.  Phew.

Then we had ice cream with some of the jam that didn't set very well.  (Although by the time it was refrigerated, it wasn't really that runny.)  It was pretty yummy.

We went out for dinner.  Joshua pretty much wanted to be as close to Ben as possible, and it was rather cute.

Thursday: library and duplos

Today was slightly less busy, but still full.  We did some grocery shopping in the morning, along with a few chores.  At swimming lessons Isaac managed to float by himself for a short while.  Hooray!!  Joshua is not shy with the teachers, being very clear that he doesn't want to put his head under water and that he prefers Mr. Kyle as a teacher.  (So much so that when we were changing into clothes he cried the whole time because he didn't get to go in the locker room with Mr. Kyle.)

Then we went to the library.  Isaac got his own library card!  It won't make a huge difference for anything, but seems like an important milestone.

This evening after Ben got home we were all in our bedroom.  Joshua decided to drag the Duplo table into our bedroom for a bit.  It has suddenly become much more mobile.  Joshua uses that table so much though...Isaac used it a lot and it was a good birthday present for him, but Joshua uses it constantly.  There were a few times that I wondered if we had gotten too many Duplos, but I don't really think that is the case now that I've seen just how much use we've gotten out of them.

Isaac was putting clips in my hair.

Wednesday: morning out

Today was still a rather busy day, but busy in that we did several things and not busy in that I felt rushed.  As Ben mentioned to me yesterday, it is a good busy...and I'm not being asked, "will you play with me?" twenty times a day.

It started out with gymnastics for Joshua.  I let Isaac do a coding game on the Ipad that seemed too easy for him, but he has to get through the easy levels first I guess.  (It was Isaac's favorite thing of the day...as normal with extra screen time.)

Then we went to the bike store, which went medium.  Isaac got a few pedals rotations in but didn't seem to make any progress since last time.  Then we went to Cheryl's.  I had a quilt to pick up and we made a train track and played with it for about 45 minutes.  Then swimming lessons and we finally got to come home.

When I woke up from my nap the boys were playing a game called 'school' which involved them hiding under their quilts.  There was also some fire involved...as normal, I have no clue what they were doing.  But they both said they loved the game.

The day ended with ice skating lessons.  It was Joshua's last lesson, and that is probably a good thing.  He was doing fine, but not loving it.  Isaac had significant improvement from the first time he got on the ice, and mastered the first two sets in the beginning skating class.  It means he'll be in the same level next session, but that's probably where he should be.

Tuesday: busy day #2

They're busy days, and we have another tomorrow, but not *too* busy.  Just busier than normal...and that might be a good thing.

Today started with a hike at some nearby trails.  The hike was going to go for an hour (as timed by a normal walker) and I was a bit afraid my children wouldn't keep up.  Since we had swimming lessons, we decided to cut back a bit earlier.

And we got so lost.  Not lost like, "I'm not sure I'll ever see civilization again" or even, "I'm not sure we'll make it to swimming lessons," but lost like, "we've seen this sign twice" and "this path wasn't on the map" and "how did we go north when we wanted to go south?"  The boys did super well though, and it really ended up being the amount of time that I wanted to go for a hike.

Next was swimming lessons and they did well.  I was a bit worried that they'd be tired out, but they seemed pretty normal.  Joshua tried some goggles.  I don't know if he liked them or not, but he wore them the whole time.

The last item of the day, after screen time and rest time, was another dentist appointment for Isaac.  This time they had to numb his mouth.  Joshua slept through the whole thing and Isaac fell asleep on the way home.  I let Isaac sleep a bit as I figured it would be an easier way to get the mouth numbing out of the way.  He was rather groggy when he woke up, but slowly snapped out of it.  (Slowly snapped?  I'm not sure those should go together.)

Monday: a busy day

We started the day out by picking strawberries.  Joshua didn't pick many, but was somewhat content to follow Isaac around.  They didn't really understand the "pick in one place" concept, but since they weren't picking many berries at all I didn't worry about it too much.

We got the zimm-zamm out for the first time.  Nathan and I played this a ton growing up, and I thought Isaac might like it after tetherball the other day.  Isaac did ok, Joshua liked it when I was helping him, and the string kept wrapping around the pole.  I found another piece that wasn't part of the instructions and am wondering if that will help a bit.  Anyway, for the present time it wasn't as exciting as I remember it being, but I have hopes for the future.

The boys then started swimming lessons.  Isaac said it was his favorite part of the day.  I thought the instructors were very good, although both boys got very cold.  Ben saw the pictures and realized that he had spent hours and hours at the same pool.

Then we made strawberry jam with my aunt.  I'm a bit afraid that one of the batches isn't going to set.  So then comes the difficult question - try to make it reset or use it as a topping for ice cream and such?

After dinner Isaac and I went back to the bike shop.  Isaac was not thrilled about having a pedal bike.  Not thrilled at all.  He did managed to get three rotations of the pedals (or maybe 1.5 rotations...I'm not sure how I was counting now) which was a huge improvement and we were at least able to end the night on a high note.