Sunday: a better day

Today went better than yesterday.  Probably because I only had to nag the kids to do chores for a short time.  I would like to note though that Isaac didn't want to come on a walk tonight because, "the basement was clean."  When I queried if that made it more fun to play in, he said yes.  At least he could see the benefit of cleaning.

During the service today Isaac made this out of clay.  Three crosses with a person (Jesus) on the middle.  He also made a separate mountain for Golgotha (he did not remember the name though).  I expect that most of the sermon goes over his head, but I'm glad he's still thinking about Jesus during the sermon.

On the way home from Captain Sundae (and the minion popsicle), Joshua announced that he wanted to make a minion craft.  Oh.  However, he brought it up yesterday and again today, so we made one.  I made him do some of the cutting and all of the gluing.  Joshua didn't seem to realize that he doesn't have arms, and that was fine by me.

Vacation Saturday: headed home

We had packed up a lot of the food yesterday, so breakfast was kind of anything we could find that wasn't packed too deep.

The boys got one more turn on the arcade game.  It was neat, but would have been neater if you didn't need to pay for it.  We had it turned off most of the time.

And slowly people started leaving.  Packing up wasn't quite as bad as I was expecting, possibly because I knew what needed to get in the car and could pack a little bit better.  It was sad knowing that we probably wouldn't see them for a while, but we'll still talk when we play Kodenames.  We had to be out by 10am, I think we were out at 9:30 and the last people were just finishing up.

Ben and I decided to go to the science museum an hour away.  It was pretty much right on the way and that way we could do more night time driving.  We stayed for quite a while and had an excellent time!

The bed of nails felt funny.

Light shadows!

Since Joshua had been teasing me about being stinky so much, the other kids started to do the same and I whole-heartedly embraced it.  Then there was a toilet drinking fountain which was perfect!!  (The water was clean; it was talking about conceptions.)

Joshua used quatros to build a nice house.

We got silly in space.

And then found the water area.  They probably could have played here longer, but there was only one step-stool so we needed to be done after a while.

While we were waiting for Ben to find us we stepped into the "five and under" room which turned out to have the coolest thing of all.  It was a think that used air to blow large pom poms out at you.  I hadn't seen that much jumping in excitement for a while.

Oh, in the middle we ate at an Indian restaurant.  We don't have one near us, which is pretty sad.  The boys didn't enjoy anything, but Ben and I did.

We finally got on the road at 3:30pm.  The plan had been to stop at a hotel (which is why we stopped at the museum) but in the end we decided to push through.  It was nice to sleep in our own beds and not have to wake up at the same time as the kids.

Vacation Friday: Titanic

This picture was from Wednesday morning, but somehow it got missed.  We brought a Lego set for Isaac and Joshua to do during down time and Joshua wanted me to take a picture of the first part.  I'm pretty proud of how I set it up.

Today we went to the Titanic Musuem.  It was a pretty cool museum.  They gave people person audio tour phones, which was really cool...except Joshua was too young to have his own because he didn't turn five for another week.  It made it a bit harder because we were always trading them back and forth.  However, the audio tour did otherwise work really well.  We didn't stay a super long time as the kids kept us moving, but it was still very interesting.

No really, Joshua wanted his picture in front of the iceberg.

Isaac got to play his new favorite game again.

And since we were leaving the next day all the ice pops needed to be eaten too!

Joshua finished his Lego set and showed it to everyone.

"Leftover meal": we had tons of leftovers and they were delicious.  Katy baked some more tortillas and they were delicious too...they start uncooked and you cook them on your stove.  A bit more work, but totally worth it.  (Side note: they've been out of stock at the grocery store every week since then.  I got them once when I asked a worker for help.)

While we were getting dinner set up the kids played some sort of ring-around-the table game.  It looked totally dangerous, and so instead of stopping it we just took pictures.  No one got hurt, so everyone was happy.

We had also gotten stuff for s'mores, but it was too hot out and we kept pushing it back.  They finally were done in the oven.

Marshall loved the Press Start books...and who can blame him?

After the kids were in bed we finished up the night with some Dominion.  Isaac saw that we were going to play on his way to bed and looked a bit betrayed.

I'm being a queen in this picture, not an elk.  The kids were sure that the elk was alive and would sometimes move.

Saturday: made it

This morning Isaac was laughing hystarically because Tornado had stuck his head in the lazy susan, kind of like below.  (It was recreated after it happened.)  He wanted a picture, but I said no.

So Joshua says, "I'll get it for you Isaac!" and runs over to the lazy susan.  I though he was going to somehow get the cat back over there using cat treats.  No.  He stuck his head in like the cat did, because obviously that's what Isaac wanted to see.

The rest of the day...was just ok.  We cleaned the basement, but it was a lot of "come on, keep going" even though we took a lot of breaks.  I'm not sure the breaks helped enough and next time maybe we'll just do it all in one shot.  The basement is lovely and clean now, at least for a little bit.

Friday: reward

Isaac earned a reward earlier this summer and he chose mini-golfing and Captain Sundae.  He's been very patient in waiting for it.

It ended up being a beautiful day for it, but that hasn't really been very difficult this summer.  The boys wanted a zillion pictures taken during mini-golf; here are some of the best.  (Joshua really did want his picture taken, even if he doesn't have an excited smile.  He was often the one suggesting it.)

We didn't keep score, as normal.  It was controlled chaos.  I was thinking it was more like mini-wrangling (in which the boys wrangled a ball into a hole) rather than golf.  That being said, I got a hole in one and they each got a hole in two.

By the end Joshua had worked out this tactic to wrangle the ball in the hole.

Then ice cream!  Joshua has gotten into the slightly annoying habit of letting Isaac decide what [Isaac] wants and then just copying him.  While this can be nice upon occasion, sometimes I wish he would choose what he wants.  Needless to say, they both ended up with Minion ice cream because that's what Isaac chose.

Thursday: kids

Let's see, today we went blueberry picking.  The kids weren't very excited about it, but went along with it anyway.  It rained last night and it was on the cold side and all the berries were wet.  At home I tried drying them by putting them on a cookie sheet.  But I had to cover with a towel because of fruit flies.  But then the cats stepped on the blueberries.  Not much, but still smushed some blueberries.

Isaac took Dad and Pat and Joshua out to IHop for lunch with a gift card he got last Christmas.  We talked about how to grab the bill before Grandpa, how to tip, etc.  He had a great time and would be happy to do it again, but said he would need another gift card.

Joshua finished his Lego set.  He worked on it so hard yesterday and today and was so excited about it.  He told me (and told Ben to tell me) that I couldn't take it apart before it was done.  As he was building it, he also told me I could play with the pieces but not the stickers and if he needed a piece he'd take it.

Wednesday: easy day

Today was a pretty easy day.  We played one of Joshua's new birthday games.  The boys played with Legos.  I got several things crossed off of my to-do list.

We stopped by the nearby park before swimming lessons.  It was a beautiful day for it.  Actually, all of August has been beautiful so far.  Sometimes a tad hot in the afternoons, but the mornings have been good.

Horizon also found a new perch.  Hmm...maybe it's time to clean off the fridge a bit.