Monday: assorted pictures

Horizon

Grey Bear

Tornado in a laundry basket

Brothers horsing around

Being trapped in my bedroom.

Being trapped in my bedroom with a different trap.

Twins.  Can you tell them apart?

A secret project.  (They showed me when it was done.)

Sunday: Happy Birthday

Joshua turned five years old today!  He was so excited but his party isn't for a few weeks and that was a bit hard for him.

We made blueberry pizza.

We put candles in it because it was the sweet thing we had in the house.

My brother did send a present, so he was able to open one present.  He also got to open up a card...that he couldn't find at 6:45 this morning.

The golden dragon got made and then played with quite a bit today.

Saturday: bo staff

This morning Isaac and I took a bo staff class with a 'famous' bo staff person, Jackson Rudolph.    We learned some basics.  I had a fun time.  Isaac had a medium time, but it's good to try new things.

Here I am having dropped my staff.  You can see Isaac's hands in the foreground.

Bo staff!

Intro class.

Vacation Tuesday: Men escape, kids escape

We had brought some Lego set for Isaac and Joshua to do when they woke up (or during nap time).  Our kids often get up on the early side, plus we had the time change.  They got up early the first several days but by the end I was waking them up.

 

Doug made a delicious french toast for breakfast.  (Side note: several people took pictures of him at various times.  They all look the same except for the bread.)

The wiki sticks were still being played with quite a bit.  Here is Isaac's rainbow.

The guys were getting ready to go to the escape room.  In the meantime, Ben couldn't find Isaac.  It ended up being a great game of follow the leader/look for Isaac!

Happily, the guys escaped too and were able to come home to us after lunch.

While they were gone we went to the pool for a bit.  Sadly, the splash pad wasn't turned on this time.

We came home a bit earlier than everyone else.  I gave the boys some yogurt smoothies and they happened to have Spiderman characters on them.  For the next half hour their drinks talked to each other.

To reach the pool you had to go up a mountain and then down a mountain.  This is the down on the way back.  We learned on the first day that all but one of the houses are rentals.

This is our house.  Behind the big bush is the bridge that you needed to use to cross over the rocks that have been shown in other pictures.

Laura and I decided that the older boys would love going to an escape room, especially since eight and under are free.  We took their siblings with us just for the experience more than thinking they'd really love it.  (However, Joshua has told me that he wants to go again.)

The one we chose was a good one for the kids.  There were a whole bunch of locks and keys, so they all got to take turns doing those.  There were also four buttons for to open the fireplace wall, so that was exciting.

As expected, Isaac did love it and has subsequently received a gift certificate to go to one in Holland.

More rock coloring.  I think here they are doing some "we're glad you're home" or so for the child that needed a "quick" trip to urgent care.

I can't remember what was going on, but Ben was cracking Violet up!

We had another yummy pie.

Several games were played throughout the day again, but this one might have been the only one that was only with kids.  Joshua was teaching Greta how to play Sleeping Queens.  He did a good job, and they managed to play through a whole game.  (I had thrown our card holders in at the last minute and it was a great decision!!)

This is the awkward couch.  Three unrelated people managed to sit on it and so had to "try hard" not to touch each other.

Friday: kids talk

There's been some interesting stuff said over the week...

Amanda: what do you want to do when you're an adult?
Joshua: go to Crazy Bounce with kids
Isaac: Buy a Switch and decide how much screen time to give my kids.

***********

Isaac: well, my mouse is in fight club.
Amanda: do you talk about fight club?
Isaac: no

************
Roommate Amy saw us on the street having a treat and stopped to say hi.  Then she continued doing her errands...

Pat: I can't remember, did you live together in college?
Amanda: yeah, for three years
Isaac: and then you got divorced?
Amanda: haha.  No, we weren't married.  We were friends living in the same room.

Thursday: blueberries, sawing, cat box

This morning we went to pick blueberries.  Aunt C joined us at the last minute!  Joshua had his own bucket this year and did a good job getting blue ones.

We came back home and talked landscaping for a while.  There is a bush-tree in the front and it's dying quickly.  We started sawing it down.

We also get a cat box this evening.  This way the cats can be outside when they want to.  Both cats fit in the box, but they need to be friendly.

The boys had a lot of fun playing with the boxes and packing.