The Pity Potty

This picture means.... that sometimes Crew uses creative trickery to get out of finishing his meals. Like yelling, "poo-poo pottay!" and racing to the bathroom just to sit on his Bob the Builder potty seat and have his picture taken.

Don't get too excited. We'll be in diapers for a while yet.

Student of the Month

Kinley was chosen to be Student of the Month at her elementary school this year!

Third Grade Program

We attended Kinley's third grade program at the school. Daddy surprised us by ditching work early to make it in time to see the princess perform! I can't believe I have a fourth grader now. A fourth grader.

Kaleidescope Day

At the end of the year, our kindergarteners spend a morning showing their parents all of the things that they have learned throughout the year.  Kaleidescope Day was held just before our big east coast escape.  I was so burnt out from preparing for our vacation and had not yet fully slept off my Women's Conference exhaustion from the weekend before.  It was all I could do to not curl up in a little ball in the corner and take a nap.  I can only pray that my favorite kindergartener didn't notice how forced my enthusiasm was that morning.  I. was. so. tired. I am pretty sure my smiles were grimaces.

Funny boys. Their smiles were real!

Making the rounds...

Kaleidescope Day... CHECK.

Spring Choir Concert

Kinley really loved participating in choir this year.  The choir shrank in half for the spring semester, but Kinley chose to stick it out the whole year.

They sang some hilarious songs, my favorite being "Duct Tape" and one about pizza.

I attended the daytime concert and Justin attended the evening concert.  That means that I had the peanut gallery in tow...

"When I grow up, I want to be a poet."

Crew started being a real distraction at the concert towards the end.  I thought I was pretty brilliant to send the boys into the hallway for Crew to walk around.  I didn't anticipate that Little Critter would come back into the auditorium and make a beeline to Kinley on the front row as soon as he was within hobbling distance.  Imagine a dead silence being interrupted by an enthusiastic, "Kiki!  Kiki!  Kiki!"  We left (in mortification).  Fortunately, we had heard all of the songs.

So proud of our little songbird!

Astrofest and Solar Eclipse

When we learned that the solar eclipse would be passing almost directly over us, I was anxious to get my hands on some special solar glasses!  I was really late to the game, so they were sold out all over town.  A friend alerted me that BYU was giving away solar glasses on campus the day before the eclipse to their Astrofest attendees.  Shrug.  Ok!  

It had been a while since we had visited our alma mater.  It was a welcome pilgrimage.  

Our first item of business and number one priority was to wait 45 minutes in line to get our hands on those glasses!!  Having accomplished that, we were able to relax and enjoy the other activities.  Crew started tantruming inside the busy science center, so we made our way to the great outdoors where he could walk around unfettered...

And the big kids could burn off some energy on the bounce houses.

We ate lunch at the Cougareat and let Crew play the piano we found in the hallway.

Then we split up for the afternoon.  I drove Crew home for a nap while Justin took Kinley and Tanner to a BYU baseball game.  Welcome, summer!

The next night was the Solar Eclipse.  It was 90% big-fat-overcast-disappointment and 10% completely amazing!  In the two hours that the eclipse was passing overhead, the clouds parted for less than 10 minutes of that time.  But we were standing by, ready to take advantage of every single one of those precious moments!  It was so cool!

 I slipped the glasses over my camera lens to capture this photo.  This is unretouched, straight out of the camera.  This is what we saw with our glasses at just about the peak of the eclipse in our area.

I never knew that eclipses could be so awesome!

Hogwarts and The Yellow Book

I have used the book Teach Your Child to Read in 100 Easy Lessons to teach both of my children how to read.  It's an amazing program (so easy, so cheap, and so effective).  By the time they finish the book, they are reading on a second grade level.  When Tanner finished his "Yellow Book" in triumphant glory a while ago, he chose for his grand reward the small Lego Hogwarts Castle and The Knight Bus!

It took him many afternoons and some help from big sister (and fellow Harry Potter enthusiast) Kinley, but he can now put these Lego sets together all by himself!  Best of all and most importantly, he's an awesome and confident reader.  I am so proud of our big guy for this worthy accomplishment!

I believe that when children are confident readers, it changes their whole academic experience for life.  I cannot recommend this book/program highly enough.  Read my original review if you are at all interested in a cheap, easy, effective, and fun way to give your child a leg up.

Corny Friends

Laundry Boy

We all have our responsibilities...

From Toes to Bows

Tanner recently learned to tie shoes.  Not his shoes, of course, because he only owns flip-flops and velcro sneakers.  Nevertheless, he is putting his new skills to use in all kinds of helpful ways.

Swim Lessons 2012

Last year we took swim lessons from a private swim teacher in South Jordan.  Several friends asked for a referral and loved her as much as we did.  So, if you need an excellent swim teacher for your child(ren), I can give you her contact information.

• She teaches out of her backyard heated pool.  
• She has 18 years of swim-teaching experience
• She charges $20 per half hour of her time and it doesn't matter how many children she is teaching (up to 6).  Kinley and Tanner take their lessons together.

For a review of our 2011 success:

Week 1

Week 2

Week 3

Can't wait for our lessons to start this week!

Update:  our swim teacher is full for the summer!

Unpacking

Welcome home, Little Critter. Welcome home.

Odds and END

You're ready to poke your eyes out with sticks, right?  Well, THIS is the LAST vacation post!

Couldn't resist a picture of the IRS building for my favorite accountant.

We took a ricketty glass elevator up to the top of the old Post Office for a drizzly/perfect view of the skyline.

Our stay in Washington DC was really fun.  We felt right at home in the bigger city, having both lived in Riga, Latvia for a time.  The diesel fumes sure brought back some happy memories.  I was familiar with using the Metro from trips to St. Petersburg and Moscow when I lived in Russia, but it was Justin's first time using underground transportation; we are fans.

We ate at McDonald's three times in four days.  Once upon a time that would have fulfilled my wildest fantasies, but at this time in my life, I am so over the golden arches.  I just kept replaying scenes in my head from "Supersize Me" while I dabbed the grease off my lips.  We also dined at Quiznos, vowing afterwards to never fall for their delicious-looking false advertising ever again.  Thumbs DOWN.  We really missed the cuisine that we enjoyed in Williamsburg.

Our only other real complaint was our next door neighbor at the hotel.  WOW, she was loud.  Her talking voice was louder than my shouting voice.  Twice we left the television on at night when we were attempting to fall asleep just to try to drown her out.  Egads, I can still hear her southern drawl ringing in my ears...

The weather seemed to plan itself perfectly to accommodate our schedule:  It was hot or rainy when we were inside museums;  It was overcast and cool when we were touring outdoors.  Our hotel didn't have any bugs (you know I inspected... thoroughly).  Flying to and from the east coast, the people in front of us and behind us were chosen for the random TSA frisking and we were left unmolested.  Our kids reportedly behaved themselves very very (astonishingly) well the whole time we were gone; even Crew was a perfect little low-maintenance angel-cakes.  (No, really, he was!  I can't get them to say otherwise and I've tried!)

It was pretty much a perfect vacation.  It was great to get away and just be together as a couple, doing all sorts of things that our kids would hate, like eating seafood and walk-walk-walking all over creation.  I'm so grateful that we had this fantastic opportunity.

This is my last post about our trip to the east coast.  For realsies!

National Museum of American History

I cannot tell a lie: by the time we rode our tourist tornado through the doors of the American History museum on our last day of vacation, we were a little zombie-fied.  Our feet were tired, our eyes were tired, our brains were tired.  We pressed forward by strength of will and a determination to see these shoes.

But since we were there....

We figured we should take a look around at other nifty exhibits... 

And that's the end of the American History museum.

Smithsonian Natural History Museum

We kept up a pretty grueling pace on our vacation.  Loved it.  Onward to the next museum!

We started our tour of the Natural History Museum with the prehistoric displays.  Our kids really dig dinosaurs.  Get it?  "Dig?"  (I took the photo of the dinosaurs fighting over a bloody carcass for Tanner's benefit.)

 That is some serious headgear...

"Sea creatures, saber-toothed tigers, and giant sloths, oh my!!"

Yikes.  Just... yikes.

Off to the oceans exhibit!  Meet Phoenix, the 45-foot model of a North Atlantic Right Whale.

 There are some regions of our planet that give me the heebie jeebies.

Our children admonished us to keep our eyes peeled for Dexter the Capuchin Monkey from "Night at the Museum".  We failed them in that regard, but did locate this guy.

We saw a real live dead mummy!  We also spent some time touring a fascinating exhibit that was the equivalent of CSI: Colonial Period.

Ever heard of Titanboa, Monster Snake?  Watch that video.  

Aw, my favorite wild animals:  lions, tigers, giraffes, and Justy.

Shhhhh.... let's not talk about the elephant in the room.

I may not be a connoisseur of abstract art, but I know breathtaking wildlife photography when I see it.

They say that "diamonds are a girl's best friend."  That may be true, but after seeing this geological display of Earth's loveliness, I pondered the benefits of having lots (and lots) of lesser friends as well!  

The heavily guarded Hope Diamond.

And thus concludes our adventures at the Natural History museum.  For those true-blue friends and family members that are still visiting this blog out of duty, have made it this far, and are groaning inwardly that this is the vacation travelogue that never ends, I say: you're right.  But we are getting so close!  I promise  :)