End of the Year

This post is a little out of order, but this past Sat. my sister Megan and her husband JJ came to visit. We took them to Blue Lake Park on Sat. to have a picnic. This park is great. It's HUGE and has like 5 playgrounds, a lake, beach, kids water park and lots and lots of green grass and picnic tables. Seeing as how JJ is a kid himself, the kids had a great time dragging him everywhere. They had races down the slides, played frisbee and then Kaitlyn dragged him through the lake with her for like an hour. We didn't bring their swimsuites, because it was kind of cold and we didn't think they would get in, but kids are apparently impervious to cold. JJ finally had to drag Kaitlyn out when her lips were totally blue. (THere are no pics of Matt in the lake because you have to be 5 to get into the lake, and yes, we fudged on Kaitlyn's age just a little bit). They then built some sand castles and we headed home. It was great to see Meg and JJ, even if only for a couple of days!

Thanks to Grandpa Morris for these awesome new shirts. The kids love them!!!
Last Friday was Kaitlyn's last day of preschool. She was devastated. She LOVES Miss Carolyn and the only reason she stopped crying was when i told her she could still see Miss Carolyn sometimes in the hall at church. She had a great year. Her evaluation was good. Her teacher said she is very eager to learn, and knew the most Spanish words out of the 14 members at Miss Carolyn's school. The last video is one of the songs she did during her little end-of-year performance. And yes, that loud off-key voice you can hear is in fact Kaitlyn. You can thank her Dad for her complete lack of musical ability. I'm hoping piano lessons will help remedy that. Also, the cute little girl next to her, who is quite the little performer, is her best friend Annie.

Can't you tell how sad she is to be done with school in this picture? (really it's just her refusal to EVER smile for a picture)

Hair Cut

Cut Kaitlyn's hair on Friday. Mightnot look like it with the curls, but they cut off about 5 inches. She loves it.

Life Without T.V.

So last Friday, Matt and I were watching Finding Nemo, and there was a really loud crack, and then the picture went off on our wonderful 42 in. plasma t.v. We were quite distraught, none more so than Aaron, who was sure his beloved t.v. would last forever. We luckily had bought it from Costco back when they had their return anything, anytime policy. So we lugged the t.v. down to Costco, only to hear them tell us that we had to try and fix it first. So we waited all week for the t.v. repair guy to come, and when he finally did, of course he can fix it, but only after he orders a new part that could take at least another week to come. As ashamed as I am to admit this, being without t.v. was a frightening ordeal for me. To not be able to just turn on a cartoon for my kids when I needed a little break!?! Least you think me a bad mom, I really do moniter my kids t.v. watching and they get, at most, 2 hours a day, but still. . . the worst has been trying to get ready in the morning. I used to be able to turn on a curious george and Super Why, and get showered, breakfast dishes done, all kids dressed and hair done by 9:00 a.m, thus giving the illusion to my friends, that yes, I am super-mom. But alas, my only super power was the the power to turn on PBS. So this last week has been a struggle (joy?) trying to figure out creative things to do in place of t.v. I have discovered that my kids love to color, and said activity will keep them busy for at least 20 minutes, but if I would like an hour of peace, then I turn to playdough. Although the clean-up from the activity also takes an hour, my kids will usually leave me in peace for that long. The other problem with no t.v. is that when Aaron is gone to class and I finally get my kids to bed, I just sometimes want to veg a little. I have missed being able to watch t.v., but I have of course filled my time with reading. Last night was the worst, because I found myself without a book to read, and so I turned to my fall-back, Harry Potter :)

We've had some enjoyable activities in place of t.v. though. We invited some friends over to play on the slip-n-slide. It only took Matt 45 minutes to work of the nerve to WALK acrosss the slip-nslide, as you can see from the attached picture.

We also took a trip to the zoo with our friends. Most of the time our zoo experiences last about 1 hour, with Kaitlyn spending approx. 15 seconds at each animal's cage before she demands that we go see more. But this time we lasted 3 hours. It was overcast and cool, so the perfect day for the animals to be out. We got to see all of them, except the tigers, which I now suspect are stuffed and placed there to look like real ones, seeing as how I have never, in all my trips to the Portland Zoo, seen those tigers move.

And now a couple of funny stories about my funny little Matt. We were playing with his pirates the other day and he says : "Mommy, pirate go to the dungeon."

Mommy: "The dungeon? Where did you learn that word?" (as I wrack my brain trying to figure out what thing I let him watch that taught him that.)

Matt: "I learned it in nursery Mommy." Aww, the things they're teaching our kids in church these days.

Another one, although this one came from said nursery.

Bro. Luthi (Matt's teacher) "What are you building with the legos Matt?"

Matt: " A house"

Bro. Luthi: "What kind of house?"

Matt: "A macho house."

Bro. Luthi: "A Macho? House"

Matt: "Yep, a macho house." At this point Bro. Luthi was laughing too hard to continue the conversation with Matt, and per his asking, no, I have no idea where Matt learned that word either.

And last but not least our final picture will show what happens when you tell an almost 3-year-old to go get in the bath, without supervision.

Fun in the Sun

The last few days we have been having some wonderful weather. Beautiful, mid-70's. It's been great. The kids and I have tried to take advantage, but unfortunatly both kids have had pretty bad colds, and the sun really bothers their eyes. Luckily they are doing better and we've been getting out. This last Wed. we went to Bizi Farms for Kaitlyn's preschool class. They got to go on a tractor ride, and plant a strawberry and feed a bunch of goats. The best part was when I got mauled by a rabbit. That's right folks, a cute, cuddly bunny. I had gotten one out of its cage for the kids to pet. When they were done, being the good person that I am, I went to put the furry little thing back in its cage so it wouldn't get trampled on. But it did not want to go in. After a long struggle I finally dropped the rabbit to the ground (it was fine). I, however, was not. I had scratches all up my arms, and holes in my shirt (a shirt I really liked too). Can you catch any diseases from rabbit scratches??? Anyway, I also forgot to take my camera, so no pics of the farm.

Last Sat. we decided to get out and do something. So we called up our friends, and aksed if they wanted to go on a picnic. Gabe, being the avid outdoorsman that he is, suggested fishing. Despite the fact that none of my family has ever been, or has any fishing equiptment, we agreed. It turned out to be super fun. We went to Salmon Creek Park, and they have a man-made lake there that they stock with like 30,000 fish. There is also a park, and picnic tables. So we packed some lunch and went. The kids thought it was great. Kaitlyn's attention didn't last too long with the fishing, but Matt sat in his chair for like 3 hours, just waiting for a fish to bite. We didn't actually catch anything, but the kids had a great time. And the parent's took home some awesome sunburns. Why is it you always remember to slather up your kids, but forget yourself?

Not much else going on with us. Aaron started spring semester last week, and is really looking forward to his three-week break in August. We got Kaitlyn all registered for Kindergarten. They are doing a new kindergarten program here next year. So Kaitlyn will go to school on Monday and Thurday and every other Wed., but she will go all day on those days. I'm not sure how I feel about her going all day, but she's excited to ride the bus and eat lunch at school. She got to meet her teacher and take a tour of the school. All in all, we're just enjoying the sun!

Trip to Utah

Last week the kids and I took a trip to Utah. Aaron had to stay home (although from the amount of golf he played, I don't think he was too sad about it). We had a great time seeing all the family. Megan picked us up from the airport and we spent our first couple of days at her apartment. We played at the park, went to the duck pond, and toured BYU. It was fun to be back on campus and see all the new buildings. On friday we got to see Megan graduate with her B.S. in Social Science teaching. Hopefully she'll be able to find a job for next year. Sadly, I forgot my camera and didn't get any pics.

We then headed up to my mom's house for a couple of days. My dad was in town too, so we got to see everyone.

Our last couple days were spent at Aaron's parents house. Grandma Pat came into town the day after we got there, and it was great to see her. I also got to go to dinner with some great friends of my from high school that I haven't seen since we left Utah. It was so fun to see them :)

The last day we were there we went with Grandma Krimme and Grandma Pat to the Thanksgiving Point Dinasour Museum. It's a really cool museum. The kids had a blast, and since it is the only pics I took the whole trip, it's the only one you'll get to enjoy too. The kids favorite part was digging for the dinasour bones. The must have stayed in the that pit for at least 45 minutes. Maybe we have some budding paleontologists :)

Easter Extraveganza

We had a wonderful Easter. On Saturday we went to our ward brunch/easter egg hunt. The kids had a blast. Then Saturday night we colored Easter eggs. Kaitlyn's fingers are still dyed blue from the experience, and Matt wanted to dump his orange color in his bath so that he could be orange all over, just like Curious George. :) On Sunday they woke up and found their Easter baskets and did a little egg hunting. We then got all cleaned up for church, and spent a good half hour trying to get a good picture of the both of them. As you can see, if one smiled, the othe didn't. After a wonderful church meeting we went over to a friends house and had a delicious Easter dinner. Lots of fun for all, enjoy the pics!

Seattle Trip

Aaron's work was gracious enough to let him have 4 days off (actually forced him to have 4 days off is more like it, but oh well, at least he still has a job). So since his days off coincided with Kaitlyn' s spring break from pre-school, we decided to take a trip. Since we've never been to Seattle, we thought it would be fun to go visit. So we booked a hotel and went. We did some research and found a great hotel only 2 blocks from the Pacific Science Center and the Space Needle. We also found the cheapest way to go was the purchase a city pass. It got us into five wonderful Seattle attractions for more than 1/2 the cost if we had paid for them all seperatly. Our first day there was beautiful. We parked down by the pier, and went to the aquarium first. We weren't that impressed, but that could be due to the fact that it was coupon day and there had to be well over 1000 people there. It was crazy! The kids still liked the few exhibits they were able to get close to.

Our next stop was a wonderful harbor cruise tour. It was great. It was an hour long cruise ride around the bay. It was beautiful and probably the kids favorite thing we did. They even stayed outside on the deck of the boat when it started to rain (which meant that Aaron and I got to stay outside while it rained too).

After the cruise we checked into our hotel then walked to the Pacific Science Center. If any of you ever make it to Seattle I highly recommend this place. It was great. There were so many interesting things there, for adults and kids. They have an enclosed butterfly exhibit and butterflies landed everywhere. Of course everytime one landed on my kids, they quickly screamed and shook it off, so no pics. It was fun though. The only sad part was that we didn't realize it closed at 5:00 so we actually didn't get to spend as much time there as we wanted.

We then grabbed some dinner from the exquisite McDonalds (kids choice!). As part of our city pass to the science center we also got tickets to their IMAX theatre and they were showing Monsters vs Aliens in 3D. So we went back to the science center for the movie. I've never seen a 3D movie, neither has my kids, so I was a bit worried how they would like it, or if they would even keep the glasses on. My worries were unwarranted. I've never seen my kids sit so still for an hour and a half. They were enthralled. Even I must admit that it was pretty cool seeing a 3D movie on a 6 story screen.

Then it was finally time for bed. Having never slept in a hotel before, the kids were pretty wild and everybody only got about 6 hours of sleep. The next day we were going to hit the zoo first, but true to Northwest weather, it was snowing. So the zoo was out. The only left from our city pass was the Museum of Flight, which turned out to be really cool. We spent almost three hours there. The kids loved getting to sit in a bunch of big jets. We also got to tour the British Concord and see Air Force One. It was a great museum. Aaron and I would have loved to take a guided tour of it, but didn't think the kids could handle it on only 6 hours of sleep. Next time. . .

We then came home. It was a great trip.