Catching Up - Again

Ok, sorry folks.  Blogging is the last thing I've wanted to do lately, but hopefully I'm back this time.  We'll see ;)  We've been busy around here, so this is a long one.  Chloe had lots of fun end-of-year stuff going on.  She had a project due on sea animals.  She's always been interested, but going to Sea World made her decide that she definitely wants to be a "sea animal doctor" when she grows up.  So this project was pure joy for her.  She's been teaching me tidbits about the animals they learned about ever since.  It's so fun to learn things (besides patience ;) from my 6 year old.  Which, btw, she suddenly got like 2 years older in the face over night.  How does that happen?  Anyway, her school had so many fun things to do at the end of the year.  They had a dance day, where they got to spend an hour in the gym dancing.  They also had the traditional field day.  I told Everett he may or may not get to participate.  We got there and he was sad b/c he couldn't... at least, I didn't know how to include him w/o being rude or presumptuous.  But Chloe eventually fixed that for me.  She was playing this hockey game and went over to ask her teacher if she could give her turn to Everett.  It melted my heart.

 Then she grabbed his hand to run off to the next game, and for the next few, made sure he was in line with her and getting a turn.  Everett opened up and became his crazy self, one of the class.  I could not have been more proud of her.

 A week or two later, they had water day.  It was pretty much the same thing, but with water.  They had relays and games.  This time, Everett was totally just one of the class.  There were lots of little siblings doing the same thing that day.  So I didn't feel so reluctant to just let him join in.  Except he got kinda bold toward the end.  He was up with the teachers (out of line?! She's pretty strict.) saying, "I dunno, it looks to me like their team won..."

They also had the fire department there with their hoses.  They brought a "slip-n-slide." It didn't work too well, but it was a nice idea. And Everett liked it.

 They also brought a pool.  Which, I think, was the kids' favorite part.

Around home the kids have been having fun wrestling daddy...

 and playing this new game he made up where he gets Curly to jump on them.

Oh, and getting tomatoes from our garden.  We've got several other plants that are finally doing well, but with no yield.  And the dang neighbor's squirrels keep taking any strawberries we get... though the one we have managed to snag wasn't good... at least we're getting awesome tomatoes.

 Anyway, so here's me at 26 weeks... two weeks ago.  We're doing a photo shoot next month where you might get to see my face ;)  I've been working hard on baby's room.  I'll blog about it probably on my other blog when it's done.  I've had the bones of this room in my head for two years, so I hope I don't get sick of it before it's even done.  But still, I'm enjoying it.  It's fun to see what once was a heap of dust and toys become something fun to look at and inviting.  It's really slow going though; I can't even keep up with my regular chores.

Two weekends ago, we went to Myrtle Beach.  Chad decided to try the optometric conference there.  It was an extremely stressful and difficult trip for me.  The hotel was pretty crappy; the beds were terrible.  I mean, I don't sleep well at home, but I hardly slept at all those three days.  Combine that with the fact that I'm a lunatic when I'm pregnant, and on a trip more-or-less without hubby... it wasn't pretty.  But we still did some really fun stuff and look forward to doing it again... not. pregnant.

I didn't think I could handle a theme park or water park.  Plus, I'm kinda over theme parks after Disney (btw, sorry.  I don't think I'll ever finish posting about that trip.)  So I decided to try the children's museum.  We got so spoiled in Indiana.  They had a great one in town and a world renowned one in Indianapolis.  Our home town here has a pretty crappy one.  So I figured we'd check it out.  If nothing else, it was air conditioned.  I read reviews which said don't judge it by it's cover; the kids love it.  So we get there, to this deserted store front and I see a few things to do and a front desk.  I'm going "I'm paying $21 for what now?"  It was a little run down but the further in we got, the funner it got.  And, it was not too hard to keep track of my kids.  So I got to sit a lot and laugh at them having fun.  Here are a few of the best activities.

I actually got up and played hockey a bit with Everett.

 I thought this guy was pretty funny.  The kids just started yanking out organs then Everett climbed right inside.

 And I got an idea to add some pizazz to baby's room.  We'll see how that goes.

 And being inside a bubble, always awesome.

 I let the kids decide when we were done.  We stayed from about 9:30 to about 2:00... maybe close to 3:00.  Something like that.  They just kept finding things that were more fun than lunch.  So they finally decided it was time for lunch but then got stuck in the entryway.  What looked like a couple of lame things was actually really cool.  There was a telephone booth on either side, connected by these tubes.  The kids spent forever singing church songs and yelling at each other.

 After that, we got a little lunch and went to the beach for just a bit before finding some dinner.

The next day we spent at the beach.  It was a bit too cold to be in the water, but the kids didn't care.  It was relaxing for me. We cut out early to get ready for dinner at Medieval Times.  SO FUN!  This was the opening scene.  I'm not a horse person, but it really was quite beautiful.

 Ours was the yellow knight.  Every now and then they throw flowers into the crowd.  And Chloe got a flower from him.  She was so excited.

 Everett LOVED his "dragon blood soup."  It really was good soup.  Made me want to know what to do with a can of tomato soup.  Yesterday, I bought some for a casserole and Everett said, "ooh! Dragon blood soup!  I love dragon blood soup!"  So he ate that and the bread, definitely the best two parts of the meal.

 And he decided that he wanted to be a "horse fighter" when he grows up.

I dunno where it came from, but he's suddenly very masculine.  Obviously he is a boy, but I mean, suddenly, he's crazy.  There's nothing mellow about him anymore, and he gets Chloe going too.  He has crazy amounts of energy specifically for punching, wrestling, stabbing, etc.  Every day when daddy gets home both kids beg to get beat up, Chloe with tickles, Everett with wrestling... anyway, that's what's been happening in our neck of the woods.