First Day of School

Last Monday was Dylan's first day of 1st grade. (His shirt is very 1st day of school appropriate right?)

It was Blake's first day of 4th grade.

If I was more on top of things I would measure them to see what their height is when they start the school year and when they finish the school year. Let me just tell you, these kids both grew a lot. We cleaned out their closets and they both had so many clothes that didn't fit them anymore. Dylan got Blake's old clothes and Blake, well, we are just waiting until winter to see what size he will be in then.

We rode bikes to school.

This is Mrs. Taylor. She is a super sweet teacher. She is also one of the best 1st grade teachers and as much as we wanted Mrs. Sias (because that is Blake's best friends' mom) we are happy with Mrs. Taylor. Dylan was extremely bummed that his 2 best friends, Jake and Max weren't in his class. This kid looks forward even more now to recess and his same group gets together and plays. He also has alpha once a  week with Jake.

Blake has Mr. Carroll for his homeroom and his switch class (reading and writing) is Mrs. LaPlante. Both are great teachers. I will say every day this week Blake has come home very happy and talking about Mr. Carroll. He loves Mr. Carroll. You can tell that guy loves to teach...and he is a little silly, which Blake used to with Aaron.

They came home from school on Monday loving their classes, and loving to see their friends again. They were both made though because it was a really hot week so they had to have indoor recess, so they didn't get to see their friends for recess. Hopefully they will be back to a normal recess schedule or there might be a revolt or something.

I started back to work on Monday, so I couldn't do the lunch my friends for the first day of school that we usually do. We have 2 weeks before preschool starts, so we are doing  training and getting the room ready. I really like my co-teacher. She is new this year and I was a little worried at first, but after being with her this past week I think we are a good duo. We have 8 boys in our class and 4 girls.

Thursday morning at 8:15 (15 minutes after the kids' school started) I got a call from the school nurse..Dylan had thrown up. What?!! So, he had to come home, but luckily Aaron was working from home that day AND Dylan was totally fine. He ate normal, played...we went swimming that night. He was craving milk (that doesn't happen if you have an upset belly). So I sent him to school the next day since it was 24 hours since he threw up and he was totally symptom free. Well, the school wasn't happy with me so they called me, but I told them that he was totally fine and we were following procedure, so he said and he was totally fine. I'm not sure what it was. He had been saying that he hadn't been getting enough to drink at school and it was super hot, so I'm sot sure if it finally caught up with him. He never had a temp or acted different. Who knows. But a great way to start off the school year--his teacher isn't happy with me and the front office isn't happy either. I get it, I don't want my kid at school when they are sick nor do I want sick kiddos at school, but well, I'm not sure what happened with Dylan.

This week Dylan had soccer practice with his old team. We love his team. His friend Truett didn't return though, which was a bummer. We also had to go to a meeting for Alpha. Like I said before, Dylan is really excited for Alpha because Jake is in the class too. They have it every Monday, so guess what day of the week is his new favorite. 

Friday I didn't work, since we are closed on Friday, so I did my shopping, did my ministering, had lunch with friends, made bread and worked on my lesson for church. I forgot how much I can get done when my kiddos are at school. 

Trip to Houston Day 6

Friday morning after Aaron left for work, we packed up, went to the gym, then packed up the van, then we went shopping. It was tax free weekend in Texas, which is my favorite time to shop. We went to Walmart, Target and Costco. At costco, we got some ice cream, then it was time for us to go pick up Aaron and drive home. It is a 4 hour drive. We stopped on our way for dinner because we were going to hit Dallas traffic and well, Mr. Hangry needed food and our snacks weren't cutting it for him. Guess what he got? A steak. Not sure if I mentioned this before, but I found TBone steaks on sale a couple months ago. Aaron loves steaks, but we never buy them because they are expensive. Well, it was a really good sale, so we gave it a go. They both loved it. Dylan said, "I really like this cow meat!" haha. When my dad took them camping he grilled some steaks and Dylan pounded it. What did I start?

There was a storm on the way home, but we made it home. Apparently it rained all week long while we were gone. It meant I didn't need to fill up the pool with water.

We had a fun trip to Houston! Now, we need to get ready for school to start because they start school on the 20th and I go back to work on the 20th.

Trip to Houston Day 5 Part 2

Here they are in Kidstropolis. Inside the restaurant.

In the grocery store.

Them voting.

Solving a crime.

Depositing their paychecks into their account.

Dylan was approving my loan.

Aaron went out with the class that night for dinner and bowling so we went to McDonald's. It made the boys so happy.

Trip to Houston Day 5

Thursday morning we walked with Aaron to the office and met the class. We also met the person who was in charge of food for their class and she happened to have snacks in her hand, so the boys picked out some snacks.

We walked back to the hotel and went to the gym. We did this a couple of mornings.

Then we headed back to the museum. My museum pass got us in for free. We also were able to get most of Karen's family in for free too. Score!

We did kidtropolis first and then went to the ropes course because it was their favorite thing.

Dylan didn't want to do it because he got a rope burn last time, but I told him to just bypass that section. He was on the course and he asked me if he should just do it, I told him I didn't care that it was up to him. So he responded, "Well, maybe I will do it and then just try to not get hurt." Great idea. And he did it...no problem.

I tried to take a couple pictures to give an idea of the course. It is small, but kind of the perfect size for these kids.

The kids were slightly obsessed with this. It is basically like jump rope that goes faster and faster.

They raced superman and batman.

And they did some more circuitry.

Trip to Houston Day 4 Part 2

We started our day on the tram tour to mission control because that's what all the reviews said to do and they were correct. We didn't wait.

This is the actual control room that was used for all the Apollo missions...even Apollo 11, which was the one when they landed on the moon. They are getting it ready for the golden anniversary. Can you believe it has almost been 50 years since we landed on the moon?

We went by the cemetery and memorial for astronauts. The memorial was on the other side, which President Bush said to put in. This was for the astronauts that died on Challenger and Columbia missions.

There is our tour guide, Bill, who is a retired NASA rocket scientist. He figured out what the best fuel would be for the rockets. We had some questions for him afterwards. He was is super smart and very entertaining...so we filled out a review on him and gave it to guest services because I feel people who do a really good job should get recognition since we tend (as a society) to only say anything when it is negative. When I turned it in, they asked if I wanted to speak to a manager. I told  them no, that it was a positive feedback review...she was shocked.

Inside the airplane that help Independence. You have to use the controls to get the shuttle to line up with the airplane.

Inside the shuttle

We watched a presentation on how astronauts live in space later on and the described a lot of things, but the one thing that was most interesting for the boys was how they go to the bathroom. They filter their pee and then  they drink it.

We found this to be very interesting.

We took the tram Astronaut training tour. We planned on doing the tours back to back, but my kid who gets hangry was very hangry so we had to eat lunch right after the first tour, so you know at 10:40 we ate lunch. Yep, that's how life goes sometimes.

They told us on the tram on our way that we needed to be quiet because this is a government owned building and there are employees hard at work. They will kick us out if we are too loud. Then I saw these employees hard at work. Ummmmm.

Orion is the next mission that they are working on. They also had Space X in there too.

This is the Robonaut that they are working on. They want to send them to Mars because they can take the elements better then humans, don't need food, etc. It can turn a sheet of paper without ripping it, so it is pretty good. The list goes on. 

On the tram I was talking to one of the other people because it sounded like he knew a lot about NASA. He was in the airline industry, but his buddy was an astronaut. Then we found out this other family next to us has a relative that lived about 1/2 mile from us back home. Small world? 

On our way back to the hotel it started to rain. People in Texas are one of the worst drivers in the rain. It blows my mind. Several will turn on their hazards and go super slow. We do get crazy rain where it is very hard to see, but still it is weird.