Swimming

Monday morning, we took Blake to school for his kindergarten testing. We are going to be gone next week while the big launch day is...you find out who your teacher is and get to meet your teacher, and  then get a whole bunch of paperwork. While Blake was testing, I went to the office to give them some more paperwork and  then tried to get as much stuff as I could that they will hand out during the launch. Not everything was ready, so I lined up my friend to come pick up the packets, etc for us the day of the launch. It has been a long time since I was in elementary school, I know, but they are WAY more into security at schools now. It is great and sad at the same time. Oh, we also met the principal. There are usually 4 kinder classes, but this year there are so many kids that there will be 6. When the testing was done, I let the kids play on the playground for a little while. 

After we ate lunch, we had some friends over. Cole and Owen's mom had her baby right before I left for London. She doesn't like asking people  for help, but I didn't let her say no to me again. Good thing we are friends huh? Anyway, we had a blast.

Here is Owen (he is Blake's age). Apparently we only have friends with blonde hair.

The kids left and then we ate dinner. Then we went over to our friend, Colton's house to play. Well, their mom wanted to chat with me and our kids get along well, so we hung out. At Colton's Blake started looking super tired. We went home and went right to bed.

The next morning Blake woke up and was throwing up. No worries...this kid throws up easy. He always has. But then he had a fever, wouldn't eat anything, had a sore throat and had no energy. So, we had to cancel our trip to the library for the last summer program show and we had to cancel our friends coming over to swim. It was our last chance to have Cohen over and we had invited some new friends who just moved into our ward over to swim too. The problem was we had library books that were due and I needed to get DVDs from the library for our trip. Blake wouldn't/couldn't walk, so in the stroller he went at the library. I kept trying to get him to eat something and all he wanted to eat was my homemade bread. Problem was it was all gone. He doesn't really eat store bought bread anyway anymore (which is good and bad). I needed to make it anyway and we weren't going anywhere else, so I made bread. He ate a lot of bread at 3. By 4 he was back to fighting with his brother...back to normal. Then he ate a huge dinner. During the day I kept thinking about how our road trip Nauvoo in a couple days is going to really suck if my kids were sick.

Shopping

Last weekend was our state's tax free weekend. School supplies and clothing are tax free. So that is basically an 8% discount. Nice. Then back to school sales can be pretty fabulous already, so we went shopping. We found some fantastic deals, but my boys are boys and do not like shopping unless it is for groceries or toys. Near the end of the shopping trip and other errands, Blake said, "Mom, I need some food so I have more energy for all this shopping!" I agreed, so we went to In 'n Out.

Kyler's Birthday Party

Last Friday we went to the Treehouse Park for our friend Kyler's birthday. Cohen was there too and this was my attempt of a picture of the buddies.

Dylan had fun too, but it was so hot. We went home and had lunch, then went swimming and made a trip to Costco.

Super Heroes

Monday afternoon, the boys were so excited to get a  package in the mail.

They were super excited to see that there were several costumes. When my folks were out here watching the kids when I went to London, they discovered how much the boys love to dress up. My mom found some great things! Grandma found blue for Blake, his favorite color and red for Dylan,which is his favorite color.

My mom made this dinosaur costume for my brother many years ago.

Astronaut Blake

Dylan wanted to help me make pizza. He said, "I am a super hero, I can do anything!" 

Thank you Grandma and Grandpa! They love the costumes!

Zooniversity

Yesterday morning we went to the library for the library program. The show this time was called Zooniversity, where the zoo comes to you. There were 6 animals that we got to see that have adapted significantly to their surroundings. The lady did a great job and had lots of interesting information. We met up with our friends, Cohen and Issac there and sat with them this time which probably wasn't the best idea for Dylan. Blake was totally interested in the show, but Dylan just wanted to play with his friends. This meant very few pictures and zero good pictures.

The first thing that she brought out were walking sticks, or sticks bugs as well call them in Texas. Interesting fact: each time they have babies..they have 100 that are identical to their mom. The lady said, "Can you imagine having 100 clones of yourself? Guess how much can actually get done!"

The next thing that we saw, which I did get a picture above, is a bullfrog. It is huge! It is the size of a salad plate and when full grown, it will be the size of a dinner plate. Interesting fact: they don't have roofs on their mouths so they actually close their eyes, which helps push their food down their throat. 

Next was a kinkajou. They are related to raccoons, but much cuter. Paris Hilton thought they would be fun to have as a pet. Well, they are not meant to be pets and bit her.  

Above is the Australian Woylie, or the brush-tailed rat kangaroo.  They are critically endangered because foxes have come over from other parts of the world and eat them. They now have only survived on 3 islands in Australia because foxes can't swim. They can hop 20 mph. When they are born, they are the size of a grain of rice, then they find their way to their mom's pouch where they are for about 3 months until a new litter comes along and are kicked out for them. Can you imagine having a new baby every 3-4 months? 

We also saw an armadillo from Paraguay. It was a 3 banded armadillo and she liked to point out that since we like to do things bigger and better, we have 9 banded armadillos. But this armadillo is the only type of the 20 armadillos species that can completely roll up into a ball. It was cool.

The last thing we saw was a Sahara desert fox. My kids were wondering what the fox would say...they just can't forget that song. Anyway, when she was getting the fox out she said that she will squeal not because she is hurting her, but because she is spoiled. Sure enough she squealed. It wasn't nearly as loud as a pig's squeal, but it is the close enough. Anyway, these animals can dig through anything. They can dig through dirt the depth of a 2 story building in an hour. So they bury themselves during the day in the hot desert and sleep and then in the night, they come out and hunt for food. They have fur on the bottom of their paws...not pads like dogs or cats, to protect their paws in the heat. Apparently someone in Texas brought one in to the state illegally (you can't have these as pets either) and called her after having the fox for 3 days because well, it was digging right through their hardwood floors.  

This group also has Teddy Bear the talking porcupine. I guess he has been on many tv shows because he sounds like he is talking. She suggested we look him up on You Tube.

Picnic

This morning I mowed the lawn and did some other yard work. When they were done "helping" me, they went inside. The next thing I knew, they came out with all the things they wanted for a picnic. Apparently they were hungry. While they were eating, Blake said, "This is the best picnic ever!"

Dylan had a rough day today. He was not happy. I even held him the entire time we were in the pool. That is weird because he loves to swim. So,I decided that we should watch a movie in our movie theater so that I could give my back a break. We had lots of fun.

Good Morning

A couple days ago Blake saw a project in a church magazine (called the Friend) that he thought looked like fun. So I told him that we would do it for our family night. 90% of the time we do FHE on Sunday because of work schedules, etc. So this morning (Sunday) Blake comes in my room after waking up with all the supplies he thought we needed to do this project. He didn't want to wait until later on in the day and didn't want to do it in the playroom either. Nothing better then doing FHE at 6:30 in the morning huh?

We ate dinner outside today because the kids love to eat outside and there was a nice enough breeze that made it pleasant. After they were done eating, they decided to play with some swim toys and be silly.

What a fake sad face.

Nothing to do with this picture, but Blake is really excited about school. Remember the picture about his backpack the other day? Well, yesterday we were in our front yard riding bikes, etc and Blake had his backpack on. Our neighbor was out and was laughing...he has 3 girls...oldest will be a senior in high school and youngest will be in 4th grade. He thought it was fun to see someone excited about school because his girls are not. We will see how long this excitement lasts for.

Home Depot Project

Saturday we went to Home Depot for the monthly project, which was a pencil holder. While it is meant for pencils, we did see the example they had completed at Home Depot also was holding suckers, which the kids noticed.

Dallas Zoo

The kids completed the summer reading program so they earned some free books and some coupons for some free tickets to some local attractions. They used the free ice cream and hamburger with Grandma and Grandpa. Today we used the free admission into Dallas Zoo. It has been raining the last 2 days...like a lot of rain, which is great because we need it, but it makes things harder. Today it was misty, but we decided to go to the zoo anyway and it ended up being perfect. I think the high was 78, which is pretty awesome for Dallas summer. We did go with our friends Cohen and Isaac because well, it is always more fun with friends right?

The Koi pond was one of Dylan's favorites.

Remember...my camera is gone, so we get to appreciate my phone camera. Here are some kangaroos.

This is an albino alligator. They are extremely rare and don't last long in the wild because they don't blend in to nature. I had never seen one before, so it was pretty cool.

This python was huge and Blake was totally intrigued.

Um...best I could do.

One of the gorillas.

Another gorilla.

The elephants. Dylan was super excited to see the elephants.

Giraffes, impalas and zebras.

Dylan got his 3rd 2 year old molar in the day I left for London and his 4th poked through yesterday so hasn't been super happy and has been waking up early because of it (yeah teething!). After the giraffes he was done and so were the others, so we headed home. We were pretty much done seeing everything anyway. The weather was perfect for us!

Right now Aaron is on a flight from London to China. There was some talk about China closing down their borders because of Ebola, but apparently it was just talk. I just hope they don't close things down when he is trying to get out in a couple weeks.

Welcome Home

Monday morning, Aaron and I woke up at 5am and left the hotel. I took off for the airport and Aaron went to the train station to head back to work in Leicester. I got home at 1:50pm and for through customs super fast and had the gang waiting outside to pick me up. We got home and I showed the boys the 2 gifts that we got for them. They loved the british policeman hat. We them took Grandma and Grandpa to the airport Tuesday morning. It was a super fun trip. The boys had fun with Grandma and Grandpa. I am not sure how long it took Grandma and Grandpa to recover from their fun with the boys :) Aaron and I sure had fun in London. It is always nice to get away. Thanks to Grandma and Grandpa for watching the kids.

It was fun to see the kiddos again too. How can you not love this face?

School is going to be starting soon, so we went and found a new backpack for Blake. He is excited to start school.