Alpha Game Night and Bear Advancement

Last night was a fun night. After dinner we headed over to a school in our district that was hosting Alpha night. Alpha is what they call the GT (Gifted and Talented) program in our district. I strongly do not like the name, but whatever.

They had a bunch of well, games for the kids to do. They are STEM projects--building robots, building rockets, building circuitry, making items to put in the wind tube, etc. They boys had a lot of fun. Dylan's item almost hit the ceiling in the wind tube challenge.

It came about 2 inches one of the times.

Dylan...in lala-land, or his teacher calls it Dylan-land. Haha

Then we went over to church because Blake has earned his Bear, so I got to paint on his face. It was with water colors so it came off really easily....so my masterpiece is gone.

Blake earned his Bear rank....yippy! He didn't need to wear his scout uniform because they were playing volleyball afterwards. 

Blake will start the webelos program next week, which is a couple of months early, but we wanted to make sure he has time to earn webelos and AOL by Dec. 31.  Good work bud!!

Dylan Got the Golden Ticket

Wednesday after school, I was waiting for the boys to come to our spot, when one of Dylan's classmates comes up to me and tells me that Dylan got the golden ticket. Then about 2 minutes later Dylan and Blake arrive and Dylan tells me all about it. Each teacher can pick one person at some point throughout the year who is showing P.R.I.D.E. They are prepared, respectful, have integrity, determined and show effort. 

Dylan's teacher nominated him and he was so excited. He got a free hamburger and then gets to miss school to go play games with some of the other golden ticket kids with the principal. 

I was putting Dylan to bed that night and he was in his bed reading what his teacher wrote on the back. He then put it in his "Special" spot. So sweet. It made his day.

Happy 40th Birthday Aaron

Saturday Aaron turned 40. He didn't want a big party, which was good because a lot of our friends were out of town.

We woke up and had breakfast, then he opened his presents.

The boys got him the game Dos.

My parents got him some games too.

I got him a new winter coat. It is amazing.

Aaron's folks sent him some money.

Then we went to Dylan's basketball game. He had to guard this kid who was amazing. People joked that he was in middle school. It was good for Dylan  to guard him though.

He did make this basket.

The last period he was able to guard someone else, which he liked a lot more.

We went home, I made Aaron's birthday cake, we had lunch, and then we headed to Blake's basketball game.

Blake got a couple of rebounds and had some great passes. No baskets scored this time.

Then we went downtown and did a scavenger hunt for Aaron's birthday. It was freezing, but it was fun. There was a huge list of items you needed to find downtown and  then take a silly picture next to it. It lasted about 1 1/2 hours. It was supposed  to take 2 hours, but we were too cold to make it. We totally killed it though--I  think we ended up getting 3rd. Something new.

Then we stayed downtown and had dinner at Mellow Mushroom.

Then we came home and had a yummy lemon cake. It was a new recipe, but such a good one. 

Happy birthday Aaron!

Park Day

Last Monday the kids still didn't haven't school because it was a staff day and it was a gorgeous day, so we went to the park. We tried a new park and it was fantastic. We played for 2 hours.

This was nice....my car was sitting in the sun, so the real feel was 74 degrees. Loved it.

Enough Said

I love it!

Pictures of the Lake House

Thursday afternoon we went into town to see the movie "Mary Poppins", then we met up with some other friends, the Richard family at their restaurant. They have 6 in Texas, and are finally going to be opening one up in our city. So, we were able to finally eat at their restaurant and it was really yummy so we are even more excited for them to open one up close to us. 

The mom came back to the house with us, along with her 3 daughters...the dad came up 3 hours after we left on Friday. 

Here is the house. Pretty awesome huh?! It was a foreclosure and they got an awesome deal on it. They are so nice to let people come destroy, oh, I mean visit their lake house.

Picture of the back of the house. They just got the house right after Thanksgiving so they still have things they want to do, like a pathway down to the dock. In the spring they are going to bring their boat down from Idaho. We are going back when the weather gets warmer because it will be even more awesome when you can go out on the lake.

It is a pretty big lake.

Love the hammocks on the dock.

The game room.

The kitchen--their table hadn't come in yet, but such a pretty view.

Big kitchen (and big pantry).

View when you walk in the front door.

The room we slept in.

It is in a gated community. It is so quiet. It was fun to run around the neighborhood, but even more fun to go walk around the neighborhood when the sun was out so I could see all the fun houses. 

We had so much fun. Thanks for having us!