Summer vacation is upon us! The last day of school for the bigger kids was on May 23rd, and on May 24th we made plans to head to Legoland California (near San Diego). The countdown to Legoland seemed to commence the minute we made the plans (back in February or so)...you could totally tell that the kids were so excited!
Backing up a little, the end of the school year was filled with all sorts of things. Kaitlyn finished kindergarten, which totally doesn't seem possible! She's learned so much in the past year, and she's reading just as well as the boys sometimes. Kaitlyn had a new classmate start midyear as well, and it turns out that classmate and new friend lives right across the street from us. Isabella has come to play a few times and Kaitlyn (and Laurel, too), has been thrilled to have a playmate. It's going to be a hard first month of summer since Isabella is going to be at her grandparents for a month or so. Hopefully at least one of Kaitlyn's friends is in her first grade class with her (either Bella, Millie or Audrey are her little BFF's).
Laurel is starting preschool at Milenio in the fall, so she's done with daycare. She figured out the potty stuff in pretty short order when she decided one day that she didn't want diapers anymore. So, underpants it was! She's really the first of our kids to get really upset at the mention of diapers or pull-ups.
Jared finished 2nd grade and he gets so very attached to his teachers sometimes. He was sobbing and crying so hard on the last day of school.
And Daniel finished 5th grade and he's on to middle school!
Okay, onto Legoland. We booked 7 nights at the Legoland hotel, which is pretty awesome for us because it's right at the entrance to the park (yay!), and the room is perfect! We got the "adventure" themed room and it sleeps up to 7 people. Again...perfect! Friday was the first day here and everyone was pretty tired after the long drive. We didn't make it out of the house till almost noon, so we didn't get to the hotel until dinner time.
Saturday was the first full day...and we started off with our free breakfast buffet (yum!), and headed into the park a little early (another perk of staying at the hotel). First ride was "Coastersaurus" which was pretty mild. All of us could go on it, so we did! The park opened to the general public soon after, so the line got much longer right after we got off (no repeat rides that day!). We did a few more rides, including one of the splashdown boat rides...Kaitlyn did NOT like that, and made her dislike known for at least the next 45 minutes or so. We also "upgraded" our passes to annual ones so that instead of 2 days in the park, we could go in and out for the whole remainder of the week.
So far, we've stayed at the hotel and at the park...it's really a resort-y type experience...and kind of nice not to really go anywhere. Swimming pool...check. Rides...check. Lots of Lego...YES. One night Daniel even won a contest ("Most Creative") for building an animal out of Legos...he wanted to build a Mountain Bluebird...the state bird of Nevada, since that's what he had done a project on for school a few weeks earlier. It's been a little chillier than we anticipated (and even ended up buying sweatshirts!), but that's not totally unwelcome.
Anyway...hopefully I'll post pictures soon!
Wednesday, May 29, 2019
Thursday, January 24, 2019
2019 and Goals!
Every year, my blog posts decrease in frequency. Boo. It's 2019 already, can you believe that?
So, I can give a quick update on life, the universe and everything...
Daniel...turned 10 last year, double digits! He's in 5th grade, and doing pretty well, even though he's still catching up on a lot of things. Math is his best subject, and he just needs to keep practicing his reading. Next year is middle school, and I think he's looking forward to it!
Jared...turned 7 last year, and will be 8 in just under 2 months. He's in 2nd grade and he has the same 2nd grade teacher that Daniel had. He's still a bit rough around the edges in a few ways, but he's smart and funny, and still really a cuddly little guy. He's getting so good at reading and he has a great imagination that he shares with Daniel often.
Kaitlyn...turned 5 last August and started Kindergarten! She was beyond thrilled to go, and especially to ride the bus with the boys. She's doing amazingly well, and she's catching on so fast with reading, it's amazing! She got glasses last year (badly farsighted) and she's been doing a wonderful job wearing them all the time. She's into doing crafty things with Mommy and her sister, loves her dolls and loves playing with her sister, too.
Laurel...she'll be 3 in a few weeks! She's growing by leaps and bounds. She speaks clearly (and clearly speaks her mind). Working on potty training, and the plan is for her to go to preschool at Milenio in the fall. That'll make her the only kid to go to preschool there for two school years (vs one like the others). She loves playing with Kaitlyn, and she's catching up to Kaitlyn in size. They're like little twinsies, one blonde, one brunette. She does love the days that she stays at home with Mommy, though.
Now, me and Mike. Mike is still working at the same place, with changes in schedule and location, most notably. His company finished their new building, moved in, and quickly realized that they were already full, so they started another building. He was working at home, before, at least 2 or 3 days during the week, which went up to four, but is now down to ZERO. Goose egg! Nada! He's working a bit locationally closer (not Scottsdale) for the time being.
And me...I'm teaching at Phoenix College now! I had a full schedule (well, as full as an adjunct can have) and it was nice working consistently. Rio Salado was great (and still is, of course), but the consistency wasn't there. I'm teaching the first class that I've actually taken (BIO 181), which is a first, too! I'm still doing some work for Paradigm (10 hours a week or less, though), doing some random things, being a back-up QC'er and so on.
Last semester was a bit draining on Wednesday nights, since I thought it would be good to get classes out of the way on a Wednesday. So I had one, 3-hour lecture starting at 10am, then lab for 3 hours, then another lab for 3 hours. So classes weren't over until 8:30...hooray.
As I mentioned above, Mike's work schedule changed so he's in the office, which is a bit of a pain with childcare because that means that on Wednesday, the bigger 3 go to Kids Club now after school. Before, since he was at home on Wednesday, he'd get them from the bus and all was good. We shifted Laurel from 3 days at daycare back to 2, and it evened itself out, money wise.
Let's see...what else. Summer! Last summer was full of activity on some days. Right after school got out, we took a trip up to visit my parents in Washington, drove over through Idaho to Montana and back to Washington again. We did this in a rental motor home, which the kids had been pining away to do for some time. After we got back, swim lessons started. Daniel wanted to try diving lessons, so he had that as well for one session. Daniel and Jared were also in the "Cub Club" water safety group, and then regular swim lessons, so there were some days that were 3 sessions of swimming!
In the fall, the 3 bigger ones also did soccer after school...Daniel and Kaitlyn seemed to enjoy it the most, but Jared had a good time too.
And with that...Laurel is now climbing on me...some things take a while to change, right?
In any case, goals for the year include...writing more! I'll try to make it a goal to write something every night...doesn't have to be the same thing, but just SOMETHING.
Happy 2019!
So, I can give a quick update on life, the universe and everything...
Daniel...turned 10 last year, double digits! He's in 5th grade, and doing pretty well, even though he's still catching up on a lot of things. Math is his best subject, and he just needs to keep practicing his reading. Next year is middle school, and I think he's looking forward to it!
Jared...turned 7 last year, and will be 8 in just under 2 months. He's in 2nd grade and he has the same 2nd grade teacher that Daniel had. He's still a bit rough around the edges in a few ways, but he's smart and funny, and still really a cuddly little guy. He's getting so good at reading and he has a great imagination that he shares with Daniel often.
Kaitlyn...turned 5 last August and started Kindergarten! She was beyond thrilled to go, and especially to ride the bus with the boys. She's doing amazingly well, and she's catching on so fast with reading, it's amazing! She got glasses last year (badly farsighted) and she's been doing a wonderful job wearing them all the time. She's into doing crafty things with Mommy and her sister, loves her dolls and loves playing with her sister, too.
Laurel...she'll be 3 in a few weeks! She's growing by leaps and bounds. She speaks clearly (and clearly speaks her mind). Working on potty training, and the plan is for her to go to preschool at Milenio in the fall. That'll make her the only kid to go to preschool there for two school years (vs one like the others). She loves playing with Kaitlyn, and she's catching up to Kaitlyn in size. They're like little twinsies, one blonde, one brunette. She does love the days that she stays at home with Mommy, though.
Now, me and Mike. Mike is still working at the same place, with changes in schedule and location, most notably. His company finished their new building, moved in, and quickly realized that they were already full, so they started another building. He was working at home, before, at least 2 or 3 days during the week, which went up to four, but is now down to ZERO. Goose egg! Nada! He's working a bit locationally closer (not Scottsdale) for the time being.
And me...I'm teaching at Phoenix College now! I had a full schedule (well, as full as an adjunct can have) and it was nice working consistently. Rio Salado was great (and still is, of course), but the consistency wasn't there. I'm teaching the first class that I've actually taken (BIO 181), which is a first, too! I'm still doing some work for Paradigm (10 hours a week or less, though), doing some random things, being a back-up QC'er and so on.
Last semester was a bit draining on Wednesday nights, since I thought it would be good to get classes out of the way on a Wednesday. So I had one, 3-hour lecture starting at 10am, then lab for 3 hours, then another lab for 3 hours. So classes weren't over until 8:30...hooray.
As I mentioned above, Mike's work schedule changed so he's in the office, which is a bit of a pain with childcare because that means that on Wednesday, the bigger 3 go to Kids Club now after school. Before, since he was at home on Wednesday, he'd get them from the bus and all was good. We shifted Laurel from 3 days at daycare back to 2, and it evened itself out, money wise.
Let's see...what else. Summer! Last summer was full of activity on some days. Right after school got out, we took a trip up to visit my parents in Washington, drove over through Idaho to Montana and back to Washington again. We did this in a rental motor home, which the kids had been pining away to do for some time. After we got back, swim lessons started. Daniel wanted to try diving lessons, so he had that as well for one session. Daniel and Jared were also in the "Cub Club" water safety group, and then regular swim lessons, so there were some days that were 3 sessions of swimming!
In the fall, the 3 bigger ones also did soccer after school...Daniel and Kaitlyn seemed to enjoy it the most, but Jared had a good time too.
And with that...Laurel is now climbing on me...some things take a while to change, right?
In any case, goals for the year include...writing more! I'll try to make it a goal to write something every night...doesn't have to be the same thing, but just SOMETHING.
Happy 2019!
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