lego minifigure trading at legoland

At Legoland California Noah and I traded minifigures, the little Lego "mini figurines". we brought along ones we thoght we had too many of, like one of our 4 or 5 original Kai(s). We then traded with "model citizens" (legoland employees) (they had minifigures on their nametag) for ones we thought were cool and we had none of. we traded all of the 8 we brought. we got in return: a guy with headphones,

a pirate with a mini musket pistol,

a mummy

, a small clown (a little bit different from the minifigure series one)

, a robber

, Velma StapleBot,

 a knight

, and a weird girl that had a messed-up expression. That last one was Olivia's idea. we lost in trading: motorcycle mechanic (we had a duplicate of), flaminco dancer (duplicate of), harry potter (like 4 of), Kai (like 4 of), Lasha(three of), cowgirl (three of), and two others. we would have traded one of our three viking women if we could find her dress.
overall, we had a great time trading.

--harrison

Swim Lessons

Starting in May a girl in our ward started teaching swim lessons in her parents pool in their back yard.  Since soccer season was ending, and I wanted them to improve their swimming skills, I signed them up.  Olivia was already taking lessons at an indoor pool, so she had to wait until June to take lessons from Jenna.  It has been fabulous.  The kids love taking lessons with their friends, and I love that they can ride their bikes to their lessons.  It's probably about 1/2 a mile, and they do have to cross a somewhat busy street to get there, but I really like that there is something they can do independently like that and take some extra responsibility.  I think that there use to be a lot more of that 50 years ago, and it's so good for kids to have.  Any way, I'll step off that soap box now, and leave you with some pictures:

Jenna has been the best teacher my kids have ever had, and they've all improved so much.  Harrison and Noah just started the July session of lessons, and then we'll take a break, as Jenna will be having a baby the beginning of August.  I'm so glad we had the chance to take some lessons from her this summer!

A Fresh Start

The First Day of School

2012

Harrison, 4th grade

Noah, 1st Grade

  As I mentioned before, Harrison will be going to another new school this year, so the boys will be at different schools.  Thankfully, they provide a bus, which picks Harrison up at our home school, so Noah and Harrison still ride the bus together.  Harrison was glad to be returning to a class-full of familiar faces for once, and a friend from church also joined his class this year, so that's nice for him.  Noah was hesitant about starting school this year, but quickly got over that when he realized his best bud was going to be in the same class this year.  The boys both seemed to have settled into their new routines nicely, and both come home with reports of a "great" day.

Last day of Freedom

School started on a Tuesday, so we spent Monday making some last minute preparations.  Sam was able to take some time off, and we took the kids bowling in the morning.

None of them are able to truly bowl, but they each developed their own strategy of getting the ball down the lane, and they all had a great time.

 The local bowling alley has a "Kids bowl free" program every summer, so maybe this will become a new family tradition.

Monday night, at Family Home Evening, Sam gave each of the children a Father's blessing for the coming school year.  I loved how excited they each were for their turn, and I'm confident they will each have a great year!  I am looking forward to the new schedules, some time at home with just Levi, new projects, cooler weather, and crunching leaves.  I love the fall.  The kids are excited and nervous at the same time, and it's so fun to watch them grow through these experiences.

camping in the backyard

We looked at our summer bucket list and saw that we had not yet camped and watched a movie in the backyard.  We (the kids) cleaned up the great room, and then I read while dad set up the tent. Noah and Liv played together. After a while I got up from my book and went outside and got in the tent. Dad, Liv, and Noah came out. We all got into our sleeping bags, or in Liv's case, a "comf" pile of blankets and dolls. We then watched one hour of Mary Poppins.  Afterwards we all wanted to look at the  stars, so Dad got out his green laser pointer and showed us a few constellations.  I was surprised that the green laster could be a straight beam right up to the top of the atmosphere and point to a single star.  It was a neat way to trace out the Big Dipper or Draco.  There were enough clouds that I could not see everything that I wanted.  Only the Dippers, Draco and a few other stars were visible.

Then we all got back into the tent and went to sleep. Noah woke up at about 5:50 and Dad said to just go lie in his bed.  Then Olivia wanted to go also, and dad went with her.  So that left me alone in the tent.  I slept the last hour peacefully, and woke up just before dad came to get me around 7:30.

-Harrison

hometown parade

On Saturday we went to a parade in downtown Kennewick. It was cool. I was surprised how long the parade lasted.  It was almost two hours, which is longer than the July 4th parade at Grandma Margie's house. At the beginning of the parade, there were tons of horses.  There was the Sheriff's search and rescue band, many different local rodeo princesses from the surrounding counties, some from the local Native American tribes.  But by far the most interesting group of horses was a musical band.  In the picture below I got the big drum player.  I was most impressed with the horn section, several trumpets riding on horses.  They had their music clipped to the end of their trumpets.

In addition to the horses, there were lot of cars.  There were classic cars, like the group of Ford Mustangs, or the Cougar and Thunderbird cliques. There were some old Model A cars and Dick Tracy style pre-War beauties. My favorite car was a baby blue slug-bug convertible. I had never seen a baby blue car before, and I had always been on the lookout for a rare color slug bug convertible. We also saw the most rare license plate ever.  It was from Aruba.
As with all parades, the floats and walkers threw a whole lot of candy. We only heard about the parade about an hour before it started, so we were not really prepared with candy bags, but we were able to store the candy in our pockets and in the bottom of the stroller. It was mostly tootsie rolls and jolly ranchers. Other types of candy they threw included now and laters, hard candy, fruties, lemon heads, sweedish fish and other stuff. As you can see from this picture, the bottom of the stroller was pretty full of candy.

Some people did not give out candy.  The Little Caesar's van handed out coupons.  A local kids dentist handed out tooth brushes and plastic leis.

We were really fortunate that Levi was a super baby the whole time.  He was happy in his stroller and very quiet.

[Post co-written by Sam & Harrison]

Last day of school

This year has FLOWN!  Poor Noah was home sick on the last 2 days of school.  Harrison had a great last day. Knowing that it would be his last day at this school (the KOG classes are moving to a new school next year), his class went around and got autographs from everyone around the school.  Wasn't too hard to say good-bye since he'll have all the same classmates, and the 3 KOG teachers are staying the same.  It's been kind of a crazy year for him, 2 new teachers, 2 new grades, and going into a new program, but it's been a great year.  He's really grown a lot, and I'm really proud of all he's accomplished.  Next year will be another new adventure, at another new school (this makes it a new school for every year of elementary school for him so far!) 

Here's Harrison on the last day of school:

And, to compare, the first day:

Piano Recital 2012

Harrison had his annual piano recital a couple weeks ago.  He performed Hedwig's Theme from a simplified Harry Potter book I got for him a couple months ago.  I'm always amazed at how serious and calm he gets for recitals.  He's really working hard at piano, and it's been fun to see the progress he's been making.  Here's his performance.  I missed the first couple measures, and that squeaky scream in the background is Levi.  The funny part is I didn't even hear him crying while I was taping - not until I got home and watched it!

Electric Sunshine Man

One of the great perks that comes with being in the KOG program in our school district is that the kids do a play every year.  School plays were one of my fondest memories of elementary school, and it seems like they just don't do them as much as they used to.  In our current school, the 2nd graders put on a play each year, but Harrison missed out on that.  But he'll get to do one each year for the last 3 years of he elementary career.

This year they put on a production of "The Electric Sunshine Man," the story of Thomas Edison. Everyone got some kind of part, weather it was a speaking part, solo, or part of a dancing siging number.  Harrison was a "Hobo," and got to dress up, and sing and dance.  At the last minute he also got to play the part of "young Edison" - no lines, but he did get to be up on stage as Edison at one point, which I thought was pretty fun.  And he did a pretty good job at looking ashamed, which is what he was told to do.  I guess Edison wasn't a very "good" little boy.

Sam was out of town for the performance, so I had a hard time documenting the event.  I decided to go to the performance during the school day, and in the evening to increase my chances of getting some good footage.  It was a good thing, because Levi ended up being pretty fussy during the night performance, so even though I had a better seat, I didn't have any hands!

As I was waiting for the performance to start, I had to snap a picture of the audience.  I couldn't not believe this kids hair!  Apparently it's like this (in a huge mo-hock) everyday, and my first thought was - who has that much time to do that every morning?  For a 4th grader, no less! 

And here's Harrison playing "baby Eidson" as he called his part.  I thought it was pretty funny the girl playing his teacher was just barely taller than him:

And here's the dance he was in (Sorry, the audience is in focus, and the performers are blurry. Still getting used to my camera!):

And a shot of him singing in the chorus:

Luckily they performed again the next day at a different school (the school they will be moving to next year), so Sam was able to go see him perform for that.

Harrison had a lot of fun, and it was fun to hear him singing these songs around the house for a few months leading up to the performance.  It will be fun to see what they do next year!

Good Neighbors

We have the best neighbors.  Just tonight, Pete from next door came by and fixed our sprinkler leak, and taught Sam the ins and outs of how to do it himself next time.  A couple weeks ago, he gave all the kids a ride on his motorcycle (Harrison declined. Olivia asked for a second turn.)

It's so nice when you are so far from family, that you have people around you that feel like family.

Fall pictures

We took the kids back to the same spot we took pictures last year, to get some updated ones for this year.  Here's a sampling of some shots we got.