Ellie had music camp the 5th and 6th. Her piano teacher does this every July instead of regular lessons--it's so nice to have the break from regular lessons and practicing. She's working on a duet piece for August lessons.
The girls have been taking tennis lesson on Mon/Wed evenings. They enjoy tennis and I really could see us playing tennis together as a family as soon as Marcus can run and shag balls with Andrew ;) so it's a good skill I like them to keep up on.
Ellie has been doing some clinics for the mini-triathlon she is registered for the first weekend in August. We've never done the clinics before and thought we'd try it this year. When I went to register her I got $5 off the cost, a free bike helmet and the transition clinic is at Pizza Pie cafe where she can eat for free so we thought we'd try it and well we probably won't do the clinics again, but she is learning and getting excited for her event.
Russ and Carole were in Salt Lake working on one of their rental homes and came and spent a weekend with us. They brought Katie and Lexie which the kids loved spending the time with them, seriously they just played and played. It is always nice to spend time with Grandpa and Grandma Moore. The night they stayed with us Marcus slept until 4:30 am, but Andrew, bless him, woke up 2 times screaming so we finally moved Lila in with Ellie so Steve could sleep with Andrew. That kid really doesn't like to sleep any where but his crib (another story about this to come later).
The Stake put on an all day super hero camp for the Activity Day girls which I am currently a leader for. So the girls and I spent a half-a-day there and Steve was nice enough to watch the boys which was a much needed reprieve for me since Marcus was super fussy the day before and refused to nap or anything.
We left the next morning, Thursday for Idaho. We went by the Golden Spike National Park on our way. In Ellie's 4th grade program she sang a song about the two railroads and so we thought it would be fun to go see them and she also has a free park pass with the every kid in a park program this year. We got there in time to see the trains come out which Andrew thought was awesome.
We walked around the exhibits a bit and then went out to the Chinese arch dedicated to all the Chinese who worked on the railroads. Lila even read a little of the Chinese for us on the sign. :)
While in Idaho the kids enjoyed fishing, rowing, riding in Panca's boat (Andrew for some reason has decided that's Grandpa Buckley's name--he can say Grandpa, but always refers to him as Panca). Andrew got to drive the boat and when we got home he declared he was going to have his own boat to drive. ;) Saturday evening we went out to Oakley to see the Bump and Rub. It's a dirt road race with old cars where they bump and rub each other off the track. Panca road it in a couple of years ago. It was a lot of fun to watch, but it did not hold Andrew's attention (we thought it would be very entertaining for him). I think the dirt from the races irritated his throat more and he coughed himself into a fizzy that night, throwing up and barely sleeping. Andrew did not sleep well on this trip at all . . . out of his bed and who knows what will happen, but most likely not sleep. We took it easy on Sunday and when we got home I gave Andrew a breathing treatment, cough medicine and rubbed his feet with Vicks in hopes that he would sleep a bit. He woke up crying after a few minutes so Steve went up and laid with him on the queen bed in his room. He left him sleeping on that bed and then Andrew came out and said, "Dad I want to sleep in my own bed." So Steve went up and put him back in his crib. Crazy kid loves his bed. I took him to the doctor the next day who put him on antibiotic, he said after the bronchonoscopy and carrot in his lung it may just be a bit irritated and the dirt inflamed the situation. He's been sleeping like a champ in his own bed since then.
Oh--I forgot to mention that Steve managed to jump in the river in Idaho with his phone in his pocket--oops. He was meaning to get his phone replaced under warranty any way so he just had to use a temporary phone for a bit, which happened to be the phone we let Andrew play on a bit so Andrew kept saying, "Dad, I want my white phone back."
The girls did radkids this week (ressist and aggresssively defend r.a.d.). This is a crazy world we live in and the city provides this great program to teach the kids safety and how to resist and defend. It is good and even we as parents learn some extra things we can do to help protect our kids. Here they are on the graduation day getting certificates and wristbands. On this day they defended themselves against the redsuit guy (one of the officers geared up).
Andrew playing with Marcus and the legos while the girls were gone one morning. He also declared that Marcus is his best friend (it may be we just don't get out much with the two of them).
This week the kids are also doing swim lessons. In June I had debated put Andrew in a mommy and me class, but by the time I paid for the lesson and a sitter for Marcus it was as much as private lessons so I decided to just sign him up with the girls. . . it's been torture. The instructor has been awesome and working with him on back floating on his own, but Andrew screams, cries, and refuses to do it even though we all know he can. Finally yesterday he floated by himself for 15 seconds. One of the moms for the kids after us walked in and was like, "He's doing it. That's great." That's what a stink he has been putting up--the other moms notice.
After Andrew putting up such a stink about swim lessons I decided we needed to take the kid swimming this weekend to make sure Andrew remembers how fun swimming is. And it so happens that my friend, April who moved to Japan last year is in town and invited us down to her parents house to swim this afternoon so we took the opportunity. She lives about 5 minutes away from Stephanie so we stopped in and visited with them for an hour and then headed over to swim. The kids had a blast playing and even Marcus got in to swim for his first time-didn't get a picture :(. Then we hurried home to get off to tennis lessons. The teacher moved one of the classes to this week so this week has really been insane, but there have been a few tender mercies with a few things getting shuffled, moved, etc and Steve taking today off--we love spending time with him! Summer fun keep on rolling!