A fun and Exciting Week!

This has been a very busy week but tons of fun! This is the week of the musical, so we didn't get to see James very much but when we did we tried to make the best of it!

On Wednesday Michael got to go to Cub Scouts for the first time. We spent the first half of the week working on his Bobcat and he had it done by Wednesday night. We had tons of fun buying his uniform Wednesday morning, so he was ready to go and boy did he look cute! I'll make sure I take a picture this week at his first pack meeting.

Then, on Thursday (Earth Day) we had our first ever homeschool egg drop competition. The kids got to make an egg holder to put their eggs in and then drop them from a high place and see if they can keep their egg from breaking. We even had someone from the local paper come and write an article about our fun activity. Joshua and Jacob had a blast making their containers using whatever they could find in the garbage--look at us recycling on Earth Day!

Michael decided not to make a container but had tons of fun watching and cheering on. The kids had fun dropping their eggs and then showing off that the eggs had survived. They did so well that most of the eggs never did break. We even tried throwing them at trees but still no breakage, so we had to give all of the remaining kids a prize--good thing we had extras. And it is important to note that Jacob won in his age group which he is very proud of. He didn't have any competition but he was still very excited to win.

On Friday when James had the day off we went to Peoria and had fun shopping and even got to go and see the new Earth Day movie Oceans. It was not as good as last year's but it was still tons of fun.

Saturday was definitely our craziest day. We started the day with Michael's 9 AM soccer game. His team played really well. Michael did a great job with this corner kick and then had a chance to play goalie and made sure no one scored. Way to go Michael!

Then, we ran home and prepped food for a dinner party we were throwing later and lunch which we took with on on the go for Joshua's double header. Joshua played hard for two hours straight AND he still had energy. I can't believe how much energy he has! We enjoyed pizza and cheering on the sidelines.

After the game we hurried through team pictures, ran home, showered all of my very dirty boys (literally--dirt everywhere!) and then got them dressed up to go to the Musical. I loaded up our dinner (grilled hot dogs and chicken staying warm in crock pots) and loaded up the boys and hurried over to the school. We got there just in time and loved the show. Everyone did a great job and the boys even made it through with no major incidents. After the show we enjoyed dinner with other members of the orchestra. It was really fun and it was nice to see James as well. :)

Lucky for us it started raining when we finished up, so we completed the day with another shower as we loaded the car and did a little grocery shopping. It was a great day and a great week. We are definitely looking forward to a much calmer week--you know one with end of term grading and driving to Virginia. Maybe one day we will have a calm week . . . maybe.

Boys will be boys?

I am all for boys being boys but I'm pretty sure that Michael is running an autopsy on a dead bird he found as 'we speak'. He is being very careful not to touch it with his fingers as he carves it apart with a knife. I am glad to know he followed my instructions not to touch the bird but apparently I need to be more specific in my instructions as he is very literal. He is determined to see how the insides of a bird work. He truly is destined to be a scientist one of these days!

Happy Birthday Michael!

As is inevitable we all get older every year. Somehow the years have just started flying by and Michael is now 8 years old! He was very excited for his birthday and had no problem choosing his birthday meals and providing suggestions for gifts. We had cinnamon oatmeal and fruit smoothie for breakfast, an entire package of hot dogs including buns and a bag of Cheetos for lunch and a pepperoni pizza for dinner. Amazingly they all had a little room for cake and ice cream. We enjoyed a pretty amazing tiger cake with a homemade concoction of ice cream which included chocolate ice cream, homemade cookie dough and butterscotch chips. No one will ever say that Michael doesn't know exactly what he wants.

Michael then had fun opening his presents. He got a bat and balls from Jacob who is pretty sure that Michael will share with him. Joshua gave him some 3-D sidewalk chalk. And we got him some science books and a camera. He is very excited for all of these present and has already taken several pictures, drawn several pictures on the driveway and read and created some animals from his new books! It was a great birthday! Now he gets to prepare for his baptism and start going to Cub Scouts!

Life just carries on

I realized that we hadn't blogged in awhile but things have been pretty calm and normal. So, here are some fun things we have been up to . . .

1. We are starting our garden! We have already planted tomatoes, cauliflower, peppers and eggplant inside and will transplant them outside when they are strong enough. We also had a friend come and tear up our lawn with his super huge tiller. It may just be dirt but it is beautiful to behold. The boys also got to take a ride on the tractor!

2. The boys have started soccer. I love YMCA sports for so many reasons! They are, unfortunately, in different grade categories, so we have to juggle practices and games at different locations. But they are having so much fun! I love sports that involve lots of running!

3. We are almost ready to order our cabinets for our new kitchen! We have been to Lowes, Menards and no IKEA pricing cabinets and IKEA is the winner. Now we just have to call them and tell them to put the order through. It is very exciting!

4. Homeschooling is awesome as usual! I found a website with free worksheets on it, so I just randomly pull up grammar sheets and see if the boys can do them. We have done some grammar but I believe that they can learn most everything they need to know from reading. I decided that I was right as they did very well on everything I could find from 1st to 4th grade! They amaze me every day! They have also started writing more stories. Michael has always loved writing but now Joshua has jumped in to join him when I give him some fun prompts. His stories are always silly but writing is writing!

5. James is super busy with the musical which means we don't see him much, but we can't wait to see the musical in just a couple of weeks! I'll have to let him blog more after the performance is over because he won't have time until then.

6. Oh and I had a birthday. We are now officially 'in our 30s.' How exciting! We spent the day at IKEA and then I had an amazing strawberry shortcake cake. It was awesome as I'm sure you can tell from the picture. The boys got me bobby pins, a calculator and new exercise clothes! Yippee!

7. Well so much for a short update but Michael mowed the entire backyard all by himself. We were very impressed with the job he did and look forward to him doing this on a regular basis. Well, James looks forward to this. :)

So, there you go. We are still here just living life and loving it!

It's Official

We had the great opportunity to go to the doctor this morning to make sure Michael's wounds were healing correctly--and might I add that we were in and out in under 20 minutes!!!! While there we learned that Michael is now 4 ft 7 5/8 in tall. Now this might not mean much to anyone else but it means that he is within a foot of my height. At this rate he will be taller than me by the time he is 12. I guess I was my height when I was 12 as well but I stopped growing. I wonder how tall he will get?

Our first stitches

There comes a time in every parent's life that shows that their children are growing up and having adventures of their own. Michael was hurrying home for dinner last night and took a big spill that scraped him up pretty well, and we were hoping to just clean him up and love him back to health. Unfortunately further examination of his inside lower lip did not support our hopes, and the it was obvious that his teeth had nearly bitten on his entire lower lower lip. Luckily they never went through, and despite 48 hours of a liquid diet, he's doing quite well. How do you keep a carnivore sated on liquids? Argh.

When we told him he had to go to the hospital he went pale and asked "Am I gonna die?" We assured him that he would not, but that hospitals were where doctors helped us feel better. He was amazing at the hospital, and returned home with high spirits, an antibiotic, strict instructions and a new nickname he gave himself: Big Lip Michael.

He looks so old, doesn't he?

China Day 9—Beijing

This was our last day, and it dawned wet, snowy, and cold, and got worse from there. Not only did the snow increase, the temperature drop, and our dampness factor increase, but we had to say goodbye to our adventure and family so far away. As we rode the escalator down to the airport shuttle I cried; what can I say? I'm a big boob to be sure, but we all like those, don't we?

We did get to the zoo before we left and saw both the Giant Pandas and the Golden Monkeys, the latter of which can be seen only at the Beijing Zoo. It was cold and snowed continually, but we enjoyed our journey through the animals and even heard a white tiger roar. It was pretty awesome. It was also only the second time Jodi had ever been to the zoo; deprived childhood, don't you think? It was definite fun. After checking out of the hotel we enjoyed lunch at the same restaurant as last night's spectacular success; it was amazing again.

Unfortunately the snow also prevented our flight from leaving on time, but our 3 hour delay was rewarded with business class seats in which we slept beautifully all the way home.

This is a late post, and I've pondered often on our trip and every time I do, I'm both happy and grateful that we were able to enjoy such an amazing adventure. It was Liz's first international trip, her first passport stamp, and her first not being able to speak the language. I've been to a few different countries, but I've never gone East, and it's been six years since the last time my passport was stamped. I think this trip helped cement for us many future trips to various parts of the world. This one, however, set quite a high standard for me. The ability to live in a normal apartment and experience the world day to day was a choice experience. The landmarks were amazing, of course, especially that wall, but the opportunity to live and shop and move among people with a completely different culture was unlike any sightseeing I've ever done. I still can't speak any Mandarin worth bragging about, but I loved hearing people laugh when I attempted to say "thank you" with my much-practiced, but ultimately unpolished "xie xie." I also loved watching the older women fawn over Jaime and still wish I could ask them about China without the One Child Policy, "Good for the Nation, Good for the People." Since they predate the policy, how do they react to a little American baby who they know will likely have siblings in the future? Do they only see the beautiful and unusual baby, or do they see memory and hope? I see women who sleep on a makeshift bed behind a sheet hung in their three-walled food shop and work literally from dawn to dark making jian bing for customers on the street. Do they regard this as a slave's life? Are they discontent with a job that would be condemned on this side of he ocean by society, civil rights groups and the health department? Do they see their lives as struggling day to day to survive, or are they members of a proud working class that have marketable skills and a good place to sell their wares? It is questions like these that are never asked at the imperial palace in the midst of a multinational crowd armed with cameras and fanny packs. Unfortunately I'm not properly equipped to ask these questions, but encountering a reason to ask them of myself is vital and will be forever more rewarding than a mass-produced stone buddha or a pair of silk pajamas.

I'd like a few more vacations like that one, and I'm not so secretly hoping to have another in Nanjing before the summer ends. We'll see if I can get on the planes. I do hope so.