Unbeatable! James's 6th birthday party!

I was really dragging my feet for James's party this year.  I begged him to have a sleepover party, or chuck e cheese, or anything but my normal party, but no, James wanted a pokemon party.  This party is really tributed to Ms. Juliet who sent me an email telling me what I was going to do.  Thanks again, Ms. Juliet, I couldn't have done it without you.  We had it at the same park as always.  Even James complained, but understood when I explained when it was the only park with lots of shade and room to play party games.  Of course, I bring out all of our toys for the kids to play with.



Love that rocket launcher.  Where can I get another one?



And the big bubbles



I also had pokemon coloring pages:

 

This party was from 4-6, which is an awkward time, so about 4:30 I fed the kids hot dogs, watermelon, and chips:



The kids could have probably played with the rocket launcher all day, but I did have some organized activities.  First was pin the tail on pikachu.  It went ok.







Then we had "gym battles".  Really just games of chance with cards, dice, and coins.  We had a Mimi Gym:



A Grandma Gym:



And a Papa Gym.  Except the Redskins were winning so we had to improvise:



Now, I did not have an active role with the gym battles, but I will say that I think the kids loved this.  One of the things I like about pokemon is that the heros don't always win.  Neither did the kids.  The Gym Owners will tell you that they threw the games a lot, though...  Once the won, the kids got gym badges:



Then it was time for the grand finale, the scavenger hunt!  This year, no pictures, just riddles with words...and they rhymed!





Then end was the cake!  This cake represents my first ebay bust.  This was the second try:



This is the first year that we let James have presents.  ALL YEAR, he kept telling me, remember at so in so's party where they got to keep all of their presents?  I want to keep all of my presents.  Yeah, ok, James.  He was excited:



So was everyone else:



I think everyone had a good time, even all "the outsiders"  Next year, hopefully we can just go see a movie or something!

First Day of School! 2012!

We limped along through the rest of the summer and finally made it to the first day of school.  For full disclosure, I had thought that after camp, school would be a piece of cake.  I was right and wrong. 

I am also going to explain a quote that some of you might have heard.  I was talking to James about starting school and how sometimes mommies and daddies might cry.  Now, I didn't think that I would cry, but you never know.  I like to be prepared.  I explained to James that Papa cried when I went to kindergarten for the first time.  James's response, "well, that's because he thought you were dumb!"   Thanks James!



James had a good first day.  He seems to like school, but is not fooled that it is "fun" like he was lead to believe.  Yes, you do have to do some work!

Two and a half weeks later, Andy starts school.



With Andy, you never really know.  He was definitely interested in going back to school, HIS school now that James was gone.  He still was a little clingy, but yesterday when I picked him up, he cried that he would have to wait two WHOLE DAYS until he could go back and then go to soccer.  Who is this kid?  He does seem to interact more with his classmates then last year.  Do NOT let me sign Andy up for the Multiage Class.  He needs to be in a different class from James.

Vacation - FUN

To be honest, I didn't take all that many pictures, but I did take a few.  They were all in the condo.

This is what we were greeted with after waking up that first morning.  The kids playing quietly, all together.



Perhaps a challenge was issued.  Perhaps it was accepted.  Yes, there was talk about a dance contest, and here are the boys practicing.







Uncle Brian couldn't make it, but there was wrasseling with Aunt K.  Turns out her kryptonite is blowing on the back of her neck.  You all feel it now, don't you!

Vacation - Food

We went to the beach recently.  I don't know what anyone else does on their vacation, but we eat.  We eat special food that we make every vacation and really, it is as important as the trip itself.  It deserves its own blog post, so here we go.

DINNER:  First up, Cooks Illustrated Baked Ziti.  Make sure it is the Cooks Illustrate version.  It takes a little doing, but it is so good and so worth it.  You can make it ahead and freeze.  It is good to eat on the day we get there, and then we have the leftovers for the rest of the trip.  Just a tip, unless you have at least 6 adults (plus 1 Uncle Brian), cut this recipe in half.



Not pictured - LUNCH:  BLTs.  Beach time is tomato time, so what better way to combine both with BLTs.  I forgot to take a picture though!

LUNCH - Mufflettas.  Can't remember why we started this, but we eat it once a year at the beach.  The olive salad is really the only tough part, which you can make ahead.  The only other tricky part is finding a decent bread for this at the beach.  This was enough for 5 adults.





DINNER:  Low Country Boil.  This one is easy.  Find some local shrimp, in season corn, potatoes, sausage, oh and garlic, boil it all together and dinner is served.  It always takes longer to cook then we think, but it is always worth it!

Lightning Strike

I am not sure what it means when your house gets hit with lightning, except that the deductible is lower then when it gets hit with hail.  What I do know is that it is never a good sign to come home from getting some margaritas with the ladies and seeing a) the step stool, b) a flashlight, and c) some string in the hallway.  Just FYI people.  However, I came home from going out and saw just that.  Mark says to me, "don't worry, I have an idea."  This is also not a good thing...

So, while I was gone, Mark was sitting watching some tv, when yes, there was a storm, and yes, there was some loud thunder and bright lightning, but it wasn't really anything remarkable.  But then the smoke detector went off.  That is also not a good thing.  So, Mark went up to investigate and found this:





Many of the phone jacks/cables were black and the modem had been"shot across the room".  Also, the desk top computer that we had plugged into that modem no longer turned on.

Mark then went into the attic and saw this:





The way Mark describes it was "I looked up and saw the sky." which if you are in your house, no, not a good thing.

He then went outside and saw this:



The siding was blow into the trees.  He also saw this:



Gilbert caught a rat.  Not a mouse, a rat.  Mark is usually a liberal hippie when it comes of the lives of vermin, but inasmuch as our house just got hit by lightning, he let Gilbert enjoy his toy.

The next day, we saw this:





Really, we can't say enough on how lucky we were.  Not only that no one was hurt, but we had roofers out the next day to put a tarp up, and AT&T out the day after to repair internet and phone lines.  PLUS, for some reason, this was the catalyst to do many upgrades and clean out rooms and closets, which was also needed. PLUS, now we can tell people, "yeah, we had a lightning strike."

Rainbow Falls

It has been really hot here.  So hot that I had this idea we should go hiking in the mountains.  I knew it was going to be hot there too, but I was just hoping it would be less so.  The boys aren't really into that, but we talked them into it, by allowing them to bring their camera and/or leap pad.  They were cool with that:



But eventually for safety reasons, we had to put them away:



They took to running down the trail instead.  I don't know it you are thinking what I was thinking at the time, but it was something like they sure aren't running back up here!



We had some water and snacks:





Crossed a stream:



Eventually realized we shouldn't be there at all:



There was one last push uphill to get to the falls.  Andy just took over.  He did awesome.  "Mom, look how good I am doing!"



He was excited to reach the falls, although you can't tell by this picture.  This picture is really a tribute to this being Andy's day because he was so amazing.  Also, to prove he really can't take a good picture.



Yes, at the bottom of the falls was an area to swim, but it wasn't really kid friendly.  There are collage aged kids jumping off cliffs down there!  We saw them on the hike back and I  told them how cool it was that they did that, but then I told my kids to NEVER do that.  I think that made them feel bad:



We did find another little swimming hole on the way back.  It still wasn't kid friendly, but a little better:





The hike back was tough, but  we did it.  All in all, a fun day, but I don't think we will get James hiking again any time soon!