Week in Review

It's another one of those times where there seems to have been a lot going on the last couple of weeks and all I can really do at this point is recap.

Following Gunnar's birthday party trip up to Quincy, we also celebrated with some friends of ours. A family in our ward has become good friends. They are older than us by a few years; their youngest son just turned 17. His birthday was three days after Gunnar's. They invited us to celebrate together. The son is our dog sitter, too. So, anyway, Monday night (8/11) we went out to our friends' parents house. They have a pool and a nice set up yard. We had hamburgers and ice cream cake. It was fabulous. The boys could have swam all night. I haven't gotten the pictures from that adventure yet. I know that Karli took some of me too in the pool, won't be sharing those. Both Paden and Gunnar are fearless; they jump off the diving board and went down the slide. It was fun.

We took a mini vacation on the 13th of August. We went to Portland to take the boys a few of places. We wanted to do some fun stuff before school started. We went to OMSI (Oregon Museum of Science and Industry). It's a VERY fun place. We spent about 5 hours there and they had to kick us out at closing time. That's the second time we have been there - officially paid for our membership with that trip. If you live more than 100 miles away, the yearly membership is like $60. It would cost nearly $40 w/o the membership to get in for one day.

We stayed in Vancouver actually for pricing sakes. We found a deal on hotels.com. It was like $75 a night including all the taxes, so we thought that was good. We had to make sure that the hotel had a pool so the boys could swim. We also needed to find some swimming accessories for a deep pool - floaties (flotation devices). We went to a couple of stores and finally at the 3rd stop at Fred Meyer we found what we needed, even in pink - paden's favorite color.

So after OMSI, we finally made it back to the hotel for the boys to swim for a little bit before bed. The next day we went to the zoo. It was alright. It was hot and the animals weren't really out. The boys did not find the zoo as fabulous as OMSI. They stopped at each animal for about 30 seconds then wanted to move on to the next one. It was pretty busy there, but it was alright.

After the zoo, we went to lunch at a place called Grandma Leeth's. It was AWESOME! It's a very kid-friendly restaurant where you can enjoy your dinner uninterrupted while your children are well-cared for and well-fed in the Performance Area. It's FABULOUS!! I had a fresh mozzarella cheese and Roma tomato salad with balsamic vinegar, I loved it! Could have ate two helpings. I also ordered the fresh-baked chocolate chip cookie with ice cream. It was a stupendous dessert!

After lunch we went to see Wall-E, the movie. Paden did pretty well in the theater; it was his first time. We liked the movie. Of course the kids didn't get the real meaning of it, but they still liked it. It was quite an interesting show. I didn't know what it was about AT ALL before we saw it.

We ate dinner at a place called Sweet Tomatoes which was across from our hotel. It's a salad buffet with soup, pasta and bread and of course soft serve ice cream machine. It was very good. We ate there two days in a row. It was really yummy!

Again, we swam at night back at the hotel. I didn't get in the water this night. Paden used a little swim life vest and arm floaties and he was good by himself. Gunnar used a round floatie ring and was good to go. The hotel pool wasn't heated - only downfall - so it felt pretty cold and I just couldn't bring myself to jump in the second time. The boys had a great time though. They would get out and get in the hot tub for a few minutes to get warmed up, then jump back in the big pool. Paden would go down to the 5 ft end, jump in, and kick his little legs moving himself all the way the length of the pool. He'd get out, run to the other end and do it again. Good times.

So, then on Friday our last day of our mini vacation, we went to the Portland Children's Museum. If we lived closer, we'd definitely have a membership there. We went there when I was pregnant with Paden. They have added a lot of stuff since then and the boys had a BLAST!! They didn't really want to leave there either, but we were heading home that day. We ate at Sweet Tomatoes again (one in Portland) before we left and headed home.

I am too lazy to post pictures on this post right now. Oh, but I did post them on Shutterfly already. There's some from the Children's' Museum. I didn't take any pictures at OMSI, I guess. Maybe I didn't get that far in my downloading - can't remember right now! We were pretty busy there.

Anyway . . . I need to get to sleep I am exhausted. I will have to finish last week's week in review later! I thought I could get through two weeks worth, but no can do.

Nighty night!

Gunnar's Birthday

Gunnar turned 6 on August 9th. It's quite amazing how fast time moves, really. It just seems like not that long ago when he was exploring everything with his hands and mouth. It wasn't that long ago that he was a fuzzy-haired toddler learning and growing. He's about the age where he should start remembering his life when he's old. I think some people remember their years before 5 or 6, but seemingly many people don't. I want him to remember the fun times. I want him to remember what we are trying to teach him. I want him to grow up to be a confident, self-motivated, successful individual. I want him to be respectful and polite. I want him to be happy and healthy. Not that the last 6 years haven't meant anything, but I am starting to feel the pressure of raising a child and having expectations met by him and his life. Ok, so I really just wanted to post a picture or two from his birthday, not go rambling on about my fears!

We had his party at the Quincy pool, at his request. It sounded all cute, at first. He said that he wanted to return to Quincy to have his party with his family . . . so he could get more presents. Yeah, cute - the first part anyway. So, we agreed to have his party at the pool like we have for the last 5 years. It's kind of a tradition that will be hard to break actually. Gunnar was able to go down the slide all by himself this year. He used what he learned in swimming lessons to help him out, but he's tall enough now to land without someone having to catch him. Despite the weather being April-like rather than August-like, Gunnar swam his little heart out. We waited for my mom, Grandma Pam, to show up to open presents and have cake. I am not sure what I was thinking because I did NOT get a picture of Gunnar with his Grandma. She make a long trek to come by to see him and I am so glad that she did.

Here's a couple of pictures from the pool:

Gunnar loves: swimming, transformers, Ben 10, watching TV, playing computer games, jumping on the trampoline, having everyone's attention, being loud, playing in mud, wearing only underwear, snuggling with mama, chocolate milk, stawberry-banana smoothies, eating fruit, telling people he doesn't eat junk food, his dog, his brother, his family.

Gunnar does not like: cleaning when asked to (likes to help when not asked), being too hot in the sun, being too cold in the air conditioned car, getting hair cuts, candy (sugary cereals are a-ok though), being interrupted while watching TV, being alone, having to try more than once to get something right.

Gunnar is good at: writing, spelling (for a kinder graduate!), drawing, imagination, building with his hands, working with grandpa, being a big brother, anything requiring athletic ability.

Gunnar struggles with: having patience, not giving up quickly, using indoor voice indoors, not whining (still, does that end at some magic age - not 6 apparently), being too dramatic, not being the center of attention, not knowing when enough is enough.

Gunnar's quirks: stroking his eyelashes when he's tired - if someone else's eyelashes are available, he'll use them too - he has to play with his eyelashes to fall asleep; striping down to underwear AS SOON AS we get home from being out regardless of season/weather, plans for the rest of the day, etc. - the kid just doesn't like clothes;

My chubby baby boy is quickly growing up and I hope that I can guide him to find his strengths and focus on what is important in life.