Jack, Jack Attack !!

These are the Fantastic Pictures of Jack that my friend Suzi Black took! She did an amazing job capturing the many sides of our little man! Jack is truly one of a kind, full of personality and knows exactly what he wants and how he's going to get it!
These are for his 2 year taken June of 2009. (I was a couple of months late, as usual)
Jack sure is a lot of fun, we are glad he's in our family he keeps thing interesting, and we just LOVE having him around!

Ithaca in the Spring

We got to go to Ithaca for a weekend in May. What a beautiful place! Brady and Brooke and Eli let us invade their house for a couple of days and showed us around their NY town.

Wes got to go sailing on the lake with Brady one morning. The we all played at the lake (forgot the name, it's one of the finger lakes) played at the park, got to see a couple of water falls and ate some really yummy NY pizza oh and how could I forget Nathans hot dogs ... the Best! Reagan was dared to jump in the lake (still pretty cold) and was bribed with a new outfit from Brooke if she did it. She got everything but her head wet, so of course us girls just had to do a little shopping, yeah. It's Brooke's specialty and Reagan and I love going with her! Glad we have them living sort of close to us again, it sure has been nice to see them once in a while. Maybe we can just keep following them around the country .... the USA not the world B&B.

Thanks for a fun weekend guys!

2009 School Year, Wrap Up!

The end of the 2008-2009 school year Reagan and Dylan had fun events on the same day.

Reagan's class was having a Bi om Bash. They chose the desert as their Bi om to "Bash"! She worked on a number of projects for weeks to display at the event. The one we got to do at home together was the bird. :-) She had to invent a household bird of her choice and explain it's environment, what it eats, who it's enemy's are and so on. She made a paper towel bird, who's enemy's are spills and messes and who eats crumbs and dirt. It was really cool, we got to do a lot of hot gluing, something I love. It was very creative and got lots of ooo's and aaaaww's from the 2nd grade kids and parents. I got to go to the bash and she walked me through all of the 2nd grad displays, and then we got to see her classroom and their bi om environment. They choose the desert so Reagan loved that having just moved from the desert, right up her ally, felt like home. It was really fun, and so great to see how she has been doing. We came 1/2 way through the year across the country ...... she's doing exceptional! They also made their shirts and she let the kids in her class sign her back, it was cute. She is an amazing, determined, and talented person, and can make friends in minutes, I am so glad she is happy here, I think she could be happy anywhere!

Dylan had Pre-K grad that same night! He also had a cool shirt and got to show what his class had been working on. He didn't want to go up on stage at first but he decided he'd "sit with his kids but didn't have to sing if he didn't want to." We figured it was a good deal. After sitting for a while he started to sing and do a few actions, it was really cute. He got his diploma, and his picture with his teacher. He's learned a lot from this year! 1/2 of it was in UT with his favorite teachers that he still talks about, Miss Tara and Miss Melissa. (miss them so very much) And 1/2 of it was here in PA with new teachers and a lot of new transitions. He has come through like a champ, a few setbacks but doing his very best as usual! He's a hard worker and he wants to have friends and be part of the group, all really good things. Now on to kindergarten .... here we go! (sniff, sniff, stop growing up children!)

Welcome Wally

When we got back from our trip in May we got to pick up our new little fluf ball "Wolly Wally" as the kids named him. He is a Shiatsu-Bichon mix, a ShiChon as we were told. We have had him a few months and the kids and I are really enjoying Wally! While we were working on the house training I had to remind myself daily that the puppy was My idea. When Wes got home he also reminded me daily that Wally was NOT his responsibility.

Wes and Wally had to go it alone while me and the 3 went to Utah at end of June for a vacation. That time alone together brought much tension into the relationship of Wes and his canine "roommate". Wally was still puppy and in needed lots of time, attention and "clean up". Wes was working on school and a final, hence the tension. They are now much better friends, and Wally has been a great addition to our little crew!

Jack and Wally wrestle like puppies/brothers and both do a little biting on each other. (both have had their shots) Jack will drag Wally around by his tail, or ears and Wally just thinks it's great to have another puppy to play with! Wally sleeps in Reagan's room and loves to follow her around, or just lay by her while she is reading. She is "in charge" of Wally's food and training so that has been a good thing most of the time. Dylan and Wally have an on again off again relationship. When Wally is not there Dylan loves him and misses him, when Wally is jumping on or over Dylan it's a little different. But he's a good dog and we love him.

Our Day in Baltimore

The next day we went to Baltimore Maryland. Now on the map DC and Baltimore look not to far apart, in reality it's a bit of a drive through DC traffic but very pretty and green. This was a Saturday so when we go there we had to wait about 3 hours to get into the National Aquarium. So we hit the local Barnes and Noble kids section and lucky day they were doing crafts for Mothers day, yeah for me, and it also killed an hour. Then we grabbed something to eat and walked around on the bay front until we could go into the aquarium.

The National Aquarium is awesome really amazing how the building can stand with all that water in it, a real architectural marvel to me. We saw some really cool fish and creatures. Reagan and Jack LOVED it, and Dylan tolerated it for as long as he could. The rooms were dark so you could see the fish in the light up tanks so Dylan said "those fish are creepy"! Wes and I thought it was pretty cool. If you are in the area we recommend seeing the National Aquarium in Baltimore!

More from DC

Our last day in DC was great. After Arlington we got to go to a couple of really fun museums, one of the art museums in DC (we had the only stroller that had been in there for at least a week!) and one of our favorite Smithsonian museums was the air and space museum. The kids loved it, there were a lot of fun activities for them to try out and enjoy learning new things.

There was a paper airplane contest at the air and space museum that Reagan entered. They all folded their airplanes the same way and were given a paper clip as weight to help it fly better. The gal doing the demo had them all try the paperclips on the back first and see how many kids could get their airplane through the hula hoop she was holding. Then they moved it to the nose of the plane and of course that worked better so the contest began. All the kids lined up and if they didn't get it through the hoop they were out. It got down to the last 2 one of which of course was Reagan! She was so very excited, to be in the finals. The boy she was competing with went first and his didn't make it, so it all came down to her throw! And swoosh just like her Mama it went right through the middle of the hoop! Yeah we all cheered and she was thrilled! Fun Day!