Making Progress with Bikes

This morning we decided to take advantage of the sun finally coming out and it being just a little bit warmer and ride bikes. The kids had a lot of fun and they have definitely made strides since last year. Joshua is much more consistent with pedaling now, and the girls both enjoy being on a bike. I would like to work a little more with Clara on pedaling, but she can't totally reach the pedals correctly for any bike we have and we have the smallest bikes I could find. She is really close, so hopefully soon this will be something we can talk about. For now, she really likes her big wheel and she can propel herself with her feet.

After lunch we watched a movie. Poor Clara isn't really sick, but she hasn't been feeling that great yesterday or today. She seemed super tired today and just laid on the couch with the pugs and watched the show, which is really unheard of for my kids. Normally they get up and move around and don't watch anything over 20 minutes or so without getting up and playing. Hopefully she feels better tomorrow. She doesn't really have a fever or any symptoms, so maybe it's residual tiredness from all the upheaval from the trip, not sure.

Last Day of School

I am totally the type of mom who just takes my kid out of school for a two-week vacation, but I was glad that we wouldn't miss the last day of school. That was today and Joshua got to say goodbye to Mrs. Pogue and Mrs. Trug and his classmates. It's only a short-term goodbye since he will be in Mrs. Pogue's class again next year. We went to lunch at Chili's after school to celebrate the last day.

A New Sharpie Thing

As I mentioned, Joshua was totally enamored with the wine-opener that came with the vacation house. He asked for it so many times on the ride home that I decided to order him a kid-friend swiss army "knife". The perspective of this photo is a little odd, so it is not quite as big as it looks, but definitely at least an inch wide and four inches or so long, so a good size for little hands, and nothing dangerous since it is made to be a toy. When we got home from Ron and Peg's tonight, he asked me again where his "sharpie thing" went (a cute thing he does is say "sharpie" for "sharp"). I gave him this and he really seemed to like it. I think he preferred the original because this one does not have a corkscrew and that was his favorite part, but overall this seems to be a success.

Glumpy Grass

Joshua sometimes has a really good memory for certain things.  Several weeks ago I was mowing the yard, and the grass was still somewhat wet from a recent rain.  I don't remember the circumstances, but I pretty much had to mow the yard that day.  That meant the mower would periodically get clogged up, as the wet grass would clump and stick to the underside of the mower.  If that happens for more than a couple seconds, the mower gets so clogged it shuts off.  Joshua was out in the back yard with me that day (We had an extensive conversation about safety that day before he was allowed to be out there with me, and he really took it to heart, because as soon as he sees me about to start the mower, he always takes off to be far away from me before turning around to watch.  I still keep an eye out for him, though, just in case.), and when the mower shuts off, it leaves a big pile of clumped grass under it.  I then put it all in the lawn bag, empty the mower bad, clean off any other clumped grass, and start again.  I figured he would like to help me pick up the grass and put it in the lawn bag, so I had asked him if he wanted to help.  So he would play with his trucks or whatever at a safe distance, but as soon as he heard the mower clog up and stop, he would then run over to me and we'd pick up the clumps.  I had originally asked him if he wanted to help me with the clumpy grass, but he misheard me and kept saying, "You need help with glumpy grass?".  We did it about ten times that night, and it was great fun.

We've been gone for two weeks, so I knew I had to mow our yard when we got back.  I did most of it on Sunday, but I had to finish up tonight.  He was in the back yard with me today, and the first time I emptied the bag, he yelled at me from across the yard, "Hey Dad!  You need help with glumpy grass?"  I didn't that time, which was disappointing to him, because the yard wasn't very wet.  But there was one time later in the mow where there was some clumping, so I called over to him, and he was very excited to help with the clumps.

Storm Comforter

Animals are often scared of storms. In our family, Alex seems indifferent (of course, he's a cat, so he spends his life being indifferent), and while Terrence doesn't love them, they don't seem to bother him too much. But Natalie is a different story, as they really scare her. But what's cute is that she always tries to find me if I'm in the house, as if she wants me to protect her. If I'm sitting down, she will snuggle up as close to me as she can.  If I'm walking around, she will follow me everywhere, looking up at me until I stop moving.  Once I stop for more than a few seconds, she quickly finds a spot between my legs.  This morning I had to get up super early (3:45am) to get ready for my day trip to Madison.  It started to storm just as I was getting ready to leave the house, and sure enough, Natalie came downstairs to find me to get some comfort.  Here she is basically asking me to stop moving, and then moving in to her find her spot.

Happy Mother's Day

Today was probably not the most relaxing Mother's Day of my life because it was our first day back from vacation so, though Jason did a lot of unpacking last night, I still did six loads of laundry and cleaned my car. Those things could have waited, but I can't really live like that. The important thing is I got to spend most of the day with my kids. We did cards and got Olive Garden take-out so it was still a nice and pleasant day and I feel very lucky to have my three little guys, and also my three furry ones. I have never been the person who considers my pets my kids, but I do consider them part of my family and I was glad to get to spend the day with our whole family for the first time in two weeks.

Farewell Florida

 Today we left our vacation house quite early because our goal was to drive all the way home in one day. We did plan to drive through St. Louis just in case we wanted to stop, but we hoped not to. I drove first so Jason could sleep to make sure he would not be too tired to drive safely. I don't like to drive at night and I am a morning person, plus I can't sleep in cars even when completely exhausted, so there is no way I could drive at the end if Jason got tired. So we decided it would be best for me to drive first even though it may or may not actually be necessary.

 We drove up to Birmingham and planned for Jason to start driving after that. Since we were in the South, we decided to stop at Whataburger. We only ever eat here on vacation because the closest one to us is in Oklahoma, but we
love the burgers. It's probably good there aren't any close to us because they taste really delicious and I am guessing they are quite caloric, even for burgers. I refuse to look up the nutritional information, but I think it's good it's only a few times a year that we enjoy these. It's definitely a treat for me. I love the Monterey Melt.

 We decided to take a new route this time. On the way down, we come through Arkansas and that's the fastest way and a drive we enjoy except for the Mississippi part, but there is no place to stop around 4 hours out from our home, which is what we need on the way home. Last year we took the interstates home, but we don't love interstate driving if there is a US highway option available that is a similar driving time. We like seeing things we haven't seen before and seeing what a place is like and that's hard to do on the interstate. So this time, we drove state and US highways. Shortly after Birmingham, we drove northwest through Alabama, into Mississippi (and really this part of Mississippi seemed a little better than the part along the interstate on the other route), then through Tennessee, and then up into southern Missouri. We then took I-55 north to St. Louis and then drove I-70 home. This took 20 minutes or so longer than interstates, but it was well worth it to us and we loved this route and will be taking it home in the future for sure.

We made great time. I am not sure we could do better with kids. We stopped again in Missouri at McDonald's for dinner. It was slightly depressing because we had like another seven hours to go after entering Missouri, which seems impossible because it's only one little state away. It's like driving to Houston and getting to Dallas after being in the car forever and realizing you have another four hours. It just seems impossible, yet somehow that's how it is. Our kids do great in the car even when we ask a lot of them, as we did today. We rolled into our driveway around 12:30, which was a long and tiring day, but reasonable and we find it totally worth it to be home all day tomorrow.