Pizza Griller

One thing I always wanted to try since it seemed so summery and good was grilled pizza. Also, who wants to preheat the oven to 400 in the middle of the summer. So we decided to do it today and Jason grilled it for us. It turned out really well. I think we'll definitely do it again.

Piling on Halie

Halie plans plenty of activities to do with the kids, from the zoo, to the pool, to picnics in the park, but sometimes the most fun activities are the ones that aren't planned.  Today one of the kids somewhat spontaneously started climbed on Halie, and then the others quickly joined, resulting in all of them doing their best to climb on and stay on her, as she shed them one by one, only for them to try again.  They all thought it was a lot of fun, though one of the four people ended up a little more tired than the others.

Four in a Row

Today the kids went to Ron and Peg's and we got this cute picture of them with Benjamin all drinking their water. They have such a sweet relationship. Benjamin thinks they are fun older kids and they think he's the fun baby brother they never had.

Gemma's Here

My sister Christine and her husband Eric are moving here from Las Vegas. They should be here next week, but while they are selling their house and driving here, Gemma has arrived here to wait for them and stay with us for a few days. Gemma is a super sweet girl, but her being here isn't without challenges since she is used to a very quiet and calm environment and this is nothing like that. And Natalie kind of hates her because Natalie is old and crotchety with no patience for these young upstarts. The kids absolutely love Gemma. She is less sure about them. But here you can see Joshua trying to entice her to chase him in the yard.

Happy Retirement, Coach Tyler!

Today was the last gymnastics night of this session.  It is also Coach Tyler's last session as a gymnastics coach, as he completed his college degree and is now "retiring" from gymnastics coaching to get a job in his field.  He is the son of a well-regarded Kansas City weatherman and the nephew of a 2012 Presidential candidate, so he's got plenty of connections that he can probably leverage if needed.  But regardless, he's done with gymnastics after this session. He's been Joshua's coach for two sessions and Clara's coach for this session, and we've really loved the way he's worked with the kids.  There were several days where one kid of the other really didn't want to go in because they were tired or pouty or whatever, and he always found a way to get them excited, engaged, and smiling again.  The kids really liked him, and we did too.  We're happy for him that he's moving on to a career, but sad to lose him as our kids' gymnastics coach.

Cousins Lunch Picnic at the Pool

Today was another hot day, and since Mom and Ron were watching Benjamin, we decided to get the cousins together at the pool.  After church we met up at their pool with picnic lunches in hand.  We didn't have a lot of time until Benjamin's nap, so we ate quickly and then got in the pool.  Benjamin was a little unsure at first, but he was soon okay with it.  When it was Benjamin's nap time, Mom and Ron walked back home with him, but then Ron returned and brought cold drinks with him, so we took a refreshment break and then swam for another hour before heading back to our house so our kids could take their naps too.

Date Day at the Farmers' Market

Today I had a date day with Joshua. We started at a British bakery because I wanted to try their cornish pasties. I was disappointed. They seemed dry. But then again I haven't really had one in over 20 years, which makes me feel very old, so maybe they aren't as good as I remembered, not sure. I have also heard their sausage rolls are good so maybe I will get that next time. Joshua loved his brownie and did not eat it all since it was massive.

Next we went to the Farmers' Market. I love fresh fruits and vegetables, but overall am not a huge fan of farmers' markets because I feel like they are so trendy now that the vendors act like they are doing you some huge favor selling you their stuff and don't want you to touch or smell things, but I can't tell if it's ready to eat today without touching or smelling. Joshua enjoyed it overall, though he thought it was a bit loud since he is sensitive to sound. Because he is Joshua, he was super pumped about the carrots and corn and not as much about the peaches or tomatoes, which I would say are much better.

After our shopping, we stopped by the fountain and he got totally drenched. I was proud of him because he first thought it was too scary and wanted to go to the car, but once we got to the car, he decided to try again and went into the fountain and had a fun time. We have a few issues with fear with him, so it was nice to see him try something he thought might be fun even though he also thought it might be scary.

After the farmers' market, he asked to go to the park. It was starting to get really hot at that point so we didn't stay a super long time, but he got to play awhile. We don't make it down to Antioch Park all that often so he had a fun time climbing on some different structures. It was a fun date day that was different than what we have done before, so we had a nice morning.

Summerland Tour

Tonight I went to what is becoming a favorite concert series of mine: Summerland Tour.  It's put on by Everclear, and this is the third year they've done it.  They bring other '90s bands with them on the tour.  This year's other bands were the Toadies, Fuel, and American Hi-Fi, all of which I was happy to see in person.  This year the concert was in the Kansas City Live! area in the P&L district.

Everclear was the headliner, so they played last, but between the first and the second set, I looked behind me and saw their lead singer, Art Alexakis, wandering around in the crowd, which was pretty cool.

Clara's New Room: Finished

Recently we decided it was time to upgrade Clara from a little girl's room to, uh, a bigger little girl's room.  We wanted to go with a princess theme, but more classic princess than Disney princess.  Meghan spearheaded the planning and design process, and I was in charge of the go-pick-up-stuff-that-we-bought-off-Craigslist portion.  And my part was necessary, because the four of the five main pieces in the room, the bed, the chest of drawers, the bookcase, and the beanbag chair all were Craigslist finds (the night stand was one that we'd had previously in our old house and had kept it in the basement after we moved in case we needed it some day, which we now did).  We love Craigslist, as it's a great way to get things that are in great shape and often like-new (if you so choose - there is of course plenty of junky stuff too) for much, much less than they would cost new.  We wanted to have Clara's room ready by the time we all got back from Florida, so in the couple weeks leading up to our trip we found all the necessary items, and in the few days that I was in Kansas while everyone else was in Florida, I put everything together and/or moved it into place.  We think it turned out pretty great.  We augmented the main pieces with cute accessories, such as the wall hanging with Shakespeare's quote "Though she be but little, she is fierce!" which anyone who knows Clara can understand why we chose to use that quote, as well some other new items like the princess pig, the dress, and the little pink carriage, combined with some throwbacks to her previous room, such as the C from her name letters, the button wall-hanging from Aunt Josie, and one of her owl wall hangings, along with some new pictures in frames.  The princess carriage bed originally came with the tulle, but the people we bought it from didn't have it anymore, so Meghan sewed a new one, completing the look.

She loved it so much, as you can see from these pictures back from the moment she first saw it when she got home.

Siblings and Andrew Game Night: Bill Snyder Edition

While Joanna was in town recently, we wanted to try to do a game night.  We found a night that worked for everyone, We all met at Julie and Andrew's house after dinner.  We spent some time playing with Benjamin before his bedtime.  Then Andrew, Julie, Joanna, and I played games until late in the night, dividing our time between Tri-Bond and Taboo.  For Taboo, we developed (led by Andrew) a way to play as a group to ensure everyone would be playing every round.  We had a ton of fun with lots and lots of laughing.  Our attire for the evening were the shirts that Joanna and Kirk bought for us in Manhattan.  We are all indebted to Bill Snyder for everything he's done as K-State's football coach, and now we all have shirts to show our admiration of him, and it was fun to all wear them together during our game night.

Playdate at the Pool

Today Halie took the kids to our subdivision pool for a play date with her friend and her friend's daughter Hayden. The kids love playing with Hayden and spent a long time at the pool, having a great time. they also had a picnic lunch, which they love it when we have a picnic at the pool (or anywhere, but lately it's been very hot, so always at the pool).

Bicycle Upgrade for Joshua

Recently we got Joshua a new bike, because he had mostly outgrown his other modes of transportation, other than his scooter.  This is actually a real bike made by Diamondback, so it's pretty good quality.  This weekend we tried it out for the first time, and he loves it.  He likes to talk about how the bike is so big, and he even makes a point to mention it to the other neighbor kids as we pass them while riding around. "Hey!  Do you see how really big my new bike is?"  He feels like such a big boy, which is really pretty accurate at this point.

Sunday Sisters

We realized recently that we have surprisingly few pictures of just the two girls together.  They were dressed up so cutely for church today, that I decided to take some pictures of them in hopes of getting some cute ones.  Naturally, I had to take roughly three billion pictures to get even a handful where they were both looking at the camera with smiling faces, but these are six pretty good ones.

My Yard Pays the Price for Technology

AT&T (well, technically one of their subcontractors) recently dug up some areas in the back of our yard as part of their effort to roll out GigaPower to our neighborhood, which is their answer to Google Fiber.  They are actually rolling it out faster than Google is rolling out Google Fiber, which is probably frustrating to Google since they were the first to get publicity for their 1 Gigabit fiber-to-the-home plan.  There are other smaller vendors who have it too, like Consolidated Communications (not the catchiest name) and others.  Anyway, after they finished doing the work in our yard, they sodded the spots.  Unfortunately, they sodded them while we were in Florida, so by the time we got back, it was all dead.  I tried to revive it, but to no avail.  Totally dead.  I called and complained, because I had specifically asked them to tell me ahead of time when they were going to do the sod, but they hadn't.  They then came out and seeded and netted (there's probably a real term for that, but I don't know what it is) the same spots, except they missed one and still didn't cover all the torn-up area on the biggest spot.  I called and complained again, and they said they would come out on Monday to take a look.  These guys seem incompetent.  Anyway, in the meantime, I am watering the seeded areas every day.  I went out tonight right before bedtime to do it, and the kids wanted to join me.  They were in three states of dressed-for bed:  Not started (Joshua), in progress (Hannah), and completed (Clara).  They were really excited to help me water the grass, so I let them have the hose, and as a committee, they wrangled the hose and somewhat watered some spots.  Joshua had noticed I used my finger to partially block the hose opening to get a better spray (I know, I should just buy one of those sprayers that does it for you), so he wanted to try it too, bringing him much delight when he then sprayed it everywhere.  So I'll (or somebody will, anyway) keep watering this and hope it takes.  The company promised that if I wasn't happy with it by the fall, they would re-sod he whole thing when it wasn't so hot, so at least I have that as a fall-back plan.

RA and Paciugo

Tonight for our date night, Meghan and I went to RA Sushi Bar, which is probably our favorite sushi place.  It's in Park Place Village, which is a fun new little development in Leawood.  Afterward we walked over to the gelato store and had some really great gelato for dessert.  It was a simple date night, but like all of them, it was just really great to enjoy an evening out to ourselves.

Last Day of Swimming

Today was the last day of swimming for Joshua. He got his certificate passing him to the next level and then Halie took the kids out for a special treat at sonic. They love the slushes (dairy free, which is nice) with nerds so they enjoyed their drinks.

The Littlest Aeronautical Engineer

One of the toys we bought for the kids a couple years ago is an airplane with big plastic screws that hold it together.  It comes with a screwdriver to allow the kids to put it together and take it apart.  It's not the easiest thing to put together, as it even took me awhile the first time to figure out how it all fit together.  The kids play with it from time to time, though mostly they like to disassemble it, of course.  But I'd never seen Hannah playing with it until recently when I noticed she was doing her best to use the screwdriver to put it together.  I don't think she was actually making much progress, but because I'm an engineer, it makes me happy to see the kids playing with toys like that, as I hope they develop an engineering mindset, which can be so useful in so many ways in life.

Cows Get Free Chicken

Chick-fil-A is well-known for the long-running advertising campaign with the cows attempting to convince viewers to not eat them, but instead to eat some chicken (but cows are bad spellers).  For a few years now, they have had a promotion on a particular day where if you dress up as a cow and come into the restaurant, they'll give you a free value meal.  Halie noticed it this year and saw that it was on a day that she was scheduled to work, so she came prepared to make herself and the kids into cows.  The company website provides "costumes" that you can print off, and Halie had everything ready to go when she arrived.  She dressed the kids in black and white clothes and got them all costumed up.

When I was in college, my roommate Kurt graduated earlier than I did (but who didn't), and he bequeathed to me his cow costume.  I gladly took it, because you never know when you'll need a cow costume in life, and in fact I have used it several times.  Earlier in my work career (pre-blog, unfortunately) I went with my coworker Drew to Chick-fil-A on the cow costume day, and I wore it then.  When I heard Halie was taking the kids and they were all dressing up in cow costumes, I knew it was time for my old costume to make an appearance, and for me to join them for lunch.  So here we all are, first me with the kids and then with Halie added in, all mooing, though I'm the only one with my mouth uncovered.  We went to the restaurant and had a total of $25 of delicious free food and had a fun lunch.

Logistics and Gymnastics

Tonight was the second night of Vacation Bible School for Joshua.  After last night, he didn't seem very enthused about going back tonight, but we encouraged him and told him it would be fine.  As we got closer to the time to go, he got more and more upset about having to go back. Meanwhile, normally the plan on Mondays is I take Joshua to his gymnastics class, and then at the end Meghan shows up with Clara (and Hannah), and I take Joshua out to the car and get Clara out of the car, and she and I go in for her class, and Meghan drives Joshua and Hannah home.  Because of VBS tonight, the plan was for me to take both girls to Clara's class, and Hannah would sit with me and watch Clara, which she was really excited about.  We were getting ready to eat dinner at home when Meghan texted to tell me that Joshua was having a total meltdown as she tried to get him to go into VBS.  We decided the best plan would be for her to put him in the day care (which the church provides for children of volunteers of the program who are too young for VBS) and I would come get him, since she couldn't leave due to her volunteering duties.  This presented a problem, because my car only fits two kids.  So I decided I would pick him up, switch cars to take all three to gymnastics in the CX-9, and then return it to church, drop Hannah off in the day care, and then take the other two home in my car.  Logistically complicated, but doable.  But when I got to the church to pick up Joshua, he was having fun in day care and didn't want to leave, so instead I just took the girls to gymnastics and then home afterward, and the fire drill was all for naught.  Hannah was excited to watch Clara do gymnastics, and here they are doing some warm-ups before we left, and then later Hannah watching her sister while looking forward to the day when she can do it herself (which will be in a few weeks).

Picnic With the Neighbors

We recently had a new neighbor move in on our street, and they offered to host a summer picnic for the neighborhood, which we consider to be the houses on our street /cul-de-sac and the four houses on the street that backs up to ours.  Meghan and Joshua had the first night of VBS tonight (Meghan is volunteering, and Joshua is attending), so I took the girls.  It was pretty fun, and it was nice to meet some of the neighbors I didn't know well.  At this point I know about four of our neighbors pretty well, and a fifth somewhat, and at the picnic I was able to get to know a couple more, which was nice.  The girls ate at a table outside, and I thought I had a cute picture of them that I took with my phone until I looked later and saw that Clara's eyes were closed.  Later they played with Georgia, one of the neighbor girls who is a little older than them, and they had a fun time with bubbles, which are always fun for them.  It was a nice evening, and I'm glad I was able to get to know more of the neighbors on our street.

Benjamin is 2!

Today is Benjamin's second birthday, and it was also his party.  Julie and Andrew put together a cute Trucks and Cars and Things That Go theme, which is a book with Richard Scarry's Busytown characters.

They had a house full of people who love Benjamin, including Mom and Ron, Grandpa and Grandma Hall, Tom and Pat, Lisa, Nathan and Linsie, Jade, Jalie, Joanna, and our family.

The food was great, but the cupcakes were the star of the food show, as everyone ate a lot.  Each kid had at least two.  After eating, Clara and Joshua desperately wanted to go play outside on their old swing set, so we let them do it for a bit, but it was pretty hot out, so we didn't stay outside for long.

Soon it was presents time, and Benjamin got to collect his new loot, and later he got to pose for his first picture as a two-year-old with Daddy and Mommy.

Joanna and Kirk gave him the same landscaping set that Joshua has, and he thought the wheelbarrow was the best thing ever.  He drove it around the house, transporting various things from one place to another.  Joshua was really excited to play with the lawn mower that Benjamin got for his birthday last year, and he filled it up with the gas from the pretend tank every 30 seconds or so ("Uh oh!  It's out of gas again.  Time to fill it up!").  They had a lot of fun playing together and driving their toys around the house.

Finally it was time to go home.  I dressed Joshua this morning and put on some new shorts, but I apparently didn't size them correctly with the adjustable elastic waistband, as his pants fell down as we headed out to the car.  That didn't stop him, and he just kept walking in his underwear with his pants around his ankles.  That aside, it was a great party, and we had a fun time celebrating as our little nephew/cousin turned 2.