Brotherly Fun

Brian didn't work this morning, so the boys "helped" him mow the lawn and clean out the garage. I was doing a variety of different chores inside. At one point, Brian called for me to bring the camera...Joshua was helping & teaching Nathaniel how to ride the trike.

Of course, neither of them will give me a decent smile...it's this bizarre grimace type thing that Nathaniel started doing recently any time he sees the camera...and Joshua thinks it is funny, so he does it now too.

After a while, I brought out the sidewalk chalk that Carrie had made for them (thank you Aunt Carrie!!) and they had fun with that. For "summer school" we're going to do some lessons that my mission friend, Melanie Day, created for her children last summer and has posted on her website sugardoodle.net We're starting with a lesson on The Creation/The Solar System. While we ate breakfast this morning, I introduced the vocab/spelling words for this week...in English & in Spanish. Being as Joshua is in the immersion program, I don't want him to slack off with the Spanish since he's been doing so well. Well, I tried out the chalk first and drew a sun...then I asked Joshua to write the word SUN and then I asked him to write it in Spanish (SOL). He didn't even realize that it was part of "summer school" and went on to do MOON/LUNA and STAR/ESTRELLA. Then he started on the planets - something that they'd studied in kindergarten last year.

Nathaniel tired of the chalk before Joshua did and posed for me a bit on his trike.

School's Out!!!

Watching Wiggles on Mommy & Daddy's bed one morning


Yay...we're happy, yes, even Mommy is happy, that school is out for the summer. Joshua finished kindergarten in what seemed like the blink of an eye! It's been fun, but we're ready for a break now. He's reading well in Spanish and in English, so we'll be working on keeping that up all summer.

Memorial Day in the backyard watching everyone play cowboy golf.

The shirts (courtesy of Grandma and Grandpa) say I MAKE A LOT OF NOISE...how true!

I know Nathaniel will love Joshua being home all the time...especially right now after his in-house playmate has left. Carol, Scott and Geddy left a few hours ago to begin their drive back home. The boys seemed to enjoy playing together this week...being exactly one month apart, it was almost like having twins at times. They interacted much more this year than they did last year when we all got together.

Wearing matching shirts (again courtesy of Grandma and Grandpa) the "almost twin" cousins smiling so cute for their mommies...Carol took this picture this morning before they left.

I'm trying to get caught up on laundry and dishes (you can never get caught up on those two chores, darn it!), but wanted to do a quick post while the boys are finishing their lunches. It sounds like they're having a burping contest out there...great...I thought I was still a few years away from that! I'll get some pictures posted eventually. I've figured out more on this new computer than I knew a last week. Mine is dead...but Sarah and Dave were able to save what I needed off of its hard drive, so I'm happy.

Dead Computer

Friday, I went to turn on my computer and nothing happened. Something in that machine has died. Hopefully it's nothing that has destroyed my folders of pictures from April and May of this year. Sarah and Dave are coming over on Friday to hopefully save those. The thing is almost 4 years old...and it's an eMachine (which Best Buy so highly recommended and this is the 3rd one that we had (we'd had two at Brian's old office) and the only one that still works). I'm getting used to Brian's HP that has Vista on it...kind of a pain. Eventually I'll get my photo program on here and figure out how to download pictures from the computer so I can upload them to here.
Other than that our excitement has been strep throat - Joshua might have had it...nathaniel tested positive for it and has another ear infection. Almost half of joshua's class was out with it last week. What a way to end the school year...only 6 more days to go. I'll be glad for next year when he goes all day so that we don't have this 4 days a week one thing and one day a week something else and oh, yeah, don't forget the first Friday of the month to come in the morning. Such a pain. Now it's time to go pick him up and go to the library...we skipped Storytime today...too much to do getting ready for lots of company this weekend.

Nathaniel "helping" me scrapbook

Nathaniel woke up from his nap just as I was finishing a layout for a challenge that was due tomorrow. While I was taking a picture of it to upload to the compture, he decided to get in my chair to help. As soon as he saw the camera he started asking for his picture to be taken and "smiled" for me:

He's already working the fake smile! So after I took that picture, I pretended to laugh, which got him to giggle and really smile and I snapped this one :)

Our Picnic at the Dam

Like I said in the earlier post, Saturday we drove up to the dam for a picnic. We did this for my birthday 2 years ago because 1) I thought it would be cooler up there than down here (and being 8 months pregnant at the time, anything cool was nice) and 2) we'd never taken Joshua up there. Now, I've never been overly thrilled that there was a dam holding tons and tons and tons of water back right up above where I live. I didn't really know about the dam and the lake when I first moved here...actually, I really knew nothing about this town when I got hired to teach here 3 days before school started back in '97. Anyway, a month or two after I moved here I read a book (Julie by Catherine Marshall) that had a dam (true, it was an earthen one, not a concrete one) break and the havoc & trauma that followed. It was one of the few books I had at the time since most of my book collection was still in my parents' attic. I liked the book, was saddened & horrified by the book, and was grateful that I lived no where near a dam. Like I said, I didn't know much about this place. In January, shortly after I started teaching, I got sick. Some flu bug or something...I was out from work for a week, and ran a fever, etc. I remember having horrible dreams about the dam breaking (right before Christmas a co-worker had told me that if the dam ever broke while we were at school we were stuck with all those kids because we'd have minutes to get far enough away to be safe) and of course, it was right after Titanic (stupid movie) came out and that lovely song was playing all the time...I'd hear Celine's version, two or three versions with clips from the movie stuck in it, a country version, a musak type version - even a Spanish version! So between my fears of the dam, that song and a high fever I had some very bizarre nightmares. Anyway, I've never liked the thought of this dam up there...especially after 9/11...especially after being in the store one New Year's Eve (I think it was the one right after 9/11) and hearing a couple people talking about how a bomb threat had been called into the dam and they were checking things out. (Turned out it was just a crank call and that happens every so often)...especially after learning that a fault line runs under it or near it...after all, this is the town that has an earthquake festival every August to commemorate the earthquake that leveled it over 100 years ago. But every once in awhile, I swallow my fear and we drive up for a picnic. I didn't take too many pictures up there...there's not much to see :) And like I've mentioned before, our camera can't zoom anymore so that really puts a crimp in my photo taking. But here are a few...

Big Difference...

Saturday, we drove up to the Monticello Dam at Lake Berryessa for a picnic (Joshua's favorite kind - where we eat in the back of the car!) Anyway, we know they've been saying that we haven't had that much rain, etc. this year. And each week we read in the paper how much the lake has dropped. Well, this picture of the Glory Hole really made it real.

This is the Glory Hole and the level of the Lake on Saturday, May 3, 2008:

Here is what it looked like in early July, 2 years ago when we went up there for a picnic on my birthday:

You'd think it would be lower in July than it is in May. Looks like we're heading into a dry summer. We've had some warm weather off and on the past couple of weeks...today it was 88. Time to find the shorts & sandals for the boys!

Happy Birthday Joshua!!!

Well, I tried to post this yesterday, but blogger was being a pain and I didn't have time to come back later and try. So a day late, but still just as special!!!

Joshua turned SIX yesterday!!! Hard to believe that he's gone from this:

to this:

so quickly!!! Where have the years gone!! He's been star of the week at school this week and that has been fun (& a bit challenging to start with). Tomorrow he is taking in M&M cookies to share...if Mommy doesn't eat all the M&Ms before she makes the cookies tonight!!

Over the weekend we had some excitement...Brian became the 2nd counselor in our new Bishopric at church. This is going to make interesting changes for us in some ways...most noticeably for me - him not sitting with us during Sacrament Meeting & having to deal with Mr. I'm Not Sitting Still At All (aka Nathaniel) all on my own. Anyway, due to this, my parents came down for the weekend and Brian's dad flew up from Arizona - all of them stayed with us. To say we had a full house is an understatement! On Saturday, Sarah & Dave also came over and we celebrated Joshua's birthday early (for the 2nd time this month) and had his birthday cake that day. He wanted a space ship cake that he'd seen in a cake decorating book that I have...I did my best and he was pleased with the result, so that was good.

Brian's dad's birthday had been the Monday before, so Joshua said that the cake was for both of them and Grandpa Val even had a couple of cards to open!

Here he is with Grandpa Bruce getting some help opening a present from Aunt Sarah and Uncle Dave.