Fishin' and Frosties

Joshua and I had a date day today, and because the weather was great, and because fishing was a such a success last time, I thought we'd do it again.  This time we went to Blackhoof Park.  I found a dock that said you weren't supposed to fish on it, but I think that was just to make sure you didn't interfere with boats that were actually trying to dock there.  But it was the best place to fish, as most other places had so many lily pads and green junk in the water that he would have had a hard time reeling anything in. So I decided to be a rebel and fish there anyway, but be conscious of boats.  And sure enough, about 30 minutes in, a boat came in to dock, and we dutifully moved out of the way until they were done.  That seems fair.  I hope.

Like last time, we had success!  He caught a sunfish!  This was just a regular one, or at least it wasn't a redear one (it really bugs me that it's spelled that way, and not red-ear sunfish or red ear sunfish, but whatever) like last time.  We struggled a bit, because I had forgotten that the worms shouldn't be refrigerated, so a lot of ours were dead or near-dead.  Thankfully another family was done for the day and let us use their leftovers.  Joshua was excited by this, as he's fascinated by the giant worms (we don't have big nightcrawlers like that in our yard), so he is always in charge of picking out the worm to use as bait each time we need a new one.  And unfortunately that's more often than I'd like, because those jerk fish are often stealing my bait without actually hooking themselves on my hook.  How rude.

After we were done fishing, we went to Wendy's for lunch.  The kids meal came with some silly mouths that you could pretend to have as your mouth, and Joshua liked those quite a bit.  It was another great date day!

Meghan's Birthday

Today we celebrated Meghan's birthday at home with our family.  Meghan and I always try to go out to eat with each other for our birthday dinner, so we did that tonight by having Halie come over and watch the kids.  We went to Zocalo, which is one of our favorites, and we even got a pretty decent pic for one taken with a cell phone in low light.  It was a nice night out.

Getting Ready for Dad's Birthday

For Jason's birthday this year, which I am sure he will post about later, he wanted a Funfetti cake from a box. Though this was a little disappointing because I think boxed cake is a bit gross and I could literally make him any flavor of cake in the entire world.  I don't have so much free time in my life that I am going to try to talk him into homemade Funfetti, particularly on his birthday when he should really have the right to choose whatever cake he wants, even if it's one I dislike. The plus side to the very downscale cake is it is very easy for the kids to help since box mixes are specifically designed by actual food scientists to be virtually error-proof. I am not sure what you would have to do to truly ruin one, but being slightly off on a measurement is certainly not going to cause any harm. So Hannah was in charge of adding the water. Joshua was in charge of adding the eggs since he is my only child who can crack eggs.

Clara is a little behind the curve when it comes to cooking because she really isn't about following instructions so she isn't really there on the eggs. Hopefully soon. What Clara can do very well is mix and add ingredients. She loves to stir. So she was in charge of adding the oil and got to mix first. Each kid got a turn with my hand-held mixer (another bonus to a boxed cake since the kids think that is way more fun than my KitchenAid), but I couldn't get pictures of that because I needed to provide assistance with the mixer.

While the cake baked, the kids enjoyed the fruits of their labor. (Joshua is enjoying it, I promise. I don't know why he looks like he hates it.)

 

The next day, Hannah woke up before I was done frosting the cake, so she assisted with adding the sprinkles. It was a team effort and I think it turned out as Jason hoped. 

Upgrading the Carpet

All the carpet in our house is original.  It was already a little old when we moved here five years ago, but with all our kids and animals and everything, we've beaten it down.  The dining room carpet met its demise when we replaced it with wood, and while the upstairs isn't good, the worst was definitely the living room carpet.  It was due to be replaced, and we decided to go ahead and do it now.  Here you can see the old carpet after I cleared the furniture off of it.

And here is the new carpet after it was installed today.  It's not super obvious from the picture how much better it is, but it's way, way better.  It's thicker, and it has a bit of color variety in it which makes a big difference, and we chose a really good pad for it.  It's like walking on a cloud.  We love it.  The rest of the carpet in the house will be done later, and now we're looking forward to that even more.

Parks and Rock

Today I took the girls to the playground at Joshua's school.  We played a few different things, but then Clara got the idea to put rocks down the slide.  I played along and sat at the bottom of the slide and make comical yowling noises as the pebbles crashed into me.  The girls thought this was hilarious, so I kept it up, and even rested my head down on the slide as they continued to throw more and more handfuls of rocks down the slide.  Eventually I had a pretty good-sized pile around me.  Hannah then wanted to take my spot, and she then let out cute tiny yelps as Clara threw down the rocks.  We had a fun time, and then headed back home, riding our bikes all the way, of course.

An Unauthorized Makeover

Clara is really interested in Meghan's makeup, and sometimes Meghan will put a tiny bit on her, which makes her really happy.  But all of our kids know they are not allowed to be in our bedroom when we're not there, and they certainly know they can't get into our stuff.  Although Joshua is our primary kid for sneaking and getting into stuff he's not supposed to get, today Clara was the culprit.  She went into our bathroom and got into Meghan's makeup. Although she tried to quickly run out as soon as walked in, I caught her red-handed, and both literally and figuratively red-faced.  She had ruined a couple things and got makeup on her face and somehow in her hair.  And because she has sensitive skin, after I washed it off her face, there was a rash.  She felt really bad, as you can see, so I'm hoping she won't do that again.

Looking Like a Hipster, a Hippie, and a Grandma

Clara had a hemangioma on her eye when she was little.  We had it checked out, and she was fine, but they wanted to see her again occasionally to make sure it stayed that way.  It's also good to have her vision checked anyway, so today was her annual appointment.  Although they still have kids look across the room and read letters off a screen, they now use iPads to do some tests.  Throughout the course of the visit, she wore three different glasses: some large-rimmed black ones, some colored lens ones that look like they came from the '60s, and the cataract surgery-style ones that she wore home because they dilated her eyes while she was there.  But everything was good to go, so we won't need to come back for another year.

Still in My 30s, But Just Barely

Today we celebrated by 39th birthday.  Since I've been in my 30s, I've somewhat not paid attention to my actual age.  I mean, I could always come up with my age if I thought about it for a second, but I generally was just vaguely aware of it and kind of felt like I was in my one of the buckets of: early 30s, mid 30s, or late 30s.  And while I'm still technically in one of those categories, I'm now acutely aware of my age, as today I turned 39.  That means this is my last year in my 30s, so I'm pretty sure I'll have no problem remembering my age on any day in the coming year.  I don't feel like I'm ready to be a guy in my 40s, so I'm going to enjoy this year.  Anyway, today was a good day, as I always enjoy my birthday.  We celebrated in the evening with a cake that the kids helped Meghan make, and I got a new razor, which I desperately needed.

Old Settlers Day, With Two Kids

Last year I took Joshua to Old Settlers Day as part of a date day.  This year, Clara was likely tall enough to ride some of the rides, so I took both of them.  There were still a few rides that required extra height that only Joshua met, like this one that swings them around in these seats.  I bought enough tickets for each kid to get to ride a handful of rides.  After Joshua did that one, we picked out one for Clara, and she chose this helicopter ride.  She really liked it, as it went up in the air, but not enough to be scary.

There were both really interested in driving the cars, so they got in back-to-back vehicles.  Look at how excited Joshua was!

Most rides were only for the kids, but I wanted to do a few with all three of us.  We rode the Ferris wheel, and despite Joshua's trepidation last year, neither kid had any fear of it this year.  We also all rode the tilt-a-whirl together.

There was a parade that mostly consisted of area high school bands, but also some politicians and local businesses.  It wasn't very exciting, so we just stayed to watch for a little bit.  There were also several streets worth of vendors and booths for everything from local churches to individuals selling their crafts and canned goods.  Joshua and I hadn't explored that area last year, probably mostly due to the storm that came, but also because we went at night.  Since we had plenty of time today, we walked through them, and the kids were excited to collect the trinkets and balloons that they hand out.
We ate lunch there, and Joshua chose a corn dog while Clara and I wanted hot dogs.  I remember that last year I had to throw out my drink (Mountain Dew, because I'm an old parent who needs caffeine) because it tasted like bad chemicals.  This year I got it again, hoping it would be better, but it wasn't.  Apparently that's just how it tastes at that food truck.  I returned it and got a water instead.  Now that  I know it's not a fluke, I'll just avoid getting it next year.  For dessert, we had cotton candy, which the kids were very excited to get.  It's a pricey endeavor, as the tickets are surprisingly expensive, and obviously the concessions are overpriced, but it is a fun time, and it's only one a year, so we'll likely do it next year again.

Mini Patriot Run

Today, as somewhat of a remembrance of Patriot Day (9/11, which amazingly was 15 years ago now) at Goddard they had their Mini Patriots Run.  Along with that, they brought in police officers, firefighters, and members of the military, and the kids presented them with gifts they'd made.  Our neighbors' son Jack is in Clara's class, and here he helps present the gift from their class.  The kids wore patriotic clothes, as you can see Hannah here in her Fourth of July dress.  It was going to be awhile before the run (in which they ran around the gym in a parade-like fashion, I think), so I went back home, but the part that I saw was a nice little ceremony.

Bros at the K

What's a good way to celebrate being 39?  Going to a Royals game!  Actually, that's a good way to celebrate being any age.  Kirk, Andrew, and I wanted to go to a Royals game together, and today was the day that worked best for all of us.  We go to early service at church now, which works out on multiple levels, one of which is more flexibility on our Sundays.  I leveraged that today by leaving right after church to meet up with the guys at Andrew's house.  We then all drove over together to the K.  A group of Andrew's coworkers were there, so we tailgated with them before they went into the game.  We decided that we'd play some games in the parking lot before we went in, so we set up a game of washers and threw around a football for awhile.  Eventually we went in, and our seats were nearly dead-center with a great view.  Danny Duffy was starting, and he was pitching well.  Mid-way through the game we took a walk around the stadium including a stop in the Royals Hall of Fame.  I'd never been in there before, and it was much better than I expected, with lots of interesting exhibits, including the 2015 World Series trophy.  The Royals won 10-3, but it's basically going to take a miracle for them to make it to the playoffs this year, as they've had injuries to Moose and Wade and others, and they they've also been Soria-ed a few too many times.  But the Royals have done plenty of miraculous things the past couple years, so I'm not counting them out until that math changes from improbable to impossible.

Sunset Swimming

Our pool normally closes at the conclusion of Labor Day Weekend, but sometimes it gets extended by a week if the weather is warm enough, and that was the case this year.  So to take advantage of our extra pool days, I took the kids to the pool tonight.  When we got there, we saw a huge rainbow.

                                           As the sun set behind the houses, it created a blazing sunset.

                       It's kind of cold out, at least for summer, so the kids wore their wetsuits to stay warm.

Most people aren't interested in swimming when it's not super warm out, but that's not true for our kids!  They'll swim in pretty much another weather.  But since most people don't, that meant we had the entire pool to ourselves.  Unfortunately, this is likely our last outdoor pool session of the year.  We love swimming, and maybe we'll get in a few indoor sessions at the community center, but we'll definitely be looking forward to next summer.

Building a Bear

Today I took Clara on a date day and we invited Hannah to come with. We went to the mall, where we started at the American Girl store. We just browsed here as I wanted to get an idea of maybe some birthday or Christmas presents since I often struggle with that. Clara decided she loved this, but I am not sure she would actually play with something like that. Dolls generally aren't her thing.

Next we rode the carousel. Both girls were really excited about this. I thought it would be like the zoo, but it's much smaller so it's the kind of thing that makes me super dizzy, so total labor of love.

Hannah is afraid to go up and down so she rode on a bench. With goggles, because safety first.

Then we did our main event of going to Build-A-Bear. Clara loves stuffed animals so I thought she'd enjoy the process.

This is where she pumped her bear full of stuffing.

Then she did the heart ceremony, where you, among other things, rub the heart on your head so the bear will be smart, on your back because he'll always have your back, on your shoulder because he's a shoulder to cry on, and then you blow on it to make it warm and put it in the bear.

Then you can groom your bear and choose accessories. The whole operation is based on up-selling to kids, so it's a bit exhausting to say no to so much.

This bag was the only thing I said yes to that I hadn't planned on. It was the last thing so it was no-fatigue by then. And she had a great time. We had a fun day, though perhaps a bit consumerist. We also stopped at PetSmart to look at puppies at her request and ate lunch at Chick-Fil-A. We all had fun and Hannah asked if we could do this exact date when it's her turn, though probably we won't.