Get Your Kicks on Route 66

Saturday was Duarte's 17th annual Route 66 parade.

Before the parade we were able to talk to the current Mayor of Duarte, Tzeitel Paras-Caracci

And then participate in the parade! The kids thought being able to ride in a car without car seats was a pretty funny thing. (I was also in the parade, carrying a flag with the Missionaries and members of the Duarte ward)

After the parade we went to the Vintage Car show and festival at Royal Oaks Park. Brielle and James are hard at work building a bird house.

And the kids enjoyed the giant inflatable slide over and over and over again.

The Happiest Place on Earth

I didn't keep track of how many times we went to Disneyland this past year. At the beginning we would go about twice a month. For this past month though we went 2-3 times each week. I was trying hard to get tired of it. I remember as a teenager we went as a family and had a 5-day pass. After 4 full days of Disneyland (before California Adventure existed) we all begged off the last day and went to the beach instead. I was sick of Disneyland for a good long while after that. That method didn't work this time. We had a great time and some great memories and hope that Disneyland has another promotion so we can afford season passes again sometime while we live so close.

I Simply Remember My Favorite Things

The Hollywood Bowl hosted The Sound of Music Sing-a-Long this past week. Everyone is invited to dress in costumes for the show. Margaret made these beautiful dresses for the girls. I made the lederhosen for the boys, and Megan Warnick searched all over to find the perfect hats and socks to complete the boys costumes. With such teamwork, the kids looked pretty darn cute.

Kissing Cousins :)

The kids were able to go on stage for the costume parade. The lady in the back wearing pink is the actress that played Liesl in the movie. All 5 of the actresses that played the girls of the Von Trapp family were there.

The sold-out crowd. The audience participation for this show made it oh, so much fun. Booing and hissing, cheering, cowbells, flashlights, poppers to celebrate the first kiss, and of course so many people all singing together.

The kids were a little confused about what in the world they were doing on stage in front 18,000 people.

Fire Safety Week

 Stop, Drop, and Roll

I hope we never have a fire to deal with, but just in case, we did a lot of practicing.  We checked all the fire alarms (and replaced batteries!), so we would know what sound to listen for in an emergency.  We drew maps of the house and all the exits, we practiced calling 911-only PRETENDING!-to be able to state our name and address if needed.

Scavenger Hunt 

We went on a scavenger hunt throughout the house to find all the things that get hot.  And where fires might start.  And yes, I did tell the kids my personal experience of curling irons causing fires.  They know we always turn off or unplug all these things that get hot.

Fire Science

We learned about how fires burn and ways to stop them.

I had to relight the candles over and over again.  The kids loved being able to stop the fire.

But of course we learned we never play with fire.

Field Trip to the Fire Station

Firefighter Luna  was so nice to give us a tour and tell us about life as a fireman. Brielle told me she wants to be a firefighter.  I think she might need to grow a few inches first so she can at least reach the pedals.

I know Ethan was just looking for a way to play in the water.  This is the smallest hose, used for small brush or dumpster fires. It still pumps out 40 gallons of water per minute, which would definitely knock the kids right over.

Books

We've had Alphabet Rescue before, which Brielle immediately recognized and loved.  But I think the books were actually equally loved and red this week.

Looks like Ellie is already learning how to copy. :)

Preschool Packets
http://homeschoolcreations.com/firemanlapbook.html
http://momto2boys24.blogspot.com/2010/10/unit-study-fire.html
http://mamasmonkeys.blogspot.com/2011/09/firefighter-tot-pack.html

Happy Anniversary

James was gone at a conference during our anniversary this year. Actually, for most of the years we've been married our anniversary has fallen during finals week, or some other busy time for James. We've learned to celebrate whenever we can, and to not worry much about the actual date. So, 4 months late...here is our anniversary celebration this year!

We started by heading to California Adventure together. We had a great time actually getting to ride together on the rides. Brielle is tall enough for most of them, but Ethan is not, so we usually have to trade off kid duty.

We were amazed by how many rides we could fit in when we didn't have kids and strollers to deal with. We only stayed for a couple of hours, but still went on all the big rides, and even some smaller ones.

We then enjoyed a yummy fondue dinner at The Melting Pot. We have been wanting to try out this restaurant since we first heard about it back in Utah, at least 7 years ago. A travelzoo deal came along; so we finally did it. The food was pretty amazing, the dessert was even more so. We were carefully watching for our waiter to make sure he didn't see us licking the bowl.  We didn't want to waste a single drop.

We headed to the St. Regis, where we have stayed before.  We earned a free night stay while we were out in Virginia Beach for James' conference in June.  

Saturday morning James went for a bike ride while I ran along the beach.  We then met back at the room to enjoy our freshly made hot chocolate delivered by our personal french butler.

The kids were so excited about being able to have a sleepover with their cousins.  We appreciate Aunt Megan and Uncle Danny for watching them while we celebrated 8(+) years of marriage and many more to come!

Dinosaurs

Good news folks!  We got a camera.  It was at the end of the week, so I don't have pictures of most of our activities still this week, but I'm excited to finally be able to document our life again.

We started out Dinosaur week at the Museum of Natural History in LA.  They have a new Dino exhibit, which was very cool.  There were large touch screen computers with interactive information and games, touch tables with bones and eggs, and lots of dino skeletons on display.

Making Dino Eggs

We used some peanut butter play dough (still in the fridge from butterfly week) to make dinosaur eggs and nests.  I let the kids use skewers make indentions in the eggs.  It is amazing at how play dough can be fun all over again with just a new tool to use.

Digging for Dino Bones

We had ribs for dinner at Vov and Yogi's house last week.  I saved the bones and dried them out, and then buried them in a box of sand.  The kids used small paint brushes to dig them out.  They looked so cool when dry because they turn white and looked old.  You could use any kind of bones you have on hand though.
Brielle was convinced they were actual dinosaur bones.  She kept asking me which dinosaur certain bones came from.  The bigger ones she was sure must be a tyrannosaurus.  The smaller ones, maybe a velociraptor. 
The kids then used these bones and made their own museum.  Gavin organized them into dino-looking exhibits.  Brielle took charge of cleaning the museum to get it ready for the grand opening.

Dinosaur Snack

I used the idea from the amazing mess to make no-bake cookies using 'dinosaur' ingredients.  I love that the kids are so trusting that they believe you are actually using dirt and crushed dinosaur bones to make a treat.  They loved it.

File Folder Games

A story about Dinosaurs with Manners

Dinosaur Bone matching game (with polite things to say to each other)

My sister-in-law was a first grade teacher.  She gave me a lot of these file folder games.  Brielle especially loves doing these kind of activities.

 Books

I had no idea there were dinosaur names that start with every letter of the alphabet.  We learned a lot by reading ABC Dinosaurs.  The kids enjoyed looking at the book and deciding which kind of dinosaur they were as we were playing.  Gavin always wanted to be a meat eater, Ellie a plant eater.

At one point while I was busy cooking dinner or something Ethan was quiet for a while, which usually means trouble.  I went looking for him and found him 'reading' the dino books.  He loved them.

In the future, I saw this idea years ago and it still hangs out in my mind.  I'm waiting for the kids to get a little older with a longer attention span.  Then we will build a whole dinosaur using chicken bones.

Reading

Brielle has known the alphabet and letter sounds for a long time, but hasn't been interested in learning to read.  I've tried from time to time to have her read, but she would just guess at the words and get distracted.  James and I believe in the studies that show that it doesn't matter how early you learn to read, (what young kids read usually isn't life changing!) but the love of reading is what matters in the future. 

I heard about Bob books, and finally got them from the library.  Brielle got very excited when she learned that she could read the whole book by herself.  Right now she is loving her new found ability to read.  I am again wondering who came up with this awful English language.  It is hard to explain why 'the' just says the and to sight read it and don't try to sound it out.  And why does 'a' say 'uh' when it is by itself, but 'aaa' or 'ay' when combined with other letters?  That is just how our language works.  And, we're just at the beginning of all those crazy rules!
Ethan is so excited by Brielle's achievement, that he also takes a turn 'reading' to me every morning.  He pretends to sound out the words and loves it!  He doesn't know any letters of the alphabet yet, but is finally starting to sing them when singing the ABC song.  He used to sing the entire song using only the letters A and B.  Now THAT is impressive.

The Triathlon

I had NO pictures proving that I did a triathlon.  It is a little bit hard to take pictures of yourself when you need to swim, jump on a bike and then run...luckily I had family there cheering for me.  My sister Shelly sent me a couple pictures. And now, I'm finally getting around to posting my race report.  So, here it is...The Triathlon!

The first question you might ask.  Why in the world would I want to do a triathlon?  I had never thought about it until a friend in Michigan did one.  She had 2 little kids at the time, the youngest was barely 1.  We were at a BBQ with friends and she looked fabulously in shape.  I think at that point Ethan would have been maybe 2 months old and I was wanting to get rid of the after-pregnancy body.  The fact that she was also a mom of 2 young kids made a triathlon seem possible to me.  I talked to her about it, and put it on the back burner in my mind.


That was at the time James was graduating, we sold our house, moved from Michigan to California and worked on getting settled here.  I started running regularly and competed in some events.  After finishing this past ragnar I was looking for the next thing to sign up for.  James came across this triathlon in Utah that would take place while I was there for the family reunion.  I signed up, encouraged my family to sign up, and started training!


The running I had been doing and knew I could finish, the biking I felt I could work up to.  But as for the swimming...well, I grew up in Utah.  There were not a lot of opportunities to swim.  I think I took swimming lessons one summer as a kid.  We went as a family to the swimming pool at times, but it has never been something I've done for exercise and I've had a couple of experiences being stuck in rapids underwater that have made me a little water-weary.  As such, swimming is not my strength, at all!  At the beginning of training I knew how to keep myself above water to survive, but I didn't know how to stroke, breathe or kick correctly.  I had James watch me and give me some tips, and then I just tried to figure it out.


Fast forward to race day...

It had been about 95 degrees all week, so I was concerned that it would be too hot by the time the run happened (I hate running in hot weather), but it was perfect temperatures with a rain storm looming.  It was a bit cold getting into the water, and windy for the bike, but overall it was beautiful.

The swim was in a very small man-made lake.  The 500 yard swim went around almost the entire perimeter of the lake.  By the day of the race I still wasn't sure I really knew how to swim!  We have a small pool in our complex at my house.  It is about 13 yards, so I would lose track of laps going back and forth.  I knew how to not drown, but I still have a long way to improve. I was just glad to get the swim done first and move on.  

Our first transition was on the beach of the lake.  We had to run in the sand to get to our bike, try to get some/most of the sand off and then continue on to the bike portion.

The bike route was 14 miles/22.5 km.  I was riding a borrowed mountain bike.  There was a long uphill stretch and my front gears were not shifting.  It was a bit demoralizing to be passed by all the nice/fast road bikes, but I plowed through and felt good about it.  I loved the 2 mile downhill stretch, but even on that I was passed by the lighter road bikers. (note to self, save money and get a road bike!).

I still had sand in my shoes when I started running, but didn't want to stop to get it out.  I was running on the adrenaline and had to just keep moving.  I tried to keep a steady pace for the run.  There was supposed to be a water station half way through, but I found out later that it was earlier than that (which explained why the last half of the run felt SO long.)

There was a total of 197 males and 133 females (330 people total), so it wasn't a huge race, but it was well organized and had a fun atmosphere.  The youngest person doing the race was only 8-years-old.  I was impressed!

Anyway, as for the times, I was shooting for under 2 hours.  I didn't know what to expect since I hadn't done all 3 sports back to back before.

There were 24 in my age group-I finished 14th.  

Swim 12:36 (20/24)

T1 4:08 (9/24)

Bike 1:03:55 (18/24)

T2 0:45 (2/24)

Run 29:53 (6/24)

Total Time:    1:51:14.8

I'm excited about doing more triathlons, and have PLENTY of room for improvement.  I was happy with my effort though and felt good about it at the end.

Cars

No pictures of the kids this week.  I know, so sad.  I hope to get a camera soon.  I still want to document what we did though, so...some of our activities for this week as we learned about different kinds of cars and trucks.:

Painting with Cars

Gavin was concerned about getting his cars dirty with paint, but once I assured him that it would wash off, he loved driving his car through the paint and all over the paper.

Designing a Car

One of the favorite books of the week was If I built a Car by Chris Van Dusen.  After reading the story the kids imagined what kind of car they would have.  We drew the plans and then sculpted them out of playdoh.  Ethan wants a 'blue/green' car.  Brielle liked the idea of having a swimming pool and snack station inside the car.

I introduced Brielle Chitty Chitty Bang Bang this week.  We watched it in 10 minute clips from you tube throughout the week, and actually haven't finished it yet.   I remember watching it as a kid and showed the kids how the car was invented to be able to turn into a boat and an airplane.  Brielle thought the pirate/bandits were scary, but likes the song.  

Playing/Defining Cars 

Gavin and Lissy brought over their stash of toy cars, combined with our small collection we were able to go through and find all different kinds of cars, garbage trucks, police cars, an ambulance, mail truck, street sweeper etc.

Car Color Bingo

We'e used these road trip bingo games before (created by oopsey daisey).  We played a game of bingo using the colored cars chart.  For the younger kids it was simply a color review, for the older kids it was some good math practice. (you have 3 in that row, how many more do you need to get bingo).

Preschool Packs

http://www.1plus1plus1equals1.com/PreschoolPackCars.html

http://www.2teachingmommies.com/2011/02/ways-we-get-around.html