Vacation Day 2: On to Utah!

We ate at the all you can eat buffet at Circus Circus for breakfast.  It was pretty good.  Colin was enjoying this banana.  I brought his Elmo fork and spoon for him to use on vacation, he loves Elmo!

Packed like sardines!

At a diaper change and gas stop, Colin decided he wanted to drive the car! I thought it was too cute!

Check out how he looks out at the road as well as checks behind him.  So funny! I love this phase where he imitates!

They played Thomas together in the car, although anything was a bit of a challenge for Colin to play since he would drop/throw things on the floor...

We made it to camping!  Here is Colin sleeping in the pack and play inside the tent.

Here is Gavin in the tent.  He was awake when I came to check on them.

His ham side was coming out!

Vacation Day 1: Vegas, Baby!

We left at ten something in the morning to begin our trip to Utah.  We had reservations in Las Vegas at Circus Circus for the night.  We wanted the kids to see a little bit of Las Vegas.  We caravaned with Natalie and Richard and their kids/nephews.  After we got there we decided to go to a Japanese restaurant 1.3 miles away.  Someone thought it would be fine to walk, but in 100 degree weather, it was torture.  Once we thought we could go no more we found a Thai Restaurant 1.7 miles away.  

After LOTS of ICE water we ate a delicious dinner!  When we left the restaurant we looked kitty corner across the parking lot and there was the restaurant we were looking for! The irony of it all!  

By the time we got back to the hotel it was almost dark so we put the kids straight to bed. 

Right before we left our place in the morning Philip was getting ice from Jessica's freezer and Gavin gave himself a good burn on the back of his leg from the exercise equipment in her living room.  Ouch!

On the way to Vegas Gavin started talking about "rainbow," and were thinking, what?  Then I turned around and looked at Gavin and he HAD MADE A RAINBOW on the RENTAL CAR!!!!! ARGH!!!! 

Gavin got his own queen sized bed!

Colin slept in the pack and play.  He takes his nap in it whenever Gavin is home during nap time, so it wasn't a big deal for him.  I took two pictures because I didn't think the first one was centered the way I liked.  If you look closely it looks like he is almost awake and smiling in the second one.  I wonder... I know though that I sleep with my eyes open, so he very well could be asleep!

In the Garden

My pumpkins are getting bigger!

But my poor tomatoes aren't doing so hot...

My volunteer cherry tomatoes are doing well, though, look at the grow between my planter and greenhouse!

He likes to pick tomatoes, too bad he almost always chooses the green ones!

Here's an much more recent picture of my pumpkins, they are escaping the chicken wire!

 There blossoms, too!

My strawberries are still kicking, too, even though I haven't been paying them much attention.  One of them is almost gone, though.

My tomatoes are doing really poorly and I have taken out 3/4 of the plants I intentionally planted, one still has a tiny bit of fruit, but I will probably take it out in the next couple of days.  

Now I have to figure out what I should plant where my tomatoes were.  Any suggestions?  The girl I spoke to at Lowe's the other day though I should do spinach, which I have never done.  Have any of you ever grown it before?

Homework this Summer

We took a class earlier this summer through the city parks and rec.  The class was okay, not super creative, a lot of worksheets which were hard to get Gavin to do.  It did, however, get me to start doing "homework" with Gavin most days, though.  I have been doing workbooks (that are more fun than the worksheets they gave us).  Gavin loves to cut and cut and paste. I can get him to do tracing and some writing, but I don't think he was ready for as much writing as they wanted him to do in the class, he gets bored.  

Here are a few of the cutting projects he's done.  Pretty good, huh?

We were on the patio and Gavin told me he was going to write my name. I helped him sound it out (he knows what typical sounds the letters make) and he wrote it!!!!!  Notice though that he wrote, "Mon"-- that is because he told me there was already an "m" in it, so I guess he wrote the next best thing.  I guess that there can be the same letter more than once in a word is a lesson he still needs to learn!

If you want to see what Philip got for Father's Day...

...click on the link.  I finally got pictures of what he got this year.  I slacked and didn't get him a tie.  Still need to make one for him.

Zoo Time!

We went to the zoo with friends and I made bento lunches.  

We had to ride the train, of course!

Ducks!

Swan!

It's kind of hard to see, but this the bald eagle behind the fence. These fences make it extremely difficult to take quick pictures!

There was a baby anteater I was trying to get a picture of...

Dragon Boat Racing!

We biked to see Dragon Boat racing at the marina.  It was pretty cool!  There was the racing, of course, along with food and other vendors, a few companies giving away free literature or stuff, and entertainment.  We saw Taiko drumming.   

We stopped at our favorite Mexican restaurant on the way home and had a little bit of a picnic in the park on the way home.

Burrito, yum!