Moision Madness

The day for the long-awaited trip to Legoland with Scott (planned when Scott and Dietmar were in Belize with us) finally arrived. We took the boys down there, dropped them off with Scott, and fun ensued. He sent me pictures all day long so I have some images to share.

First, of course, the boys had to scour the map to make sure they picked the right places to go.

One of the first choices was to go on safari and see all the Lego animals.

They also got their driver’s licenses and drove some cars around.

Slow and steady …

For lunch they had the usual theme-park healthy fare.

Seriously, that is a giant rice crispy treat.

They got to hang out with R2D2.

And Chewbacca.

And they saw Lego San Francisco. Wow.

They came back exhausted, full of stories, and carrying two new giant Legos to build. Ezra said it was the best day of his entire life. Finn promptly passed out on the ride home.

Thanks, Scott!

They are when everyone leaves the house. It’s so quiet.

On another note, today the boys decided to match. Pretty cute.

Cari and I made an attempt to beat the Pasadena heat by taking the kids to Laguna for the day. It worked. The temps were nearly as high there, but the cold ocean water and sea breeze made it feel much cooler. The kids had a blast, of course.

After several hours at the beach, we headed up for baths and dinner.

Cari and I ate out on the deck and got this beautiful sunset view.

We headed home just after 8:00 with four completely exhausted kids who fell asleep as soon as we hit the freeway. Now that’s a successful day trip!

The boys had back-to-back soccer games at Victory Park yesterday starting at 8:30 a.m. which was a blessing in our 100 degree weather. (In fact, I think they ended up canceling all the games that started after 10:30.) We brought lots of water — new larger jugs for each boy since we ran out at last week’s game.

Ezra played first and seemed to have a good time.

There was a mud puddle that they’d marked off in the middle of the field to keep the kids from getting stuck in it. I’m pretty sure jumping over it was Ezra’s favorite part of the game.

Finn was up next. Before the game we took some team photos.

And then they were off, running around in a pack after the ball.

I like the early morning schedule. We were done by 10:30 and free to go about our Saturday.

After a long lull of disinterest from the boys, bubble baths have returned to favor recently. They want “tons and tons” of bubbles and make good use of their time in the bath. Here’s what I found when I came to collect them after a bath this week. “Look at all the bubbles we made, Mommy!” Ugh.

Finn also needed to show me how one of the bath toy animals could eat the other, which caused a stream of giggles.

At this point, they are so dirty most nights that whatever keeps the in the bath longer is a good thing.

We jumped off the bridge they call AYSO soccer today, saying goodbye to our weeknights and Saturdays in the process. But we thought it was time to at least let the boys try organized sports, so we took advantage of last week’s late signups and got them both on a team. Unfortunately, their two-year age difference makes it so they can’t play on the same team, which translates into two weeknight practices and two Saturday games at different parks. Today we had to be an hour early for Ezra’s 11:30 game at Victory Park in order to let the kids collect their uniforms, choose a team name, and warm up for their game. By game time it was nearly 90 degrees, but the kids were troopers. Sweaty, tired troopers, but troopers nonetheless. Here are some pictures from the day.

First, Ezra’s team — the Black Strikers — warms up.

The coin toss failed to hold Ezra’s attention; that’s him (#4) on the right looking off in the other direction.

Here are a couple of shots from the game and a short video of what Ezra looked like during most of it. I realized watching him that he had no idea what to do. We’ve never even watched a soccer game. He was a little timid but managed to have a couple of kicks, a block, and a throw in.

Ezra said he had fun playing, but that he was super hot. That’s an improvement over his statement as we were walking to the game: “Mommy, I wish you’d never signed me up for this.” Poor kid. I’m so glad he had a good time, but I do think his favorite part was the half-time oranges.

Finn’s game started at 12:30 in La Canada, so once Ezra was done we high-tailed it over there and caught the last 15 minutes or so of the Blue Ninjas. The under 6 set is really cute. Finn is an entirely different kind of player — he’s fearless and pretty aggressive considering he also doesn’t have any idea how to play. He told me later that he liked taking the throw ins so whenever he saw the ball go out he ran over. He took three of them while I was there. Here’s one.

I love the tongue out. He does it while he’s running sometimes, too.

After the game there’s the traditional handshake.

And the adults form a tunnel for the kids to run through — that seemed to be a kid favorite.

All in all a good day. And it’s nearly 7:00 p.m. now and they still haven’t taken off their uniforms.

The first week of Kindergarten and second grade went well. Ezra got to do “share bag” and take in two items to share with the class. He chose Finn’s wooden snake from the Belize Zoo and the monkey Sergio carved for him from a coconut. The monkey was a huge hit, although I have yet to get any of his friends’ specific comments out of Ezra.

Finn is loving school and, in fact, has told me several times that he loves school. Naptime is his favorite, even though he doesn’t actually nap. I think he’s happy to have the rest, both physically and mentally. I snapped a couple more pictures of him this week. Here he is in line ready to go into the classroom on day 2.

And here’s the hat he made and brought home on Friday.

On Thursday they had a bit of excitement when a bear wandered into the neighborhood from the local mountains and the sheriffs made them lock down the school. They call it “shelter in place” instead of lock down which has a much sinister connotation, but the kids were kept in their classrooms until the sheriffs could make sure it was safe to release them. This happened at pickup time, so it had the potential to be quite disastrous as far as traffic and panicked parents are concerned. But the school handled it beautifully, walking each child to their car at an alternate pickup site in front of the school. Tedious for the teachers, I’m sure, but everyone was kept safe and sound. Here’s a photo that a friend of a friend took about a block away from school.

He was said to be in the neighborhood again the next day, but luckily he was far enough away from school that we didn’t have a repeat performance of “shelter in place.”

The first day of school started with a huge traffic jam! Families were stacked up for blocks, waiting to get a parking spot at or near the Aveson campus. We squeaked in just before 8:00 and I ran with Ezra to get to his line as his teacher likes to start right on time and is always the first person to walk her class down to the classroom. Ezra seemed a little anxious, although Cari, who stayed in the classroom for some time, said the kids were having a good morning in Mrs. Diane’s class.

Once he was safely in class, I went down the hall to Finn’s classroom, bummed that I’d missed my photo op of his class lining up for the first time. All the Kindergarteners were on the rug and Ms. Jessica was taking role.

After a story about going to Kindergarten, the kids got in a circle and introduced themselves.

Then they drew pictures of their families for a display on the bulletin board.

Then Ms. Jessica read The Kissing Hand.

And the kids (and grownups) made hands for each other.

Our trusty parent liaison, Stephanie, took pictures of all the kids.

Once everyone was done, the kids reassembled on the rug to start learning the ropes.

Then they lined up for snack recess.

And headed out the door. “Hi, Papa!”

Recess was our cue to leave. Finn seemed to be doing just fine!

After school I got a couple of pictures for posterity’s sake.

And then we went for our traditional first day of school cupcakes. So many choices!

When we sat down to dinner later, I got reports from their days: Finn already loves school and Ezra had a great day, too. Then we ran an errand and on the way home, at 6:45, Finn fell asleep. He slept until 6:30 the next morning. I think Kindergarten is very tiring.

After we got home from Belize, we had one week before school started. We spent some of it recovering from the stomach bug (Finn) and some getting reacquainted with our toys (Ezra). I spent some time scrambling to make sure everything was in order for school — paperwork, school clothes, supplies, etc. We had a few fun activities as well.

There was some tent and fort camping.

We went to Aveson for the Kindergarten Open House, where Finn met his teachers (Jessica and Vonni) and some of his classmates.

We went on a hike in the Arroyo with some of our Aveson friends.

Ezra got a new, bigger bike and we met some friends at the park for bike riding.

On Labor Day, Vanessa and Thomas came over for some physics, play time, and dinner. The boys played hockey and rode bikes.

And then the week was done and we were staring Kindergarten and Second Grade in the face!