Chef Play & Soapy Soccer

Last week time got away from me and we arrived so late for story time we completely missed the story.

But we didn't miss the fun.

We got there just in time to decorate our own chef hats.

Then sit, dip, and lick away at some chocolaty goodness.

It was a delightful way to spend the morning.

They indulged so much they hardly touched their lunch. It wasn't a very impressive meal anyway. With Dad out of town I've cooked very little.

After we dropped Ethan off at school Graham and I went over to his buddy C's house to hold his brand new baby brother little C. This meant Graham missed his nap playing away while I got some newborn cuddle time. Chris asked if it made me baby hungry and while we would gladly welcome another baby in our home no I was not in any way distraught that we don't have a new addition on the way.

Once school let out we met up with many, many of our friends to pass the 115-120 degree heat, with me sitting in the shade, and the boys playing in the splash fountain and on some awesome new playgroup equipment.

Recreation also started setting up Soapy Soccer for the older kids in the afternoon adjacent to where we were. Zach liked it until he took a hard ball to the chest knocking the wind out of him. Ethan just likes to go in and get in the way. Really only half the kids are playing soccer and the other half are just playing around and literally bouncing off the air filled walls.

These afternoon outings are about all we can do to just pass the darn last 2.5 weeks in this horrible heat.

Book Week

Book Week at school just had to fall the same time Zach has become obsessed with the Captain Underpants Series. It's all he and his little buddies can talk about. I've had to discourage the potty humor that came along after he began reading these books. I know it's just a phase that will pass but this is what he wanted to wear to school for "Dress up as your favorite book character day."

After a lot of convincing (people will laugh especially the older kids, you might get in trouble, you think its funny now but won't later). Or worse, in my mind, everyone will love it and he'll be hailed as the coolest kid ever for attempting it and it will cause him to continue down a path of attention seeking behavior. We already have one of those in our house and that's enough thank you very much. He chose instead to be the less offensively but not quite as funny dressed Harold.

Book week is the brain child of our good friend and school librarian Mr. Peterson.

During the week the kids are asked to bring in books their families no longer want.

In return they are given book bucks.

The night of the event families were separated into 5 groups and then assigned to a room.

In each room we were read an interesting and often exotic tale by some of the fathers from our community.

After rotating through each room we gathered in the gym.

Here all the donated books were laid out so the families could get new books (at least new to them) with their book bucks.

I love this idea! It's brilliant because in our small community of limited access to new books this was a great way to get rid of something we had enjoyed but no longer needed in exchange for new reading material for all 3 boys.

Zach is a voracious reader. I love books but I don't want to own as many as he wants to read. This boy needs his own library card and fast. That will be one of the first things we do once home. He's already hijacked my Kindle on more than one occasion.

Also Ethan has been surprising of late in that when I read to him he has started picking out words. I know we have another excellent reader in the making here. His teacher's comments about his letter & word recognition are similar to what I remember Zach's teachers saying in the past.

Fitness Club On Fire

Our Fitness Club has been On Fire this year so we celebrated with an end of season BBQ.

First we feasted!
Sorry the picture is so small but I wanted to show you how we do it here. About 3 weeks before an event someone calls the Recreation Department asking for rugs, chairs, tables, sound system equipment, etc. Their crew sets it up, takes it all down when done, and will provide a team of helpers throughout the event if needed. We can even get a helium tank for balloons if we want at no cost to us.

After the feast but before a game of Ultimate Frisbee our President had a few words about outstanding successes of the season, rankings in our race series, and last but not least some awards for things like:
Mental Toughness
Most Attractive to the Wrong Crowd
Fastest Person Who Didn't Spend a Small Fortune
Rookie of the Year (Yours truly)
......just to name a few.

Those who wanted to give out their own recognition awards did so too, such as the following saying written on a pair of bike shorts:
Pain is the Weakness Coming Out of You.....

and a fur covered bike helmet.

Kara recounted a story about a friend who has worn her bike helmet backward not once but....

TWICE!
She gave all the blonds in our group a hand mirror so they can do a quick once over before the next ride.

These are all the Fit Mammas in our group.

The week before the event a short survey was sent out. Now keep in mind only a handful of people actually responded but the numbers are outstanding!
(UDH 2011 Team Jersey)

General Recognition: August 2010-May 2011

Who ran further than they ever had before?
4

Who ran a marathon?
3, with another 4 who ran a 1/2 marathon

Participated in their first bike race?
8

Participated in a bike race?
18

Rode further than they ever had before?
11

Who caught a ride from a Bedouin back to camp?
5

Completed a century (100 mi, 160K)?
4

Saw improvement in their times during the season?
all

Participated in their first triathlon?
9

Participated in a triathlon?
20

Total Swim Miles/KM 177 mi (285 km)
Total Cycle Miles/KM 22705 mi (36540 km)
Total Run Miles/KM 1700 mi (2736 km)


Lastly we did lose a member of our group but quite frankly we were all happy to say good bye;) to...
Drum Roll Please......

Total Weight Lost Since August 2010
228+ lbs

Library Days

Our Community Library hosted Library Days recently.

The library was all decked out in super fun balloons sculptures for the occasion.

There were door prizes for the kids. Graham received a magnet drawing board. Ethan and Zach got really nice water bottles. Ethan was super excited that he got a watch and wasn't too fussed that it didn't work. He wore it religiously for two days until it completely fell apart.

I think the boys are finally "getting it" that it's fun to get these little prizes at community functions but they just aren't quite up to snuff. Graham brought this one to our attention last night from the gift he received at the Garden Show a few months ago. Zach was appalled when he saw it saying, "That's not a Yeti! Everyone knows they're evil disgusting monsters of the mountains." He should know as he's been writing a book about a Yeti on Mt. Everest, borrowing books about Yetis from the library, and basically obsessing about them ever since he was chased by one our trip to the Animal Kingdom.

To inspire reading and writing they had two nights of writing competitions by grade level and a 90 hour reading challenge.

Also, there was a table set up with Korans dating back hundreds of years. Honestly I didn't get close enough to take a picture. Many were very fragile and in poor condition. The last thing I wanted to do was have Ethan and Graham pulling them off the table or trying to look at them.

We did stop to look at some very nice encyclopedias for sale. I was tempted to buy them but when I thought about how fast current events change and the ease of internet access. I just didn't want them gathering dust on our limited shelf space. Plus we bought Zach an American History Book for kids last summer, which he loves, and that is keeping him busy when not otherwise occupied.

An Evening Under The Stars

What do get when you combine, not one but......

two blue fiber optic lit mullet wigs and......
some pocket pen lights!
LUMANOS RAMONOS!
(Translation)
A two minute lighting extravaganza (pen lights behind our ears, in our mouths, and up our noses) all while rocking out to Blitzkreig Bop by the Ramones. Our act didn't really consist of much and we expected and hoped to be gonged after about thirty seconds.
But when the MC, just hours before the show, asked me if we had a grand finale finish I said, "Sure, of course." Then I frantically drove home wracking my brain for a finale to top it all off just in case the judges were amused by our performance and didn't gong us.
We decided that if we made it the entire 2 minutes, which sadly we did because the judges were so generous and didn't even try to reach for the gong, we'd end our performance by sticking our own pen lights up each others noses.

I think we really surprised the crowd with our hidden talents. The pen light part came to me one night while I couldn't sleep. Not sure if the sleepless night had anything to do with the fact I signed us up for the event with a requirement of mandatory participation to attend. When people kept asking me if we'd come up with an act I responded, "Put it this way. We don't sing, play instruments, dance well, or do magic, so it will be something completely unique and original."

Mission Accomplished!
Some people had "Boots Made For Walking" along with matching leopard print hats found at a junk/rest stop/convenience type store that is even more remote in the desert than we are.
Sunny and Cher stopped by.....
and then we saw an African Tribal Rich Man's Dance,
which happened to be the only real talent of the night.
There was a reenactment of a dog vs. rat vs. sticky trap...
where the dog ended up having massive facial hair removed when the sticky trap was pulled from his face. And the rat, well, it got its head chopped off with an axe by the lovely lady below while trying to escape; all before breakfast.
There was some kind of funky chicken act....
which thankfully did get Gonged.
A bit of bribing of the judges.....
didn't keep this hoe down from gettin' the Gong either.
We had a shocking Adam Sandler Christmas Special...
followed up by a Smashing Love Ballad. The only problem was, the one serenading wasn't serenading his own wife as she was out of town.
Instead he chose to serenade the bouncer's wife (seen below in black) and when he couldn't take it any more grabbed the guitar and smashed it to bits on the stage. It was hilarious after we all realized it was all part of the act.
Thanks to our MCs/Cheerleaders/good friends the Remsburgs we had a
Night To Remember Under the Stars.
One last note. The judges were awesome giving us feed back ala "American Idol" style. When they first discussed how and when they would gong us one judge in particular was adamant that he would gong any terrible act ASAP. But when it came down to it he said it was really hard to gong his friends and really struggled to do it.