What's up?

Not much here, besides the usual hectic time of summer break for the kids.  They successfully completed tennis camp this week and apparently really loved it. Muddy said that Ben really improved throughout the week. Addie seemed to enjoy it too.
Friday Muddy and Onkteb took them to see Brave, which got enthusiastic thumbs up all around.
On Thursday I had a really cool experience for my work.  I managed to get a MAJOR movie studio to help my friend Jen's patient by having a person from PR fly to Pennsylvania to hand deliver the only dvd version of  successful movie currently in theatres, since he is too ill to be able to leave his house. It was really incredible to see such a wonderful family gather around and love and support their critically ill son/brother, all the while enjoying a new movie. The movie studio's representative was quite lovely and just as happy as could be that he could make this happen. Those sorts of events, while few and far between in our jobs, make me honored to do the work that I do.  You really do bond with patients and their families while working in a children's hospital and to be able to help make Jen's desire "for there to be some way for him to see that movie at home"come true was awesome.
This weekend has been chilling and doing errands like crazy. Tonight we'll be going to the state park for the summer concert series with tonight's band being a Beatles tribute band. We liked them a lot last year, so that'll be fun.
So many exciting family things going on right now, that can't be blogged about, of course, but still exciting none the less.

Father's Day 2012

Father's Day is in the books. We started the morning by having breakfast with Brian's Dad and Mom at IHOP.

Then we went home and did some errands, etc.

Then we headed over to Muddy and Guppy's for dinner.

 Addie managed to wear her new dress, which somehow made her look like she's 12. It's a 6x, I swear. She's just looking so mature nowadays, but lucky for us, she's still her goofy 7-year-old self, which makes it all better.

 Onkteb is in town for a nice long while.

 Aunt Kim and Uncle Tom came down too. Speaking of coming down, look at Aunt Kim's weight! This requires an entirely separate blog post, which it will get- stay tuned!

 There was much swinging going on. Last week Addie fell off the swing, this week Ben did. The common denominator in both cases, Brian feeding into their chants of "more, more, more" pushes.

 I took  little ride on the zipline.

 Like mother, like daughter. Look at that form. I wonder what age the whole "Hmm, I shouldn't be comfortable showing my underwear to the world" comes into play?

 Ben, "just being cute," as is usual.

 Guppy and Brian grilled steaks for dinner.

 There's a bird family living in one of Muddy's birdhouses.  I swear they are so loud chirping in there. Here's the daddy bird getting food.

 And going in to feed his babies.

 Some cute swinging going on.

 Like I said, cuteness.

 After dinner, Benjamin and Graham went in and Ben showed Graham his blocks. They built this.

 Then we headed over to Bellevue for the summer concert series. Tonight's band was a 50's rockabilly band. Fun music. My kids danced the whole night.

 Scott and Keri chilled.

 Guppy and Muddy enjoyed the music and the kids' dancing too.

 Ben took a break from dancing for a breather.

 Addie danced the whole night, even if by herself.

 She was so content to just be having fun and trying to catch the audience's eye.

 Then the band handed out 5 hula hoops and told the kids they needed to share.

 A group of Addie and 6 other girls got into the middle of the hoop and jumped around. Very cute. What I love most about this, is you can see the leader Addie is. Notice her hand in this picture?

 Well that led to all of the girls lifting their hands up and bouncing around.

 She was such a hoot.

 And to make Father's Day complete, Addie dragged Brian down to dance too.

He did an admirable job of an impromptu "crack the whip."
Hope all the dads I know had a great day! I wouldn't change our day at all. Am incredibly lucky to have such a great father for my children and to have a dad who didn't have to be a dad choose me as his daughter.

Life after school

Well school has officially wound down for the year. Ben was done last Thursday. Addie was on Friday. They're home this week, enjoying the nice weather and being active outside with Muddy. Next week they'll take tennis camp in the morning too. We're excited that Onkteb (who no one really calls Onkteb anymore, they both call him Uncle Teb) is coming into town for an extended stay this weekend.  The kids are really looking forward to that.
In funny news, last night we went to Family Zumba and there's some song that's in Spanish. Addie's eyes got all excited when she heard the beginning of it and she whispered "this is that song!" so when the chorus comes on, which is rather rapidly sung, she looks at me and sings, "I need a clean litter box, I need a clean litter box..." for the entire chorus!  Apparently that's what she hears when the chorus is being sung. Cute and funny!

Ben's Pre-K graduation

Handsome Ben had his Pre-Kindergarten graduation today.  He was supposed to dress up for the event.  This is what he chose.

He's such a ham. He was so concerned about getting dirty before school started. And he was really excited that he had his shirt tucked in.

 Cutie booty shot.  He loved this one.

 The ceremony was almost an hour long.  The teacher told the kids to "sit with your back against the back of the chair, your feet hanging down without swinging around, looking straight at the audience and your hands in your lap." He obeyed as usual, but it made for difficult picture taking, because he was terrified to be out of order with what he was told. I could barely get a smile out of him, let alone a little wave.

 Here he is getting his faux mortarboard cap.

 Can you see his belt and button here? When he walked in, they had just done their trip to the bathroom, and he somehow managed to get his belt stuck only on the front side, so it's doubled up. No one bothered to help him fix it, oh well.

 Marching out and looking pretty proud.

 The three of us.

 My two cutie boys. So handsome.

 No idea why he decided to do a split, but that's what he wanted to do.

When they were introduced at the end of the ceremony, the teacher called them "Kindergartners" which is a big deal!!
Still some issue with videos loading, so I'll put it on Youtube and will put the link here.