Birthday Party, VBS, and Grandparents Russell!

Last Friday was Avery's birthday, and his party! He had a Mario birthday.

There was a pinata, and Koopa Troopa cupcakes and yummy barbecued pizza.

Saturday was a slow day at home, pizza at night. Nico has been really enjoying the old MacGyver shows. It was his turn to choose the show on Saturday and he chose to watch MacGyver. Nico asks a lot of questions and Guy tells him everything. It's been quite a learning and entertaining experience for him. Guy and I enjoy watching him be so interested in all the things that MacGyver is doing. We watched an episode on Tuesday night that he didn't care for, though. One of the people in the show died being eaten by ants. Shortly after this happened he said he didn't want to watch it anymore and to go to the next episode. I totally agree, Nico. Sorry you had to see that :(

Here's our setup at our new table, watching MacGyver on the iPad.

VBS started on Monday. All the kiddos went. Allicia picked them up today, the last day of VBS, and Nico remarked to her that he didn't want to do the VBS next year! I will have to ask him why when I get a chance. Every day he would take his name tag off after getting home and put it on the fridge. He wants to keep them.

There is a video at the end with VBS scraps.

 Playing in our new hallway.

Nico and I played Hang Man one morning, and one his words was "GG". I told him that wasn't a word and he said "YES IT IS! Grandma GG!" We went to see GG and Aunt Pat on Monday after VBS. She gave me a peek at his birthday present :D

On Wednesday we went to Bricks & MiniFigs to get some party favors for the kids coming to Nico's party on Sunday. He built a MiniFig for each kid who is coming. I love the one he made for Evelyn.

Guy fixed the corner booth chair by attaching a wooden leg that Papa had cut for us (Thanks Pa!) Guy added a cut at the top so that it was stair stepped and attached easily with screws to the chair. It is now safe to sit on!

Today was travel day for Grandpa and Grandma Russell! They arrived this evening!! We went right to work putting together the puzzle we needed to do for a birthday party game on Sunday. It was a fun way to jump into it.

Grandma and Nico read comics before bed. Then she tucked him in.

I'm so happy they're here! It will be a great weekend!

Here's the VBS video. Plus Nico playing "The Floor is Lava". There are so many new obstacles to learn how to jump over in our newly arranged house. And now that he's a stuntman, thanks to Parkour Camp, he knows how to take risks ;)

The Clubhouse, and Moscow!

Last Saturday was a big day - we rearranged the Clubhouse! We added our huge table from our storage unit and moved everything else around to accommodate. You can check out the video at the end of the blog to see the process.

The table is a corner table, the one that used to be in my parents' cabin! The corner piece of the bench is supposed to be supported by wall on each side, but we have no wall for it to touch, so it is unusable at the moment, else you fall through and land on the floor! Our plan is to add a third leg (well, fourth leg), so that it can stand on its own. We will get this done this weekend.

On Monday, Grandma Camp started! Grandma Salisbury picked Nico up at 9AM and they drove to Mountain Home to pick up more cousins. On Tuesday the whole crew drove up to Moscow, ID in a rented passenger van.

Mom sent me these pool pictures the evening they got into town. Playing in the same hotel pool he was playing in when we visited in June!

(After Nico got home tonight I had him tell me what was happening in each picture)

Running in the water

Playing with paddle boards

Eating at Mad Greek. He got the sparkling burger without the bun

With Grammy

At Grammy's house

Sitting around Grammy's table, she handed out popsicles. Each popsicle had a joke on it. "What did the rabbit give his girlfriend? A 14 carrot ring."

At Kamiak Butte, Nico was interviewing my Aunt Margy. Each grandkid was assigned someone to interview. Grandma provided interview questions in each kid's black binder (as seen on table).

On the stage where Grandma and Papa were married.

On their way home from Moscow today they stopped to see my Aunt Mary Anne, I'm so glad they were able to do that! She sent home some walnuts from their tree, and pears for us. Can't wait to add the walnuts to the banana bread I need to make with our bananas. I will grind them up first... Nico won't eat it if he can tell there's nuts in it! Heehee. But it makes the bread taste sooooo good. Thank you Aunt Mary Anne!!!

And here's the whole travel crew

They were also delayed in Riggins for a few hours because of a crash on the highway that closed the roads for a while. I kept checking their location on my phone. It was nice to be able to do that :) I picked him up from my parents' house at 6:30 tonight.

This week while Nico was gone, Guy and I went over to my parents' empty house to watch a movie on Tuesday. Other things we did this week - we hung new blinds in The Clubhouse and watched a lot of shows on Netflix! Guy was still working during the day so we did fun things in the evening. One evening we even went somewhere after dinner! Not verrrry exciting, but just something unique we don't usually do (leaving the house after dinner, that is).

On to the video!

Parkour and the United States

We had a nice relaxing weekend at home, taking advantage of having the house to ourselves and watching a movie downstairs for pizza night. The Last Unicorn.

Monday Nico started his Parkour camp. It's a stunt-man camp. When I picked him up after 6 hours there, he was so super sweaty!! And he begged to stay. On Wednesday morning before camp I asked him if he liked camp, and he said "Kinda". I asked what he liked least and he said "doing flips". I asked what he liked best and he said "free time", where he gets to run around the place and do whatever he wants. They've had the chance to play with nerf guns several times which he has a lot of fun with. There is a video at the end of the blog with him jumping off of something very tall.

We have been playing lots of Candy Land.

Wednesday after Parkour, we met friends at the pool. We didn't stay long. Nico got super cold. 

Wednesday evening Guy took Nico downtown to pick up his gift card from Rediscovered Books. $10! He picked out a United States Atlas to buy. He has been studying it every chance he gets, and telling us all the facts. He found a very interesting page that shows you which natural disasters happen across the US. He used to ask questions about this all the time, mostly just to make sure that no natural disasters happened in Idaho. The only one was Earthquake on Idaho, but on the east side. Allicia told me that there was a night a few weeks ago that Nico came out to go to the bathroom and Allicia and Ivy and Avery were there, FaceTiming with Evelyn who was at Allicia's mom's house in Twin Falls. Apparently Evelyn was worried about hurricanes happening in Boise but Nico went right to work reassuring her that there were no hurricanes in Boise and that by the time they got here there would be nothing left of them. 

But back to the Atlas, tonight part of his prayer was "Pease help me to learn a lot from the Atlas book". He is in bed now studying it.

The Parkour camp is about a 2 minute drive from Papa and Grandma's house. Nico asked if we could go to Grandma's house after Parkour on Tuesday, we weren't able to then, so we went over on Thursday. Grandma had made some yummy banana chocolate chip bread that Nico and I both loooved.

We are preparing for a rearrangement of furniture on Saturday. First things first - get rid of our yellow table. Here's what the space looks like without the table - 

Guy and Nico walked to Starbucks in the heat, and I came and picked them up after. They gave him a HUGE Italian Soda!

Now to the video!

See ya'll next time!

Wedding, Fireworks, Magic

Friday morning I headed to Pullman with my dad, he picked me up and we arrived around 3pm. It was my cousin Dan's wedding. Pictures from my weekend:

I got to sit next to my Aunt Mary Anne during the wedding

And my mom

 My dad and my brother. David was a groomsman in the wedding.

My cousin Molly and one of her daughters, River.

I have no picture evidence of Guy and Nico's weekend but Nico had his last swim lesson on Friday. They went to the Market on Saturday and dropped off their reading book bingo card at Rediscovered Books. He had enough to be entered into a drawing, which he WON, a gift card! Not sure for how much, we just need to go pick it up!

I arrived home on Monday afternoon. We just hung around the house the next few days, Guy had the day off, and we started uncluttering some stuff in the Clubhouse and down by Guy's desk. We've been watching Mr Bean (the cartoon version) for entertainment at night. 

Yesterday Guy picked us up some fireworks. We didn't get many. Sparklers, pop-its, some snapping ones, and some snakes.

Nico lit a lot of them! Here he is lighting some snakes. They're the hardest to light.

He would pick up the leftover ash and rub them between his hands.

Nico has been caring for a few things around the house while Jeff and Allicia are gone. They have a lizard named Sweetness that they caught, so Nico went every day to one of the neighbor's yards to find box elder beetles, Sweetness eats 3-5 of them every day. The neighbor's yard is all rocks. I went with him to help a few times. He also had to get the eggs from the chickens and bring the mail inside. They paid him for all this.

So, the blog is late being posted! A lot happened Thursday! 

Nico woke up with a tummy ache. We were planning a trip to the Toy shop to get a magic tricks kit but we decided to postpone it. But then he started feeling way better, so we went to get the kit. On Saturday while Guy and him were at the market, they saw a magician. Nico was chosen to come up and help him with a trick. When the magician did his trick and fooled Nico and the crowd, Nico said "but I don't know how to do magic yet" almost tearfully, like if he had known how to do magic he could have not been tricked? Afterward, the magician told Guy and Nico they could get magic kits from Toy Town. So they went there and found one they wanted. Thursday Nico and I went back to get it. On the way there Nico said when he grows up he wants to be a magician and an ornithologist. Like perhaps doing magic tricks with birds.

It wasn't until later I realized that he didn't yet know that magic wasn't magic and that it's actually just illusion and tricks. He was expecting to actually be able to make things levitate. I think he's warmed up to the idea of illusion, though, and Guy helped him with the kit, he was getting frustrated not understanding what the directions were telling him to do. 

Thursday afternoon Allicia returned with the kids. Jeff returned late last night from a Katmandu work trip, and they are packing up the car and are leaving today (Friday) for Seattle! While home yesterday, Avery was taking a bath/shower and did a cannonball into the tub and smacked his face, biting through his lip. Allicia took him to Urgent Care along with Evelyn, who had a bug bite on her leg that was infected. I stayed home with Ivy, we played Zelda and watched Moana, while Guy put Nico to bed. I had most of the blog update already written but forgot to finish it off last night before bed! Evelyn stayed over for dinner last night. Nico was so excited to see her after her being gone so long. He quizzed her on the states and how to spell them and other facts. Evelyn was very receptive to all of it and, and even shared an interesting fact to Nico about wolves, saying that since Nico is sharing info with her, she is going to share some info with him. So we learned that wolves are scavengers.

Here's Evelyn holding her water cup behind her. If she spells "Washington" right she gets to dump water on Nico's head.

Allicia asked Nico if he'd like to be hired again to do chores while they're gone, and he said no. hehe. I'll be doing them. Instead of finding elder bugs we are going to get a bucket of crickets from Zamzows to feed Sweetness while they're gone.

Ok that's it! Until next time!

Coming soon

It is now Friday morning, you can expect an update in the next few hours!