Photronics Phun, and Back to School Night!

A few pictures from last Friday. Nico arrived home from school with an acorn hat on his head. 

After school snack.

Saturday afternoon we watched Detective Pikachu, quite an adorable movie. We coordinated with Allicia so that the whole household could watch it downstairs. We were only missing Jeff, who was out of town. Even some friends of Jeff & Allicia joined us. We all fit just fine on their huge sectional couch. Allicia popped a bunch of popcorn for us.

Right after the movie was over, we came upstairs to make pizza. It was my turn to choose the movie, but since we didn't have a lot of time I said we could watch a Yoshi's Island speed run that Guy wanted to show Nico. I was curious about it, too, and it was fun to watch. Nico has been playing Yoshi's Crafted World on the Switch and has been really into Yoshi.

Nico had a dentist appointment on Tuesday. Nico started talking about braces right away to the dental hygienist and how he wanted them. He said "I wanted glasses, and I got glasses. I want braces, and I hope I can get braces!" The dentist told us now is the time to get the consultation at an orthodontist, so we have that scheduled for November.

Tuesday night was Cub Scouts. Guy told me Nico was the only Webelos there, and that night was the night they planned their events throughout the year, so Nico got to make a lot of decisions.

Wednesday night was the Photronics Phamily Phun Day, to celebrate Photronic's 50th anniversary.

There was a magic man there that also made balloon animals, Nico got a parrot hat.

They had catered BBQ and an ice cream truck with free ice cream. But also 95 degree weather with a trampoline in full sun, plus two bouncy houses. Nico came home a little bit heat exhausted. He felt very sick so I ordered him to lie on his bed for 30 minutes and not move. I gave him an ice pack to put on his chest. At the end of 30 minutes he was completely recovered and was jumping around asking for nachos.

Zoom!

Nachos has been the normal snack every night. He goes through bags of shredded cheese like nobody's business. And speaking of snacks and food: I was not aware of the fact that Nico had money on his school lunch account, he has never had hot lunch or bought anything from the cafeteria. I got an email last week with a low-balance alert saying his account was at a certain level. I got the same email the next day, but the balance was lower. I kind of brushed it off, but then Nico came home from school and told me he had started buying milk from school, alternating between chocolate milk and regular milk. Oh! Ok. That's fine. I reloaded the account so it should last a while.

Tonight was back-to-school-night for the parents! I think I'm really going to like his teacher. I mean, all his teachers have been good, his teacher last year was great, but his teacher this year has a different personality than any teacher he's had so far. She is outgoing, and I have the sense that she likes to have fun, and even may like to be silly at times.

Right outside his classroom window, his class has installed two bird feeders. At any time the children can look through the window and interrupt the class to report a bird sighting. Woah! That's pretty cool.

Here's the note that was on his desk for me. He never finished it, and when I got home, he couldn't remember what he intended to write.

The exciting news this week is that we SIGNED THE LEASE on the house I mentioned in the last blog! Our move-in date is Saturday Sept 7th. I can't believe it happened so fast! Thank you, God!

Nico has had mixed feelings over the matter, but I think he is on board now. After a full day of playing the Switch with the kids downstairs last week, he said, "I don't want to move out. Why don't YOU move out and then me and Dad can come visit you once a week?"

Then after we visited the house last week and we talked about him having his own bedroom, the next day he said "Actually I don't really want to move out." After some gentle prodding, he said he liked having a small space, he didn't want his own bedroom, he wanted to be closer to us.

I picked up some moving boxes today and the preparation begins...

Fun Easter Weekend! Swimming Success, Business Travel

We had a great Easter weekend! It started off Saturday with a library trip. Guy and Nico went together while I did some work. There was a robot there they could play with, and they were able to check one out from the library! There's an app you can download to interact with it. Nico played with it nonstop after they got home. Over the next few days it was one of the only things he did when he had free time. We told him it didn't count as iPad time, since he was "programming". There are some video snippets at the end of the blog!

Saturday afternoon we went to my brother Jonny's house for an Easter BBQ. There was yummy food, and an Easter egg hunt for the kids.

Ready...Set...

Go!

Nico made a new friend while we were there, and as we were leaving, his friend said, "I'm going to miss you. We really had a fun time." It was very sweet. Some video from the BBQ at the end of the blog!

Sunday we were at church early. Guy was running sound, Nico had practice with the kids group because they were going to be on stage for one of the songs, and I had practice for a piano/flute duet I was doing with another gal.

On the way to the church Nico said that he didn't want to do the thing on stage anymore, because he was nervous. I told him I was nervous about my thing, too, and that it's ok to be nervous and it shouldn't keep us from doing the thing. After I finished talking, a Parry Gripp song started playing, his songs are so silly, this one says "there's a young girl talking about herself. You can't stop her." And Nico said "Mommy, this song makes me feel better, because it's about a young girl talking about herself, and she's not nervous about talking about herself."

Engage Boise live streams all their services, so I snuck some screen shots off the video to capture these. Nico was in charge of waving the flag during the song.

And we played "Fairest Lord Jesus" during the offering.

Sunday afternoon, Guy was able to take a good long nap. Afterward, we decided to ride bikes. We biked on the greenbelt and we went far. Nico wanted to keep going but we told him we needed to turn around. It's a good thing we did, because the wind was actually helping us on our way out, and against us on the way back. We stopped every few minutes on our way back to check my map to see how much further. Nico's legs were aching and he was having a hard time riding against the wind. Guy rode in front of us on the way back to help block the wind for us. We were gone about an hour and a half.

Swimming on Monday.

Nico eating nachos, reading Peanuts. He is careful to delineate which of the two Peanuts books is his and which is Daddy's. It's important to keep track.

Nico excavating something from an Egyptian pyramid, from his Little Passports monthly subscription.

On Wednesday Nico passed Swimming Level 2!! It's the end of the swimming session and time to sign up for new classes, so Level 3 for him will start next week! I am very proud of him.

Wednesday morning after Nico left for school, I travelled up to Pullman, WA for a business trip. Since there's family in the area it's always a mix of business and family! My mom was already in Pullman when I arrived, along with my Aunt Mary Anne! My Aunt Liz came today, and I was also able to see my cousins and my Uncle Jerry.

It has been SO fun to be surrounded by family even while being here for business! I travelled to Farmington today for work and will drive there tomorrow as well, returning Saturday to Boise.

Now time for the video!

BIrthday Party, Chess Tournament, Nachos!

Saturday was a fun and full day. We celebrated Grandma Salisbury's birthday at Smokey Mountain Pizza. Our private gathering room has its own door to the parking lot, so I took a video of the kids after they ran out to greet Grandma and Papa when they arrived. Watch the video and beware when Nico starts running back toward me, WHACK! Yeouch!! The video is at the bottom of the blog post!

Happy Birthday (today!) To Grandma Salisbury!

Straight from the party, Guy drove Nico over to JUMP (Jack's Urban Meeting Place) for a Chess tournament/party. They went a little early because JUMP has a slide from the 5th floor of the parking garage that goes all the way down to the ground and Nico wanted to try it. But it was closed! Instead, they climbed on the jungle gym until the party started.

This afternoon I received this email from his chess coach:

We already signed him up for next year chess.

Saturday night we rented Mary Poppins Returns from RedBox, it was my choice. We all loved it. After the movie was over, Nico asked, "I want to watch ALL the Mary Poppins movies, are there any more?" Nope, shucks!

There was one evening this week (I think Sunday night) when Nico was very sad. We had said no to something he wanted. So here is Guy snuggling him on the couch. Guy sang to him the song he used to sing to him several years ago when we lived on Krall st. "The sun is sinking in the west...." Nico remembered the song and started crying. It was a very sweet moment. I'm surprised Nico remembered the song! When Guy put him into bed, he whimpered in his bed and started crying again and said "Daddy I want to spend more time with you." So Guy got up into Nico's bed and they hung out for a while.

On Mondays and Wednesdays, swimming nights, if we get to the Y a little early, Nico is able to play in the kiddie pool. Here's a shot of those shenanigans.

I love the Y swimming lessons. There are 4 life guards on duty. And, the air is very warm, not just the water, which means Nico doesn't get cold and shivery! He's able to make it through the entire 30 minute lesson. I am hooked and will probably never go back to lessons at the Natatorium. 

Tuesday night at Cub Scouts, the Birds of Prey were there!

Cub Scouts snack.

Nico has been on a nacho kick lately. He made these by himself.

Nico's friends across the street are moving in June, and I chatted with their mom about it and asked if she'd be willing to share their landlord's phone number with us so we could potentially move in after they move out. If across the street doesn't work out, we plan to move somewhere else THIS SUMMER! The time has come! We would love to stay in this area so we are hoping for the house across the street. We are super excited and being very dreamy about it. We are working hard to make it work!

This week was Nico's first standardized testing day for 3rd grade. It was a math test today. 1-2 hour tests, about 7 tests total in the next few weeks. We ordered him a vibrating wrist band that vibrates every 5 minutes to help keep him on task. I am looking forward to hearing from his teacher how it works for him at school. It will arrive on Saturday!

Enjoy the video!