Nature Walks, and Semaphores

I was in Pullman until Saturday, so last Friday after school Guy took Nico to the Discovery Center.

Then Guy sent me a video of Nico doing manual Tetris on the light board using stop motion filming! Here it is:

Saturday was my trip home from Pullman. Guy and Nico had a Cub Scouts adventure at Deer Flats in Nampa, ID that morning, and they had a lot of fun. Guy said later that he wished he could go back and Nico piped up and said, "Me too!"

Just one other Cub Scout from his den was there, so it was a small field trip. 

Guy and Nico hung out with Jeff and Allicia and the kiddos that afternoon, and then started making pizza late, which was just in time for me to enjoy it, too! I arrived home at 7pm. It was Nico's choice of movie and he chose Three Stooges.

Nico's Cub Scout den leader is trying to help Nico get all his badges so he can graduate from being a Bear at the next pack meeting. They met at the den leader's house on Tuesday, and they all went for a hike so they could get some badge requirements taken care of. Guy and Nico came home Tuesday night and told me the good news - Nico will graduate from being a Bear! He will then be a Webelos. (I think that stands for We'll be loyal scouts).

He is now in Level 3 of swimming lessons and he LOVES it! 

He checked out a book about flags from the school library, and there's a section in the back about semaphores. So he practiced semaphores for a few days.

Nico put his glasses on Yoshi, and told me to take a picture and send to Daddy and say, "Nico has turned into Yoshi."

Nico is a published poet!

Tonight after dinner Nico and I went for a walk while Guy was at band practice. I let him choose where we went.

The trail ended in a neighborhood so we walked back to our house through the neighborhood. He talked about wanting to be an explorer and a traveller. Then we talked about where he would want to live and he was trying to find a way for us to move somewhere that would allow him to continue going to Adams Elementary, but also allow him to ride the bus to school and be closer to Grandma Russell. 

I contacted the landlord of the house on our street that we're wanting to move into this summer. She told me that nothing is set in stone yet with them moving out, and when they do move out she will take a month to paint and clean the place up. Since I do know that they are moving out, it would likely be July that the house would be available. I will call her in a few weeks to check in. Nico continues to say that he wants to move into a small house because he doesn't like big houses. 

Here are some snippets from this past week!

Grandparents Russell!!

Last Friday, Nico had an early release from school, and guess who picked him up?? Grandma Russell! The Grandparents Russell came into town shortly before the end of school day, so Grandma walked over to the school to pick him up. That afternoon we made our way to the Botanical Garden.

That evening, Grandma Russell had an activity for us that she had planned superbly well - sugar cookies in the shape of a circle, yellow frosting, and a variety of colors of squeezable frosting. We were to make EMOJI cookies! This was so fun and that first night we made two pans full of them.

Reading a new comic book from Grandma Russell

The next day, Saturday, we went to the James Castle House. This was the house where the artist James Castle used to live, in Boise/Garden City off in the Hill Rd area.

The last time that the Grandparents Russell were in town, we visited the art museum and had seen some of James Castle's works. James Castle was deaf, he made a lot of his drawings using an ink he made himself from charcoal and spit. I loved seeing the house where he used to live. It was inspiring. I saw several of his works that reminded me of art that Grandpa Russell has done. The similarities were astounding!

A few pictures of James Castle's work.

After that, we went to the Boise Art Museum. We're typically not allowed to take pictures in the Art Museum, but they had an exception this time. There was an exhibit by Jae Yong Kim called Donut Ever Forget Me. Several hundred donuts he created (not edible) and decorated.

Tacos for lunch

Nico ate both of these! This was at Madre, a gourmet taco restaurant close to downtown. Excellent!

After lunch, Nico went to the Grandparents Russell's hotel and did some swimming with Grandma! For dinner on Saturday, of course we had PIZZA! We watched Three Stooges while we ate. 

Nico building his pizzas

 Making more emoji cookies after pizza

Sunday was church, and hanging out!

On Monday morning, Grandpa, Guy, and Nico went out to breakfast. Nico ate a pork chop, two slices of bacon, and scrambled eggs. After they came back home, I stayed back while the crew went to visit the Discovery Center and Zoo.

We said goodbye to the Grandparents Russell after dinner on Monday, and they headed back to Arlington Tuesday morning. We will see them again shortly at the very end of May when we make our trip to Arlington! We are looking forward to that. 

Tuesday was a lucky day for Nico because his glasses arrived!! He is taking great care of them, cleaning them often with his little spray bottle and cloth.

Guy and I had a trip to Moscow planned for Wednesday, so we spent a bit of Tuesday packing and getting stuff ready. Plans changed on Tuesday evening and it was decided to postpone our trip. My mom still offered to watch Nico for a few nights, so Guy and I decided to turn our next few days into a staycation. We went to the library, we ran errands, we watched shows and went to Chipotle for dinner. On Wednesday night we took Guy's acoustic bass guitar that used to belong to his Papa (his mom's dad) and had it restrung with new strings. 

You could tell that the guy who did it really enjoyed his work. After taking the old strings off, he conditioned the neck of the guitar with a castor-oil based oil and let it soak in. It instantly brightened it up. 

This afternoon was Ivy's birthday party. Nico wasn't with us but we went anyway! It was at Quarry View Park. Pizza and cupcakes, a pinata, and presents.

Oh, and what has Nico been up to???

They went to Altitude

They went swimming at the hotel that Nico and Lexie and my parents are staying at just for fun.

Hotel breakfast. HAVE to have bacon!!

And now for a thrilling spring break adventures video! Some videos taken by Grandma Russell and Grandma Salisbury. Oh, and some of the pictures in the post were taken by them too!