We went to Peoria for Ron's (Papa) 60th birthday. On Thursday night he had a pizza party at a local pizza place. Cory decided to be the game master for the party and pulled together a fun game to give his dad his present. Brady loved the game and is already asking what game he will get to play to get his presents in a couple of weeks.
On Friday we spent the morning at Tanners playing in the kids area, visiting the petting farm and picking apples. Both Ellie and Brady loved picking and tasting apples. Ellie is now really good at saying apple. She says it in a really soft voice for some reason. Tanners has a great market with all sorts of yummy things to sample. We had planned on eating lunch at the orchard, but when we were about three people away from placing our order the power went out. We waited for about 15 minutes, but had no idea when it would come back on so gave up and went home for lunch. Reports are that the power game back on about 15 minutes later so I guess we were not patient enough.
We also managed to squeeze in swimming, fishing and a few other fun activities.
We couldn't have asked for a more beautiful weekend. I wish we had this weather year round - Sunny, slight breeze, warm, but not hot, just perfect! Cory and I started off the weekend by going to the Mumford & Sons concert on Friday night. We both like Mumford, actually I should say Cory has loved them for the past three years. He can legitimately say he was a fan before they become so popular as he saw them live while we lived in London. Cory said it was one of if not the best show he has seen in his life. I had fun, but if I'm completely honest concerts stress me out. I know for most people this probably sounds absurd, but the ambiguous start/end time, parking situation, people doing things that are against the rules all manage to cause me stress. I was worried about how long it was going to take us to get out of the parking lot (field) the whole time the show was going on. Again, I know not normal, but it is who I am. Of course, while I was on edge about getting out of the place I had a guy rear end me. It was in a terrible spot to have to stop which elevated my stress level even more. The guy didn't want to give me his insurance information and told me I was being over the top, but eventually did. It was dark and I couldn't really see the back of my car so figured I should get it just in case. Luckily it didn't do any real damage other than a tiny scuff. This type of stuff is what is going to give me grey hair. I checked and again feel fortunate that I seem to have avoided a grey hair this time.
Brady had a busy day on Saturday. We started off with a soccer game. His team finally played a team that gave them some competition which was good for the boys. It's fun winning games by 25 goals, but I don't think it gives the boys a good sense of reality (whoops, in Brady's league there are no wins or loses, but I may be slightly guilty of keeping at least a general track of the scores). Later in the afternoon Brady went to a birthday party for Luke & Ian who are two of his good friends from school & sports. The boys had a blast jumping on trampolines, playing dodge ball and going down an inflatable slide. After the party we watched the K-State game. Sadly, they aren't very good this year and we lost to Texas for the first time in 10 years.
Today we hit up the KC Renaissance Festival. We knew going into it we were going to maybe feel a little out of place and run into some interesting things. All of our suspicions were confirmed. I probably will offend someone, but I do not understand why grown adults have a fascination with dressing up and pretending to live in a different era. I am pretty sure that there are people who have their costumes ready to go each year for the Festival. I also saw some very interesting piercings, pets in costumes and even babies who were dressed up in costume. One of my favorites was the 'Royal Family' who paraded around the place saying, "Make way for the King." Despite lots of general weirdness, it really is a dream place for a little boy. The place is huge and there is a ton to do. We played games, saw animals, watched sword fighting & horse jousting, dragon slaying, etc. We had been walking around for about an hour and Brady said, "I'm ready to go pick out my sword, shield and armor". We made it home without a full set of knight gear. We may or may not be guilty of using a distraction technique of promising ice cream on the way home.
The grand finale of the weekend, Ellie's new word of the day 'Cheese'. It would probably help if I didn't ask her to perform at the same time she has a mouth full of food.
There are days where I feel like I'm living in my own episode of Jerry Maguire, "do you know the human heads weighs..."
Brady cracks me up on a daily basis with his random bits of knowledge.
A recent gem:
Brady: Why do I have hair on my arms?
Me: Because you are a mammal.
Brady: Actually, do you know bats are the only mammals that can fly?
I wasn't entirely sure on the validity of his information so I consulted my friend Google.
First hit: The only mammalthat can truly fly is a bat. It is the only mammal capable of free flight, able to launch into flight from a still position.
I also love Brady's use of the qualifying word actually. I read it as him thinking in his head "that's great mom, but I know more about this topic than you do and I'm going to tell you about it."
The circus was in Kansas City this past weekend and we took the kids. I was pretty sure that Brady would enjoy it, but was a little uncertain how Ellie would do. They both LOVED it. Brady thought the samurai warriors, dragon and motorcycle on the high wire were awesome. Ellie loved the animals. Any time a new animal came out she would get excited and start talking to it. While the dogs were preforming she giggled and said dog over and over again. It's probably been close to 20 years since I have been to the circus. Cory and I decided that they have made some general technology advances during that time. It definitely still had the classics, but the lighting, sounds, videos that accompany the performance have been stepped up a notch. Everyone had a great time and we even managed to avoid buying one of the ridiculous $20 light up swords.
We wrapped up another season of baseball. Brady graduated from tee ball to coach pitch and did really well. I love that he's having so much fun with his preschool friends and getting some good exercise at the same time. Brady is a good hitter and when he focused did well fielding. One thing that I have learned about baseball and 4 -5 year olds is that there is a lot of time standing in the field where you can get distracted. I can almost hear them thinking to themselves, should I pay attention to the batter or would it be more fun to throw rocks, dig in the dirt and mess with my fellow teammate. The same applies to waiting in the dug-out the thought process is modified to should I cheer for my teammate or would it be more fun to squirt my water bottle out on the floor. Oh well, for the most part the kids did great. My main hope is that by next season Ellie has lost her interest in eating random objects from the ground.
At this point I would officially say we are out of the baby stage in our house. Ellie is tiny, but is already showing that she can hold her own. She officially crossed the 20 pound mark this month, so gained a good amount of weight and is staying right on her growth curve. I have this feeling that she might end up being the girl that gets to hold the sign for the class picture because she's the short one. Yes, I still remember routinely getting to be front and center from being the short girl in class. I love seeing her grow up, but at the same time wish I could slow down the clock.
Other highlights from the past three months:
Sleeping - She gets a gold medal in this category. Out at 7:30, up when I wake her up at 7:00. Weekends she will sleep until 8 - 8:30ish. She loves sleep. I hope this continues and she doesn't get any ideas about climbing out of her crib like her brother did.
Eating - She gets another gold meal for eating. I really don't understand how she is so tiny with the quantities that she eats. She loves food. She asks for 'snacks' all day long. Ellie gets a happy face every day for lunch with the exception of days that cooked carrots are served. I really don't blame her for this as cooked carrots are not good. Really the only other foods that she does not eat well are cottage cheese and sometimes meat.
Favorite activities - Ellie loves playing outside. She has figured out how to climb up the big slide which is quite scary. She also loves playing in the water. Ellie really likes animals (from a distance) and will start saying Mac (neighbor's dog) when we go outside.
Notable accomplishments - She started walking really well a few days after her first birthday. Ellie has also expanded her vocabulary to about 20 words. My current favorites are Uh-Oh, night, night and baby. She can also point to quite a few body parts including eyes, nose, mouth, hair and belly. Ellie is really good at following simple commands such as go get your baby doll or take this to your brother. She continue to adore her big brother.
Not so notable accomplishments - Ellie is a screamer. It's probably best described as a high pitched shrill. I'm not sure if this is an early sign of girl drama, but it can be used in a number of different scenarios. Scenario 1 - she wants something, Scenario 2 - she wants to get someone's attention, Scenario 3 - someone has done something she does not approve (this is most commonly Brady who either takes something away from her or want giver her something that she wants). I know she wants to communicate so badly and this is her way to get our attention. Hopefully this is a short phase. The other phase that I am ready to be done with is that that looks kinda yummy I think i will taste it phase. Baseball session was particularly challenging as the the spectator area is covered with small sunflower shells, rocks, dirt, etc. which Ellie thinks looks like an amazing snack.
Cory and I had an adult only week in London. We thought about trying to fit in another country during the week, but we really just wanted to go back and visit friends and co-workers and hang out at some of our favorite places while we lived in London.
My top observations from my week in London.
The weather was may better than I remember. I think we got extremely lucky as it was 70 - 80 and sunny our entire time there.
Londoners still smoke way more than Kansas City folks do. Gross. I forgot what it was like to be standing at a cross walk and have someone puff smoke in your face.
Pizza Express still has amazing dough balls and readily available voucher codes.
My favorite Thai restaurant is good, but not as amazing as what I remember.
Flapjacks are no longer available in the bakery section of Sainsburys. This could be because I looked at a Sainsburys at a train stations, but regardless is sad.
My favorite salad, Super foods - Blueberry, mango, quinoa, similar to this, is no longer sold at M&S.
Beet chips are no longer sold at Pret, again a very sad thing.
Bob, the stuffed animal in the tree by our flat has apparently found a new home.
The Waterway still has amazing, but overpriced Mojitos.
It still takes twice as long to get your check as it should.
The Warrington is just as enjoyable as what I remember.
It was great to go back for a week. There are many things that I miss and quite a few things that I don't miss. Perhaps someday we will get another experience to live outside of the US, but for now we'll just be tourists.
While we were there we did a few things that we did not do while living there. We did the state room tour at Buckingham palace. It was neat, but pretty consistent with other palaces - art work, rugs, fancy chandeliers, recorded tour that was a tad on the boring side. One thing I will give them credit for is that they have customized the tour around the Queens Jubilee. They had a lot of memorabilia from the Queen's inauguration.
We also took a day trip to Rye. It is a very old city near the sea.
