Today's Adam-ism

My Adam cracks me up.

Today, on the way to school, Aaron asked Adam how school was going and what he thought was good and bad about it. Adam replied,"I don't like listening. And I like lunch recess. Oh! and I can spell pig! P-I-G!" After some hearty congratulations from us, he said excitedly,"Oh! And I can speak pig, too! (makes snorting noises)" Then he so sadly sighed, "But the pigs just ignore me and won't talk back."

Halloween

The week before Halloween, I came down with a cold. It wasn't horrible, but I did have a fever for a couple of days and my voice disappeared. A few days later, Adam came down with it, too. And, of course, it had to happen on Halloween weekend. On the Saturday, before Halloween was our church's party. Adam really wanted to go, but he still had a fever, so he and Aaron stayed home and played board games.



Samuel and I went to the party and lots of fun seeing all of the creative costumes. I stood at a door in the building and Samuel followed the lines of kids "trick or treating" through the building. Samuel carried Adam's bucket and asked for candy to take home to him. What a nice brother!



On Monday, it was Halloween and Adam still had to stay home from school. His temperature was borderline and he had a bad cough. He was very sad to miss the party at school, but we stopped by his class and get his treats on our way to pick up Samuel.



That night, Adam's fever seemed to be gone, so both boys got to go out. Adam was a "muscle ninja" and Samuel was a knight. Adam's mask didn't last long and it made a handy scarf. This is the first year we've been trick or treating in our neighborhood, and it turned out great! The boys got some full-sized candy bars and their buckets were half full after just a couple of blocks.

Adam was worn out by that time, so I took him home. Samuel and Aaron stayed out for awhile longer and Samuel returned home with a full bucket! We were all home by 7:30pm and Adam fell asleep early.

Samuel's 9th Birthday

Samuel's birthday was on a Friday this year. His class also put on a small play that day. It was called "Character Matters" and the kids portrayed different storybook characters coming to complain to the "Fairy Tale Advice Council" about the wrongs committed in their particular stories.



It was cute and made some points about behavior and conflict resolution. Samuel played the Giant from "Jack and the Beanstalk" and he complained to the council that Jack broke into his house and stole his stuff. Just because he was a giant, didn't mean he was bad and even if he had been mean, that didn't give Jack the right to take his stuff. Yeah, it really put a whole different spin on the fairy tales, and was hilarious!







We don't do big birthday parties every year, and this was a quieter year. The birthday person gets to pick what to have for dinner and what kind of dessert. My kids don't like cake all that much so we usually do big ice cream sundaes in the special "birthday sundae cup"



Samuel got some books he wanted, a new Bakugan, a cool Magic the Gathering card and a whole box of full of Bionicle parts. He was thrilled! He liked all of his gifts, but the Bionicles fascinated him for a couple of weeks. He still loves them, but the constant walking around with parts in his hands has subsided.

Oregon Trip: Silver Falls

On the Monday after we arrived, the vast majority of the Brewster clan went on a day hike to Silver Falls. The only one missing was Heath (we were sad about that). Even Dad/Jon managed to get off work early and meet us along the trail.



It was a perfect day for hiking, having a picnic and playing in the water! The day started out cool and was just warming up as we started on the trail around the South Falls. It's the most traveled and popular part of the trail and very pretty, too. We hung out in this area for awhile, waiting for Dad/Jon to catch up to us.



There was lots of climbing and exploring of the small caves behind the falls. My boys had a great time and were sad when Aaron wouldn't let them climb up on the tallest crags.





We kept a nice, leisurely pace along the trail, stopping to look at rock, plants, bugs and whatever else caught our eye.



At one point, paths diverged and a small group broke off to go around the North Falls loop and the rest of us took the kids and headed for the picnic and water play area. We had a wonderful and filling lunch and then the kids waded into the water. It was just the right depth and temperature and the cool water felt great after all that walking. Those of us without tiny ones (ours are small but big enough to play in the water without us being rightnextto them), sat up on the shore under beach umbrellas and played cards.

Once everyone was done playing, it was close to dinner time, so we all headed to Dallas to have some pizza. Delicious, wonderful pizza, mmmmmm.

It was a wonderful day with sunshine, beautiful scenery, no seasonal allergy attacks and family.

Amanda's Black Eye

I just have to put this in our "blog journal". The Sunday after we arrived at the Brewsters, we all went to their Stake Conference in Salem. The kids were doing OK for their particular ages, but Adam and Asher were very excited to sit together. They played somewhat quietly, with frequent reminders from Amanda to "shhh.... play quietly".

I can't remember the exact details of what happened, but someone went for a car Adam was holding in his hand and he raised his arm up and back to get the car out of the way. He did it so quickly, that Amanda, who was sitting next to him, didn't have time to get out of the way and Adam accidentally smashed the car into Amanda's eye. They sat there for a few minutes before I notice something was wrong. Adam had tears in his eyes and was apologizing very quietly and constantly (I'm sorry! I'm so sorry! I'm sorry!) and Amanda was sitting in agony and patting his hand.

After a quick whispered conversation, Amanda and I left to go find her some ice. Thankfully, there was some in the kitchen freezer. So, yeah, Adam gave his Aunt Amanda a black eye. Sigh.



She was very nice about it and later got laugh out of it. And later that week, there was some cosmic justice. Adam developed a sty in his eye that for a couple of days swelled his eye up almost as much as Amanda's.

Oregon Trip: Hanging with the Family

On our way to Oregon, we stopped and visited Grandma Rita and Grandpa Ken. They are such lovely people!



We had a wonderful lunch and the boys got to cool off in their swimming pool. Samuel especially had a great time jumping as high as he could into the water.

A couple days after our big Silver Falls trip (more to come on that), we got to spend part of the day with Joe, Stephanie and Elliannah. We spent most of the afternoon playing in their pool and then had a delicious barbeque.



Joe and Stephanie have been working really hard on their garden this year. It produced wonderfully, and they've had a great harvest. Tomatoes, beans, peas, peppers, corn, squash, pumpkins, etc. They had/have so many kinds of veggie plants and we got to have a taste of the wonderfully fresh produce.



The next day, Stephanie and Elliannah got to come up to the Brewsters to visit and went with us to the Johnny Limbo concert. Ellie is quite the dance and Adam danced too, for a bit, but got overwhelmed by all the little girls that joined in.

On Friday, we went to Otter Beach, an outdoor water play area with slide, pools and other fun stuff. It was a perfect day for it and here's a picture of my boys taking a break and enjoying some popsicles.



We had a great time, and enjoyed hanging out at Ben and Amanda's for a day too. Slip n' slide for the kids kept them happy and cool.



The rest of us played games, ate yummy food and enjoyed each others company.

On Saturday, Amanda ran in a triathlon put on by the local stake of the church. She did great! We were all there at strategic points to cheer her on and she made pretty good time.



Here are some pictures of some of the kids shading their eyes from the bright morning sun. They were being pretty silly and having fun playing together. And the other picture is of Amanda at the end of the triathlon.

Aaron was in Seattle for PAX for a few days towards the end. PAX is the Penny Arcade Expo, which is a big gaming convention. He went with several of his gaming buddies and had a terrific time.

We really loved getting to see so much family and sorry not to be able to see everyone on this trip. Hopefully, we'll get to do a longer trip in the future.

Family Vacation: Idaho

We spent a big part of August visiting family. We first went to Idaho to see my side of the family. We spent a lot of time just hanging out at my parents place, but one day, we did get to go out on Uncle Mike's boat. What a blast!



We rode around for hours on the 3-man rubber raft and it was wonderful! Some of my cousins and their families were there and we had a great time hanging out, boating and eating. The weather was perfect and we all managed to get just a little bit sunburned.



After all that boating, we went to Uncle Mike and Aunt Joann's for dinner. The kids ran around playing tag, threw the lawn darts (the new kind with big, bulby, plastic tips) into the trees and then made lots of funny faces when I tried to take their pictures.

I didn't get a lot of pictures while we were in Idaho. Our old camera died and it took a couple of days for us to get a new one. We just enjoyed being with family, since it had been two years since the last time we saw them!

Super Saturday Ideas - Help!

I'm the Relief Society Meeting leader (formerly known as Enrichment) for our ward, and we're planning our Super Saturday for this fall. We're planning to have some activities/crafts, but also some fun classes for those that don't want to make a craft. What are some of your favorite things from Super Saturdays or just regular Enrichment meetings, that you've seen and/or done? I'm trying to get a wide range of ideas, since we have a very diverse group of ladies.

Some ideas so far:

Classes: how to give a massage, how to write your autobiography, how to cook using your food storage, BBQ techniques, etc

Crafts: Christmas Nativity Block, homemade bath salts, making choc. covered cherries, stuff done in vinyl (I'm a bit sick of vinyl, but others still love it), etc.

I would love some ideas or suggestions on what to do or what not to do!

July's Antics

For 4th July, we made a very quick trip up to Oregon. We got to celebrate the actual holiday with the Brewster clan and had a great time! The Saturday before the holiday, Amanda and I met up with her friend Cari in St. Paul and watched the rodeo.



Usually, it's an Amanda and Ben thing, but Ben wanted to stay home and play with his siblings (they're all now addicted to Magic the Gathering). So, Amanda, Cari and I went and also met up with Joe and Stephanie at the fair attached to the rodeo.



I got a little silly and had Joe and Amanda compare hand sizes. Joe was a good sport about it and we all thought it was kinda funny. We all then went back to Cari's house and had a great view of the fireworks from their backyard.



On the 4th, we watched the parade and cheered on Amanda, Holly, Kelly (Amanda's mom), Jessica and her mom as they ran the 5k race that starts out the parade.



The boys and their cousins got pretty excited about all the candy the people on the floats were throwing. They were much more interested in the candy than anything else that day.



Later that night, we went down to the waterfront and watched the fantastic fireworks show. That little town does an amazing job of celebrating Independence Day and the boys actually woke up enough to watch part of the show.

We left by lunch the next day and had a nice, easy and hot trip home. It was 107 degrees through some of the parts of California we drove through!

Tilden Park

One Saturday, we decided to go for a walk in Tilden Park, up in Berkeley. It was a beautiful day, and we took one of the smaller trails around a small "lake".






My camera battery died, so I only have a couple pictures of us near and on the trail.



The lake was calm, and pretty with several rocks that had turtles sleeping all over them. Along the path, there was this great branch blocking the way. The boys took the opportunity to climb and jump off of it a few times.



It wasn't very high off the ground and they boys enjoyed the higher view :) We live in a beautiful part of the country, and we're trying to get out and see more of it.

Pirate Festival

We went to the annual Northern California Pirate Festival and had a fantastic time! It's free entry, but the games, food and booths cost money, of course. More than half of the people walking around were dressed up in Pirate gear, and it made us wish that we had too!



We started with the play pirate ship and the boys had fun climbing and "shooting" the cannon.



We walked around for a bit and the boys decided what things they wanted to do. We had a limited budget, and they were smart and decided not to do the silly bounce houses. Instead, they decided on the fencing lessons, and the cool trampoline.



They loved the fencing lesson! After they were suited up, they got a 15-20 minute session with an instructor and got to learn a few basic moves. They were practicing their skills for the next couple of weeks :)


Here's a video clip of part of their fencing lesson.




After the fencing, they both decided they wanted to do these cool trampolines. The boys were hooked up to a harness that was attached to rubber ropes. The boys would bounce and the ropes were adjusted to help them bounce up very high.



They got to go on different trampolines at the same time, so Aaron used his iPhone to record Adam's adventure, and I used our camera to record Samuel.



The rubber ropes are just like those exercise bands that are so popular, only bigger, of course. The boys had a blast and Aaron managed to get a good video clip of Adam.



Our boys didn't bounce too high and they didn't try to do any of the spinning tricks that we saw older kids do. They said this was the best part of the whole festival.



We watched the land to Pirate ship battle, (pirates won of course) and then went to buy our souvenirs before we left.



The boys got new wooden swords and a shield to commemorate the day and to practice their fencing when they got home. It was a wonderful afternoon, and we're all excited for the next festival!

End of School

Summer is here! The boys had parties for almost the last week of school and thoroughly enjoyed themselves.

A couple weeks before school got out, Samuel's class did a small play. It was about how Albany (the little suburb we live in) became a town. Samuel was one of the narrators and he did a great job. He was pretty cute :)

You're Not Supposed To Brake With Your Face!

Friday evening, Aaron was leaving his lab to go to a game night at the local game store. On his way down the very steep hill that is the UC-Berkeley Campus, his bike skidded out from under him and he tried to use his face as a brake. At first, he thought he was just scraped up badly, and thought his arm was just sprained. He insisted he was fine, and I took him home to rest.



This picture was taken today, so his scrapes have actually healed up a bit. They were pretty red and raw on Saturday. Thankfully, he was wearing his helmet, and so didn't sustain any serious head or neck damage. That's actually the part that got the least amount of damage.



By late Friday night, he was pretty sure he had broken something. He said he wasn't in bad enough pain to wake up the boys and drag them to the ER (it was 1 am at this point), and that we should plan on going in the morning. So we did. And yes, he had broken his wrist! He broke that small bone that pokes out on the outside of your wrist. It was a clean break and is in a very large splint for such a small crack on the x-ray. He is doing well and he's only had to take Advil when the pain flares up.

We went to see the doctor today, and she said his scrapes are healing fine and referred Aaron to an orthopedic physician for his check-ups on his wrist.

Aaron is otherwise fine, just frustrated trying to do everything with one hand. Thankfully, he's left-handed, because he broke his right wrist!

Random News and Pictures

I've been lax in my blogging since we moved here. I've missed out on recording a few things, nothing major, but still fun to remember.



A couple months ago, Samuel's Cub Scout pack had their Pinewood Derby. It was Samuel's first and he loved it! He designed and painted his car, we just helped a bit with the cutting and sanding. The whole ward was invited and after several heats, he won third place! There were about 45-50 cars total that ran, so he did great!

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Adam tried eating a slice of lemon for the first time, and this is his reaction :)

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Aaron's new favorite game is Magic: The Gathering. It's a card game, that has a story line and is collectible. He's really enjoying it, and the boys have fun helping Daddy open the cards and look at the cool pictures on them.

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Adam put on a "show" for us one night, just before bedtime. He was very cute and Aaron got a sideways video clip of the beginning.



He sang a song, told a story and then took lots of bows and demanded lots of applause. We happily complied :D


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Dorothy, the elderly lady that I work for, fell and broke her hip on Friday. It happened just before I got there, and I followed the ambulance to the hospital and stayed with her until they got her settled for the night, into her own room. She's stable and doing better now and she's in a rehab center until she can get back on her feet.

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I got a pretty Tiffany-like lamp for Mother's Day. I found it for a great price on Craigslist. Love it!



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Samuel was recently diagnosed with ADHD, and we're in the process of figuring out if we should put him on medication or if there are other options that we should pursue.

Otherwise, we are all doing well when we're not sneezing our heads off from allergies. Ah, well. It's the price we pay for living in such a beautiful area!

Adam's 6th Birthday

My little guy just turned 6! On his actual birthday, we had just a family party and he got his presents from us and his grandparents.



The day before, he had lost his other top front tooth and is now sporting a pretty wide "window" in his mouth. He said, "Look, Mom! I'm toofwess!" (I'm toothless!)



He got lots of fun things: the red thing in the picture is a megaphone/voice changer, Lego Star Wars 3 video game, a box of Legos, a movie and money!



Adam is not much of a cake lover. He licks off the frosting and leaves everything else. So, for his birthday, we have the tradition of eating giant ice cream sundaes! Yum!

Last weekend, he had his big, friends are invited and we celebrate BIG, party. We had it at a local park, and Adam had decided on a pirate theme. It was great! And it really helped that the dollar store had that particular theme, too :D


Dark picture of Adam hitting his Pirate Ship pinata. My stupid camera battery died and we had to use Aaron's phone for pictures.

The kids all got blow up swords and parrots, pirate hats and paper treasure boxes to hold the loot that dropped from the pinata.



We played games, ate cupcakes and went down the concrete slide that is the highlight of that park. Per the birthday boy's request, we had roasted hot dogs, watermelon and lots of candy in the pinata. It was overcast, but thankfully stayed dry for the party.



Happy Birthday, Adam!