Wednesday, June 26, 2013

School Ends (finally)

My poor kids. They were in school forever! AZ school starts a month before Massachusetts.  Add in a week of snow days, and they were in school from the beginning of August until the end of June.  It was a long haul.  But they did it! 

Gman finished up fifth grade and Kiwi finished up 2nd.  Since middle school starts in 6th grade, the guy right here was the star.  Here he is after his "moving on" ceremony, sporting his long hair and "I don't care" attitude. 


In the fall I'll have three in school.  Little S is going to kindergarten.  I'll only have one kid at home for four hours every morning.  Poor JW is going to be so bored.

Sunday, June 16, 2013

Chad's BIrthday and Fathers Day

This year, Luann finally didn't plan for a vacation for my Birthday! So, we stayed home, and did a family party. And, since MA does school well into June (later when there are lots of snow days; see Blizzard of '13), my birthday is now in the school year.

Nothing fancy, I just requested and got a number of t-shirts: Superman, stripped, Coca-cola, and a great Boston Bruins shirt, since they were still alive in the Stanley Cup at the time.
The peach pie was the best part, and a touch of a la mode, and the day was complete.

Saturday, June 8, 2013

Snails

They live under our porch and come out after it rains.  The kids love them.
 So do our next door neighbors' kids.
 
I caught them doing snail races.
They also love to find different sized snails and make snail families. 
Is it weird that I like snails?  Maybe it's because AZ critter are mostly dangerous and unfriendly.  It's pretty hard to play with scorpions, spiders, and ants.

Saturday, June 1, 2013

Soccer in MA

Gman and Kiwi played soccer this spring.  Sports take so much time! Our entire Saturday was spent doing games, plus practices two days a week.  Unfortunately, they love it.  So I guess we're in for the long haul.

Here's G. He was on the Boy's 10 year old travel team.  They were team Lightning:
 He's a quick runner. He's good at chasing down the ball.
We were going through a long hair stage.  Thankfully that is now over. For now at least.
Boys soccer is very serious.  They work hard while they're out there and they are usually eagerly waiting their next turn to play.  G was always exhausted after his games.

Here's Kiwi. Here team stayed in town and played against other kids from our town. Next year she'll travel like G.  It should be fun having out of town games for both of them every week:

 Girl's soccer is hilarious.  It's all about the social.  When on the field, it's all about getting the ball.  Here Kiwi is trying to get the ball.  When they don't have the ball they're socializing with their team mates on the field.  If required to run too much, they usually start asking to sit out. 
These girls had a fun time.  I really should compare girl's and boy's soccer amongst same aged kids.  We'll see if they're as serious as the G's team when they're 8.