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Since I missed a week due to illness, this is a summary of the last two weeks… which makes it kind of long, but it’s my blog so I can do that.

I hope everyone is enjoying the last of August. I can’t believe it’s almost the start of school already! I have a new interest in all of those “back to school” ads these days as it will only be a couple of years before that has to mean something to me.

We had a lot of fun over the last two weeks. Unfortunately, last week ended with all of us coming down with a cold and missing out on the weekend. It was a planned “stay at home and get something done” weekend, but we mostly just sat around sneezing and coughing at each other so not much got done. The girls didn’t get nearly as sick as Chris and I did, so they were practically back to normal quickly. Chris took a sick day today to avoid infecting his coworkers. Unfortunately, my parents were not so lucky.

CareBear had another day camp type of class, this time with a safari theme. She had a great time and got to bring home an elephant mask, which has become a very popular car ride accessory. The class was particularly helpful since we had so much down time due to our colds… CareBear tends to get a little stir crazy if we stay home too much!

Everyone recovered from their colds around here except me. I ended up having to go in to the doctor for antibiotics as my cough just wouldn’t go away and apparently decided to turn into bronchitis. I’m tired of being sick so often!

We took an impromptu trip up to Mt. Rainier… it started out as “let’s go for a little drive”, then it was “hey, maybe we should go to Alder lake” and it turned into “why don’t we go pick up a national parks pass while we’re out here?” Since it was late in the day and we weren’t really planning on going all the way up there, we only went as far as Longmire before stopping to explore. The girls were more impressed with the bugs they found than the mountain, but they had a good time nonetheless. It was a very nice day for an outing.

We spent part of this weekend doing some comparison shopping and errands and then providing “tech support” over at my folks’ (ok, Chris does all the work, I get to visit), which was a nice change of pace. We’re in the market for a new washer and dryer and new flooring if anyone has recommendations!

Sunday was spent down in Centralia for a celebration of life/memorial gathering. It was nice to visit with family that I don’t see often, though the circumstances were unfortunate. CareBear made fast friends with Aunt Gail and has been talking about her ever since. She was particularly tickled that Aunt Gail thought the butterflies on her undies might be real!

We made a surprise stop at Chris’ folks’ on our way back north. The girls helped feed the goats dinner and we had a nice visit. It turned into a later day than we expected, but the kids did some napping in the car so everyone maintained good moods all day!

This week will finally (hopefully) see our long planned visit with Auntie T and Z. Our classes have finished for the session so it’s our week off. I’m not sure what else we’ll be doing with ourselves, but I’m sure we’ll keep busy.

We all had a cold and then I didn’t get better for over a week! Consequently, I’m behind on both blogging and Project 365, but all will be remedied today… whether I feel like it or not!

Sometimes the kids share very nicely, sometimes not so much. I particularly love it when it’s their idea.

LiliBee and I end up waiting a lot… waiting for CareBear to finish up whatever she’s doing… waiting for Chris to come back for us… we usually play games or sing songs. I imagine it looks pretty funny from the outside.

I’m bored.

What song should we sing?

Bumblebee!

I don’t know about the rest of you around here, but I really enjoyed our few days of rain. We even had a thunder storm that traumatized Lucy but entertained the rest of us.

We had plenty of ups and downs this week, but it was mostly good. Everyone is still enjoying their classes at the Y and CareBear spent a good portion of her time during gymnastics running around an obstacle course screaming “fire! fire! hurry! hurry!”. She had a great time.

We managed to make it to the Ren Faire on Saturday. The weather was overcast, but warm, so it was a good day to go. CareBear and LiliBee collected fairy stones and mermaid glitter from random costumed people, which was a lot of fun. We watched part of a play and browsed through the shops. The kids liked the sword fighting but were really impressed by the whip-weilding pirates. I even ran into someone that I worked with years ago at Good Sam!

In other big news, LiliBee is 21 months old! She’s practically two… where did my baby go?

The down part of our week was on Friday when CareBear was a bit under the weather with a tummy ache. I’m still not sure what that was all about, but at least it didn’t last long.

We’re hoping to do a little visiting this week and maybe go play in the park while the weather is nice. Chris will be heading to the dentist for a temporary crown, which should be lots of fun for him. I’m just hoping to take a nap.

On our recent visit to NorthWest Trek, we learned something new… benches are almost more fun than looking at the animals. The kids didn’t miss an opportunity to climb up onto a bench (and they had lots of opportunities, I’ve never noticed how many benches are scattered around the park). LiliBee and CareBear had different bench “styles” though…

CareBear and Pas were more of the “waiting for the bus” type of bench sitters.

Or maybe “hanging in the park”.

I have no idea what the topic of conversation was, but it was pretty entertaining to watch from afar!

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LiliBee and Grams, on the other hand, seemed to have more of a “sporting event” method, with lots of looking back and forth.

Maybe it was tennis?

Or basketball?

But they certainly were much more animated than CareBear and Pas!

CareBear loves rocks. She collects them from everywhere we go. She’s also fascinated by the boulders that she comes across. Mostly, she wants to climb on them, but not this time…

“Mama, do you think I can pick up this rock?” (My answer: “You can try!” Is that bad?)

“Uuuuuunnnnnnnnggggghhhhh!”

“Mama, I guess I can’t do it.”

And off we went to climb on the “jungle gym” ride again.

CareBear enjoyed the rides…

Since LiliBee is too little for the rides, we passed the time with a lively game of “where’s the pine-cone?”

Then they both enjoyed a little cotton candy, though in very different ways.

All in all, a fun day at the fair.

We’ve managed to avoid any of the rest of us getting sick again (so far), so we were able to have quite a fun week. We started new classes, had a picnic in the park, played at the fair and even visited Northwest Trek!

Carys is trying out a preschool gymnastics class this time around. So far, it’s her and 4 other three year olds swinging chaotically from bars and jumping into the foam block pit with varying degrees of success. She had a lot of fun and I was quite entertained. She’s also taking a swimming class again and is actually starting to get the hang of kicking!

Lilia is taking a parent/child swim class this session. Chris went with her and, since it’s the same time as Carys’ gymnastics class, I didn’t get to watch this week. I hear that her favorite part is jumping off of the wall to Chris and that she liked doing “motor boat”. She tends to get chilly while swimming, but that didn’t stop her from climbing in and out of the pool for fun.

Chris surprised us with a picnic at the park the park on our way to the farm this week. One of the best parts was that I got to be surprised, too! Since I’m usually tasked with planning and providing food for things, it was a very nice change. Carys thinks that surprises are the best and she and Lilia had a great time picking out a picnic table and playing at the playground.

We hit the Pierce County Fair this weekend. It’s a nice sized fair for little kids, even though the ride selection isn’t very diverse. There were only a few rides that Carys could go on (and none for Lilia, but that’s not unusual)… though it didn’t matter too much since she rode the 4x4s twice and then did the “jungle gym” obstacle coarse type ride 4 times. She really liked the ball pit part of that “ride”. We did all the usual fair looking and eating and generally had a great time.

Unfortunately, Chris missed out on some of the fun to make an unscheduled trip to the dentist for a temporary filling. He cracked part of one of his molars off eating breakfast, so he’ll be going back in a couple of weeks for a crown. Lots of fun for him. Luckily, our dentist is right across the street from the fair so the girls and I had plenty to do while waiting for him to return.

The kids and I headed out to Northwest Trek with my folks today. We had a nice walk on one of the hiking loops and then wandered around looking at animals. Carys was really impressed that she can spot the animals all by herself now, even when they’re not moving around. Lilia loved stopping every few feet to pick up a new stick or rock or leaf. It was quite challenging to keep her walking in anything resembling a forward direction. The animals were mostly sleeping while we were there, but it was still a fun trip.

This week will probably be a little more mellow, with rain in the forecast and all. I do hope to hit the last weekend of the Ren Faire, though!

We recently found a fun recipe for goo… cornstarch, enough water to make it “funky” and food coloring. This is generally something that we try to do outside, but the recent record heat wave convinced us to play with it inside.

The kids love the goo because it acts kind of solid when you pick it up and then oozes right through your fingers.

This makes it particularly good for making a big mess.

You’ll notice that I tried to use a sheet to keep things a bit cleaner. It didn’t work.

Luckily, this stuff dries fairly quickly and sweeps or vacuums relatively easily once it does. Cleaning up the kids requires a little more creativity… particularly trying to keep them from shedding bits of colored goo all over the house.

I’ve learned that the pink and green colors clean up more easily than the blue.

After the fun of goo time, everyone needs a break.

Though CareBear’s definition of “break” is different than LiliBee’s.