I did not know that elephants were fuzzy!

I have never been so close to an elephant in my life. The ones in the zoo are too far for me to notice every detail and texture. Hence I was astonished to see fuzzies all over elephant's skin. I have to say it is one of the most majestic and dignified representatives of the animal kingdom and Erin got to ride on top of it. I am not sure what his name was, so let's call him Dumbo!

A very happy Erin mounting "Dumbo"


I hope this "Dumbo" is treated with kindness and respect

As you might have deducted from the above photos we went to a circus. This was Erin's second time. The last time Andrew took her to see the Barnum and Bailey show when she was three. She liked some numbers, but overall they bored her, ha ha. This time around it was Jordan World Circus (a much smaller one, comparing to the Greatest Show on Earth) and all four of us went.

It is becoming more and more evident to me that Erin and Danny are so different from each other. At one and a half he loved it! He stood and sat, clapped and screamed, laughed and gasped with the crowd. He, unlike Erin, had a proper first time at the circus, ha ha. He was particularly interested in all the animal numbers, but also watched tight rope and areal acrobats, jugglers and motorcycle riders. He got tiered by the end, so he was ready to go home when the show was over. Erin loved it so much, that could have stayed for an encore. She could not decide what part was her favourite, but the elephant ride was definitely a highlight.


I have to say that this was a perfect family outing worth remembering and not for bad reasons, if you know what I mean.

Ta ta for now!

PS: I love circus for making me feel like a little child!

Snow

It finally snowed! I can not believe that by the end of January this was the first worth noticing snowstorm of the year. Pickings have been slim this season, and even this storm brought barely  2-3 inches of snow to the good old Pleasant Grove. But beggars can't be choosers.
 Getting an inkling that the white fluff would not last we bundled up, grabbed our sleds and headed out for the nearest hill. Here is Danny and Erin in all of their snow day glory!

Both Danny and Erin loved being pulled along, I did the pulling and felt like a sled dog. At least no one was yelling "Mush! Mush!" We got to the little hill in our neighborhood and sled, slid and rolled in snow until Danny soaked his gloves and hinted that he had enough. Unlike last year he did not mind the feel of snow on his skin, though his hands got super cold. Erin would have stayed longer even after her lips turned blue, but agreed to go home for some hot cocoa.
I surely hope for more snow later!

Ta ta for now!

Have you ever vaccumed a child? and other cocoa woes

Have you ever vacuumed a child? I can say now, that I have. Last night, Danny the trouble maker, was doing his traditional pre-dinner routine-wrapping himself around my leg and begging with his puppy eyes for a morsel to eat, because he just can not wait another minute to put something in his belly. When that failed as usual (I know! I know! I am a cruel mother), he headed for the pantry to forage. Usually he gets a box of cereal or crackers and helps himself. This time however he went for Nesquick. Before I knew it he was out of my reach and while I was drying my hands on my way to confiscate the loot, he popped the lid of and in grand music conductor motion raised it over his head creating a scrumptious cocoa cloud. My jaw dropped!
My white child turned brown. The powder was everywhere! What can one do upon seeing such a picture? Just laugh! That's what I did.

How does one clean this up? I vacuumed him which he quite enjoyed actually. I hosed him down and he was blond and fair skinned in no time. This mischievous monkey was tickled by the whole ordeal and I have to say he smelled really good afterwards. I kept telling Andrew, that Danny smells so tasty, which Andrew pointed out I should not. It is just not right to declare that your child smells tasty, it brings one to a few morbid thoughts, ha ha.



Doesn't he look mischievous?

Erin, not to be outdone by her younger brother, repeated the deed this morning. As we were out of Nesquick, she pulled out "the morning kakao" (aka Carnation instant breakfast). She was extremely enthusiastic about making it all by herself, however the lid on the container failed her. The can got dropped and the cover popped off. Powder went everywhere...again. This was morning so I did not laugh. In fact my face contorted and a few words I would have to blip out were on the tip of my tongue. You will be glad to hear however, that they did not come out, ha ha. Half the cocoa was still in the can. We swept up, what was dumped, mopped, made Erin's drink and moved on. Erin told me: "Don't worry mom! We'll drink water and milk instead!" And so we will.



My other mischievous child.

Ta ta for now!

Plants vs. Zombies & Charter vs. Public

Erin and Andrew have a new father-daughter activity that has become a part of the evening routine. Right after dinner they move upstairs to combat zombies on the computer. Those zombies have no chance. Erin directs which plants to be planted and gives strategic advice on how to combat them. Andrew makes his input and executes. Than for the next while I hear them cheering, screaming in horror or jubilation, depending on how well things are going. It is amazing that Danny can go to sleep across the hall in all this noise, ha ha.



Erin amazes me with how fast she learns, her memory and actually logical thinking. Amazingly enough this game is teaching her something, plus she and papa have amazing amount of fun.

Now on a more serious note. The time has come for us to enroll our Pooky in school. We are trying our luck with a few charter schools. Our number one choice is Quail Run Primary here in Pleasant Grove. We went to an open house there last week and loved it. It just feels like a right match for our Erin, plus she loved the place and keeps referring to it as "my school". She already told me that the white tights (while dressing for church) will be her school tights and that her black shoes will be her school shoes. This is funny because she apparently listened to Andrew reading school's dress code.

I am very unsure about Utah education. One of my biggest concerns is class sizes. This is why we are looking at a charter vs. public (technically charter is also public). Call me crazy but I will take an 18-kid-class over a 35-kid-class any day. I absolutely love the idea of giving more attention to each child and catering to their needs and abilities. By putting her in a school with smaller class size I can address the numbers issue.

Another issue I have is the curriculum. That I have no control over. In general it appears that teaching methods and amount of information given is very different from what I was brought up with. The more we know, more rich and colorful this world becomes to us. It amazed me to find out, when I came to the US, that such thing as 100% high school graduation rate does not really exist here. I could not fathom how can one (or more like that one's parents) not care enough to complete at least basic education? Education must not be valued or is not valuable. I hope that for our kids it will be both.

We will know in early March whether she got selected. We also applied to John Hancock and Odyssey. Another adventure starts and I can not believe that it is here. For now we'll keep our fingers crossed.

Ta ta for now!

Ringing in the New Year!

Ah, another year has gone by and it is time to look back and see what happened.
It was definitely a fun and family filled year for us.
We were visited by my Dad, than Andrew's Dad, Step mom and siblings, by Andrew's Mom and Sister-in-Law and niece and nephew. We went to a Family Reunion in Idaho, Lagoon and then in October to Disneyland. Andrew is still working for the same company, but this year he's been in three different positions: he continued this year in Tech support, moved to Quality Assurance and ended up as a developer. I went back to work and am doing research on Saturdays while Andrew watches the monkeys. We planted a garden, canned and froze our home grown produce. Erin began taking dance classes and Danny is getting so big. All I can say that these were wonderful 12 months!

To see them off we had a little party. Our best buds, Tyson and Diane came to help us out. We did fireworks, for which Miss Erin was allowed to stay up.


Pooky was absolutely bursting with excitement!



Isn't this a ghostly photo!


Two more crazy faces!

After we burned our $9.97 worth of fireworks we sent Erin to bed and settled into a game of Scattegories followed by Munchkins. We also ate, laughed, drank apple cider and had jolly good time. We watched the ball drop and stayed up way too late. I gave up by 4 a.m. and I believe the others lasted for another hour.

So there, this was our New Years this year!

PS: Danny slept through it all! Happy New Year to you all!