August 10 - August 16

August 10 – August 16

Sunday, August 10: This week was my week to teach in Young Women. Thankfully, there was a really awesome topic available: strengthening your family. I pulled some fun movies off YouTube about how to improve bonds with your loved ones (eye contact, hugs, expressing gratitude), and had them split into groups and describe to the class the video they had watched. It went really well! The girls really engaged. After church, it was SO HOT. We pulled out a new sprinkler set and let the kids run around for a long time while the grass got some much needed water.

Tyler spent a lot of the afternoon building this tower and making this mask:

There were some nekkid times as well.

Monday, August 11: After we took Tyler to school, Jamie and I went to the park. It was so insanely hot on the way home. Poor Jamie was so lifeless for a while after we got back in the cool house. She watched Frozen for a bit, but kept asking permission to do everything, even to take off her shoes. I commented to McKay that her normal mischief must take a lot of energy. After McKay got home, he gave me a bit of a break and took the kids to play at the Scottish Rite Hospital Park, or the “colors park” as we call it because of the giant crayons.

Poor Tyler may have gotten too hot; he got sick when they got back home.

Tuesday, August 12: Tyler was fine in the morning, but we kept him home from school just to be sure. I spent the morning at Jamie’s school for a parent orientation and luncheon (so fancy!). After I got back, the kids were bouncing off the walls with energy. It was still too hot outside, and we didn’t want a repeat of the day before, so we took them to the Frontiers of Flight Museum, something we had wanted to do since we moved here.

Pilot GI Joes from every era of flight.

Apollo 11!

The Flying Pancake. I figure my dad will be able to explain this one to me. Apparently, this one can stay in the air at speeds as low as 24 miles an hour. 

A perfect model of the very first aircraft that flew, the Wright Flyer.

Da Vinci's parachute built from his blueprints. There was an experiment a few years ago where someone tested this type of parachute from 20,000 up, and it worked!

Sputnik!

Hi Uncle Brady!

Shout out to the ladies!

Roosevelt asking Congress to declare war in 1941 after Pearl Harbor.

"To Hell With Hitler!" We agree.

A stately bronze recreation of Southwest Airlines' first idea of its flight paths from Dallas to Houston to San Antonio.

Playing in an old airplane :)

These stewardess uniforms were a thing. Go 70s!

No museum is complete without a kids area, though :)

Complete with air traffic towers.

Jamie had such a grand time commanding us all to put our seat belts on, to close all the windows and doors, and then directed McKay, who was in the pilot seat, to drive us to the airport. Huh.

PHOTOGRAPHIC EVIDENCE THAT I WAS THERE TOO!

It was so cool! I am dying to take my dad the next time he visits. On my run that night, I happened upon a discarded but big stereo system on the curbside. It looked to be in good condition, and we’ve been bemoaning our lack of good sound with our movies. I took the short route home and made McKay go pick it up. He happened to see the guy who put it out, and I guess the stereo had fallen and gotten kind of wonky on one side, and didn’t want to deal with fixing it (ah, to be wealthy!). It took like a second to snap it back together right, and it works perfectly. Come watch a movie with us sometime! Or, more likely, dance around with Jamie and me to the Disney Princess station on Pandora.

Wednesday, August 13: This was a long, slow day at home getting more of the house ready to be neglected for the school year. I cleaned out my disaster of a closet, and it took literal hours. HOURS. Why do we have so much stuff?? I got rid of five trash bags worth of clothes and junk and reorganized everything that was left.

Thanks to a tip from my friend Barbara, I propped my excessive pairs of boots up with rolled up magazines and it looks great! Jamie entertained herself meanwhile lining up her toys

. I had YW that night to plan out our girls’ entry into the Stake Film Festival. Afterwards, I had a great time talking with one of the girls, who has spent the summer in computer animation classes. She has a passion for it and totally lights up when she describes it. She wants to major in computer animation at BYU, and she is already putting her portfolio together, and she’s only a sophomore. She showed me a clip of an animation that her dream professor at BYU made and posted to YouTube. She told me that she can’t stop watching it, she is so amazed at it, and spends time trying to decide what it means. I am so impressed with her. I can’t even remember what I did with my summers when I was fifteen. It certainly wasn’t anything productive or useful. I have been pestering her ever since to show us all her work. I hope and wish that Tyler and Jamie will have something that they are so fiery about.

My YW girl thinks the girl is a memory because she’s wispy like smoke, and the guy is dancing with the memory of her, but the end, where she becomes black ink like him, is where they really said goodbye. Now she has me hooked!

Thursday, August 14: Jamie and I met our playgroup at the Galleria to play at the playground and to have lunch together. Jamie and I searched for hair bows in her school colors (red, white and blue, solid colors, no patterns, no other colors; sheesh, Captain Specific!) but no luck. We did have a marvelous frozen yogurt date before we picked up Tyler from his afterschool program.

McKay brought me home a yummy philly cheesesteak sandwich from Capriotti’s to top off a day of terrible eating. I did not mind one bit. It was really yummy.

Friday, August 15: I dropped the kids off, Tyler at his school, and Jamie at her old blue school, and I went to campus for the UNITE mentor Meet n Greet to meet my new protégés! TWU has created a program for the nursing school to help new nursing students find their way with upperclassmen nursing students who have already gone through the first semester acting as mentors and guides. I was dumb and did not sign up for it last year, but I am determined to put some good karma out there for this year! I met my two new protégés, who are both new mamas, and both very, very nervous. Sounds familiar!

Saturday, August 16: Poor Tyler and Jamie had to bear with me all morning while I gave the kitchen a good scrub down. A huge, scary thunderstorm rolled in that afternoon. We spent a very cozy afternoon watching the wind bend the trees to the ground and the rain flood the backyard and the street. The rain never really let up, and by the end of the day, trees were down all over the neighborhood. The power was out in most street lights and local businesses. McKay had a fun evening at a geocaching party, and then to a comedy show that night.

I was lame and stayed home because we couldn’t find a babysitter.

Funny Things:

• Jamie watched part of A&E’s Pride and Prejudice with me. She asked a lot of questions about “Mistuh Dahcee and Mistuh Bingwee”, and then she laughed a lot at “that funny guy” (Mr. Collins). I’ll have her trained yet J
• Jamie has been saying "perhaps" lately. "Perhaps we can have some Cheez-Its, Mommy?"

August 3 - August 9

Sunday: We jetted up to Plano as quick as we could, but we were still about 5 minutes late to sacrament (dang!). We were there in time for baby Arya’s blessing. Little Arya is just a little under two weeks old, but most of Michelle’s family was in town, so they did it a bit earlier than usual. Kevin, David, Patrick and McKay were all in the circle together, which was pretty neat. Cindy later commented that it was the first time that she had seen all four of her “boys” officiating together in that chapel since they were all young men blessing and passing the sacrament together ten or more years earlier. David commented later on the continuity as well. I love this family! We had a yummy fajitas dinner, took some pictures, and of course, ate cake J

 

Jamie made fast friends with this little girl named Addy. 

Monday: Mckenzie was so sweet to watch Jamie during the morning while I took Tyler to the pediatric dentist to have his lower incisor teeth pulled. His adult incisors were coming in too soon to erupt through the normal pathway, and would have ended up slightly behind his baby incisors. Dr. Andy was quick, and it was over quickly, but not without much crying. Poor Tyler. I felt awful for my little guy, and I walked him and his gauze-filled, tingling mouth to meet McKay for lunch.

Tyler obviously didn’t eat much, but he really enjoyed all the Jamie-free time with just Mom and Dad. And his temporary, unmitigated control of the iPhone. That night, McKay gave Tyler a father’s blessing. Tyler packed his teeth into his tooth pillow and eagerly went to bed.

Tuesday: The Tooth Fairy came! A dollar and a quarter per tooth for this guy! Most unfortunately, it was also Tyler’s first day of school, so he had to put his money away and go to school.

McKay drove him there and walked him into his class. I went running once he got back, but McKay was feeling yucky and went to lay down. He ended up taking a four nap while Jamie and I played and cleaned up the house. Tyler came home from his first day with the color blue, a new option this year! He starts out on green each day, and then goes up to blue, and then purple.

Wednesday: After I dropped Jamie off for one day in her blue school, and Tyler at Heights, I had my very last EKG class. We finished up our lecture, and then our professor set up an EKG simulation for us to practice our care of someone who is experiencing various dysrhythmias. Our job was the call out the next step of treatment, including giving another mil of epi, or defribrillating again. It did not go well J Our professor chided the upperclassmen. “S1s, stop letting the J2s kill the patient!” After, I picked up groceries and had enough time for a quick lunch with McKay again. This whole all-kids-in-school situation is sah-weeet! That night I had my final quiz and submitted all the homework. I ended up with a 97% in the class, which is awesome. I will take any A I can get in this crazy program!

Thursday: Jamie and I trucked up to Plano after we dropped off Tyler at school. We went to this amazing thrift shop with Cindy, played with Addy and her mom and baby sister Evelyn, and then while Jamie watched a quiet time movie, I pictures of Arya. I may have squealed. Many times.

Friday: Take Your Superhero to Work Day at Match! Jamie was so excited. Tyler was not happy that he had to go to school instead. He sulked all the way, and stomped off to class. Ah, well. Jamie had such a great time.

Jamie didn't care much for this Ninja Turtle. She made me pick her up when it walked by us, and she whispered to me that "he has a really big head, mom."

Jamie found some friends right away that had an iPad.

Learning superhero moves.

Very excited for making superhero masks!

I love this hallway in Match. They keep every letter and wedding announcement that their success stories send in, and display them all down this long hall.

After, I activated an older iPhone that Cindy gave me a few years ago. Yessss, I am now 2009 current! Tyler was sooo super grumpy when I picked him up. He whined the whole way home, even though we brought him treats and a balloon animal. I lost my patience pretty fast, and figured out why later. I had caught what McKay had had a few days earlier. I went to sleep way early, around 7PM. McKay was the best dad that night: he painted Tyler's face so Tyler could be in on the fun too. 

Saturday: We had a hankering for the park, so as soon we could, we ran over to the park. It was so early that we were the only ones there. Thank goodness, because Bronxie needed freedom to run like mad all over the place.

Gotta have fancy princes gloves at the park!

Crazy boys :)

Jamie started to learn how to swing herself, albeit very grudgingly. If she had her way, she’d have me pushing her on the swing for all eternity. Much to Tyler and Jamie’s disgust, we spent a big part of the rest of the day shopping all over for Jamie’s last minute things for school. I also may have gotten another Lauren Conrad dress :) We visited the Dallas LDS bookstore for the first time looking for a handout for my YW lesson the next day. I didn’t find anything for that, but I DID find this second print edition of Mormon Doctrine, which is super rare and awesome and with all sorts of crazy in it.

Funnies:

• Tyler kept asking for "em em ems" (M&Ms).
• After we got home from the dentist. Tyler was worried about his extracted teeth in the tooth boxes. "What if my teeth wake up in the boxes?!" (Dr. Andy had explained to Tyler that his teeth were "going to sleep" so he wouldn't feel anything.)
• Tyler thought it was really funny that he kept trying to itch his tongue with his bottom pointy teeth, but was forgetting that they weren't there anymore.
• Jamie: While she was painting her purple shield at the Superhero Party, she let me know that she wasn't done yet, because she needed to get all the "peek-a-boos". Those turned out to be the little spots that she had missed :)