Giant Crazy Road Trip (ie what the heck were we thinking) Part 1.

 Kevin and I decided a while ago to make a big roadtrip this summer to see our families. My sister and her family lives in Wisconsin and Kevin's brother lives in Michigan. We've never driven out that way before and it has been a few years since we have seen them. And since we have a giant car that can more than accommodate our family and all our stuff, we decided to try it out. I was a little nervous about the driving, Edyn is still little and I was mostly worried about how she would do. I over prepared and made binders, games, packed way too much stuff and didn't use half of it but I felt ready for anything!  We decided to use as many Costco's as possible while driving to get our gas and we also used it on quite a few occasions for cheap lunches. I think Kevin and I don't want Costco pizza for a long, long time.

Day 1 we made it to Billings, Montana which was our goal and stayed at a slightly ghetto but incredibly fun hotel that had a waterslide.  I think the kids and I went down it at least 20 times and this turned out to be our favorite hotel of our whole trip. There was no height limit and the kids could go down by themselves and they thought it was the best thing ever.

It made me feel better about locking them in the car for 10 plus hours that first day and made for a pretty fun night.

The breakfast was pretty good too and Isak became an expert at continental breakfasts.

 

 The next day we made it to Jamestown, ND which apparently is home of the buffalo. We found a nice motel in the middle of town that also had a little slide and the kids were able to play for a while. We got to take our time on the way to Wisconsin, about 3 1/2 days of driving, because Kevin had a breakfast appointment in Minneapolis on Monday.

We were in a hurry to leave Sunday morning but Isak convinced us to go visit the buffalo museum. So glad I listened to him because this was a pretty cool site! Its about 60 tons of fiberglass and is surrounded by a buffalo reserve and you can see buffalo roaming around.

On Sunday we made it to Minneapolis, after being slowed down by crazy traffic, and toured around

the mall of America. It had a giant Nickolodeon land in the middle of it complete with theme park and roller coaster.  We also walked through the lego store which was amazing and had tables of legos all over for kids to play with. It had these huge lego sculptures on top of the store and a floor to ceiling wall of every color of Lego you an imagine.  Other than that, it was just a giant shopping mall and I wasn't super impressed. Probably would've been more fun without three very hungry, tired, and whiny kids!

We stayed in a hotel right by the mall and it had an amazing water park inside.  I noticed a ton of hotels out that way have poolside rooms that open out onto the indoor pool. You can pay like $10 extra to have one of these rooms and have immediate access to the pool. We never did it and I imagine with little kids it might drive me crazy to have them begging to go out the door to the pool constantly.

 Our kids did pretty well on the way there and we made sure to stop every few hours and let them stretch and run. Isak would often run laps around the rest areas until it was time to leave.

 We also got to read lots of great information about the local areas (not much in North Dakota, FYI) at these places and learned some cool stuff. I packed lots of bread, PB, and honey and we sometimes stopped at parks and had lunch as well.  The kids loved this and I didn't have to worry about them picking up weird viruses from nasty play place equipment although we had stopped at a few of those as well.  It was also on this trip that Edyn learned a new scream that we have fondly named the "banshee" yell, it can peel paint off the walls. And lucky for us, she not only uses it when she wants out of the car, but when she wants our attention as well. So. Awesome.

Kindergarten Graduation

Isak graduated from Kindergarten the beginning of June.   They had this sign hanging outside and I could hardly believe it. 2025?? Wow! They wore little caps and sang a few songs and then gave them their certificates.

 It was really cute and Isak did great. He had a really good first year of school and we loved his teacher. He learned so much and has really taken off with his reading.  We are so proud of him!

 After the graduation we took him to our local ice cream store and he got his own smoothie. Pretty great day!

 A couple weeks ago I made some freezer strawberry jam. I've done this a few years now and this was the best its ever turned out. I only did about 10 jars and plan to do some more strawberry as well as peach later this summer. It tastes WAY better than store bought jam and I like that I can put less sugar in it. And I think I may actually have learned how do it correctly so now my kids will eat the jam in 6 months when I pull it out of the freezer!

For family home evening a couple weeks ago Kevin and I had an all inclusive "safety" lesson discussing the dangers of canals, talking to strangers, knowing our phone number and address, not getting in a car with strangers, etc.  This was very much right up Isak's alley and he kept asking us about what our plan was for an earthquake or more importantly, if the dam broke.  In fact, we spent the next week after discussing our safety plan and where we would go if we had a tornado. Pretty sure that kid's brain never shuts off.  We had some role play and Kevin was pretending to be stranger and asked the kids if they would get in his car.  We told the kids they needed to yell no and run away as fast as they could and tell an adult. If anyone grabbed them, we told them to scream as loud as they can and to kick and punch as hard as they could. So Lucy totally blindsided Kevin and punched him pretty hard in the kidneys and I think Isak slapped him in the face. I think they got the point but I'm a little worried the next time one of friend's has to put my kids in their car....

 

We then took the kids to our running/bike trail in town that runs along the canal and let them ride their bikes. They also have some outdoor exercise bars with different suggested exercises that my kids were excited to try out.

 Edyn rode in her car for a little bit then wanted to push it most of the way.  Afterwards we went to Fruitaletas and got ice cream and smoothies. I love summer!

Memorial Day Weekend

 Memorial Day weekend I was lucky enough to not have to work so we enjoyed the long weekend hanging out at home and going to the local moonlight parade where my parent's live. I have great memories of going to that parade growing up and marching with my flute in the junior high band. I was so cool.

 My kids all loved the parade and I thought Lucy was going to hyperventilate she was so excited. "MOM! MOM! LOOK! A HORSE! ITS A HORSE! AHH! ITS SO BEAUTIFUL!!". Yes, repeat that about 20 times for everything she saw and every princess and princess float. It was a pretty fun parade and lasted about an hour and a half. My favorite was the dancing horses that do all these different trots, it was pretty cool.

 We saw the baby cows on Monday out at the dairy as it has been at least 6 months or so since we've been out there. Edyn was very excited about the cows and was running around and laughing at them.  She kept saying, "Wow, look at that!" over and over. That's her favorite phrase these days. She didn't even mind when the cows started licking her and tried feeding them some hay.

 Isak's favorite part every time of visiting the dairy is jumping in the cottonseed. There is a giant pile of it that they mix in with the cows feed and the kids love to roll down it and jump around. It gets everywhere and Edyn's diaper was FULL of cottonseed when we got home.

 We visited Kevin's grandparents' grave as well and put some flowers on it that we picked.  They were great people and I wish they could've stuck around a while longer while we were living here so they could've known my kids.

 And Edyn discovered a new trick on the way home

 which she thinks is hilarious. This must come from the Gilbert side...

Isak's 6th Birthday!!

 My little Isak turned 6 on May 23rd. Its hard to believe that its already been 6 years since he was born, its gone by so fast! He had been counting down to his birthday for two weeks and would update me daily on how many days were left. We had a small family party for him a few days before his birthday and he got some awesome robots, legos and a whole lot of cash. He had quite the haul!

 Oh and I also found this darth vader helmet and some Star Wars At-At walker at a yard sale the weekend before his birthday for a sweet deal. I had gotten these figures at a clearance after Christmas so it went together nicely.

 Isak was pretty excited about his party and wrote out a detailed guest list for me one Sunday in sacrament meeting as well as snacks and games he wanted. He wanted an angry bird party which was simple enough. I think this is the simplest birthday party and cake he's ever had and he thought it was awesome.

 We had about ten kids come and I had them all play pin the tail on the angry bird to start. Then they went on a treasure hunt for their goody bags.

 We also set up a very rough live play angry bird game and the kids had to knock all the pigs down. This was a huge favorite and it took them a while to get all the pigs.

 Isaks' angry bird cake was not my best but it was easy and Isak loved it so that's all that matters!

 He requested an angry bird cake and rainbow sherbet ice cream and the kids pretty much devoured the whole cake. He got so many presents from his friends I was tempted to hide some and take them back out at Christmas. I think he got 3-4 squirt guns, it will make for a fun summer! I took his class popsicles and I got to listen to his birthday quiz where all the kids in his class got to ask him a bunch of different questions. His teacher wrote it up and gave it to me, its pretty awesome.

I'm trying to take a family picture with each kid's birthday, they are growing way too fast. I just realized how incredibly huge Edyn looks in this picture. I need to freeze time! At six years old, Isak is doing a lot of things.
-He can read fluently pretty much anything he can get his hands on. He will ask us meanings of words or sometimes ask us if he doesn't know a word here or there but he impresses us. Tonight he read us all the articles of faith without much help, pretty awesome!
-He loves to ride his bike and loves to be outside, especially if there's water involved.
-He's very sensitive and can be pretty sensitive to other people's emotions. We have to be careful with this one and at the same time I hope he always keeps his soft heart.
-He is very OCD about things (don't know where he gets this!) and is learning (slowly) flexbility and that he can't be the best at everything all the time.  He definitely likes things how the knows they are suppose to be and doesn't love it when his routine is disrupted.
-He's very friendly and social and has lots of friends. I love that he is kind to everyone and can make friends easily.
-Loves to play with his robots and build stuff for them, still wants me to play with him all the time.
-Getting better at trying new foods but is still wary of stuff he doesn't recognize or love but will take at least a bite most of the time.
-Loves his baby sister and will play with her anytime.. he tolerates Lucy pretty well but they play together most of the time pretty good.
-He still talks incessantly whenever he is home and has a million questions. Everyday when he has a day home from school it can be 730 am and he'll be like, "So mom, what's our plan today?". Yea..
He really wants a pet..that's not happening right now.
We love this little boy and are excited for the next year. He will keep us busy this summer!