California Here We Come!

A guest blog from Jenny...
A few weeks ago Megan and I took a girls' weekend and went to visit my friend Amy and her family in California. We hadn't yet met her second set of twins (yes, 2nd set) who are now 4 months old. Her older kids are almost 4 years old and so very close in age to Megan. The older kids: Zayne, Annalise, and Megan had a great time playing and getting to know each other. It was interesting because at home Megan doesn't spend too much time playing dress up or with her dolls or kitchen set - but it seemed like with a girl playmate her age around, that's all they wanted to do! The babies (Quinn and Saraia) are adorable and each have very distinct features. Megan thought it was amazing that there was not one but 2 babies around and kept trying to tickle them and figure which was which. We lucked out on the weather and spent a fun day at the beach and the kids got to play outside the whole weekend. Lucky for that since when we came home we had 8 inches of snow the next weekend. Amazingly enough, I was back in California last week for business and Amy and I actually got to have dinner and enjoy adult conversation for a few hours! Hope we can get back to California again soon, so Ben and Steve can meet the kids too!!

Lego Party

Our friends the Manchesters had a birthday party yesterday for their son Nicholas. The theme was a "Lego Party." The kids whacked a "lego" pinata, they played "lego bingo," and of course everyone made legos. If you're never been to a "lego party" you would be surprised how quiet it is. It's the most "peaceful" birthday party you'll ever see. Everyone is too busy building their models.

Life At Random

Here are some of the things the kids have been up to recently. Things like losing teeth, dressing up, science projects, and seeing what a foot of snow looks like. I also snuck a picture of Ben staying up late one night reading books in bed with a flashlight. (He was pretty tired the next day.)

Dinosaurs!

The kids had the day off from school today, so we went to our local museum where they were having a dinosaur exhibit. We met Ben's friend Ian, and his older brother Lee. Ben has always loved dinosaurs, so he was very excited about the exhibit. Megan enjoyed the "fossil dig."

Last Day Of Class

A while back I told you Ben has been in a climbing wall class for the past several weeks. Well, tonight was the last day of the class. As I mentioned before this was the 3rd time he's taken the class, and this latest session was his best. Not only did he routinely climb to the top of the "kid walls," but he also tackled some more difficult "adult walls" as well. I was especially proud of him today. For the past few weeks he has been trying to climb one of the "adult walls" (it's the first photo below.) Before today he could never get more than half way up before he would get stuck. In fact, last week he had his first "slip" trying to climb this wall. He slipped off a rock and came off the wall (don't worry...that's what the rope is for.) Anyway, bless his heart he kept working on it every day in class. Then finally today he got past the troublesome spot and climbed all the way to the top and rang the bell. Everybody in class cheered for him. He was pretty excited. Of course what the kids enjoy most in the class are "swinging." They like to climb about half way up the wall and then just jump off. Then they just swing around and pretend they're flying. Ben is starting to have a bit of a passion for the climbing wall. The teacher was pretty impressed with Ben's skills, and he invited Ben to drop in anytime for a quick climb. Maybe someday we should try rock climbing for real.
By the way, here is Ben's first climbing class, back in 2008. And here is his second in 2009.