I knew when I was putting our March activities on the calendar and realized that we were booked for every weekend in March that it was going to be fun.
A recap:
The first weekend of March the boys had a birthday party to attend. These are always really fun events and the Mom of the boy having the birthday is super organized. In addition to the normal party stuff there were 10 craft stations set-up downstairs, all dinosaur themed, with a booklet for the kids to follow with each station given a dinosaur-related name and a set of themed instructions.
Both of the boys had a wonderful time playing with all the other kids. It was really a fantastic day.
The next weekend was the birthday party at the cousin’s house. It was a slumber party for the older boys and while happily leaving my sister-in-law to deal with 12 rowdy 7 and 8 year-olds, I took the two 4 year-olds to my house so that they could have a sleepover too.
Both sleepovers were a big success, although my set were asleep by 10:30p and hers were still awake at 1a so I think I got the better deal there. :)
On March 19th, K went to his cousin’s Pinewood Derby. The boys had a lot of fun but it turned out to be a long night. It was close to 9:30p before they got home.
The next evening K and I headed to the Pacific Science Center for his Cub Scout Camp In. All of the Scouts from across the District had a fabulous time getting to play in the Science Center without any other patrons. From about 7p to 11p the boys explored, played, learned about volcanoes and generally enjoyed the Science Center. Amazingly enough even with all that time K and I didn’t get to see all the exhibits.
They even served an evening snack which I had to laugh at. This is a bunch of Cub Scouts, so 1st through 5th graders. The snack was gourmet macaroni and cheese. Luckily I had seen that and packed a good amount of snacks for K since I know that he will not eat any macaroni and cheese that doesn’t come from a box (trust me I’ve tried). I personally thought the snack was delicious. :)
At 11p we gathered our camping stuff, found our sleeping area and set-up ‘camp’. Our spot was between the boa constrictor exhibit and the naked mole rat exhibit.
The boys seemed to sleep pretty good, but I didn’t do as well. I may have gotten 2 hours sleep total in about 10 minute increments. The rule was lights out and that meant no cell phones or MP3 players. I broke the rule and listened to the radio and podcasts while placing the face of the player to the floor so that no light was visible.
Once again reading the rules for the event got me into trouble. I did as they suggested and packed very light, slept in the clothes I wore, kept in the mind that any padding had to be less than 4 inches, and since I didn’t have a travel mattress that I could find, the only padding between me and floor was the sleeping bag. I knew we were in trouble when as we were walking to the center people were carrying huge bags of stuff or even wagons, most of them with blow-up air mattresses. Lesson for next time; invest in a blow-up mattress and bring jammies. Everyone with that set-up seemed to sleep fine.
The next morning at 6:30a the wake-up call sounded. Off to a continental breakfast, then the laser light show and IMAX movie. I was a little disappointed in the laser light show as I had always presumed that it was a more choreographed effort than this seemed to be. Other than two sections; the Star Wars Imperial March which had Star Wars vehicles in lights (very cool) and Michael Jackson’s Thriller complete with tombstones and dancing skeletons in lights (also cool, although skeletons doing MJ’s crotch grabbing and pelvic thrusts seemed even more risque than when MJ did them); the rest of the presentation was just flashing lights. Honestly half-way through the first segment I had to close my eyes because it had given me such a massive headache. I only watched those parts that had actual images from then on.
The IMAX movie was very interesting. It was about building, launching and tracking the two rovers that were sent to Mars. Very fascinating and well done. Something that both the boys and parents I talked to enjoyed.
Since that day was my birthday, and J’s parents had gotten into town the day before but K and I hadn’t seen them since we were on our way to the camp in, the boys, J, J’s parents and myself all went to Red Robin for an early dinner. Somehow my Strawberry Lemonade always ended up sans Strawberries due to a certain 4 year-old. I’m sure K would have helped but he had his own thus negating the need to steal mine.
That was a very, very fun weekend but so tiring. I had a ton of stuff to do that week, plus visiting with the out of town relatives, and ended up pretty sleep deprived by Wednesday of that week. I figured it up and between Saturday morning and Wednesday morning I had a total of 9 hours sleep. I never did get to visit with the relatives as much as I would have liked, especially my sister-in-law and nephews. :(
The next Saturday was my oldest nephew’s baptism. The boys and I attended and I must say that given this was something new to them and that even the adults were looking at the speakers going ‘are you done talking yet’, they did an excellent job.
After the baptism we all trundled back to the in-laws house for food and play. Since the boys always have a fantastic time playing with their cousins you can guess how that went.
Add those weekend activities into our normal days of work, school, preschool, Cub Scout and Karate (oh and a sick dog that required 3 vet visits in one week, plus surgery scheduled for Thursday) and you have our month in a very large nutshell.
So far April is looking a little better. Only the first three weekends are full. :)
Here are some pictures of the kids as your reward for reading.
Oh yeah, they are sharing a room now. So far so good. D’s old room is now the playroom (which they occasionally even play in).
