Friends

The kids just discovered stop motion animation and are making videos of their modeling clay dinosaurs. They're having fun.

We have a wasp nest in our big tree in the front yard that Mike is really, really trying to figure out how to deal with before the weather warms up. It's much too high for any of the normal methods. He's thinking of shooting balls of clay at it with a slingshot to try to knock it down.

This week we had CC and the kids are making friends with a new family, Will and Grace. They're nine year old twins and Timmy and Sara are having fun talking about Wings of Fire and Spirit Animals and other books with them.

Tuesday the Rogers were off school, so we went with them and Grandma Julie to Thanksgiving Point all day. We did the dinosaur museum in the morning and butterflies in the afternoon. The kids got to see some new butterflies being released into the Biosphere, which was very exciting. Timmy and Gideon got separated from the rest of us in the Dinosaur Museum, and Tim did a very good job being the oldest and taking care of Gideon and finding us again. Grandma got everyone ice cream; it comes in very big servings! The kids loved it and it was a wonderful day.

Wednesday we finally went to the zoo to celebrate Timmy's and Boo's goal days. Tim has been working really hard learning to read, and Boo has gone a month without diapers, so we are very excited about both of those things! We went around the whole zoo, rode the carousel (wow, it's expensive now), took pictures with almost all of the animal statues, and had fun right up until closing time. The polar bear was up and playing in the water! Everyone loved watching it rocket up out of the water right next to the glass - it was exciting and scary. That was everyone's favorite, but second was the sea lion that was practicing its tricks in front of the glass. It was doing headstands in the water. We also saw every single one of the big cats, which are Alison's favorites, and lots of cool lizards in the small animal building. The orangutans and gorillas and colobus monkeys were awake, too. It's fun to go to the zoo in the winter! We bought a new pass, because it''s been more than a year since we've gone; we'll have to go more often this year.

Thursday we didn't have anything in the afternoon, which was a nice break. Rea and Alison went to ASL class in the evening; they are really enjoying it. Friday we had nature group for the first time since Christmas. It was fun to see our friends, and everyone had fun for most of the time even though there was a cold wind and not much snow. (Well, Boo had a hard time, and Gideon got done a little early, but it was mostly very fun.)

Saturday we had our new backdoor neighbors over for dinner. They have kids the right age to play with all our kids, and they've been hanging out all the time. It's awesome. It was nice to sit down with the parents and get to know them a little better. We all played Small World after dinner and had fun. We hope our families will keep getting together regularly. It's good to make new friends.

Tonight we're going to dinner with our new friends the Wilsons, who live down the street past the church. We are very excited to be making so many new friends. We're all going to work hard on practicing being good friends and keeping up our side of the friendship.