Archives for 2008

Allison’s Summer School Adventures

Allison wrapped up her two weeks of summer school last Friday. I was very thankful that these two weeks were relatively uneventful, with the exception of a couple teary goodbyes the first week and a bathroom incident the second week.

As Allison’s teacher observed, “she seems fine when you drop her off…” 🙂 After talking with her, Allison told me somberly, “I’m not going to cry,” and she didn’t.

What did she do? Lots of practical life works, some stencil drawing, letter writing, and sensorial. Allison was determined one morning to “write her letters” and exclaimed to her teachers, “I know my letters.” She came home that afternoon with her name on paper and was very proud.

One day, she told my mom a reassuring story. Apparently, my mom asked about the other kids. This prompted Allison to tell her how one boy in the classroom wasn’t very nice – and had been a bit physical with her in the playground. But, the teacher told him, “You need to be careful with Allison. She’s very little.” (Yes – she was the smallest kid in the class.)

Eating her snack pre-pickup with the other kids was a very big deal. Everyday I would pack Allison several snacks, like fruit, crackers and a bar, and water bottle. She dutifully put it in her locker and would pull it out before pickup. At pickup, I would find her sitting with her snacks carefully arranged in front of her on her placement. When I would ask her to pack up, Allison took great care to put everything back in her lunch bag and clean up.

After her last morning of school, Katherine and I picked up Allison who was sitting on the grass eating lunch with the other kids. The teacher said, “Goodbye Allison; we’ll see you in September!” at which point all the other kids chimed in with “Bye Allison!!” It’s good to know that she made friends this summer and had a good experience.

Katherine and the “Redmond 545”

What did Katherine do while Allison was in summer school? She became acquainted with all the places that the Redmond 545 bus would take her with Patty. For a whopping $2.50 each way (for Patty), they rode to the Pacific Science Center one day. Another day after Katherine asked Patty to take her on the bus, they visited the Arboretum. Apparently, the bus driver was very nice to Katherine on the return trip from Seattle, even letting her sit in the driver’s seat while they waited for the passengers to arrive and board the bus.

Allison was a bit bent out of shape to miss the adventure. But, Patty reassured her that they would try the bus someday and have an adventure too.

The Company Picnic

Every year, we head out to the Company Picnic to check out the rides and entertainment. And, like every year, there were ups and downs for the kids.

They loved the popcorn, the lemonade and ice cream. The bouncers that they did ride were fun, and we watched a very exciting motorcycle show.

The biggest bummer: Allison was about 2″ too short for almost all the kid rides. She couldn’t ride the Ferris wheel, almost all the bouncers…just about everything she wanted to do and probably could have easily done. The helpers told her to go to the toddler section, which was really too young for her. So, after walking Allison around 6 rides, comparing her to the height bar, and realizing she was too short, we headed home. :<

“Wollipops”

One of the biggest attractions for getting their haircuts is the post-cut lollipop bin. Given their long manes, haircuts were long overdue. I took Katherine last week while Allison was in summer school. This caused a ruckus, especially when Katherine painstakingly described her lollipop to Allison. Well, turnabout was fair play a couple of days ago. Katherine and I took Allison to get her hair trimmed up (looks very cute now). Allison got the lollipop and sucked it all the way home – which drove Katherine just nuts.

Storm Game

Thanks to some friends, we attended the Storm game last night. Before the game, the kids and I went to Dick’s for the first time. Despite eating their entire burgers, the kids were hopping up and down for popcorn, pretzels, dibs and thunder sticks once we got inside. Allison was sooo excited to wave hers around, with Katherine and I ducking whenever the sticks would pass by. Oh yes…We also watched the game, which the Storm won. 🙂

Lake Chelan

The kids had an amazing time at Lake Chelan with their friends. Steve and I are exhausted. 🙂

Here are the highlights:

– The water park with slides was a hit. The kids went on all the rides they could with us, and then the beginner slides by themselves. It was a hoot to see Allison buzzing down the slide with her arms straight out and her mouth in a big smile. Allison tried everything without hesitation. Katherine resisted the longer slides until she saw Allison go down three times with Steve. Katherine had to try it then. She kept going at full speed until we all left.

– We spent much of our free time at the beach, building sand castles and flying kites. Steve practiced his kite technique, while Katherine ran around with her kite (thankfully not wrapping the line or kite in a tree or a person).

– A different family would host dinner each night. That meant the kids would run around before and after dinner in the RV Park. They befriended a neighbor girl who had a Pink ATV and let the kids ride it. Allison TORE around the park with Steve chasing her. The kids pretended to be a car wash, to fix the ATV, etc. They made up all sorts of chase games and pretend games to occupy themselves.

– Allison bowled for the first time — ball between the legs straight down the alley. Wouldn’t you know it, she won the first game too. This wasn’t really fair since she had bumpers. And, Steve would give the ball an extra nudge.

– The cherries from the fruit stands were delicious. We hit 2 or 3 stands during the course of our trip, indulging in Bing, Chelan and Ranier cherries. The kids also went back to their favorite ice cream store (Das Big Scoop) in Leavenworth for enormous ice cream cones.

– We also visited Ohme Gardens, which was originally created privately by a family and later purchased by the state. The kids ran around the park, perched on a mountain over Wenatchee, like mountain goats. We later visited the Rocky Beach Dam, checking out the fish ladder (and one sole fish swimming through) and the exhibits. The coolest part was standing inside the dam, looking out a window directly that the spill water.

We have TEN car seats

Today we managed to finally start culling down our herd of car seats. Patty mentioned, as she was about to re-install the Britax Roundabout in her car, how Allison was the only kid who could fit into the seat. It dawned on me that we could swap out the Roundabout for a larger car seat, allowing Patty to keep the seat in her car. So, here’s the conversation we had as we drove along:

Mom: We have 3…no 4 Britax Roundabouts. And, we have 2 boosters without backs, and 2 boosters with backs. And, we have 1 Britax Marathon and then 1 travel car seat. Wow, we have a LOT of car seats.

Allison: We have 10 car seats.

Mom: What did you say? (looking around from the passenger seat)

Allison: (with 10 fingers up) We have 10 car seats!

Not sure if that was a lucky guess, but we all stopped to listen to her. Now, we’re down to 9 car seats. I peered at the manufacturing date on the Roundabout, and sure enough it was manufactured in June 2002….almost 6 years to the day. If you believe the “plastic starts degrading at 6 years,” that means the car seat has only one place to go. Sigh!