Family

I live in a big house.

This the first yellow sentence that Katherine has been practicing for homework this week. Per teacher instructions, we’ve been practicing my speaking and Katherine’s writing of half a dozen simple sentences. Goal is for Katherine to learn the usage of specific words (in, your, etc.) and to learn to spell common words correctly.

Tonight’s discussion went like this:

CC: OK, Katherine, pencil down. Listen. First sentence is “I live in a big house.”
Katherine: Mom, the teacher says it with more expression.
CC: Fine. I live IN a Big house!
Allison (walking by): I Live IN A BIG HOUSE!
Katherine slams door shut and writes sentence.

Katherine is really digging her homework packet activities. Part of this has to do with her new big, white desk which is fully outfitted with teacher-suggested materials. She must have spent 30 minutes on Saturday just staring at her desk, re-aligning her pencil cups and arranging other items.

Allison’s desk arrives this weekend. We’ve cleared out a space in her room for the same exact desk, with almost the same exact materials. Allison is also practicing her math facts. She threw dice tonight, jumped up and down and then would exclaim the answer. She also tried to spell out the sentences – but needed a bit more help as expected.

Next packet has to do with Historical Halloween. We’re going to have a lot of fun doing research and finding just the right person for Katherine to represent at school for Halloween.

Well, I am massively behind on our blogging for various reasons. That said, I’ll start with the most recent activities and work backwards:

School FINALLY Started

The kids finally started school last week, Katherine on Wednesday and Allison on Thursday. They seemed to really enjoy their classrooms and teachers. Katherine has had the biggest adjustment, but she loves having her own desk, her own snack (not school-provided) and a workplan that she works on everyday. She told us today that she sings something before lunch…at which point she started reciting the Pledge of Allegiance. Allison was sure to mention that she sings something too. 🙂 They both have wonderful teachers, so we’re looking forward to positive years!

Allison on Two Wheels

We probably should have worked on this over the summer, but there didn’t seem to be a big rush. Well, we dragged the old 12″ Trek steel bike out of the garage today and popped Allison on it without training wheels. I did this once or twice this summer, and she seemed to enjoy having me run up and down the street with her. She and Katherine also “practiced” riding on the front lawn last month. That mostly involved shrieking and falling and laughing.

Today I popped Allison on her bike, pushed her and she TOOK OFF. She rode down the street at least 20 yards and then promptly braked and fell over. So, we practiced stopping the bike another few times and she got the hang of braking, keeping both hands on the handlebars and straddling the bike. By the end of the week, I expect she’ll be proficient.

I told Steve tonight. It was almost like Allison just said, “I can do it.” And, then she did. This was very different than our experience with Katherine, who was ~4.5 years old when she went to two wheels. I guess this goes to show how different two siblings can be!

Encyclopedia Brown

One of my favorite books ever (besides Rats of NIMH) is Encyclopedia Brown. I loved how you can read one chapter, ponder it, and then inevitably flip to the back of the book to read how he solved the mystery. Well, I’ve been trying to find books that Katherine would enjoy reading, aside from fairy books. I bought two books for her – Encyclopedia Brown (original) and The Case of the Absent Auther (A-Z mysteries). Katherine read both this summer. She first read the Case of the Absent Author. This took her perhaps a couple hours after bedtime. She kept asking me to come in to answer questions like, “What’s kidnapping?” So, then I decided to try Encyclopedia Brown – because the chapters are self-contained. Nevertheless, Katherine started reading and couldn’t stop. She told Steve, “I want to keep reading, but I’m kind of scared.” Steve then explained the concept of suspense. I’m not sure what types of books she’ll end up reading, but she does seem to have a penchant for mysteries like me and Steve. I’ve promised Katherine that when she gets older she can read the books that I’ve kept since my childhood (Trixie Belden, Nancy Drew and a bunch of great classics). They’re just sitting on our bookshelf…waiting for the kids to read them.

Allison likes to think that she reads the Fairy books, like Katherine. But, Cam Jansen and Henry and Mudge are more her speed. 🙂 Sometimes at bedtime, we’ll rotate reading various chapters in Cam Jansen. This drives Katherine crazy. She says things like, “Allison is SO SLOW.” Then I remind her that she used to read that slow and that Allison is still young. That just motivates Allison to finish her chapter.

Don’t Stop Believing

I definitely need to spend some time on this, but here are the quick highlights from our Yosemite Trip which was AMAZING.

1) Our kids are now huge Journey fans…yes they like big hair band music! Our Backroads guides took them to pizza dinner, while we had an adult dinner. And we came back to Journey fans. They love “Don’t Stop Believing” and can sing many of the words. They laugh hysterically at other Journey songs. They also have started listening to John Denver – the total antithesis. Favorites on Steve’s iPhone – Thank God I’m a Country Boy and Take Me Home.

2) Katherine and Allison hung in there on the family hikes and rides. For Katherine, her big accomplishment was overcoming initial tears (at being left behind by the other riders except for me…) and then chugging uphill over 2 miles. It was about 4-5% grade on a rocky fireroad- pretty respectable! For Allison, she was definltely bringing up the rear, but she did a 4+ mile hike that involved lots of hills w/out any complaints.

3) Both kids went rock climbing, fully harnessed up Puppydome! While Steve and I climbed Lambert Dome, the kids were down below being helped up a fairly big rock by a rock climbing instructor and a Backroads guide. As Allison described it, they wore “sticky shoes, helmets and used a rope and harness” to get up different faces of the rock. Very cool.

4) Overall, we loved learning about Yosemite and it’s history. The kids talk a lot about Galen Clark (Bing him if you don’t know who he is). We also spent a few days in Fish Camp around the big Sequoias.

5) We were blown away by the Backroads guides, who focused on flexibility and enabling each family to have the type of experience they wanted.

6) Last, but not least, we spent another 4.5 days in Bay Area running around, seeing the sights, family and old friends. Notably we manage to squeek into the King Tut exhibit at the deYoung museum. Allison is now a devotee of King Tut, his sarcophogus, mummies and Ancient Egypt. She told us, “I want to see Egypt before I die” (Where did THIS come from??) And, she recently insisted on buying a book about mummies at a book fair. Yow. Other very cool things in SF: going through the Science Museum in Golden Gate park, watching the kids with the street entertainers in Fisherman’s Wharf (they were amazed by the jugglers, the impersonators, etc), learning about 7 gill sharks at the Aquarium on the Bay, and many more things.

Now that the kids are older, we can really enjoy travelling with them and going to cool places. We’ve already got a short list of future Backroads trips and ideas for other amazing destinations.

Winthrop

In early August, we headed east to Winthrop to stay at the Sun Mountain Lodge for an extended weekend. The girls loved the experience for many reasons. One major highlight was staying in their own room – which was connected to our room. They also loved riding and swimming along with the paddleboats on Lake Peterson and then hitting the lodge pools in the late afternoon. We went with a few other families, which made the trip more special.

One of the benefits of a water-focused weekend was the opportunity for the kids to keep practicing their swimming. We also did this during our Bay Area trip, where we swam daily at the Tenaya Lodge. Both girls practiced swimming with big arms and big kicks. Funny enough, Katherine has finally gotten into gear with swimming. After years of swim lessons where she didn’t want to get her face wet, she can now plow through the water. Allison just can’t keep up with her shorter legs and arms. Katherine is now enrolled in Level 3 swimming at the gym, while Allison is still in Level 2.

Master Magi Katherine and Master Magi Tebbi?

We decided to get away last weekend to Great Wolfe Lodge, a waterpark near Chehalis. The kids *loved* the waterpark. And, they loved MagicQuest – more on that later!

Highlights our stay:

– The Kids Cabin themed room (see bunks)
– The “toddler” pool where Allison spent most of her time. It was really 4′ deep, but Allison thought it was a toddler pool
– The raft ride that Katherine did with Steve
– Arcade with games and prizes
– All the automated animals and pictures that the kids could animate with their wands

MagicQuest is a game that requires you to buy a wand and pay for game time. With the wand, you can complete 10 “rune” challenges and 3 adventures. Each rune involves running up and down the staircases of the lodge, the hallways and waving wands to gather items for the rune. In all, the helpers told us that they estimate it’s a 10 mile hike to finish the game. It took us about 6 hours over two days to finish the game. By the end, Katherine was the last one standing in our family. Allison had resorted to eating a bag of popcorn and handing over her wand to Steve to finish the game for her.

On the first day, at the MagicQuest shop, the helper asked the kids in turn for their game names. Katherine gave her name. Allison mumbled something like “Tebbi,” and that’s what showed up everytime we waved our wand at the main game tree.

Steve and I were impressed with the thought that went into this lodge. There were no barriers to purchasing anything – just wave the room bracelet under a scanner, and it would be added to your checkout bill. There was no reason to leave the hotel. Besides the fact that its in the middle of nowhere, the lodge has lots of amenities for kids and adults alike. Steve particularly enjoyed the margaritas in the waterpark. 🙂

You did what?

We are continually amazed at Allison. Yesterday she was standing at the front door playing with a big rock. She picked up the rock…and dropped it on her toe! The doctor today said its just a bad bruise that will linger for a couple weeks. Steve and I just shook our heads. What an Allison thing to do.

On a more positive note, Allison finished her reading board. Katherine did as well, although it took 2.5 hours straight of reading to do this. For reaching 70 books on their reading boards, they each received a Hays Disney-themed suitcase. These are something else, virtually indestructible with light up wheels. Allison just about flipped out when I handed her the princess suitcase. Katherine’s eyes bugged out, and she promptly read a pile of fairy books afterwards.

Our Adventures

The kids and I visited the serpentarium in Monroe, home of reptiles. We saw amazing things, from snakes to turtles, alligators, lizards, etc. Katherine wasn’t too excited to stand next to the cages…hence the pictures of Allison with reptiles.

The girls went to their neighbor’s birthday party. It was luau themed as you can see.

We also went to Derby Days a few weekends ago. The girls rode in the kids parade with a bunch of other neighborhood kids. We rode in the “sports fan” section of the parade with decorated bikes.

Summer School

The girls have two days of summer school left before summer officially starts. They can’t wait to finish, so they can play with their neighborhood friends who are out of school.

Allison is thoroughly enjoying her new summer classmates and watching the first years make their way around the classroom. She’s done a LOT of pin-poking, tracing. And, she claims to be reading to her teachers. Katherine is learning about the first grade work plan, which is what the teachers use to hold students accountable for their weeks’ work. Katherine told me that she finished her first week work plan last Wednesday. She started a new one yesterday. Her one complaint has to do with length of recess, which is apparently shorter than that of the preschoolers. Otherwise, she loves having her own desk where she works, eats. Once she heard about the desk, Allison was very bummed to be still in the Mezzo building, asking me “When can I go to the Main Building??”

Recent Activities

The girls and I brainstormed a list of goals for our summer (seriously!). One of our goals is to get in shape for our Yosemite trip. To that end, we biked 11 miles roundtrip from Redmond Town Center to the Red Hood Brewery. Allison rode the trailer bike behind Steve. I cruised behind Katherine, who was on her bike. The first half of the trip was hard mentally for Katherine – but once she saw the brewery she perked up. The back half was much easier. For one thing, we had a great lunch (no beer). And, just as importantly, Katherine was able to count down the mile markers on the Burke Gilman Trail. Now we know that RTC is at mile ~0.5 and that the brewery is at mile 5.5.

What else? The girls are working on “exercising their bodies” which includes swimming classes and gymnastics. Katherine was thrilled a couple weeks ago to officially do a cartwheel in gymnastics class. This means that she’s earned 5 stars in level 1 gymnastics. Once she demonstrates a kick over (hang from a bar, kick legs over and end up leaning forward on the bar), she qualifies for level 2. I have to say that it’s been a long hard road with gymnastics. She started level 1 last summer, and we just managed to stick to it this past year. I gave her the choice of quitting gymnastics or moving up a level once she finishes level 1. Katherine has decided to stick with it – which means more gymnastics fun next year!

We have other activities lined up for post-July 4th. They’ve just started thinking about what they want to do for Derby Days this July. Derby Days claims to host the largest kids parade in the US, where the kids dress up themselves and their bikes and go a whopping 0.3 miles thru Redmond. After discussing this with their next door friends, they’re thinking of a soccer theme. I expect that this will change quite a bit over the next week before we rush to decorate our bikes. As well, the kids are chomping to go back on the 545 Express to visit Seattle, and they want to go to the Reptile Zoo to see the 2-headed turtle. It’s going to be a very interesting summer.

It’s Finally Out

We’re all relieved that Katherine has FINALLY lost her third tooth – lower left of center. This tooth was literally ready to come out for several weeks. Steve kept offering to pull it. Katherine kept pushing it with her tongue. Finally, after chewing some steak at a BBQ next door, Katherine shrieked, “My tooth came out!!”

Discussions got tricky after that. Katherine is pretty sure that her parents are Santa. And, she’s pretty sure the same is true of the tooth fairy – although I would say that she’s hopeful that we’re not. To that end, she wrote a very neat note and put it under her pillow:

“Dear Tooth Fairy, Please can you Not take My tooth. But you can take my Note.”

We left the tooth plus $2 and took the note. 🙂

Fur-mination

At a friend’s recommendation I took Bisco to Petsmart to get Fur-minated. This sounds like a very nasty procedure. But, it’s just specially formulated shampoo (hmmm) and 30 minutes of brushing with a special tool. Voila! He looks great.