This and That . . . .



 
 





 It was a busy week . . . . with a little of this and a little of that going on. 

It was our last week of school - which, if you ask us, came all too quickly.  We actually really like school and we like seeing our teachers and friends every day.  So summer will actually be a little hard.  Although we do love sleeping in and playing all day.  So the pain of the end of school isn't horrible. 

 

Anyway - we thought we'd do a little comparison for you.  The first picture is us on the first day of school - last August.  The second picture is us this week, the last week of school.  Notice a few differences?  Yep - that old broken arm of mine last August is one thing that's different.  Also - check out the length of my shorts - below the knee in August, and well above the knee in June.  Yep - I've grown a little too.  So did Sam - he grew about 2 1/2 inches this year.  Our shoes are also pretty worn out and our clothes aren't quite so bright and new.  It was a great year - more on that to come below.  

 

Mom and dad were invited to our Merit Assembly again this week - only parents of students receiving awards get to come.  Well - we already knew about a couple of awards that I had earned, but there were also a few surprises for me in the assembly.  I ended up earning 6 awards this year.  I took 2nd place in the Art Festival, 2nd place in the Young Author Fair, 2nd place in the Math Contest, a National Fitness Award, 80% or higher on all of my work, and . . . . another $500 scholarship for Academic Achievement and Good Comportment.  That was a lot of awards - everyone, including me, was very proud!!!  I told you that I love school!

 

Mom snapped a quick picture of me in class as we were getting ready to get back to work after the Merit Assembly. 

 

 Sam and I started summer lessons this week too.  We're taking Karate and Swimming lessons.  And we LOVE them both.  Here I am working on floating on my back. 

 

After swimming lessons, we met up with dad and some family for a yummy dinner to celebrate our accomplishments and awards at school.  I decided to also turn it in to a dinner to celebrate my early birthday.  I've always enjoyed sitting on the saddle at our favorite restaurant for birthdays.  It was finally my turn!

 

And here we all are after dinner.

 

On the last day of school dad and mom came to help my class with field day.  We had soooo much fun!  We did sponge/water bucket races.  And we got really wet - which made it extra fun - it was a hot day!

 

And we had balloon races. 

 

And we were just plain goofy! 

 

Here I am with some of my friends - I will miss them!  It was a really good year!

 

And then on Friday night, the parents surprised us with a night out at the baseball game.  It was lots of fun.  And our home team won. 

 

It was mustache night - I decided to turn mine into a beard.

 

Here's Sam and me - it was such a great night!

 

Sam Alert:  Howdy ya'll.  Check out my beard!  Yes, you can call me the chick magnet - dad said if I kept eating spicy food I'd grow hair on my chest.  Who knew it would creep up to the chin.  :-)

 Sam out!

The Month of Mason

June has arrived in all its glory.  Part of that glory is that it is my birthday month.  Can you believe that I'll be 7 years old this month?  No?  Neither can dad and mom!  I've been talking to them about having a friend birthday party for years.  They finally agreed that we could have friend parties on our 7th and 12th birthdays.  The only trouble with my birthday is that it falls in the summer - after school is out - and after I loose touch with my school friends.  So we decided to have an early friend party this year (before school gets out) so that my friends would still be around to come.  And boy - did we have a great party!!!

 

First up though - we spent Friday evening at the park with some friends and one of Sam's teachers from school - they live in our neighborhood and we've been talking about having a play date at the park with them all year long - we finally made it happen.  It was great fun - except for the broken arm part (one of the friends of our friends that came along for the fun). 

 

 

We call this park the "Jeep Park" because of this Jeep that there is to play in.  It doesn't do much except sit in the sand and let you turn the steering wheel, but it makes this park a big hit for us.

 

And then on Saturday, it was party day.  We didn't sleep very much in anticipation.  And some of our friends mom's said my friends didn't sleep much either the night before.  It was sooooo much fun to have some of my friends together to play!  We had my party at our local bounce house and it was perfect.  Not too many other customers - in fact, a lot of the time, we would have a bouncy apparatus all to ourselves.  And we ran from one bouncy thing to the next pretty darn quickly.

 

At one point, we all got inside this jumping house and we started singing songs from our spring program at school.  All of the moms and dads thought we were adorable!!!  We sang quite a few of the songs and had a great time doing it.

 

Then after we were somewhat tired out from bouncing, we stopped for some pizza and soda. 

 

And of course, there was birthday cake. 

 

And birthday presents.  But the really best part of all was having my friends there to play.  A great time was had by all!!!  I will sure miss most of these friends as we all head to different campuses next year.

 

Here's Sam and me today, just chilling after church - having a snack.  I'm still on a birthday party high.  It's going to be a great month!!!

 

Sam Alert:  Hey everyone - Sam here.  I loved the park - climbing, sliding, and swinging.  Great fun in my book. 

 

And I LOVE the bounce place!!!  It was fun to hang with Mason's friends.  I know them all from school too and it was like I was just one of them (even though I'm not in the same class). 

 

And finally, more proof that I am not a morning person.  Hum, I wonder where I get this trait from???  Mom!!!!! 

Sam out!

Weekend Surprises

How is it possible that Memorial Weekend 2013 is already here?  It seems like it was just barely Christmas!  Well, regardless, we are having an excellent long holiday weekend - hope you all are too.

 

We started our week with a fun family night out to our favorite Mexican restaurant - mmm, mmm good!  The nice lady that owns it discovered that Sam loves olives and she brought him out his own special silver bowl full of olives.  Oh, does Martha have a special place in our hearts!

 

After dinner we played some games - good family fun!

 

Then finally, the weekend arrived.  We headed up to the cabin on Friday night and started our weekend of relaxation.  Mom and dad set an alarm for Saturday morning and got us up early - - to head out for a nice drive (so they told us anyway).  Well we did take a drive . . . . and guess where we ended up?  Our favorite historic railroad to see and ride Thomas the train.  We remembered that Thomas comes to Utah every Memorial weekend, but those sneaky parents told us that they had to work on Friday and that we had sadly missed Thomas this year.  Who knew that Thomas stayed the whole weekend?  Apparently the parents did - and we had tickets for the first train on Saturday morning.

 

So we spent the morning with Thomas and his friends, including Sir Topham Hatt.  

 

Here we are just after boarding the train, waiting for our ride to start.  These are a couple of super happy boys!

 

This is a picture of me during our ride.  (I was pretending to be a very excited, very very cute puppy dog!)

 

And here's Sam - check out that smile.  Only train rides can make us smile like this.  Ok, maybe train rides and chocolate.

 

I know this picture is a little dark inside the car, but look at that beautiful scenery that we get to ride past on this train.  And we might just mention, that the majority of Memorial weekends tend to be cold and/or rainy around here - but this was a BEAUTIFUL weekend!

 

Here we are with daddy in front of steam engine #618.  He's an old engine that has been beautifully restored.

 

And here we are with mom in front of Thomas.  We had a great morning/afternoon.  We headed out for some more yummy Mexican food in Midway and then . . . .

 

 . . . . headed back up to the cabin.  The marshmallow shooters are always a huge hit.  I would have to honestly say though, that this particular weekend I ate more marshmallows than I actually shot. 

 

We were also excited to get our rock shops open and ready for the summer.  This is me at my shop - "The Broken Rod".  I drive a hard bargain.

 

Here's Sam at his store - "Sam's Rock Shop".  He's giving his speech about the store and the things he has available to sell.  

 

We got to sleep in Sunday morning and had a truly relaxing morning.  Here is me and Sam playing with Fort West.  It was fun!



 

 We always try to get in a game of football at the cabin too.  We're working on catching and throwing . . . . and doing pretty darn good at it too.  Oh, we're also getting pretty darn good at climbing down the hill to fetch the ball when we miss it too.

Ah -  a great, relaxing and enjoyable weekend was had by all!

 

 Sam Alert:  Hey everyone - Sam here.  This is a picture of me on a hike.  I always seem to find great sticks that look like animal horns/antlers. 

 

 And here I am posing for some pictures for mom.  I can strike quite the pose!

 

 And here I am tonight after we got back home.  We had a lovely dinner on the back patio and played and played and played.  I got my golf clubs (from Santa) out and got to practicing.  Ahh - who loves summer more than me? 

 

 Sam out! 

Movies, Movies, and More Movies

We have some movies/videos for you this week.  But first up - we went to the movies recently and saw The Croods.  It was really a great show with a great message.  We loved it.  Here we are getting ready for the movie to start.

I got the chance to do a second state report at school this spring.  I chose Michigan.  Here I am giving my report. 

Then it was my week for our spring program.  We uploaded two videos for you.

First - Purple People Eaters:

Second - Everybody Has a Laughing Place:

It was a great week for me.  I earned second place in both the art festival and the young author festival.  My book is titled The Lost Pythons and is completely written and illustrated by yours truly.  My art is a shaving cream painting of an underwater fish scene.  I am very excited and happy about my winnings and very proud of my hard work! 

Here I am with my teacher, Mrs. Bollard.  She's been great - and it's been a great year!

Sam Alert:  Hey everyone - we got a few of my videos from my spring program uploaded for you.  Enjoy!

First - What's More American:

Second - The Ice Cream Store:

Third - we learned a drama this year.  Enjoy Mr. Wolf and the Little Pigs.  I am Little Pig #3. 

A Little Wrapping Up . . . And Cleaning Up

 It was a great week of wrapping up Sam's birthday celebrations.  We also really got down and dirty with some much needed yard work. 

 

First up - Sam's actual Birthday Day - for his family activity (a tradition for part of our family birthday celebrations) he selected mini golfing.  It was a fairly windy afternoon but that ensured that the golf course was pretty empty.  Uncle Noley and Aunt Christy joined us and we had a great time.  Here's Sam teeing off.

 

Look at that putting form!

 

Here I am in front of the Haunted House.  Oh - fun!

 

 Then we headed back home for some birthday cake - homemade Oreo cake.  Yum!

 

 Sam's spring program was this week too.  We'll add a few videos later but for now, here are some pictures - Sam with one of his teachers, Miss Dawn.  We love Miss Dawn!

 

And here he is with Miss Rebecca - what a great year he has had at school!

 

Somehow the only picture of all the yard work we got from this weekend was this one - here we are helping daddy with a new gnome planter that mom picked up.  His name is Duncan and he's already friends with Blunkin' and Flip Flop from last year. 

 

Today we took some flowers to Grandma June's grave.  This is always an important tradition that we do on Mother's Day. 

 

Here we are with daddy.

 

 And finally -- a quick picture with mommy. 

 

 Sam Alert:  Hey everyone, Sam here.  Oh man, did I have a great birthday this year!  And I announced to mom and dad (with a BIG sigh) that when you turn five years old, you know everything!  It's true.  I don't feel much older, but I know a lot more than I did a year ago.  Here I am blowing out the candles on my cake.  I can't believe I have to wait another year for my next birthday.  But since I already know everything, it's just a matter of the numbers now. 

Sam out!