Pirate Camp

Last week, Will attended Yo Ho Ho Pirate Camp at our local community college for a few hours every morning.  This should come as no surprise when I tell you that it was a big hit.  Glenn paid it the highest compliment when he said the agenda sounded like it was developed by a 5-yr old boy.  From sword-making (and fighting!) to a treasure hunt capped off with pirate snacks, I think Will enjoyed every minute.  And just like with Reina at dance camp last week, I think he enjoyed the chance to have a slightly different schedule for a few days.

Pirate Camp started at 9:30 a.m. so Will came to work with me for a little while in the morning.  On the first day, he sat quietly and looked at the few toys I have in my office.  By the second day, he was prepared to occupy his time, and my desk.  

Will and the 3,257 pieces of Lego's he brought with him each morning. 

On the last day of Pirate Camp, the parents were invited to a art show and demonstration of all of the pirate skills the pirates learned over the week.  Will insisted on wearing his hat at a rather jaunty angle. 

Mr. Serious showing us his treasure map. 

Capt. Will asked for a few takes before we got this picture just right.  He told me after Monday's class that they were going to get to have a swordfight the next day. I thought, "yeah right."  Who teaches a bunch of 5-7 yr olds how to fight with swords?  Well, Will was right. 

Swordfighting!  It was all very civilized with one arm behind his back and parre (sp?) and en guard and such.  The picture is blurry because Capt. Will's mom was giggling too hard. 

So Pirate Camp was a big hit.  Will's interests have branched out a little bit to include other people who battle: soldiers, ninjas, a motley crew of Star Wars characters, Kung Fu Panda and Puss-n-Boots.  But Capt Jack Sparrow and the gang remain a constant presence around here.

On Saturday, we braved the heat and went to Super Day for a little while.  Now I should note that to some of you, a 90 degree Saturday morning might not seems like a hardship, but let's face it.  I should've been born in the Arctic.  I'm melting.  Since we don't have air conditioning (in a "normal" Wyoming summer, there are really only a few weeks where it's really necessary), we don't have a lot of ways to beat the heat.  So instead of sequestering everyone in the basement, we decided to go to the park and get some ice cream, jump in a few bouncy houses, and watch Renaissance re-enactors (Will was hooked!).  The only item on Reina's agenda was to get a yellow balloon.  Not a pink balloon, not a blue balloon, not a yellow frisbee but a YELLOW BALLOON thank you very much.  Luckily we found one. 


She calls it "Balloon-ee" and slept with it tied to her bed last night.  This morning Balloonee had shrunk to half its size and I can't say that he's long for this world.  Poor Balloonee.





One quick final note.  Reina has entered into what I'm calling "The Naked Phase."  Maybe it's the hot weather, and frankly who can blame her, but the girl likes to take all of her clothes off.  After church this morning, I told the kids they could swim in the plastic pool out back.  Which by the way, used to look a lot bigger!  When it was just Will's little 15-month old body in that thing it looked like an Olympic-sized swimming pool.  Now with two kids and assorted dogs, it's the size of a cereal bowl.  I almost climbed in there today so we might be investing in something slightly larger soon.  Anyway, we come home from church, Will heads upstairs to get his swimming suit on, I start some laundry, peek out the backdoor to look for something in the yard and see a completely naked Reina casually climbing in the pool.  (I hope this is one of those phases that ends in the next half decade.) For the record, I made her come back inside, put on a suit AND sunscreen and then she proceeded to hear her swimsuit for the rest of the day and made a half-hearted attempt to sleep in it tonight.  3-yr olds. 

More dancing princesses and Tootsie

I don't know why I couldn't get these pictures to work in the previous post.  On the last day of dance camp, Reina's class did a little recital.  She knew some of the moves and it was so much fun to watch.  Plus, she looks delightful in layers of tulle and sparkles.  And the tiara, don't forget the tiara!  

A pirouette, Reina-style



She had the wildest hair of any of the other ballerinas, but maybe that will be her signature look.  The Feral Ballerina.  Glenn calls her the Savage Princess because lately she likes to run around shirtless with her hair all blowing in the wind.  Time for a haircut. And hey, it's been pretty hot.  I'd probably try the shirtless thing if it wouldn't scar all of the neighbors. 

Here's another picture of Tootsie.  She poses so prettily, although I'm pretty sure she thought she was getting some sort of treat.  She smiled at Glenn this morning.  That was always one of Canyon's signature moves.  It makes my heart warm to have that kind of dog personality back under the roof.  Even though she's probably smarter than us all. 

Stay tuned:  This week is Will's Pirate Camp.  When I dropped him off this morning, the teacher asked him his name.  His response?  "Capt Jack Sparrow."  I think he'll fit right in. 

Princess Dance Camp and Tootsie

Both of these topics should have their own separate blog post but what can you do.  It's been one of those weeks, again!  We had extra events in the evening last weekend (that were all fun!) and then we had a bbq on Friday (again fun!!) but I'm at loss to figure out how we can't anything done.  Oh and Glenn caught strep throat over the weekend and blahhhhhhhhh. I'm still gun-shy about any sentence with the word Glenn and strep in it but the antibiotics seem to be working their magic and he's feeling better today.  Here's a quick recap of our crazy, hectic, week. 

It was hot today and Glenn filled up the kiddie pool so the bathing beauties could cool off.  Happy Father's Day Glenn!  When I asked Will what he liked the best about his dad, he replied "Daddy goes hunting and brings back good things to eat."  I swear Glenn had a tear in his eye.  When I asked Reina she said "Daddy can ride horses with me someday."  Okay. 

We adopted a dog.  Or rather, maybe she adopted us?  I know SOME of you are thinking that another dog was right up there at the top of the list of Things We Don't Need but we've been talking about it for a while.  Trigger, bless his little bird-brained heart, is a very social dog.  He loves to play and wrestle and chase and frankly he has no one to do that with when we are all at work every day.  So after careful consideration and months of thinking about it, we applied to adopt a dog through a herding dog rescue.  We didn't get to meet this little cutie until the day we picked her up, but she was everything we were looking for on paper.  Good with kids, good with other dogs, 2-3 yrs old (she was a stray before coming to the rescue so they don't know how old she is exactly), friendly, and SMART.  I wasn't looking to clone Canyon because she was a one-in-a-million dog but I have been missing the quirky personality that comes from herding dogs.  So here's Tootsie. 

She's a red heeler and she's only been with us since Friday morning but everyone is really enjoying her.  Even Trigger.  They play and play and play and play and then nap and then play some more.  But she's also bonded with us.  As I type this, she's lying under the kitchen table with her head on my foot.  I'm sure there will be a period of adjustment as we all get used to the House of Two Dogs but so far so good.  I watched Reina 'wash' Tootsie with a piece of paper today and the dog just laid there and wagged her tail at the 3-yr old.  Good stuff. 

Princess Dance Camp can be summed up in one word.  Cuuuuuuuuuuuutttttttteeeeeeeee.  Reina often bounces around this house wearing a combination of princess dresses, tiaras and marabou-trimmed mules and she loves to dance so I thought we'd try a week of dance classes to see if it's something she might want to do in the future.  She was a little apprehensive at first (naturally) and she stayed shy throughout the week but she had fun.   

Seeing Reina (middle) in her little leotard was worth the registration fee.  Here they were practicing jumping - her favorite part!   

My computer is acting up so I'll have more pictures to load later.  Here's to a less hectic week!

A photo recap of our weekend camping

This is not the week for long, word-filled blog posts.  Too much going on!  Between princess dance camp (yes, that's a real thing that Reina's doing - more on that later), and errands and work and getting caught up from traveling last week (just me, well Glenn one night but more on that later too) and getting ready for a bbq this weekend, it's a little craaaaaazy around the Pauley house this week.  But I thought I would be remiss if I didn't post a few pictures from our camping trip last weekend.  We had a great time celebrating my mom and dad's 40th anniversary one week early and hanging out with Vicky and Uncle Matt.  The weather could've cooperated more but you can't get everything.  Here are some photos - detailed, overly drawn out descriptions later. 

Will was cold too but Aunt Vicky did a good job of warming him up.  He looks mad in this picture but he's probably just asking me for another marshmallow.  Please mom! 

What's eating our breakfast cereal?  Is it a troll?  A gnome?  Yoda?

Just Reina in her aunt's sweatshirt.  "I'm cold!"  That first morning I distinctly remembered telling Glenn while packing the day before- "Good grief, we don't need jackets!  It's going to be in the 90's!"  Those words would come back to haunt me the next morning while I was wearing Glenn's jacket (he's the only who brought one) and he resorted to wearing three shirts.  I know, I know - I'm a Wyoming girl, I should know better.   

Not to be outdone, big brother has to be filmed whilst eating fruit loops also.  The sugared breakfast cereal is one of the top 5 highlights of the kids' camping experience.  Also on that list:  s'mores (naturally) and sleeping in the camper.  Easy to please huh? 

Reina, Vicky and Bailey catching up on their magazines.  Reina preferred whichever one had a picture of a kitty in it.  I was glad that there weren't any articles about Muppets being carted off to the slammer. 

Swimming!  Both of the kiddos were hard to keep out of the water.  Saturday was pretty warm (mid 90's!) so we spent part of the afternoon playing on the swimming side of the lake.  Someone else in our party really enjoyed the water....

 

That would be Trigger!  Who knew Brittany's were actually water spaniels in disguise.  He retrieved his toy until we made him take a break and stop shivering.  He's not the most graceful of swimmers but he gets the job done. 



"You want that I should stay right here boss?  Because I'd rather run out there and see what that guys doing or if that other campsite needs anything retrieved or maybe there's some birds somewhere that need to be chased?"

  



During the first night of our camping trip, we were woken up by people having too much fun a few spots down from us and another guy who fired up his air compressor for what I can only assume was to inflate his air mattress at ELEVEN O'CLOCK AT NIGHT.  Sigh.  The second night all was blissfully quiet until we were awoken by the loudest windstorm in the history of windstorms.  (Maybe slight hyperbole there - I've never been in an actual hurricane.)  The camper was shaking, the lovely 100-yr old cottonwoods that surrounded our campsite were bowing and creaking in the wind and I for one was a little freaked out. (If Glenn hadn't been there, I would've thrown everything into the back of the truck and driven into town to find a hotel.  But sadly he wasn't in favor of that plan in the wee hours of the morning.)  After a few minutes, Will woke up crying and climbed into bed between Glenn and I.  But not after he worried about all of our stuff being 'blowed away.'  I refrained from saying "I know - me too!  Tell your dad that you want to go to town!" A few minutes after that, Reina woke up and came on over.  Shortly after that, Glenn and Trigger evacuated to the kids' bed and we all eventually fell back asleep.  The next morning, I saw this cute pile o' sibling and just had to get a picture. 



Cousins

But first, a picture of Reina sleeping.  She's been sleeping in this position since she was a wee baby.  Her latest thing on the weekends or 'stay home days' is to nap anywhere but her own bed.  When she doesn't have a nap, well, it's not fun for anyone, so on the weekends I let her crash where she will.  In this picture, she's stretched out on the couch.  She looks so mellow while she's sleeping doesn't she? And then she wakes up....

So last weekend, our nephew Ben was visiting the grandparents in Colorado and he came up to our house for a sleepover.  We met them at the zoo - more on that in a minute.  After a long day at the zoo, we came back home and made pizza, played outside and then settled down to watch some cartoons.  Will and Reina both had a great time with their cousin.  Almost 11-yr olds are pretty cool.  He and Will had some epic Lego construction going on.  Reina decided that everything Ben did, she had to too.  Like lay on the floor of the den and watch cartoons.  At one point, she had her hands behind her head and her foot on her leg, like Ben did naturally.  Ben has an open offer to come back and be our au pair for the summer! 

Last Friday, the kids' school was closed so I took the day off and we headed down to meet the Pauleys and Ben at the Denver Zoo.  It really is one of the kids' favorite spots and we can spend hours just walking around looking at animals. 

Reina and this Silverback shared a moment.   He was really neat.  He sat and stared at Reina and some other littler kids for quite a while. 

Ben did a great job pulling the kids all over the zoo.  It was hot and when this picture was taken, some of us were nearing the end of our patience.  Any guesses who? 

Train rides! 

More train rides! 

Right back at ya buddy! 



File this one under: Save for Will's First Date

Earlier in the week, Glenn and I were talking about teenagers and dating and a funny conversation I'd had with my co-workers.  Will was hanging around so I asked him a few questions.   

Me:  Will, do you want to go on a date someday?
Will:  Maybe when I'm 10. 
Me:  10?  I think you might have to be a little older.
Will:  Maybe I'll wait until I can drive because it's a long walk to the movies.
Me:  That's true buddy.  Do you want to take Brooke to the movies?
Will:  Yes! 
Me:  Are you going to hold her hand?
Will:  (Thinking about it seriously for a few minutes)  Maybe if my hand is cold.....