This week was busy. So busy that I don’t have anything other than cell phone pictures for this recap.
My week started bright and early on Monday morning, as I headed to work before the sun rose. 
When I picked Ava up after work on Tuesday, this is what I found. She had gone through a makeup session with her 7 year old cousin, Sydney, and had her face painted like a butterfly. Later in the night, after it had rubbed off, she looked like a victim of child abuse…or a zombie. Either way, it wasn’t a good look.
On Wednesday, we decided not to do our Welcome Table again (by then students typically know where things are), but we did go down to “the Village” do give out free snow cones. My campus has two areas, one area where all of the services and offices and most of the classrooms are, and another cluster of portable buildings about 1/4 mile away from the main part of campus called Acacia Village. There is a pretty large population of students who have classes down there, and we typically miss them when we do our events. We decided to do something for them on Wednesday, and hauled all of our snow cone equipment down there on our golf cart. We loaded up a snow cone machine and all the syrups and cups, two coolers full of ice, a table, pop up tent, box of handbooks, a stereo, and snacks onto our golf cart. Amazingly, we made it all in one trip, thanks to our handy dandy wagon that we pulled behind us. I drove, and Sam sat on the back of the cart pulling the wagon. We couldn’t have looked more like the Beverly Hillbillies. It was just too hot to have to take two trips!
After work on Wednesday, Dave and I had to go to Tyler’s school for Parent Curriculum night, where they gave us all a presentation on the concepts they teach in their class, different philosophies of Montessori, and information about the activities in their classroom. It was very helpful information, especially to Dave who wasn’t quite as knowledgeable about Montessori. I wish we could have had a few minutes to ask Ms. Tiffany how Tyler is doing, but I’m sure I can find out by email. She did use him as an example (at least, I’m assuming it was about him). She said something about “when we have child with a particular interest, we can pull out different activities for them to do. For example, if we have a child who is interested in the solar system, we find works he can do for that.” We also learned some of the lingo they use, and learned ways we can incorporate what he’s learning at home. While we were at that, Ava was at Grandma’s and Tyler went with Tina and the boys to Skateland for a back to school skate night sponsored by his school. Tina said he did a good job skating! Here is a picture she took with her phone of him and Matt in their skates.
On Thursday evening, we ended up over at Claire’s for dinner with most of the family. Dave went to pick the kids up after work, but forgot that Tina and Jen had taken the big kids to the Gilbert Rec Center to climb the rock wall. After they all got back, we ate dinner and then headed home. Tyler did a good job on the rock wall! He is getting to do so many fun things with Tina and the boys. She often takes them to the library after school too. We are so ridiculously lucky to have her helping out with Tyler for school. I can’t even begin to tell you how great it is that she picks him up at our house in the morning and then picks him up after school too. We wouldn’t be able to send him to this school without her.
I didn’t work today, so Ava and I had a girls day together. After some silliness at home, as you’ll see in the picture below, we headed to the mall to try to find me a dress for Janaeson’s wedding. This is Ava in a newborn baby hat and a Pull Up eating raisins off the carpet. That’s normal two year old behavior, right?
I did find two dresses, one that was $128 and one that was $20, so now I’ll have to decide which one to keep (gee, I wonder). I may still look around a bit and keep the $20 dress as a back up. I also picked up shoes for both kids for the wedding and a black sweater for Ava at a new second hand store by my house. We threw in a trip to Sprouts and returned books to the library, and she was a very good girl the entire time. It’s amazing what a difference one less kid makes when you’re running errands! After Tyler got home from school, we went up to my friend Danielle’s house for a playdate. Tyler and Camryn have been friends since we moved into this neighborhood in 2007, but since they moved, we haven’t seen them as much. We jumped in their pool to cool off (although when it’s 115, even a pool doesn’t really help), and then headed home.
So, it was a very busy week for us all. I think Tyler was officially tuckered out. He has had a great first 2 weeks of school, and it’s been fun to hear about his days. I will do a post about that this weekend for you. I’m seeing first hand how hard it is to get a kid to tell you “what he learned in school” though. It’s like pulling teeth to get him to tell us much! From what we’ve heard though, it sounds like he is having a good time and adjusting to the new routine. More on that to come.
We are looking forward to a mellow weekend around the house, trying to stay cool. This is the time of year that we just want fall to get here. I can’t wait for our reprieve from the heat when we head to ND for the wedding next month. Before we know it though, it will be October and the beginning of our perfect weather. I can’t wait.
Have a nice weekend!
