Other July Goodies

Besides our vacation and starting school, there were a few other interesting things that happened in July.

Grandpa and Grandma O came to visit us.  We watched some Olympics together, played games and went to the Science Center.  There was a special "Build It!" exhibit that was a big hit.

Grandpa O on the bed of nails

Matthew was very proud of his machine that got every ball down.

Matthew and U made a castle out of the blue foam blocks.

U, Megan and Grandma built a giant dragon out of cardboard.  Here Megan is decorating the tail.

Once Matthew discovered these building pieces he didn't want to build with anything else.  Here is his two seat scooter with a storage rack.

Megan building a glowing tower.

We really enjoyed watching what Olympics we could.  Swimming and Gymnastics were especially popular.  It is crazy to think that we will have more Olympics in less than a year!

We put together a car puzzle.

Matthew is excited to start playing the trombone in band at school.

Memorable sayings:

Sarah: Hey, that's the flaming eye dude from the LEGO Batman movie!

The trip to Disneyland

I'm finally getting around to blogging about our Disneyland trip. Just because it was almost 3 months ago! (And now that I'm going to publish it, it's been almost 4 months--see how long these things take?) In fairness to me, it was a really busy summer while Sarah was out of school, with family in town for Sarah's baptism for a couple weeks and then our trip to Colorado. Plus we were waiting for our Disney PhotoPass photos that we ordered so we could include them. And I did blog about everything else. So there are my excuses:) I think we're going to have a bunch of posts and a ton of pictures and more detail than most people will care to read about. But we will have fun reminiscing about the trip! (Note that this blog post and the other Disneyland posts have been moved to when our trip to Disneyland occurred. They were initially published the end of September.)

We left on Sarah's last day of school. We actually picked her up just a bit early from school so we'd hopefully get into Anaheim a bit earlier. Our drive out was mostly unremarkable. We did have a funny conversation with Sarah.

Sarah's question: When are we going to be out of Phoenix?
Our answer: We have been out of Phoenix for about an hour.
Sarah's response: Then why are we still in the desert?

Guess everything desert is Phoenix:)

We stopped at In-n-Out for dinner in Indio. We also picked up a windshield repair kit to fix the nick we got in the windshield.

We arrived in Anaheim during the fireworks at Disneyland. It was a super nice welcome. Although it meant we were later than we'd hoped to be, since the fireworks are at 9:30.

The kids got in their new pjs which they loved. They were all wound up from the drive. There was jumping on beds and opening of drawers and doors. Megan and Matthew loved that they could open the refrigerator. They didn't get to sleep until 11-11:30. So much for an early bedtime!

Sarah and Megan love their matching Tangled jams.

Matthew showing off his Cars jams. Or not. In real life, he likes them. I guess he just didn't want to pose.

At least they slept better than their mom, who finally decided that since she wasn't sleeping at 3 in the morning, she might as well make good use of the time and unpack....

Conference Notes

While we were watching the Sunday afternoon session of conference, Sarah wanted to take notes on my iPod.  She was very upset that people kept talking when she was trying to write something down.  She tried hard to get the gist of it though.  Below are her notes from President Monson's closing remarks.

Blessed
Prayers
Hope to are lives
Love familys
Lord
Serve
God
Love

More Sarahisms

Mrs. Derr, one of the other 1st grade teachers at Sarah's school, is Rotary Club teacher of the month. When I mentioned this to Sarah and asked her if she ever saw Mrs. Derr so she could congratulate her, Sarah said she did see her. She thought for a moment and then added that Mrs. Derr has been gone a lot lately and so it's probably the substitutes that got the award.

Sarah told us that she's glad we have two babies even though she likes kids "more better" than babies. Because the babies will grow up to be kids.

Ready to Learn

Sarah's teacher has sent home lots of communication lately about how math is getting harder and so we may need to help our student, so it wasn't a surprise last week when we needed to help her out a bit with a new concept. Sarah, however, wasn't too keen on us helping her. I told her to let me know when she was ready to learn and I'd be happy to help her. She replied, "I am ready to learn but you're the wrong answer person."

Sarah, on Being an Adult

The other day, Sarah told us that she's glad she's not an adult. Why? "Because while the adults talk, the kids get to play."

Socks

There's the cliche about people leaving socks in the middle of the floor instead of putting them in the laundry. Sarah has taken that to a whole new level: "Leave socks in the middle of the floor? Psh! That's too easy to find. It's much more fun to play hide and seek with them." Examples of places I've found Sarah's socks include under her bed, in her toy kitchen, with the dress up clothes, under the train table, behind the computer desk. They are rarely in the laundry and rarely in the middle of the floor. This morning, I was doing a batch of laundry and asked Sarah to get the two pair of socks she'd put in the laundry yesterday. At least I thought she'd put them in the laundry. One pair had been on the swing outside and the other on the kitchen counter. Well, turns out neither pair was in the laundry. One was still waiting on the swing. The other one? Well, it was by the computer desk in the end of her tap shoe so that "you wouldn't ever find them." (her words, not mine) Funny thing about that one is that she was maybe three steps from the babies' laundry hamper. If only she'd put her energy into putting them there instead of finding a good hiding place where I would never find them. Sigh! She sure keeps things interesting. We love you Sarah!

Bedtime

The other night, Sarah came into our bedroom and commented how Megan is always having a hard time going to sleep at night. (Megan is usually good at sleeping but is teething right now which greatly impacts her sleeping.) Sarah then said something like, "This is what she needs to do. She needs to be quiet and then play until she gets tired. Then she can lay down and go to sleep. That's what I do."

Dinner Conversation

Tonight at dinner, Sarah asked, "How tall will I be when I'm 73?"