Monday, April 13, 2009

Easter Fun

Saturday Riley was almost as excited as he was Christmas Eve. At 6pm he asked, "Is it time for bed yet?" LOL! Actually, he was so excited he didn't get to sleep until 10pm!

He and Maddie got up around 8:30am and quickly ran downstairs to see two Easter Baskets waiting for them. Then they hunted around the house for eggs the Easter Bunny hid - plastic ones rather than real ones, we didn't want the dogs running off to some dark corner of the house leaving them for us to discover when they started to smell. They were very excited and had a great time.

Later we got in the car and headed down to Corvallis for Easter with my Aunt Joan, my Mom's sister. It's always a great time there with lots of excellent food - they always have a fantastic ham! Maddie slept on the way down and Riley watched his new movie the Easter Bunny brought - "Bolt!" We got there just as food was being served and filled our tummies. Then it was time for the Easter Egg hunt. It was raining a little and this year they decided to hide them under their covered porch in the backyard so the kids wouldn't get wet. That was nice. TONS of little kids this year who were all wide-eyed with excitement as they found eggs. Riley and Maddie again had great fun finding a bunch.

Then we went back in, visited with relatives, and finally left for home. On the way back Riley fell asleep - and stayed asleep for several hours at home. Maddie decided she needed to almost ALL of the chocolate she got in her basket from Grammie. She was fine for quite awhile, then all of a sudden it was like someone switched on her hyperdrive mode and she was bouncing all over the place! I've never believed that "sugar-high" theory too much because I've just never seen or experienced it the way some others describe. But this time I became a believer. haha Riley was having a hard time finding a comfortable way to sleep and Maddie kept trying to wake him up. Marci climbed in the back to help Riley be more comfortable, and occupy Maddie. Then we hit very slow traffic, actually coming to a stop a few times. Grrr! In all, we lost 12 minutes, which really wasn't that bad. And there was enough rain coming down combined with the spray from the cars on the road that it was rather hard to see, so driving slow with LOTS of cars on the road was actually kinda OK.

Made it home, Riley still slept, Marci finished her school paper, and with that this class, and Maddie and I played with the rats. Riley woke up, Marci finished, we all chatted and had fun for awhile, then went to bed. It was a really nice Easter this year with even Riley still believing in the Easter Bunny. :)

Saturday, April 11, 2009

Geocaching

Last weekend Riley's Cub Scout den went for a hike to fulfill one of their Tiger badge requirements. One of the parents brought a GPS to do some Geocaching. For those that don't know, geocaching is using a GPS to find something others have hidden. See, people hide stuff in parks and other places, and upload the coordinates to a website. Others then download those coordinates into their GPS and set out hunting for it. It's really quite fun. Our GPS for our car can run on batteries AND I can download data to it.

It was fun trying to find the stuff with the other parent last weekend and we all got hooked. We joined the website, downloaded some places close to us and have had fun looking for them. So far we've found three. Two of them were big enough to hold stuff and had a piece of paper in them for you to write your name and date of when you found it. One was just a piece of paper. The others had a pen with them, this one didn't. Now we know we need to carry 1) a pen, 2) something to put in there in case it's one of those type.

Our car GPS is cool, but not really made for walking. Now that we're hooked on this, we're looking forward to the warm weather and doing it all over Portland! And we're starting to look at some good GPS's for walking. Gotta have the right toys, er, tools. ;)

What's really fun is this is something all of us can get into, even Maddie!

Monday, April 06, 2009

What a great weekend!

Man, what a fantastic weekend!  The weather was amazing, a taste of summer.  Saturday Riley's Cub Scout Den took a hike in some woods next to us.  They brought along bags to pick up trash while they were hiking.  Evidently, some kids use that area to play with little plastic bb's because there were TONS on the ground, which the kids LOVED to pick up.  At least they aren't using paintballs and ruining the woods.  haha

Our weekend shopping which featured a stop at Cold Stone - both kids got cotton candy ice cream.  LOL!  Riley helped mow the lawn while we pulled weeds and cleaned up.  We have a push mower which I use when I'm not in a hurry because it saves on gas and gives me a little more exercise.  Riley loves to use it and did a great job, though got tired about half way through - it's tough to push it. 

Sunday the weather was even better.  Riley had a birthday party to go to in the afternoon.  He wanted one of us to stay there with him, but we talked him into just letting us drop him off.  He's at that age now where we can do that, and we would have been bored staying there.  He had a GREAT time and didn't miss us at all!  COOL!

While he was gone, we did more yard work, pulling more weeds, spraying weed killer on some, fertilzing, etc.  It was sooooo nice to be able to wear shorts again!  I turned on the sprinklers and made sure they were all pointing in the right directions.

When Riley got back, he and Maddie took turns driving his electric Jeep.  He almost doesn't fit anymore!  And after a few times of needing some help, Maddie was doing really well!  She really liked that, and having Riley drive her around.  Riley got bored with that and started racing Marci on their Razors.  From about 9am until we went to bed at 8:30pm, we had the windows in the house open.  Ahhhhhh.....

Today (Monday) it's supposed to be about 72 (it's 65 at 11:20am).  I was tempted to call in sick and stay home to have some fun.  But Maddie's at her preschool and Riley is at school.  So I probably would have stayed inside playing Guitar Hero World Tour all day.  haha

We got a lot of stuff done but also had a blast doing stuff as a family.  It was really a great weekend!