Back, with a whimper?

Hey all,

After much abuse, I have finally gotten off my lazy behind and decided to write the next installment of the Life and Times of the California DeVries! Why is this blog back with a whimper you may ask, well that's because, despite many petitions and much of the afore mentioned abuse, I'm not going to try to summarize the vacation and the subsequent several weeks. Rather, I'll just dive in with the weekend happenings and a the normal chit chat.

So, the weekend's happenings. Friday was fairly normal. I got home around 12:30. One note on that, the Carson site where I work has switched to an optional 9-80 work week (work 9 hours a day M - Th, then work 8 hours every other Friday and get the "other" Friday off). I declined that work week and am instead working a 9-9-9-9-4 work week where I take every Friday afternoon off. Anyway, back to the show. We went to the park and relaxed, then after bedtime, Cyndie went out for dessert with some friends from church. A side note ... we have successfully transitioned from a show before bed each day to just storytime. We still get the occasional query from Timmy regarding a movie, but the number and frequency of requests has greatly declined!

Saturday we went for a hike out at the Bolsa Chica wetlands (near the ocean). That was pretty fun. It's nice to spend some time outdoors and be more intential about having time together as a family. Emma was excited because a couple of hikes ago, she found/made a walking stick. Now everytime we take a hike and she takes her walking stick, she get's to add a ring (around the stick) to mark the number of hikes she's taken and add a decoration. So far, she has three rings, a lightning bolt, and a rectangle with waves in it (she forgot to add a decoration one time). In the evening, Cyndie and Emma when to Em's pre-school for an auction and came back with a basket of games. Since then, Emma and Timmy have spent quite a bit of time playing Disney video Bingo.

Sunday was church, then right afterwards, Cyndie helped host a bridal shower for a girl from church. After quiet time we did the park and basically had another quiet day. While at church, one of Emma's friends was riding her bike around without training wheels. She was the second of Emma's friends (Maddi being the first) to go without training wheels and really lit the fire under Emma to try it herself. So last night I took the training wheels off and this morning at 6:30, Emma was riding around the house (with Cyndie supporting her) practicing. Cyndie told me that the went over to the park today before school and Emma was doing really well (and Cyndie was getting a very good workout in the process). Timmy is transitioning to the two wheeled scooter, so he practiced that while Emma rode her bike.

Emma is also enjoying her Bella Cheerleader video these days. She's getting pretty good with a baton and doing some of the cheer moves. She likes to put on a show! She's also been jumping a lot of rope (which is of course accompanied by the chants ... one about princesses, one about ice cream). I can't think of anything horribly significant that Timmy is doing these days. He's really enjoying coloring a lot, especially with markers. We spent about an hour on Saturday with me drawing him different dragons and then use coloring them in together.

So that's it for now!