Live Music is good for the SOUL!

loving this picture

Can you find me?

Ohhh my ohh my, our life right now just seems to get more and more chaotic. We are really on the final count down. One week from today we will be flying out. So bittersweet. So final. So surreal. But that type of writing is for another day. Last night, this is what I found in our cabinets...a sweet little boy who is finding new things to play with since all of his "got packed and went on the BIG blue truck to the airport". I love the random fly swatter on the bottom shelf.

Sunny Days at the Pool!

Tall Boy Chillin

Helping pass the time until we depart!

The Strangest Science Fair Ever

In O's backpack a couple of weeks ago was a notice about an upcoming "Science Fair". Now I put that in quotes cause I don't have much experience with Science Fairs (not even sure a title like that is supposed to be capitalized) so my frame of reference is limited to what I have seen on TV or in movies or in posting on FB. I have wracked my brain trying to remember if I participated in a Science Fair when I was a kiddo and for the life of me I can't remember - MB help me out here – I don’t think I did but then again, my brain is full of useless knowledge not things like “did I participate in a Science Fair when I was a kid?” And do you really have a Science Fair for kids that are three years old?

We get up and at 'em on an early Saturday morning and make our way to Orion's school. There are kids and parents and teachers milling around and seats set up for what I assume is the audience. We hand O over to his teacher and have a seat. Pretty soon the classes come out and line up – they sing the national anthem of Rwanda – turns out Orion knows the entire thing in Kinyarwandan – AMAZING – and then they go to their Science Fair stations. Parents are instructed to visit each station so off we go into the first classroom where we are met with little groups of kids with plates of fruits. They recite the names of the fruits for us and we move to the next table where the kids do the same thing. This was the Science Fair – kids reciting names of fruits. It was other worldly and completely strange. 

I hate to mock this banner but really...the excellency of fruit life - do they mean the excellency of fruit FOR life? 

Lining up they put their hands on the shoulders of the person in front so their lines are "neat and tidy" - Nursery Two

Talking about the fruits they have

More fruits...

stage fright...no one wanted to talk about their fruits

Watermelon and Pineapple - the fruit not the kids

Orion's table

I'm Rich

Look what I found when I started packing up my office! This adds up to about five bucks. I think I will stash it away and take it to the airport next week. Should be enough to cover a coffee and maybe a juice for O Boy...definitely not enough to cover a Turbo King for the Tall One.

4th of July Part Two...

I just can't resist posting these pictures...

I love Eric's laugh!

Face painting!

Please...can I have some more cotton candy?

Captured the Moment!

Two days of chaos preceeded by hours of sorting, organizing and editing all leading up to packing up and out our home of the past two years. Don't get me wrong, I love all of the above. I like seeing what we have, what we don't need to keep (hello...nursing notes from 2005 on mental health resources in Seattle) and getting all the proverbial ducks in a row. However, my love of all this has been tempered a bit by my love of the three year old in my life. 


You see, Orion has moved two maybe three times in his life (Arizona, Seattle - does this count?, DC) but he has always been a little too little to really understand what was happening. Not so on this move. Ohh, we did all the right things, got books on moving and talked about what was going to happen. You know how it is with a kiddo - they want to know the nitty gritty details like "where does the truck take our stuff?" great question - let me ask. Like "why are there so many guys here helping" great question - I have no idea. Like "mamma where is my bike" great question - the one that I didn't have to answer. 


So between the Berenstain Bears Moving Day and Big Ernie's New Home we covered what would happen with our stuff, how some of it would go on the airplane to Grandma's house and the rest would meet us in Djibouti. What the books didn't cover is what you are supposed to do when your kid finds his trike among the packing boxes. At this point in the day, I just looked at Orion, looked at the box and decided we needed to take a walk and find some ice cream. I mean really, you couldn't have just upgraded to a bigger box?

4th of July Fun!

Alex and Orion

This is the creepiest clown but O took a liking to him

Cotton candy...

Getting his face painted

Mamma...its really sticky!

Morris and Eric