The Land of Legos

As part of Shawn's father's day celebration, we made a visit to the Land of Legos. We were shocked that for a summer Saturday, it wasn't too crowded. Made for a great day!

We spent a good amount of time in the build and race area. I'm pretty sure Shawn and Lo could spend all day in there.

Caden and Shawn rode the planes 5 times while Lo and I checked out one of the roller coasters. I love this pic because 1. Lo is holding on to Caden 2. Caden is having a blast and 3. I'm about to lose my lunch. Happy Father's Day Shawnee!!! Our boys are so very lucky to have a Daddy who shares his joy of playing, learning and loving.

Summers In

(WARNING! this is a mega post...playing catch-up)

And schools out!

Last day of school...Field Day...I look at this pic and I can't help but flash forward to high school graduation...they might just be posing the same way...or maybe more like this...

Caden managed his own fun at field day

Our celebratory end of the school year dinner consisted of Logan's favorites, sushi and chocolate pudding

Also last week, I was lucky enough to accompany my mom to the Antique Roadshow...she won the golden ticket and we headed to the convention center for our 8 am call time. This is the chair we brought, it has rocked five generations! We learned it dates back to the late 1800s, which matches up with the time my great great grandparents settled in North Dakota, Little House on the Prairie Style. What a fun morning...lots of 'treasures' to be seen, lots of stories to be shared.

My parents also celebrated their 39th anniversary this week. Logan and I surprised them by decorating their house while they were out for their special evening. Logan is learning early the importance of romantic gestures...I'm lucky, his dad is a pretty good teacher♥

We had the pleasure of driving around in Shawn's car since mine decided to explode alien guts out the front of the engine.

A bit of video game time (notice that Caden has a controller for a different game system...when will he notice?)

We also squeezed in some community service at the park, Caden and Jake washed the walls While Logan and his pal Jamie watered each other

Popsicle are also a summertime must...maybe a little less mess

Lots of summer reading time too! WOOHOO!!

And an exciting surprise...our first plum of the summer! Can't wait for more of these tasty treats!!!

Pool time...still waiting for it to get warm though

We also made Logan's "what can I do list?" in preparation for those times when he's just at a loss for what to do next...(why don't I ever have those times?)

And finally, we made Logan's summer playlist...you may recall last years. You will see a few favorites are still around but the Lego Rockband influence is also obvious. We will Rock you, Kung Fu Fighting, Yellow Submarine, Hello Goodbye, Summer of ;69, Sloop John B, Boom Boom Pow, Crocodile Rock, Check Yes Juliet, Dig, In too Deep, A couple Lion King Songs, Time of your life, Tick Tick Boom, The National Anthem, The Lion Sleeps Tonight. WOOOH...we've had a busy week!!! Yeah for Summer!! Next week, Cub Scout Day Camp (oh, dear!)

Off to Neverland

This morning was our first day of summer that we didn't have plans. To celebrate the occasion, we popped in a favorite movie, Peter Pan. The boys and I snuggled on the couch for a while and Caden was amazed to watch baby Michael fly thru the air.

As an extra special treat, I made "Berried Treasure" Muffins (adapted from this recipe) to go along with our movie theme.

The treasure was a scoop of blackberry jam that I plopped into the center of each muffin. It was a BIG hit!

Remembering Buddy

We've reminisced a lot about Buddy. Retelling all our favorite stories, like how he would slide across the tile in the kitchen at the old house, sometimes crashing into the cabinets or door all in pursuit of his beloved cow-cow, the many nights when I awoke to Bud sleeping on my pillow, tail on my head, how we often took him on hikes only to end up carrying him the rest of the way, the first night we brought him home from the shelter, I slept on the kitchen floor with him because he was crying his now infamous and very undog-like uurr, uurr, uurr, uurr, uurr. The day Shawn set up the webcam to capture how Buddy escapes from the gate in the kitchen but instead he just stood with his paws on the gate staring at the camera the entire day. He also made several escapes from the yard, once the FedEx lady brought him back home, talk about a special delivery. Another time, right after we moved to Poway, a woman about 6 houses away found him but he still had his old tags with our old phone number. It just happened that her dad was a private investigator and used the old number to find our new one. Lucky Dog! Of course, we also remembered the countless times he knocked over the trash cans and spread trash from one end of the kitchen to the other or the times he would get stuck in Logan's room for the night and poop all over the floor, leaving Logan to wake up to the most horrific smells. Then there was the time he stood with his head out the doggy door and his backside still in the house and peed. The chairs he ate, the holes he dug, the reasons why we stopped taking him to dog parks.

To honor Buddy's memory, we decided it would be nice to plant something in the yard. Logan said it had to be a plant with flowers. I asked him why that was important and his response melted my heart. "What does it have before it flowers? BUDS" It still brings tears to my eyes. At the nursery we selected a white rose bush, because Buddy was white.

Logan designed these stepping stones too.

Here is our first BUD And a beautiful white bloom

Goodbye Buddy

He was a good ol' dog! To quote Logan's autobiography that he wrote a couple weeks ago, "I have a pet dog named Buddy. He is around 14 years old and in dog years he’d be about 98. That’s old! When he was younger, he ran around like crazy. Now he’s very slow."

Logan was born about 6 hours after this picture was taken

Everyone always referred to you as a lucky dog...we were lucky to have you in our lives. We'll miss you Bud Bud!