Weekend Recap

Dear James, Daniel and Emily,

All in all I would say a good weekend. James didn't necessarily complete the challenge I gave him, but he did have fun playing with the Lego's all weekend. Had a relaxing family movie night Friday night. Saturday swimming and soccer were good, although it was too cold for the younger ones so they played in the car. Sunday we got in a nice intro hike, then got in some real good work in Connie's yard. Ending with a relaxing evening with some spelling quizzes for James.

I had given James the challenge to construct something worthy of sending to Lego magazine on Thursday night. He came up with some interesting stuff, but mainly just battle scenes, not any single creating. But he had a lot of fun with it and that kept him occupied pretty much the entire time we were home.

I had wanted to do a decent walk on Sunday, and it was Kim's idea to go to Red Rocks canyon instead of just walking to the park. It was a nice little hike, the first time we had been up there. The kids did awfully well. Emily probably walked about half of it, and Daniel did the whole thing without any complaining. James got kind of bored, but that's okay, that just means we need to find things for him to focus on on hikes. Little science projects or contests that fire his competitive nature. I am really looking forward to making this a weekly thing once summer starts.

Now that Tammy has (more or less) moved out of Connie's house we all can start helping her get things done to get the house the way she wants it. So after lunch we met up with Dennis & Megan and got in some good cleaning in the back yard and got the gazebo put up for her. Which means that when she is in the kitchen and looks out in the back yard it won't be such a negative experience for her. Although there is a bunch of trash that needs to be hauled off but it was a good start. And it was therapeutic for her to kind of feel that she is moving forward, like getting the kitchen completed.

And the kids were all amazingly good the whole time we were over there. James and Daniel played just fine with each other and Brandon and the neighbor kid. And Emily was content to just follow her brothers around or just play on her own.

So it's another week, nothing really major on the horizon for now. James has a spelling test tomorrow, so we have been pounding away at him. He does well, although he does have some quirks that he needs to get stuck in his head. Although his reading is getting quite good. He was able to read pretty much all the signs on the hike yesterday, and he was trying to follow along with me when I read to him last night. Overall though, he is doing quite well in school.