Zoo Trip

We went to the zoo today, and we invited Debby and Rexton along. We have a membership, and with our membership we can get one other person in free, and Rexton was free because he is younger than two.

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We got to see the new African Savannah that the zoo has put in, and we got to see the two male lions. The zoo also just recently acquired two female lions, but they haven’t let the four of them out together yet. The boys and the girls get to take turns in the exhibit, while the other set is behind the scenes somewhere. That way they are exposed to each others smells for now, and they will slowly introduce them to each other over time, eventually ending with having the four of them share the exhibit.

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When we were looking at the elephants, Lydia’s diaper fell off so I took her to a nearby restroom to replace it. When we came back I found some of the kids participating in a little lesson on music.

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We wandered around some more checking out some of the other changes the zoo has been making lately. Debby couldn’t stay all day because she had a party to get to so she took Rexton and left (she had driven separately). Eventually we decided we needed to eat some lunch. Kyle and I debated whether we should eat at the zoo, or leave too, and go find something else. We aren’t super familiar with the area, and it was rather late so I didn’t want to risk having to drive around for a really long time to find something decent to eat. We decided that eating at the zoo probably wasn’t a whole lot more expensive and we don’t do it very often so we just ate at one of the food places there. We got a few hamburgers and split them for the kids (that helped with cost). Then we walked around a bit more and decided it was time to head home.

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Debby’s Birthday

Debby’s husband, Jeff, joined the army and left a few days ago to report for training in Fort Sill, Oklahoma. I wanted to make sure that Debby didn’t spend her birthday alone with Rexton, so I told her to come over, and asked her what kind of cake she wanted. She decided that she wanted tres leches cake, which is one I’ve never made before. I don’t particularly like tres leches cake, because every time I’ve had it, it’s been just plain soggy. But I found a recipe, and made one anyway. Hopefully it was as good as Debby was hoping it would be.

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I hope she had a good time spending her birthday with us. I feel bad that Jeff had to go away right before her birthday, and he won’t be back for a few months. I hope to have her and Rexton over a lot, over the next few months while he’s gone, just so she won’t be alone all the time.

Kyle’s Birthday

Kyle had a birthday today! But before we could celebrate his birthday as a family, we had to go to pack meeting. Pack meeting tonight was an obstacle course set up around the church for the kids to race through. When that was over, they announced that they had something special planned for Kyle for his birthday. I actually heard one of the leaders talking about it, and was told that I might want to take Kyle’s phone from him so it wouldn’t get damaged. Kyle was, of course, concerned when I asked him to give me his phone. He knew I had mine and that I can’t use his because I don’t know his password, but he gave it to me anyway. Then they let all the boys throw water balloons at him!

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Kyle tried to get some of the kids back by opening up the spray bottle and throwing water back, but I think he was fighting a losing battle. At least he was a good sport about it. 😉

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After pack meeting we got to go home for cake and presents. Kyle requested a watermelon cake. The kids have been asking for this a lot too. I’ve made banana cake, carrot cake, strawberry cake, strawberry lemonade cake, chocolate cake, pumpkin cake, apricot delight cake, pina colada cake….I guess to them there is nothing I can’t do. I kept telling the kids that you can’t make a watermelon cake. Watermelon is too watery, and the flavor isn’t strong enough to be present after you add all the flour and sugar and other stuff. Finally I googled it, and found a watermelon cake, that was a new concept for me. I had been thinking CAKE! Flour, sugar, butter, eggs….that kind of cake. The cakes I found when searching for watermelon cake, was just a hunk of watermelon served just like cake. So that is what Kyle said he wanted, and that is what I made for him. 🙂
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As for presents, I had one to give him. Actually I feel kind of lame about it, but he doesn’t really need anything, and doesn’t want a whole lot right now. We have a lot of stuff, and I didn’t want to just buy him more STUFF, so I went practical. I gave him a package of new socks. I’ve been throwing away his socks as I find them all holey in the laundry, and he has nearly run out of socks. For awhile he just thought I wasn’t doing enough laundry to keep on top of getting enough socks through, but it just boiled down to me throwing away worn socks and he was just running out of them. 😉

Bedroom transformations

Last month, Kyle and I bought a new set of bedroom furniture. Our first set of bedroom furniture! So our room has been undergoing some transformations. We moved our bed to the family room in the basement. My dresser went to the girls room, and Kyle’s dresser went to the boys room to be used for Lydia and Adam’s things since their clothes are all still in buckets because I have had nowhere else to put them. The desk went downstairs to the office, and the recliner and my treadmill went to the living room for the time being. The boys got to help move the dresser into their room:

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Adam really enjoyed sitting in the drawers while they were out of the dresser:

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Once we got our room cleared out, we proceeded to clean the carpet. I ended up going over it so many times I lost count. I cleaned it with soap and hot water, then I went over it some more with vinegar and hot water, and then we used some pet stain cleaner, and cleaned it some more….Unfortunately even with all of that, turning on a black light in the room while it was dark revealed that all the places Chewy has peed over the last 10 years did not wash out. Kyle and I were both really disgusted by this and started to wonder if maybe it was just time to replace the carpet. I really wish we had the money to replace all the carpet on the main floor, but we don’t. I don’t think the kids would be kind to new carpet anyway. So we decided to get a quote for replacing the carpet just in our room. Kyle called the same guy that we got the carpet for the basement from, since we were just going to get the same carpet and he would be able to access his records to look up what it was to order more. We ended up deciding to just go for it. Kyle wanted to rip out the yucky carpet on our own, because that would save us about $50. We also decided that since we were going to have new carpet and new furniture, that we should go get some paint so we could paint over all the scribbles the kids have graced our walls with. So a couple of days ago we bought some paint and supplies, and came home to rip out the carpet to get ready for the new carpet to arrive.

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Kyle finished the painting last night, and the new carpet arrived this morning!

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Obviously, since my room is nice and clean and all brand new feeling, the kids really wanted to hang out in there! Now to finish awaiting the arrival of the furniture…

Getting Wet

We bought a new kiddie pool this summer, and decided to get it out this afternoon. Adam found the hose while the pool was filling up and he had a GREAT time attacking everyone else with the water! Of course not everyone was so excited to be hosed off like that.

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We did eventually turn the hose off and Adam had to content himself with getting into the pool and splashing everyone that way. 😉

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