Safety Town

The summer before Kindergarten, kids have the opportunity to attend Safety Town. It is a free two week program where children learn about the obvious, safety. Each day had a different theme. Some were about playground safety, stranger danger, water and bus safety, the ambulance and fire trucks, calling 9-1-1, and a day with the K-9s. Mason called them cop dogs. When the fire trucks came, each child got to spray the fire hose and they all got wet.

They have a little town set up where they ride bikes around and learn about street crossing.

There were 70 kids in the morning session Mason was in. I would guess there were just as many in the afternoon. Officer Davis was kind of like the teacher. At least he was the one giving the directions for the day. The kids were divided into groups and each group had about three or four leaders who were all teenagers.

At the end of two weeks, they had a small graduation where they received a certificate. Mason was disappointed they didn't get a cap and gown. He had a great time! Jasper has expressed an interest in being a volunteer for the program when he is in middle school! Safety town is such a great program and I hope they are able to keep the program going in the future.

Hawkeye

Jasper is a big Hawkeye fan. For Jasper's birthday, we got him a new baseball helmet.

He was excited to wear it to his game that night. Here it is in action.

Who knows, he may end up becoming a Hawkeye someday!

Happy Birthday!

It's hard to believe that today is Jasper's 9th birthday! He woke up to fugens for breakfast and a few gifts before Mason headed off to Safety Town.

We didn't do a lot as it rained a few times throughout the day. During a dry spell we went to the bandshell on the river front to play a little baseball. It didn't last too long as it started raining.

Jasper decided he wanted to go to a Lumberkings game as we haven't been to too many of them yet. We have been too busy with his baseball games. A home run was hit by the Lumberkings and the birthday boy found it! We were there for about forty five minutes when it started raining once again. We came home to have a small birthday cake and watch a movie.

Happy Birthday Jasper!

Summer Activities

We had quite the busy schedule last week beginning our summer activites.We had wrestling camp along with VBS and of course they were both held in the morning. We came to a compromise that they would go to wrestling camp for two days and VBS the rest. Jasper also went to the Clinton Lumberkings baseball clinic held for younger kids on Saturday. With that, they got a ticket to go to that nights game. Church was held Saturday night and the VBS kids sang a lot of their songs. Mason doesn't usually do the actions or sing the songs, but he sure did like the beach songs Grandma Deana taught and he came out of his shell and danced!

Not only is Jasper in baseball, Mason has now started his t-ball practices. Finally, he gets a chance to play baseball! He has been practicing when Jasper has a game so Ben and I have to divide up. Ben has been coaching Jasper so Allegra and I get to watch Mason practice.

Allegra has done very well being taken all over to games, camps, and practices. She was the youngest to be at VBS! She has developed a little bit of colic. She usually starts getting fussy around 5:30 at night and it will last to around 10:30 pm. I think it's a pretty mild case, knock on wood! We do have some good days without much of a fuss. I am hoping that having colic won't last too long, especially when I go back to work.

It has been great to have Ben on vacation for these two weeks. It certainly makes a difference having two extra hands around! I'm sad to see it end on Friday. I will also have to think about going back to work soon too. For the time being, I will enjoy what time I have left hanging out at home with the kids. There are more camps and baseball games to attend!

Summer Begins

Yesterday was the first day of summer vacation. To start off the summer, the boys went with me to take Allegra to her one month check up. I can't believe she is a month old already! She is getting so big, 10 lbs 10 oz. to be exact!

Today I took the boys to the library. They both got their own library cards! There is a summer reading program that begins next week and Jasper is really excited to be part of that. I'm glad to see that he is enjoying reading as we had such a struggle to get him to read at the beginning of the school year. We hope to go back at least once a week!

We also made a new snack together. Something quick and easy and VERY good! Too good really that I hope it lasts a while. It's called peanut butter and chocolate blast. I figured it was something we could put into a baggie for a snack while we are out and about.

Ben officially begins his two week vacation from work tomorrow. We don't have any plans to go anywhere on an extended vacation. We are just going to enjoy our time together as we haven't had much of that with all of the overtime Ben has been working. I don't plan to go back to work until after the Fourth of July. I plan on getting a good tan before then.

We have only had two days of vacation so far and the weather has been perfect! Yesterday was sunny and cool and today was cloudy and cool. Sounds like things will start to heat up tomorrow!