Life Escalated

Zoe had been looking forward to her third birthday for a long time. She was so excited when it finally came along.

She had a great birthday. The weekend before, both Grandmas and Grandpas and Aunt Emily came for a birthday party.  I asked her what color or theme she wanted for her party and she said that she wanted balloons, so we had a lot of balloons.

Zoe loves birthdays so much because she loves to be the center of attention. It makes her so happy. She got great presents, including a princess nightgown, games, my little ponies, and a microphone and lego rockband (which she calls bandaid).

For Zoe’s actual birthday, I had planned to have a friend birthday party.  When I asked her what she wanted to do for her birthday though, she said she wanted to go to Katy’s house to play. So that’s what we did. Katy’s mom, Joy, had a great little party for her at their house, full of home-made pizza, purple cupcakes with pink frosting, and more balloons. She had a blast.

It is so hard to believe that my baby girl is now 3 years old. She is growing up so much. She is so tall and little girlish. I have had to start buying her pants in the little girl’s department to get them long enough. She has so much personality. She loves to sing and dance. She loves people and will talk to and climb all over, anyone who will pay attention to her. She makes our lives so much fun and interesting. I can’t even imagine life without her.

Zoe is a fish. We went swimming quite a bit this summer and by the end of the summer, she was swimming a little.  I am so proud of her. This video doesn’t show it too well, but you can tell she is swimming.

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Robby took swimming lessons in the beginning of the summer. He did great. He is almost good enough now that I will let him stop taking lessons. I will probably just put him in lessons one more time.

We spent a lot of time at the waterpark over the summer.  By the end of the summer, I decided Zoe needed to be in swimming lessons. She was just so fearless in the water that I was afraid she was going to drown. I put her in swimming lessons and she did great. She has now taken two sets of lessons and she is swimming well enough that she can jump off the side in the deep end and get herself back to the side.

We also went swimming for playgroup, a couple of times this summer.  Those were probably my kids favorite times at playgroup. We went to a pool at one of the lady’s houses. It was a great pool with a diving board and a slide.

 

The slide was really fast and fun.

When Zoe saw Robby jumping off the diving board, she wanted to do it to.

She looks so little, climbing onto the diving board.

 

We had a great summer this year. I feel like we were never home.  We spent time at the water park, at playgroup, and doing all sorts of other fun things.  Here are some of the highlights.

Fourth of July

Grandma and Grandpa Atkinson and Emily came to our house for the weekend of the 4th of July. On Emily’s birthday, July 3, we all went over to Kirk’s parents house. Their neighborhood has a big fireworks party ever year. Everyone pools their fireworks so they have a big fireworks show.  It was a lot of fun.  After the fireworks were over, we all went inside and had birthday cake.

Scouts

In July, Robby was able to go to his second cub-scout day camp. They needed drivers, so I got to go with him.  He loves scout camp and I love getting to watch him. I am always impressed with how good of a kid he is.

In July, he also had his Rain gutter Regatta. He did great. He came in second, and actually didn’t lose any races, except for the last one. He was a good sport and had lots of fun.

In August, Robby earned his Bear and his Religious Knot. He works so hard at scouts. We are very proud of him.

24th of July

One of our favorite things to do in the summer is to go to Grandma and Grandpa Atkinson’s for the 24th of July. The town has a parade and a BBQ.

Splash Pad

For playgroup one day, we went to the Splash Pad.  The kids had a great time playing and splashing in the water.

Salem Pond

On another playgroup day, we went to Salem Pond. We have been there many times and played at the park, but we have never really played in the sand and the water before. I wasn’t really prepared for the kids to get sandy and wet, but they did anyway. Zoe was wading in the water. I told her to not get her clothes wet. About two seconds later she was soaked from head to toe. Robby liked playing in the sand and building sand castles. He was a little frustrated that the little kids kept knocking his sand castles down though, so a couple weeks later, the three of us went back and played again, with mom much more prepared this time.

Hiking to the Grotto

One evening, towards the end of the summer, we went as a family and hiked to the Grotto. It is such a great hike. We love to do it every year because it is easy enough for Zoe, but still lots of fun. We went kind of late, so it was really cold. Zoe was not too happy about the cold water, but still had fun throwing rocks in the water. It rained on us on our way back to the car, but we still had a good time.

 

 

So, it has been a few months since the cruise.  But, I really need to post this so I don’t forget all of it.

We went to Alaska on the Norwegian Star, and I thought the ship was great.  I had always heard horror stories of cruise ships and their strict schedules, dress codes, and assigned seating, so I was glad we went on a cruise without all of that stuff.  We were able to eat whenever and where ever we wanted, never wear anything other than jeans, and set by ourselves at mealtimes.  It was lots of fun.

The ship was huge.  These pictures were of the lobby.  Zoe didn’t even believe us for most of the trip that we were on a ship. She kept asking when we would get to ride on the boat. I think she thought we were just in a hotel.

Alaska was a great cruise because there was very little sailing in the open ocean.  Most of the time, we could see land out of both sides of the ship.  That was nice because it provided for interesting and varied scenery, but mostly because it meant that there were little to no waves, which means no sea sickness. We were only in open water one day, on the way home, and I was miserably sick. I had no idea I would get so sea sick. Everyone else was fine though, so it wasn’t too bad.

The highlight of the cruise for Zoe was Kid’s Club.  They had a great program where you could drop your kids off, almost anytime, to hang out and play with other kids. They divided the kids up by age.  They had great counselors and a lot of fun activities. Robby didn’t love Kid’s Club. He went sometimes, but then a lot of times he just decided to hang out with us. He just isn’t a big fan of hanging out with people he doesn’t know well.  Zoe thought it was wonderful though. We would always have to fight her to get her to leave Kid’s Club to go with us to get meals or to go to bed. She wanted to be there all the time.

This was one of Zoe’s friends from Kid’s Club.

This was Zoe’s favorite counselor. They hit it off from the moment we got on the ship.

The food on the ship was pretty good.  The buffet wasn’t great. We ate there for breakfast, most of the time, just because it was fast and easy (and there were yummy croissants). For the other meals though, the buffet food wasn’t very good.  Most of the food at the restaurants though, was really tasty.  That was Robby’s favorite part of the cruise.  He always ordered off the adult menu because he thought the kid’s menu was boring. He loved being able to get an appetizer, meal, and a dessert and that no one ever told him that he couldn’t order something because it was too expensive.  He was willing to try almsot anything.  I loved watching him eat lobster, asparagus, and all sorts of other tasty things.  His favorite thing was the warm apple bread pudding and the creme brûlée, but he liked the lobster a lot too.

The service on the ship was great. The workers were always super friendly and helpful. I think, by the time we got off the ship, Zoe was friends with just about every person that worked on the ship.

Our room was tiny, but big enough. They made really good use of the space, so there was plenty of room for all of our stuff.

Here is our room from the doorway.  That is about all there was to it.

Here are the beds.  There were two twin beds that pushed together for Kirk and I.  Zoe slept on a trundle bed thing and Robby slept on the top bunk. It worked great.

The bathroom reminded me of a bathroom in a really nice RV.  It was really small, but nice.

All in all, the cruise was a great experience. I am so glad we got to go and see a place we would have never seen otherwise. It was fun and I hope we go on another one soon.