Saturday, July 21, 2012

Our Week Without Daddy

This week was a big one for our little family. Eric is once again an official  BYU student. His EMBA program started this week and that meant a week up in Salt Lake City for orientation. He got to stay in a nice hotel right in the heart of downtown and was introduced to his program, professors, and classmates. We missed him a lot while he was gone, but we are all so proud of him for getting into such an amazing program. (The BYU  EMBA program is ranked 15th in the nation! Not too shabby when UC Berkeley is ranked 14th.)
I had lots of plans for the week, many of which included outings. However,  funds were low, so we decided to stay home and get creative.
Before Daddy left, Adam and Tessa made him some long distance hugs and hid them in his suitcase.

 Adam and Tessa spent the first night in bed with me. After not much sleep on my part, they spent the rest of the week sleeping in their own beds! 
 We made rainbow pancakes one morning for breakfast. Tessa had been asking me for several days to make these. 

 We went to Story Time at the library and learned about using our imaginations. Both kids completed their summer reading programs this week!
 Gwen missed her Daddy. She sits up so well now!
 We spent one evening down at the river. The kids spent a good half hour, just throwing rock into the water.



 Tessa showing off her dirty bum!
 Adam and Tessa loved running under the overpass.
 We spent a morning at the park and had a fun picnic lunch.

 Wednesday night Mommy and Gwen got to go up to Salt Lake to see Daddy!! We had a lovely dinner on the top floor of the church office building. It was really fun to meet the other members of the EMBA program and their spouses. Gwen was the hit of the party! We had so many people come up to meet Gwen. Not us, but Gwen. She was all smiles and had everyone talking about how cute she is. Gwen was SO happy to see her Daddy and was such a good girl the entire evening.
 We tried to go to the Bean Museum one afternoon, but found this outside the building. The kids were pretty bummed. So we surprised Pa at work instead. He showed the kids off to Carol and she couldn't believe how big they were (tell me about it). It was fun to see them both!
 One evening we made our own drive in movie. We ran to the grocery store and picked up some boxes. Adam turned his box into the Cosmobile and a Jazz car. He dressed up as Cosmo too. Tessa made a rainbow car. We rented a movie from the library and had a fun night pretending to be at the movies.


 Adam and Tessa made sculptures out of toothpicks and marshmallows. They came up with some pretty clever things. Tessa wrote her name and made a campfire. Adam made his name, an 18 wheeler, a house, a tent, and a few other things that I can't remember. 




 Gwen is the most cheerful baby! We still get comments where ever we go on her big smiles and her chubby legs. She gets so excited watching Adam and Tessa. In a few more months she is going to drive them crazy when she gets into all of their toys and treasures, but for now, they can't get enough of her!




 We wrote letters and drew pictures to mail to the great grandparents.
We were so excited to have Daddy come home Friday night. The kids decorated the house and the front door and literally counted down the hours until he got home!
 Saturday we had Gillian's bridal shower. It was lots of fun and Dee and I did a pretty sweet job, if I do say so myself.


 Gwen loved the plastic spoons.
Ah, so happy and in love!
Another week of summer gone. I am starting to have dreams about Adam going back to school and that is not making me happy. How can my baby be going into first grade? I'm still trying not to think about it......