Visits, Josh Cooking, and Happy Anniversary, Gary

Update from August 9:

It's almost the end of the week, but whatever. We had Kayla over, and she's cooler than emailing. She came on Sunday night, and started off with a splash on Monday morning by coming to swimming lessons with us. Since she was there, we stayed to do extra swimming, which turned out perfectly since the kids had to sit through a safety presentation during lessons and not swim. Kayla saves the day! I guess Josh and Noah decided she was a worthy ninja opponent when she took them to the deep end. At one point I guess Noah said, "Is that the bestest move you've got?" She thought it was, and came to play with Lissy, who doesn't look bad in her blue flowered swimsuit.

Other highlights include eating at Cafe Rio for lunch on Taco Tuesday. Kayla hadn't been in quite a while, so we didn't mind the sacrifice of taking her. Kayla did pretty good playing Memory, fair playing Frog Rush, but in scooter races she kept getting the "plain brown" medal, which is apparently the level below copper, silver, and golden. All of us loved seeing her, hooray for visits!

Speaking of the Olympics, we love them, of course. I got 4 little American flags when I bought a clearance swimsuit at Osh Kosh, and my kids like to wave them and chant, "USA, USA, USA!" Josh was especially pumped for the USA vs. USA volleyball showdown last night. Last week I was babysitting some kids, and a prelim for the 800m swim was on. An American girl was ahead the entire time, and each time she would make a turn and the TV showed who was in the lead, the kids went wild. All 6 kids chanted USA and cheered all 16 lengths of the pool. Hilarious. Oh, and Josh surmises that the water polo team must go to a lot of swimming lessons.

Josh, Noah, and Lissy all had well-child checks this week. All are well, and Noah got the fun of 4 shots and a finger poke. He felt very brave to survive his 5 pokes.  He is pumped to be ready for kindergarten, which was his consolation. Last night he told me, "Josh is making the bath water so hot, my legs will never heal!" Hmmm.

Josh discovered a kids cook book the other day, and used up an entire pad of sticky notes marking the things he wants to make. Last Thursday he declared he was making dinner, and chose Cheesy Scrambled Eggs. He did most of it himself (with guidance), and since he has grated cheese before I assumed he could. When I looked in the bowl there were huge globs of cheese, and I asked him if it stuck together after he grated it. "It was taking too long to shred, so I just squeezed off some lumps," he said. Best meal ever, according to the kids.

Wow, two weeks . . . We went to Gary's work picnic, and Josh wore cleats because he was pumped about the kickball game. I couponed at Walmart for the first time in forever last night and I saved so much money I had to wait for the manager to come approve the transaction before I could leave. What? Didn't think it was that much. We got to eat dinner at Allison's house on Sunday, due to the fact that Eric was in town for two days. We had a grand laugh, a yummy chinese meatballs dinner, but had to split quickly to take Eric to the airport. Then to Layton to get Kayla. Does this count as a whirling dervish? Especially if you consider above plans were all made less than 24 before their occurance . . . fun stuff.

The best part - it was our anniversary and Gary is amazing!! On Saturday night we got a babysitter and went to City Creek for the first time. It was lovely, Cheesecake Factory was delicious, and did I mention Gary is amazing? We had a great night. Also he brought me flowers on Monday, which I love. Sigh . . .