Spring break! I forget how demanding these kids are when they're home all day. But we had fun. Rich had most of the days off, since the surgeon he was with took them off. We went with friends to a beach barbecue and bonfire one day. There were sand dunes behind the beach, which the kids loved, and lots of kids to play with. We were there most of the day. Another day, we went to the space center, where they had some shows (Sponge bob and pirates), a new Treasure exhibit, and a diving team show where the divers dove up to 85 feet into a tank set up on the lawn outside.
We spent a lot of spring break getting ready for John's party. John is always so excited when his birthday is coming up. He loves to plan parties. So we planned an Indiana Jones-themed party. I made little journals with brown paper bag covers, in which I put an Egyptian word-find, maze and crossword puzzle. I included a hieroglyphics decoder, which they used to find their adventure bags (brown bags with names in hieroglyphics). Rich created a "new" Indiana Jones adventure theme including pirates, namely Jean Lafitte, who was a real pirate here in Galveston, and who may have undiscovered treasure still. Rich made a very fun and involved treasure hunt, using fun fonts, authentic pirate language, letters in envelopes from pirate to his brother, a letter stuck to a tree with a knife, letters from Indiana Jones with warnings, a golden key, booby traps, and other fun things. At the end of the treasure hunt, they had to take turns putting on the Indiana Jones hat and going through an obstacle course--dodging moving swings, swinging on a rope over a snake pit, stepping on the right stones drawn with sidewalk chalk, move through the playground equipment while trying to avoid the natives with their poison darts (the other kids shooting marshmallows from pvc pipes) and slide down the slide with a boulder (beach ball) following close behind, search in the sand for three jewels of different colors and bring them back. Once everyone completed that, the jewels they recovered opened the last clue, which revealed the treasure, or the pinata. The treasure was hidden deceptively in a "crate" marked with the words "explosives" "do not hit". It took a lot of hard hits to break it, but that seemed ok to that group of boys. Rich couldn't come because of work. But it actually went very smoothly. Eight boys came, which was perfect. Wow, I can't believe my son is getting so grown up! We looked at his baby pictures later that day and laughed about his first birthday where he got to make a big mess out of his cake.
He's always been such a fun and interested kid. He has two friends now that come over every day to play. They fight like brothers and are so loud! He's finally learning to ride a bike by himself. He picks things up pretty quickly and is getting 100% on spelling tests and most of his work. He still gets to go to "gifted and talented" and that's definitely his favorite part of school. At home, he'll eat most anything, but when it comes to school lunch, he is so particular about what I pack and never will eat the cafeteria food. The only kinds of sandwiches he likes are "just jelly" and tuna fish. At home he won't eat out of the same bowl that someone else ate out of because of the "germs", but he'll still stick his fingers right in the serving bowl, and he'll chew on his toe-nails after he's been running around in the sandbox. Hello, germs! Anyway, he's entertaining. He gets very excited about many things. His teacher is so sweet, she always tells him she loves him. She even tells me she loves me and gives me a hug and sometimes a kiss on the cheek when I come to pick him up.
I love the job I'm doing right now, because I can take the whole week off without asking anyone. I work finding old "ugly" damaged homes for a local investor to buy and he pays me commission. He's very nice and is always so grateful for whatever leads I give him. It's extremely flexible and I get more money than would doing that "stay-at-home" customer service thing that I tried. I mean, that job wasn't so bad, really, but they only pay $9/hr and they remind you that "you are adults now", which means they treat you like teenagers. But really, it didn't end up working because my internet is not very reliable. I'm just glad this investor is giving me the chance to do property scouting. I worked with commercial real estate in San Antonio and liked it. These experiences could come in handy in the future, possibly.
Anyway, here are some few pictures I captured at the party, and also one from Marcus' visit in February (after a Mardi Gras parade) and one from the cruise.
