Our Summer Started Out With a Flop

The last week of school the kids schedule was jammed packed.  Lana had a promotion ceremony the day before school was out and then a half day on the last day of school.  Then Kyle had a promotion ceremony one evening, a pool party the next day and an awards ceremony the last day of school.  Kyle told me he wasn’t feeling well at the beginning of the week and I told him to buck up, this is the last week of school.  The morning of his pool party he said he really didn’t feel well and I told him if your not going to school then your not going to the pool party, then he got dressed for school.  Then last day of school he said in a whinny sick voice, Mom it’s the last day of school and I don’t feel well do I have to go?  To which I answered in an enthusiastic voice, Your right, it’s the last day of school Kyle then you have the whole summer to stay home and be sick.   Now I didn’t think for one minute that Kyle was sick, I just thought was wasn’t as sick as he thought he was.

On the last day of school we try to do something fun for the kids to kind of signal the start of summer.  In past years we would go to Chucky Cheese, but Kyle has out grown that place thank goodness!   So we took them to see the movie UP, which is one of the cutest movies I have seen in a long time.  The next day is when I discovered someone broke into my car and stole my wallet and both Kyle’s and mine cameras.  I had so much on my plate already that day and that was the straw that broke the camel’s back.  We had decided the day before to send Lana to the same school as Kyle.  Which meant I needed to gather up paperwork from Lana’s school then sort through uniforms from Kyle’s school.  I also had to teach the combined lesson in YW which I hadn't started because of all the end of year stuff with the kids schools.   Now I needed time to grieve over the lost pictures and videos from the kids year end activities.  And then I needed to call all the appropriate companies and tell them my wallet was stolen.  And finally take care of Kyle who had gotten much worse overnight.  After I had a good cry because I’m the only parent ever to not have a picture of her child graduating Kindergarten, I tried calling a few credit card companies to report my card as stolen.  Which was a problem because apparently being a co on a credit card does nothing for you, they only want to speak to the primary.  So then I had to bug Ronnie at work and telling him how my day was going and see if he could call these people whenever he got a chance.  A few minutes later he called to say he was on his way home from work.  My knight in shining armor was saving me again and I could breath easy and get everything accomplished. 

Here’s a few pictures of Lana that I took with my phone…not all is lost.  After her promotion from kindergarten we let her pick where she wanted to go for breakfast and she picked WaffleS Cafe where she got a banana split sundae waffle and a honeydew smoothie. 

Here is Lana trying on her new uniform

Sadly the only picture I took of Kyle with my phone was when he was coming down the slide at his pool party, all you can see is a head and you wouldn’t know it was him before I told ya. 

A few days later Lana got sick then a few days after that I got sick then a few days after that Ronnie got sick.  But I’m glad to say we are all finialy feeling better and ready to hit summer head on.  Now if someone could just do something about the heat thing…that’s kind of annoying. 

How Did This Happen??

Kyle’s school had a carnival at the first of May.  I really didn’t want to go.  Our Ward was going camping that same night and well we couldn’t go camping because Ronnie had to work the next morning.  So we went to the carnival and  the kids had a great time.  Kyle ran off with his friends and Lana went from booth to booth getting prizes.  Ronnie took Lana around because I was helping out in the karaoke room.  Next year I will suggest ear plugs for the helpers!  Ronnie and Lana would stop in and show me their prizes and Ronnie said that we also have a ticket for goldfish, I don’t know what that means.  I thought well surely they are just giving the kids goldfish crackers, right?  

Soon enough my time in the karaoke room was over and I went out to watch the kids play carnival games. 

      Lana fished                                                                             And got her face painted

           

     She tossed ping pong balls in bowls                             And did the ring toss

           

   Kyle held a snake (but I didn’t get a picture)              And volunteered for the sponge toss

            

He spent most of the evening at the dunk tank where they could dunk the teachers.   I felt for the teachers and couldn’t bare take a picture of them getting dunked.  Then it was time for us to go and Ronnie said what about this ticket for goldfish.  So we went over to where we were to redeem the ticket and they were real goldfish!  Once Lana saw them she was so excited and ran to tell Kyle who in turn had to go play the game until he too got a ticket.  We came home with 2 goldfish, oh boy!  I was not excited because we have a horrible time with pets or fish in general.  Lana always does something to ruin the whole tank and I have to spend a day cleaning and trying to save the fish. 

So on the way home the kids named the fish.  Kyle named his Fish Norris after none other than Chuck Norris and Lana named hers Goldie.  Much like she names her balloons, balloonie and her squid, squidie and  well just take anything and add an ie to the end.  So we get our fish home and have to put them in something and I found some ice cream glasses. 

I really didn’t think that they would live very long so I didn’t want to commit to a real fish bowl just yet.  One week went by and they were still swimming, then two weeks went by and I really wanted my kitchen counter space back so I broke down and got a fish bowl. 

 

Here it is almost two months later and they are still swimming.  I guess I should invest in a plant or something to decorate their fish bowl.   I’m just really hoping we don’t have baby fish in our future. 

And that my friends is how we came to have more fish in our house.  I knew we shouldn’t have gone to that carnival! 

Chef Lutes is at it Again

Kyle loves to watch Good Eats on the Food Network with me.  One day we were watching and Alton was making something called Pork Wellington.  Kyle looked at me and said, I want to make that!  So we planed to let him cook it for Sunday dinner.

He and Ronnie went shopping for everything on Saturday.  He was so excited that he watched the episode 3 times before he started to cook.  When I would try to help him I got the, that’s not how Alton did it mom, so I backed off and let him do it Alton’s way.  He did a fabulous job!  We had invited my mom and dad and sisters over for dinner  and he wanted to take some down to his piano teacher and her husband also so he made 2.  We got a call the next day from the piano teacher and she said  thank you so much for the meal is was very good.  Then Ronnie told her it was made by Kyle she was just amazed.  She said it was a gourmet meal.  I think Alton would be pleased.  I know I am very pleased to have a son who like cooking as much as Kyle does. 

Here is Kyle doing his interpretation of Alton.

Here is a picture of  the shirt he modified before cooking for us.  In case you can’t see, he crossed out Pedro and wrote Kyle.  What can I say, he’s cool like that.

We had more pictures but sadly our car was broken into while we were at the movies on the last day of school and both mine and Kyle’s cameras were stolen.  Along with all the photos I had taken for the past month.  I’ve been very “Be Calm and Carry On” about the whole thing, but I’m sad about all the memories that we lost.