And Isaac in the playground

Climbing up and coming down

Lizzy in the Water

Here are some photos of Lizzy, enjoying the water on Orcas Island last week.

A Grandmother's Guide to Pokemon

In order to be a "cool" grandma, you might want to study for our upcoming visit.

First the basics...

Pokemon is played on the Gameboy. OK...wasn't that easy?

Now the story line...

The main character of Pokemon is Ash. He is a 10 year old boy, training to become a Pokemon Master. He has a pokemon named PIKACHU (Pea - ka - chew). He travels around the world with his friends Brock & Misty, looking for wild pokemon to catch. When they catch a pokemon, it becomes their own and it lives in a Poke ball. The children use their pokemon to battle against other trainers with pokemon. The ulitimate goal is to get badges by beating Gym leaders, who are special pokemon trainers. There is a goofy pair of bad guys who keep on messing things up, called Team Rocket.

Now you know the story, here are some pokemon names to learn....

Pikachu (he's most important to learn!!)
Jigglypuff
Bulbasaur
Venusaur (this is Isaac's big pokemon)
Meowth (a cat pokemon)
Butterfree

This is only a small selection. However, now, when you are driving along and you are asked "Grandma, can you tell me a pokemon joke", you'll be able to say "Why did Meowth cross the road?" "Because there was some ice-cream on the other side."

Swimming Update

Just another little swimming update. Isaac is now swimming across the width of the pool all by himself. Yeah to my little man.

The Card System

Elizabeth is terrible at falling asleep. There is no other way to say it. She's had the same bedtime routine for years and it does nothing to calm her down. For Isaac, the ritual of the bedtime routine does something that strikes the sleeping trigger.

Getting Lizzy to stay in her room has been a battle since she moved out of her cot at age 2. Finally, I think I have found something that works for her. I give her two cards, which are her "get out of bed free" cards. Once she has used these she is not allowed to leave her room. She usually uses them within the first 5 minutes. Card one is usually a trip to the potty (despite the fact that she went at the beginning of bedtime) and card two is usually to tell me something.

After the first two nights though, I had to fine tune my cards. She has now been given a night-time potty trip card and a morning sun card, as well as the "get out of bed free" cards. Our first night, she wet the bed but didn't leave her room and the second morning I came into her room in the morning to see if she was awake only to find her laying on her bed. She jumped up and said "Is it morning? Can I get out of bed?"

It seems counter-intuitive, but it seems to work. I think she feels in control, because she's actually allowed to get out of bed and doesn't get in trouble for it. Hahaha. There is nothing like mother manipulation.

Excitement

Every night, at the end of bedtime, we sing "Jesus Loves Me" to Elizabeth. Tonight, as I sang, she joined in with her own words "Maddy, Maddy, Madeline. Maddy Maddy Madeline." Then at the end she held her hands together in a book-shape and I asked "What does your bible say?" Her response "Jesus loves Maddy and Everyone"

I think she is very excited about playing with Madeline in a few weeks time. I wonder where I get that idea from?

American Culture

We inducted our children into the American camping culture yesterday by making smores. Our cabin has a little fire pit outside and we all had a turn at making this googy dessert.

Our first attempt was a failure but we quickly worked out that you are supposed to toast the marshmellow first and then put it together. The hot marshmellow melts the chocolate. It's far from healthy but the kids certainly enjoyed them.

1,2,3,4,5...Once I caught a fish alive

Yes...we did let one of these fellows go again but luckily it didn't bite our little finger.

There is a daily limit of one rockfish so we threw one back again - however after throwing it back we shook our heads in dismay because we realised it was one per person, not per boat.

For those of you who are fishermen - this was a Copper Rockfish.

4th July

Yesterday was 4th July. For our children, that means Independance Day. More importantly to them it meant Fireworks!

Elizabeth has never seen fireworks and Isaac, only as a baby. However, because we are on vacation we decided to stay up late (remember that the sun sets at 10.00pm) and see the fireworks display.

We were a little apprehensive to start, waiting to see how they would react. I have memories of children screaming in terror at seeing fireworks. But there was none of that in our household. Isaac's face was a picture of delighted surprise and he applauded all the ones he liked. His favourite were the multi-coloured fireworks. Lizzy was more vocal in her appreciation. Her first response was to squeal in laughter and loud crys of "Look!" and "Ohh...that's so pretty!".

Overall - it was a very enjoyable evening with two little exhausted bears by the end of the evening.