ShannonAlbert.com - June 2009

We were shocked to see the snow this morning. Either we missed the news reports or it was a surprise to everyone, I'm not sure. Andy attempted to go to work this morning but turned around and came back home due to the roads being bad. Then he looked up school closings and saw that Payton's school was closed just before she was headed out the door for the bus stop!

Some pics of the snow....

Snow angel (made in the driveway!)...



Making the snowgirl...

Haven't had much to post lately since we've been iced in and doing boring things like cleaning and being lazy. Weather is still cold but we aren't stuck in the house as much now. Here's an update on everybody.

• Blake - happy as long as he has something to figure out. Our days are spent with him asking me questions I often don't know the answer to. Things like:
  
  How does the horn make a sound on the outside of the car?
  
  How does it scan?
  
  How is it a clock?
  
  What is a be-donk-a-donk butt?
  
  How does the car slow down?
  
  Why is a _______ called a _______?
  
  
  
  Here he is putting together a track on the refrigerator...
  
  
  And doing a science experiment where you collect smoke from a candle and then blow out smoke rings...
  
  
  I just printed out 5 worksheets for him to do tomorrow and when I buy him workbooks to do, he's done with it within an hour. He's tough to keep up with. I'm not feeling overly optimistic about how exciting kindergarten will be. Every time I come across a kindegarten website for printing worksheets, it's things like drawing numbers and letters. He'd much rather do addition/subtraction and try to read some words so hopefully he will be able to find things to learn once he starts school (for him, probably more on an emotional level than intellectual as he still has much room for improvement in that area!).
  
  
• Payton - has really come out of her shell this year and has gotten involved with a variety of things including volleyball (her team won all 4 games today!). She continues the trend of growing 3 inches a year and is now about 5'2" with no signs of stopping anytime soon. The emphasis for her has definitely switched toward friends which is very normal but means we see a lot less of her than we used to. Her recent report card had all As and one B which seems to be what she's always gotten. The work gets more difficult every year but she's doing a good job keeping up and maintaining good grades. The ipod she got for Christmas has quickly become a fixture in her life and she writes down new song requests almost daily and I download them for her. It takes a long time to build up a playlist but she's getting there.
  
  
• Andy - turning 32 in a week! He's been very busy at work lately and trying to keep up with a heavier workload. He was told by the dr. that he needs to lose weight so that is a new goal for us both.
  
  Andy's weight loss tracker:
  
  
• Me - also going to lose weight as we've both gained together and we'll be losing together. I went and signed all of us up at the gym today so Blake and I will go tomorrow for the first time in a long time. It will be healthy for him as well because he doesn't get enough physical activity being home all the time. I'm in the process of planning out some trips for the year but won't be saying much until they are booked and as everyone knows, trip planning is my favorite thing to do! I plan to write soon about what I'm doing to earn income because it's been an interesting road trying to figure out what I want to do. I'm still in the early phases of working on some things but I'll post more in the near future.
  
  My weight loss tracker:
  
  

Outside photos by Payton





Cooking in the fire

We intended to leave on Saturday but Payton was getting sick so we held off for a day. Mom and I headed off to my favorite movie theater to see The Queen which basically takes place the week between Princess Diana's death and her funeral. It focuses on how the royal family handled it and Tony Blair's attempts at dealing with the royal family. I loved it.

That night it was several hands of 5 point Pitch - boys vs. girls as always. Mom and I killed the boys every hand. :-)

Sunday we left and got home around 9, just in time to get everything put away and get settled in with some wine to watch the ball drop. Also in enough time for Payton to leave to have a spontaneous sleepover at a friend's house.

This morning Payton headed off to the bus stop for school to start again only to be told by her former teacher (who as driving by on her way to work) that school doesn't start for the students today - it starts tomorrow. Oops.

Hope everyone had a great holiday and is getting settled back in. Happy 2007!

The weather on Friday was in the 50s (very nice for December in Kansas) and rain later in the day was predicted. We got outside to play since we hadn't all week and wanted to get some time in before the rain. There's a very nice, newer park in town that we headed out for and my dad and Harley the dog went as well.

Some pics from our time at the park...





Then it was time to try out the stomp rocket Blake got from Santa back at my parents house...




That night we headed for dinner with my parents at a restaurant in town. I ordered boiled shrimp and hated having to peel them all (hate working on my food when out to eat). I mistakingly thought they'd come ready-to-eat. Never again. :-)

Then we all headed over to my Aunt Pat and Uncle Leland's new house. They moved a couple of months ago into a house that's just 10 minutes from my parents. It's really beautiful and well done plus Aunt Pat is Mrs. Christmas so all of the decorations made it even nicer. We played some games (including 31 which I won - anybody need any quarters?!)...


My cousin Vicki was also there as she managed to make it in from Denver despite all of the snow. Normally, my cousin Suzy and her family (which includes 5 children) would be there as well but the kids had all been sick for over a week with the flu. Can you imagine taking care of 5 flu ridden children? Me either.

So the final thing we did at Aunt Pat's was to play Nintendo Wii. Yeah, they are crazy cool and managed to get a hold of one of them and it was so much fun. I am kicking myself for not taking pics of us playing (or even a video as it looks pretty funny). We played the bowling and golf games and it was so much fun for all of us that I think we'll probably buy a Nintendo Wii game system once they have them available again.

I think our night ended around 2...very typical of game night at Aunt Pat's house.

Today's events included a trip to Crown Center with Andy's brother, Dan, and his family. Crown Center has always been very special to me because it's very magical and has lots of different areas, all beautifully decorated at Christmas.

The day started with Payton leaving a bit earlier than the rest of our family because she was going to ice skate with them. Andy and I can't ice skate (or ski) after attempts to do both. I don't even mean that we can't do fancy tricks...I personally can't even stand up on skates (or get anywhere on skis). Maybe we'll conquer those things someday soon but it wasn't going to be Thursday, December 28.

Some pics from ice skating

Holding on to the wall...


Payton letting go of the wall at the opening...


That child in the middle in the blue coat is our 3 (almost 4) year old nephew, Joey. Yeah, he puts us to shame.


While we waited for them to finish up ice skating, we explored the fountains and things in the area.



Then it was off to Kaleidoscope which is also part of the Crown Center shopping area. It is a free children's museum-ish place put on by Hallmark. The tickets are free but you do have to get tickets for one of the times they have and then you go in for 40 minutes and do as much as you can. This was my favorite fieldtrip to go on as a kid and I always thought I would take my kids there when I was older and we've had a chance to do that a couple of times.

Blake in front...


Making a drawing for a puzzle...


Turning the machine to cut the picture into puzzle pieces...


Silly mirror...


In the blacklight room decorating masks...




Making a greeting card...


Another silly mirror...


After that, we headed for lunch as it was getting to be late afternoon and none of us had really eaten all day. We headed for the restaurant called Fritz's which is a new addition since I've been at Crown Center but I had been to the old location elsewhere in the city. When I was Captain of the Safety Patrol in 5th grade (!), we got to all go to the old location and thought it was so much fun. I had mentioned to Andy that I'd love to take the kids there sometime so I was thrilled to see they had a Crown Center location which is much nicer than the other.

Ok, so the thing that makes Fritz's fun is that it has trains that circle above and they deliver your food. You order your food by phone and then it arrives via train. Blake never stopped being fascinated by it. He spent the whole meal trying to work out the engineering aspects of how the train knows where to go. Some pics...

Blake and Joey in front...


Trains up above...


Then it drops off the tray of food at your table and lowers it down to you...


Ours nearly fell off...


oh, and the food is yummy too! I'm betting if you asked Blake his favorite thing all week this might be it.