WITL 2015 - Tueday

Despite a late night in the hammock, B was the first kid up.  The kids and Brent always have cereal for breakfast.  I'm not as big a fan. 

 Tuesday morning and we're again a bit sleepy --- I begin to realize that the first days of school will be hard when at 8am no one is ready to go anywhere and the bus will arrive at 8:14 in just a day or two... (Meanwhile, E is enjoying strawberry oatmeal very slowly...Yes, there are, in fact, always random spices on our table because my mom and brother run a spice shop and I test things for them).

 Grandma is around and waking up slowly too.  She captures the wild crew before our road trip to Tulsa.  I'd hoped to leave by 8:30--- we made it in the car by 8:52.  Close?

Getting out the door is always a challenge. I took this photo as this is a new ritual in this house.  E at the top of the steps with his stuff and clearly having forgotten to close the door.  He brought Swoops (the owl), his blanket, and snacks.  I brought extra clothes, which we definitely needed :(

 We are at our friend the Wainrights' home in Tulsa by about 10:30 or so (after a stop for gas along the way). The Wainrights are some of our closest friends. They also have three kids and similar kid personalities.  They don't mind at all if M wants to wander off and play with CraZSand for awhile by herself or if B wants to read a book rather than play sometimes.  It so happens they all love books and games too and get that sometimes kids needs some time to warm up.  LOVE it.  The amazing thing is that all five of us in each family are really good friends.  It is a rare treasure.  Consequently, we spend one day near the end of each summer just hanging out with them for fun. We did "nothing" today per se, but as you'll see below we had a great, very chill time together before school begins.

 Can you spot the butterfly in this image? E did and brought me over to see it.  It hung around for awhile and he continued to check on it. This is the last time visiting the Wainrights in this house before they move so an interesting bunch of lasts here to capture just as we're capturing firsts at home in our new house.

 Wainrights love games and have probably 100 or more.  Here the boys are playing Ninja Turtles of some kind.

I, for various reasons, don't play board games a lot, unless they are cooperative. This one is Forbidden Island and is a cooperative game that E, Chrissie and I played together. 

 Chrissie's house has some great light and I love using it to capture images like this that I'll likely use on other scrapbook pages or blog posts.  B is reading in the middle of the rug and occasionally discussing the book with Chrissie and I. I do, eventually, have him stop and interact with other people, but know they don't mind if he reads as they get lost in books tool

 While he is reading, Serenity, Donovan, M, & E create a nature club and are outside for quite awhile on nature adventures together.  It ends in an accident for E, but otherwise happy times.

 M & Serenity are great friends.  Here they are playing Frozen Uno (yes, that is a thing!)

 The Wainrights have these awesome scooting cars that everyone played with all day in various shifts.

 Lots of talking, lots of reading.

 This is so B, I just have to include it.  Notice he has a different book than in the earlier images.

 Ms. Maia woke up and snuck in to the ranch dip left over from lunch while Chrissie and I were chatting.  Chrissie ran for the girl and I grabbed my camera, of course!

 At 4:10 we begin to pack up, this requires round robin hugs, of course!

We got stuck in rush hour traffic near home. I just pointed my phone's camera over my shoulder with out looking ---- they look pretty much like what I'd expect (5:45pm)

Home again! I made dinner while the kids play.  We had lemon garlic roasted Cod, broccoli (by Brent---which was way more popular than my broccoli), and oranges.  E declared that he loves fish! Almost everyone ate it all up and I'm reminded that we really should make it more often (Dinner is done at about 7pm.  We thought we would swim this evening, but didn't make it.)

After dinner chores again - this time laundry. 

 E had an accident during dinner (one of many today after zero yesterday).  He cleans it up and then heads up to his bath.  Too cute though (7:10).

 Kid bathtime is usually Brent's thing, but he was cleaning the kitchen and it was definitely time for E to start his bedtime ritual. He now bathes in the bathtub in M's room as his room has a shower and he isn't ready for that yet.

 Quick look at M's bed -- full of friends.

I took tons of pictures of M's bath hair styles.  She loved it (7:30pm).

After bathes, we had some more books, snuggles, and then bedtime.  We left B attempting to sleep in E's bed.  I doubt that lasted long! 

Brent is playing games in the Wii after more laundry work. I'm about to delve back in to my book, then bedtime before the last day of summer vacation for the kids. 

Side note - I should probably note that I am off work Monday - Wednesday this week, hence all my time to spend on these random adventures.  Come Thursday, we'll begin the shift back to more normal routines.  Brent's classes started yesterday so he's already taught two classes and a lab along with lots of meetings and other new school year things. 

Did you miss day 1? You can find Monday here.