What-What?! Week of May 12th

Happy Mother's Day!


Last week was Osric's 7th birthday -- we celebrated on Sunday, so that way we could all be home for it.  The weather up until today has been lovely, with temps in the mid- to high-70s, just beautiful sunshine and warmth.

Oz was extremely excited for his presents

Corwin got him a Hot Wheels creepy bat manor thing.

Saffron got him a Pokemon handbook -- this has gotten a ton of use in the last week.

Lego shark set -- this one comes with three different sets of instructions; one for a shark, one for an angler fish, and one for a giant squid.  So far he hasn't made the shark yet, but he's done the other two creatures, which came out very cool.

He was very excited over this set too -- especially for the dinosaur with the laser guns!

This is a book full of experiments and explanations relating to physics and chemistry, etc. -- we had picked it up from the library once and he really liked it.

He has been begging for these yeti action figures for months; unfortunately, the manufacturer no longer makes them, so we had to pick some up off of ebay.  The sets are pretty cool -- this one features a "yeti" trap, which works like a bear trap.

And now he has a gameboy, like his siblings -- they've been having a good time playing together on these.

The first thing he did afterwards was get out all of his yeti guys, and his snow castle, and have a big battle.

Osric and I worked together to make a cake and cookies, and decorate them both.

It was pretty simple chocolate cake with blueberry filling and vanilla buttercream frosting.  The cookies are basic sugar cookies with flood icing.

In my opinion, one of the best things this Lego set that Osric got is that every single one of the characters can hold the coffee mug -- including the dinosaur!

What-What?! Week of April 21st

Last weekend, we visited California to go see family and get some sun.  The weather was lovely up until the last day we were there, which was a joy -- the other times we've visited home, it's either been cool and rainy, or frustratingly smokey.

While there, we dug out my old RC car -- after all these years, it still works!  Well, even!  The kids and I had a good time driving it up and down the sidewalk, down into the dirt walk, and in the driveway.

We went back to Curiodyssey, which was a really good time again.

This light table is still really cool

Daddy working the crank while Oz arranges pegs to ring some bells

We built this, then destroyed it right after

GODZILLA!

This was a sudoku-type puzzle where the pieces were skyscrapers

We visited Japantown in San Jose, and there was a bonsai exhibition going on:

This is a coast redwood -- I like the playfulness of seeing something that's so big, now in miniature form

This azalea was incredibly fragrant

There were many junipers, but this was one of the most nicely shaped ones

A Chinese banyan tree

Lemon tree with full sized fruits!

Can't quite read the card for this, but I believe it's another banyan tree

Ginko tree