One thing I have not remembered to blog is about Logan’s friend, Humphrey.  Actually he has been Logan’s favorite for a long time now, probably close to a year.  This big dog was my stuffed animal (pre-kids), but once Logan met him for the first time, he was very fond of him and named him Humphrey all on his own.  He sleeps with him every night, gets out of the bed with him in the morning, watches TV with him and rides to school with him in the car.  Every now and then, Logan also wants a big hug from his big friend too. 

     To follow Logan’s lead, Connor claims a couple of big animals to be his big friends as well.  He decided to call my other big dog “Huggie” and he named the other one “Fi Fi”.  Connor has at least ten friends on his bed.  He is not as loyal to one as Logan is to his, but he likes all of his friends dearly too.

     Recently, the boys have been asking why we have not gone hiking.  We told them yesterday that we had today free and they suggested to take a hike.  So we packed up and headed out to a local park at 10am this morning.  Logan told us that both he and Connor were soldiers and I was the scientist, and we were all exploring.  We took our usual route, up the big boulder for a peek and then climbed the steps up the small hill.  Not long ago, Connor still needed assistance from us to climb those big steps, but this time he walked up all by himself.  He was pleased to be a big boy now.  We continued to hike through the park to our destination, the playground.  We took a snack there first before the boys hit the structures.  After playing for some time, we then headed back to the hiking trails.  Logan wanted to play a game while we walked, so I had him imagine the clock time markings around him and shoot at the hour that I commanded (like fighter pilots do).  He learned quickly and enjoyed following my commands, and we played all the way back to our car.  This was a short hike, only 1 mile, and the kids walk slow, but it is one of our favorite local workouts.

 
    We made plans to barbeque tonight and the kids were happy with the idea.   They were playing on their own most of the time while we prepared the food.  Later they were proud to show us their invention, a sketchy looking shooting station.  We decided to dine in the backyard after Logan’s repeated requests and he was so excited.  We enjoyed a good meal then the kids returned to play some more before they all cleaned up for the night.

     A couple of things from today worth mentioning.  While Connor and I enjoyed an extra long nap, Logan requested to play “the real game”, ie. Risk, again.  According to Stuart, Logan really enjoyed it and had gotten the hang of it. Toward the end of their game, Stuart reported that there was a loud noise outside.  He went out to check, and it turned out to be a careless driver smashing into our neighbor’s parked car on the street and pushing it down a couple of houses onto a lawn.  No one was hurt, but Stuart ended up staying out there for an hour to accompany our neighbor.  The boys were fascinated by watching the actions and the emergency vehicles through our second floor window.

     Today we went to the Gopals to hangout.  After our usual relaxing and game time in the morning, the boys gathered their toys weapons (for themselves and for Rohan) and we arrived at their house at 10:30am.  The boys chased around with each other briefly then Logan and Rohan started coming over to ask to play TV games.  Both of them are so addicted to games so we delayed their requested by suggesting them to play outside.  All three boys had fun playing with water guns with each other, and later they enjoyed running around a sprinkler over the lawn.  The big boys eventually got their wish to play games for awhile.  Connor got bored with their games not long later and came out to the lawn to hang out with us.  He played with the sprinkler on his own too, and got himself all wet.  Fortunately we were prepared with extra clothes.  After hours of playing and some pizza and ice cream eating, we were all tired and was ready to head home. 

    After napping in the car, Connor and I worked on the backyard for a little bit.  He is such a helper that I had to find something age appropriate and in the shade as it was hot.  He ended up cleaning up the mulch all along the bench and did a great job.  Stuart and Logan had gone inside the house and tried some war games.  They played Battleships first, then Stuart attempted to teach Logan to play “Risk” after Logan saw the box.  They spent quite a long time on that (before and after dinner).  Connor helped me made a light dinner for us; he enjoyed spinning the salad in the spinner while I got everything else ready.  After dinner, he and I played some games too. 

     After bath yesterday, Connor suddenly started saying “I can spell ___” and he was on a roll with it.  Connor is good with phonics and he can always figure out the first letter of any words that we say to him.  But I was surprised that he can spell some easy words already.  He started with “I can spell cat, CAT”, “I can spell dog, DOG”, I can spell mop, MOP”, I can spell log, LOG”.  He went on with some longer words, 4-5 letters, too.  He was only able to make out first 1-2 letters of those, but he was happy to follow after me to finish spelling the words.  He was so proud of himself and so was I.

     Before we headed to the Kaos today, we stopped by Kaiser to pick up Logan’s new glasses.  Logan was excited to get the new glasses, and they both waited patiently for the next technician to adjust the glasses to fit him.  Afterward, we also went to an appt for me and the boys did some nice drawings the entire time that I was away.

    By noon, we arrived at the Kaos; Robyn and Peyton had already arrived.  We were all hungry and so we were excited that Ted was cooking bbq lunch for us.  Once Michelle and Mckayla returned home, we all sat down in their newly remodeled backyard patio to enjoy the yummy lunch.  Logan actually asked to go into the pool, but we had to rest a little before we got ready for swimming.  Mckayla, Marcus and Peyton got in the pool quickly while Logan and Connor were happy to shoot water canons at the poolside.  Not long later, Connor wanted to go into the water.  Later I tried to drag Logan in the water too but he was so nervous and hesitant with water just like the old days.  Stuart and I were joking about how we had wasted the past 8 months at swim school.  Logan however did enjoy his time shooting water while standing on the shallow end of the pool while the rest of us playing and swimming.  After Logan was finally in the pool for awhile, Michelle talked him into using the floating noodle and taught him to be quite comfortable on it all by himself.  After that, Logan became more relaxed and was floating all over the pool on his own.  He was having lots of fun shooting water at everyone.  What a breakthrough that was.  Robyn also helped to train Connor to float on his back, and Connor did try his best and relax only briefly to float.  He also received a quick guidance from Michelle and later was floating with the noodle on his own too.  Everyone, including our two boys, had so much fun in the water that it took some convincing to get them out of the water. 

     After we all cleaned up, it was time for desserts.  Michelle made a new version of the S’more that most kids were excited about, but Connor was looking forward to the pie that i made and Logan wanted the ice cream that we bought.  Everyone ended up enjoying all the desserts we had there.  The kids returned to play while we sat and chatted in the yard.  One of the main topics we talked a lot about today was the new screen doors the Kaos had installed.  Then, out of the blue, we saw Connor who was inside the house run straight into the screen door.  His impact took the door off the railing while Connor appeared fine without being hurt.  I immediately picked Connor up while Stuart and Ted checked on the door.  From the reactions we had, Connor felt guilty and started crying.   He calmed down after a few minutes and apologized to Uncle Ted eventually as we suggested.  Later Connor explained that he was being chased by Logan and Marcus, but we still could not believe he ran into the door.   We also found that he had a small cut on his heel from the fall.  We hope the door will recover.

     By five o clock, as Robyn and Peyton also had to leave, we all packed up to end this fun outing.  The boys fell asleep quickly during our drive home.  Connor ended up sleeping more than an hour and Stuart finally had to wake him up as the end of the day was approaching.

     Scottie had some very bad matted hair which we suddenly discovered on Thursday.  So on Friday, Stuart took him to the vet for de-matting, and the boys and I picked him back up after school.  We were warned by the vet how much they had to shave him, but when we saw Scottie, it was quite shocking.  They had shaved most of his fur off the body and his tail.  With his weight loss, Scottie’s new look is quite disturbing.  He is now just a skeleton with a lion head and a lion tail.  Connor thinks Scottie looks like a donkey. 

    Scottie was happy to be home and seems more comfortable.  We actually found him up on the second floor sleeping in the boys’ room which he had not done for a long, long time.