I took the boys to attend Raz’s 6th birthday party at Pump It Up on Saturday.  They were prepared to rush into a jumpy house as soon as all the kids were let into the first play room.  The two of them played with each other until Rohan arrived and joined them.  I was told that I could leave the kids and returned in two hours, but I decided to stay and chat with Revital and another mom.  These days the boys tried most of the jumpy houses and enjoyed them.  The only thing they would not care to play with was the rock climbing.  At the last play room, Connor spent some time on his own without Logan and Rohan.  He wanted to build himself a shelter with the foam blocks and solicited my help.  He was disappointed when the playtime was up, and he decided to destroy the structure before we moved to the party room.

     Once everyone was in the party room, we sang to Raz, then it was time to eat.  Logan, Connor and Rohan sat together and had a big appetite.  Afterward, the kids had so much fun playing with the balloons together that Rohan asked if he could come to our house to continue their fun time.  I agreed, and I drove the three boys home with me.  For the next two to three hours, the three boys played with their Pokemon cards, video games and two-square ball.  I only needed to check on them periodically and relaxed in the backyard while Stuart worked on the yard.

     Since we will be off to camping next week, the basketball games Saturday were the last for the boys for this season.  Connor’s team was big and everyone showed up well, so he had a chance to play only half of the time.  Connor did his best with defense and was aggressive.  But other than that, he did not have much opportunity with the ball.  Next, it was Logan’s turn, and they had to do the full court again.  There were only 7 of the kids in his team, so they rotated in and out after being tired running the full court.  Logan’s favorite position is the Point Guard, and he was rotated into that position once.  It was good to see him having a possession of the ball and dribbling down the court.  Both boys would have the last practice on Wed after the first day of school.  We will have to pick up their group photos and the medals after our camping trip.

     When we were signing the boys up for camps a few months ago, Stuart and I decided to put them in this fine art camp at YMCA for a change.  The first day the boys came back telling us that they liked it.  They had instruction by a staff from Museum of Fine Art and learned about abstract art.  In the afternoon they made one of their own; they were told to close their eyes while drawing on the paper and listening to some music.  Then they painted the drawings with water color.  Another day they followed the instructor steps by steps to make a landscape painting.  Next they drew an outline of a human head with all the things they liked inside it.  They also had a chance to make a sculpture one day.  Logan made a Pokeball and Connor created a snowman.  On Thursday they had a field trip to the Museum of Fine Art where they really enjoyed the new film area, and an interactive art project with the artist.  On the last day they brought home all the beautiful artwork they made.  Stuart and I were quite impressed how nice they all looked.  The only disappointing thing was that Connor’s snowman was broken when it was returned to Connor.  I was told that some tears were shed for the hard work he put in.

    This art camp turned out to received unexpected interest from the boys.  I had asked the boys separately what their top three camps were over the summer.  Fine art was named by both of them along with CDC and the Mine, Craft, Build camp at YMCA.  We are glad that the boys ended the summer with one of their favorite camps.  In addition, we are proud of the boys for being great sports; they had not complained nor disliked any of the camps, and seemed to enjoy them with open minds.  Now we are preparing for school to start next week.

     I joined Revital and Vrinda for a dinner and movie night on Thursday, so I went directly from work.  We met up for some sushi, then headed over to watch “Bad Moms”.  The movie was funny and very relatable.  It was nice catching up with them.  When I came home, the boys had just gone to bed.  They had their home movie night as well.  Stuart had picked the boys up from camp, picked up a pizza and they were set for the evening.  They took a break from watching Olympics. and watched “Charlie and the chocolate factory” instead.  They liked the movie and told me about it on our way to camp the next morning.

     Connor’s tooth became quite loose a few days ago.  When Connor realized that it was hanging by a thread at bedtime, he suddenly got very nervous.  Initially he wanted us to take it out for him, but then he burst out crying.  We’ve hardly seen Connor like that.  He cried so hard that it was hard to hear what he was trying to say.  He was very scared that it would hurt a lot, so he changed his mind and did not want us to touch it.  We told him to just leave it alone, and it still took a long time before he calmed down.  For the next couple of days, we left the tooth alone and Connor had no complaints.  This morning at 5 something, Connor came in to tell us the tooth fell out.  He got woken up as he almost swallowed the tooth; he fished it out from the inside of his mouth and came share the news.  Tonight Connor was excited.  He is hoping the fairy will pay him a visit, but he also wished he could keep his tooth.

    After the games, we headed over to the park in Sunnyvale to meet up with Theresa, Julie, Robyn and their families for our group picnic.  Julie and Theresa found a nice spot and set up shade tents for us.  There were a lot of food when we arrived, so we tried to have the boys sit down to eat before they went off to play.  Later Jennifer arrived with more additions to our big meal.  Once the boys finished eating, they went to play at the structures.  Connor came back to show us that he was all wet, and he took me to show how he did it and he got even more drenched.  He was having a good old time there.  When he was finally done, we managed to find him some dry clothes to change into.  Then Stuart, Logan and Connor were off to play basketball with Theresa, Martin, Dave and Peyton.  They were there for quite awhile; after just shooting around, they played a game of HORSE.  Connor apparently made the first basket but Theresa missed which gave them a good laugh.  At the end, they all came back and declared Theresa the winner.  Next Logan and Connor got into a spinning structure.  They had a blast spinning themselves, flying their legs in the air and sometimes letting go of their hands to fall off.  I was feeling uneasy watching them, but they had such a good time.  Later a bigger boy came over to spin the structure with a faster speed, and Logan attempted to get a grip, but could not and got swing onto the ground.  Logan said he was ok, and he did agree to be careful.  But after that, he decided to move on to other structures.  When Kathy and Kira finally arrived, they brought popsicles that every kid enjoyed greatly.  Later on, Theresa and Martin took out their Bocce balls to play.  Logan and Connor did not mind watching them playing with Brandon and Peyton, but finally they wanted in.  The Tsaos and the Browns kids played a few games together, and they had fun.  It was a great afternoon, and we also had the opportunity chatting and catching up with one another while the kids played. 

     After the morning game and the hours at the park, the boys had a good nap driving home.