Logan and Connor have been obsessed with Monopoly for days.  They would request to play part of the game every day.  They have good a concept and strategies to win good money.  The two of them often play nice to each other; they will not charge full rent with each other, but certainly will to the parents.  Last weekend when Stuart and I were working in the yard, the two of them would resort to playing on their own.  They played quietly for a long time.  When we came back into the house, the boys were proud to show us that both had built hotels or houses in each of their lands, and they still each owned plenty of cash.  We imagined that they had turned the game into a cooperative one, and we were happy that they entertained themselves.  We were also now pleased that we have finally moved on to other games lately, like King of Tokyo and Private’s Cove.

     Connor was invited to Cameron’s, his “special friend”, birthday party on Tuesday at the bowling alley in a new giant store.  Connor was more than excited to be there.  Stuart and Logan dropped Connor at the party and helped him into bowling shoes.  I met them at the lanes after my work and I saw a couple of lines of well behaving children waiting for their turns.  Connor gave me a hug and quickly returned in line with his friends.  The kids had a blast bowling and talking with each other.  They played three or four short rounds, and they cheered for the winner after every round.  After bowling, we were migrated into a large party room.  The kids waited patiently for pizza and fruits, and all enjoyed the meal.  Then they went around the room playing hide and seek, and got a little bit rowdy, but fortunately the room was accommodating.  Next it was cake time and picture time.  I noticed Cameron asked Connor to sit near her, and later Connor hugged Cameron for a photo. The kids returned to play and later the birthday girl started opening her presents.  While I was chatting with a mom, Connor came over and asked if we could go home as he was tired.  I then realized that it was already close to 7:30pm, so we quickly said bye and headed home.

       Connor had two soccer games on the final game day last Saturday.  Since Logan did not have any more basketball, Stuart and Logan were there too to cheer Connor on.  The whole team was impressive that each of them had so much energy for both games.  A parent and I did prepare some snacks for the kids to rejuvenate them during breaks.  Connor tried very hard.  He ran fast to defend, and he almost scored in two instances.  Later we told Connor that we were proud of how hard he was playing, Connor agreed that he had to do that as it was the last game.  Afterward it was the pizza meal celebration with the team.  One of the moms booked a pizza joint with a climbing structure, and all the teammates including the siblings, like Logan, jumped right in to play.  We gathered them to eat and the coach presented each player with a medal.  Then the kids returned quickly to play.  We asked for another break later to do cake and to take some group pictures.  Connor did a great job and had fun in this season.  This might be the end of soccer for us as we will be moving on to other sports next.

    After many months (ie. nine), Logan lost another tooth today.  It was hanging by a thread by bedtime tonight, and it was a bit painful and it started to bleed.  Logan did not want Stuart or I help him pull it out, and he chose to do it himself.  After many gentle pulls, he took the tooth out.

     Right after Stuart’s weeklong trip, he then had a conference at San Francisco to attend this week.  Instead of attending the full four days, he decided to just make to the two main days, Wed and Thu.  He left super early on Wed to make to the city before the commute.  The boys and I woke up after Stuart had already left, and we proceeded with our day.  I dropped the boys off in the morning, picked them up after work, we did homework and had dinner at home.  The boys are way into Monopoly lately, and we played part of the game before bedtime.  The first half of Thursday was pretty much the same.  After work, I was rushing to pick the boys up and did not have a chance to call Stuart.  With a quick scan of GPS tracking, I assumed Stuart would stay a bit longer in the city, so I decided to eat out instead of cooking.  Of course, I let the boys pick and we ended up at a pizza joint.  While we had just started to eat, Stuart told me that he had arrived home.  The boys were thrilled when daddy was able to join us for dinner.  For now, Stuart’s work trips are concluded.  It is good to have daddy with us again.

     The school year is coming to an end, and Tuesday night was the open house to show us what the kids had done in school.  This year, there was a new art show before the open house to show off the pieces from the Art Vistas projects.  The docents from each class all pitched in some help to make this show happened.  With me back to full time work, I did my share at home, ie, putting together the kids’ handprints to make a banner for the class.  The two moms selected and put together one piece of art work from each of Connor’s classmates to display.  The show was successful.  Both Logan and Connor enjoyed seeing theirs and their classmates’ work, and it was fun looking forward to the higher grades’ projects too.  After checking out the art show, we had some times to kill before the classrooms opened up, so many families just hung out in the library while the kids played together.  Connor of course was hanging out with his little “friend”.  When the open house began, we started with Connor’s class.  He showed us some of his writing and art work, and we toured around the classroom to look at the displayed work too.  Next it was Logan’s turn, and he was happy to show us the binder full of work he had done.  We walked around the classroom to check out Logan’s work on the wall as well.  This year we had followed the school’s advice to focus only on our kids’ classes, rather than looking forward to other grades’ classrooms.  Thus, we could actually head home earlier to have our late dinner.