Our Saturday mornings lately are usually invested in soccer.  The boys often have conflicting game times, so we have to divide into teams.  Logan usually pairs with Stuart while Connor is with me.  But this past weekend we switched it up and I went with Logan instead.  Logan enjoys playing in real games and he prefers playing defense.  He is still not as assertive as he should be, but he is trying more now to reach the ball.  Unfortunately this past Saturday their team had a loss, 0:4, but their real goal is to get the after game snacks.

   Stuart enjoyed watching Connor’s game too.  Connor and his teammates were energized and running all over the field.  This was a video I filmed the previous week.

    One of the things we did this weekend was going to the school to ride bikes.  Stuart had cleaned up my old bike, so I could join the boys riding today.  Logan and I rode around the blacktop while Stuart assisted Connor learning how to ride with paddles back on.  Logan is getting more comfortable on the bike now and today he figured out how to start riding from a standstill.  He and I also rode around the school a couple of times, and he really enjoyed it.  When we returned to the black top, we discovered that Connor was able to ride the bike on his own.  Connor was very pleased to show us what he could do, and all of us, including Logan, were quite proud of him.  I have previously imagined that it would be a long time before the boys could be riding on their own, and now I am so thrilled that we can put a check off this big task.  I am excited that we could soon do some family biking together. 

    Stuart and I decided to buy a ping pong table for our anniversary as we have always wanted one.  It was delivered on Friday; since then, all four of us have been enjoying it.  Logan is doing quite well and we can have a good rally with him sometimes.  Connor has an okay serve and is working on the rest.  Stuart and I also have our battles with each other after the kids have gone to bed.  For the record, tonight I beat Stuart for the first time after he beat me endless times.  We are loving our gift to each other.
   The interesting thing worth mentioning is that the table happened to be delivered on the second anniversary of our “moving in”.  We have been in our current house for two years!!  Since we had to make room for the ping pong table in the garage, we ended up doing some cleaning up.  I guess things just tend to pile up after a short two years.

    On Friday, I had the boys to myself while Stuart worked.  We hung out in the house and played quite a bit of video games.  So I decided to take them out to our local favorite place for a hike.  We all are quite familiar with the trails, and the three of us decided to take the steep hill up first.  The boys then pretended that we were competing at different levels of hiking and we had achieved Level 5 at the end.  During the walk, we also found quite a few woodpeckers pecking away at the trees.  We stopped by the playground to play a little bit before we took the last easy trail back to our car.  It was a good workout for the three of us.

     Stuart took a day off on Thursday to take us to the beach.  But it was rainy and cloudy, so we took our time to drive south.  We stopped by the outlet first to buy some clothes for the kids and had lunch at In and Out.  The boys were given a chef hat and some stickers at the burger joint, and they were very happy wearing it.  They also really enjoyed the hamburger and fries, and Connor even said it is now his favorite food.  Then Stuart drove down to Monterey while the three fell asleep in the car.  We spent some time at Dennis the Menace park first.  Last year, Logan was nervous with the wooden bridge, but this year he just ran over it without any hesitation.  Afterward, he headed to the Carmel beach and had no problems finding parking.  It was no longer cloudy at that point and the temperature was comfortable.  Before we arrived, the boys had talked with each other about playing with water and sand again, and once we walked down the sand hill, they immediately went out to the water.  They started building sand walls for defense, and later moved onto running and throwing sand to the water.  The temperature was perfect and it never got too crowded.  The boys had such a wonderful time playing on their own.  Before we realized it, we were there for over two hours.  So we slowly wrapped up and cleaned up before getting back in the car.  We then drove over the Fisherman’s Wharf and found a restaurant where the boys could have some fish and chips that they requested.  The boys were proud wearing their In And Out hats again, walking around at the wharf and looking at the boats too.   By the time we returned home, we had been out for 10 hours; it was an awesome day.