We all went to the orientation at school this morning.  We first checked out Connor’s 3 year old program.  Both of his full-day teachers along with the morning teachers were all there to welcome us.  Connor was shy and hung on to me or Stuart.  Most of the teachers know Logan and said hello to him, but Logan was being quiet toward them too.  The teachers tried to show Connor the new environment; Connor did play with the toys for a little bit.  We said goodbye to those teachers and walked to Logan’s kindergarten classroom.  We finally met up with his new teacher and learned Logan’s new routine.  Looking through the class list, we were happy to find out that a few of Logan’s buddies are going to be in his class too.  At the end, we stopped by the cafeteria to drop off the boy’s raffle tickets for some prizes. 

      Stuart and I are very excited for school to start next week as we, especially Stuart, have been very busy dealing with work and with Logan who has been off school for 3 weeks.  We think Logan is ready to hang out with buddies again.  After this morning, Connor is also excited and is ready to go to his new school now.

    I took the boys in for their dental visit yesterday.  Their appointments were not at the same time, but 20 minutes apart.  Connor had been very excited to go see the dentist since the weekend.  We arrived at the dental office, and the boys immediately focused on the movie being shown.  Once Logan was called, all three of us went in together.  I helped Logan into the chair which he did not refuse.  He wanted the headset after it was offered to him, then he sat contently watching the movie.  He seemed to be obeying to what the dental hygienist asked of him.  Meanwhile, Connor was called and he was due for xrays.  I put Connor on the chair and he also did not struggle.  He allowed the big shield to be placed on him and he tried his best to bite on the plate as he was told.  His expression was very serious; he kept looking at the hygienist and following her instruction.   Then we were moved to the dental chair.  He agreed to put on the headset and goggles too, and he was so pleased with how he looked.  He also cooperated with all the instruction and had his teeth cleaned.

    I moved between Logan and Connor to check on them.  The hygienist mentioned that Logan had gagged a little bit and almost threw up, and so she told me to hold off feeding him before the appointment next time.  The dentist came to check on Logan.  He had some shaded area on his lower molars that he suggested more brushing.  Then it was Connor’s turn to have the quick check by dentist.  He cooperated and everything checked out well. 

   Both boys went to get their prizes and were happy with the funny large glasses on the way to school.  I was very impressed how well the boys cooperated during the visit.  What a vast improvement from last time.

    Connor has many stuffed animals that he likes, but at the end of the day, his red Teddy is always his favorite.  Yesterday Teddy came with us to pick up some egg rolls before we headed over to my relative’s house for the evening.  We saw Teddy when we first got into the car but that was the last time we saw it.  We told Connor the sad news today, and he finally was fine when we told him that we could go pick up another teddy at the store.  Logan for some reason wanted to get a new teddy too.  The boys have been difficult lately as they love to argue with each other, and Connor whines a lot too.  We went through two different stores, and who knows that finding a small bear was so difficult.  We gave up and were tired from two whining kids looking for a new Teddy.  Stuart dropped me off to pick up lunch from Panda Express.  As I was paying for our lunch, there it was, a prefect size Panda Bears.  The boys were so happy when I returned to the car with two panda bears.  Logan kept chiming in that “Mommy saved the day” after Stuart had mentioned it once.  They even tried to name their Pandas; Logan contemplated between the one he came up “King Bear” or “Kung Fu Panda” suggested by Stuart.  Connor was happy with “Ling Ling” suggested by us.  But at naptime, Connor suddenly told me that “His name is Pizza”.  He was so pleased what he came up that he started singing his school song “Good morning Pizza, how was your day today?”.

   Both boys went to bed with their new bears tonight.

    Logan spent two weeks at the gymnastic place which ended last Friday.  He had been surprisingly good and happy at drop off everyday.  When we picked up him, he seemed to follow what everyone was doing and had a good time.  He was often tired afterward and sometimes would fall asleep during the drive home.  He also had made some friends as we were reported by the teacher. 

    I had been telling Logan to try his best doing the activities with everyone, but one thing I did ask Logan to learn was to do a tumble.  At the beginning Logan told me that he tried but was able to finish it only with the help from the teacher.  During the second week, Logan told me he could it on his own then.

    Each Friday, the class would do two short (5 minutes) presentations for the parents, one in the morning and one at pick up time for the full days students.  I went to watch the afternoon shows on both Fridays.  The first week, Logan did not really do much at the beginning, not doing the Hula dance with everyone.  He did run around the gym with everyone, and he hung on the high bars and almost brought his legs up to his hands.  I was pleased to see that he was trying.  On the second Friday, both Stuart and I were there to watch Logan.  The class was smaller this time; there were only two younger kids, Logan and an even younger boy, along with some older more experienced girls.  Logan did not do the dancing part, but did move his body a bit.  He went around and showed us a nice tumble down a slope block.  He and the little boy just did some simple activities the rest of the time.  The teacher told us afterward that Logan actually did the dancing part too during the morning presentation.

    We were so happy that Logan had fun the past two weeks and I am especially excited that he learned to do a tumble.

    We received Logan’s report card for summer school last week.  It was all good; he received “most of the time” at all categories.  It is good to know that Logan continues to advance in school, but at the same time we know that summer school is probably not as strict. 

     We had our second annual camping trip this weekend.  The boys had been so excited about this trip that we had been counting down everyday.  It’s a bit difficult these days to find everything you need for a trip when more than half of your stuff is in storage, but we managed to find almost everything we needed.  We picked up some supplies in the morning then we were on our way and arrived the campsite shortly after noon. 

   The campsite was a great choice; we had one end of the campground dedicated to our group which give us some nice seclusion.  Stuart set up the tent while the rest of us said hi to everyone and familiarized ourselves with the area.  We loved hanging out at the fire pit while the kids played with each other.  The boys were most excited to play with “Big Ian”, but they had fun playing with the rest of the kids, Kira, Mckayla, Marcus, Brandon and Peyton the entire weekend.  They explored together, played with swords, Unos, walkie/talkies and finger lights.  Kathy also made balloon shapes for the kids which was a big hit.  Logan loved his baloon “nunchuck” while Connor enjoyed imitating Kathy’s balloon skills and tried to make me different shapes too.  We went on a short hike (0.4 miles) each day.  The kids loved walking with their walking sticks whittled by the adults.  Connor was whining being tired a lot, but he managed to walk part of it.

     The eating/drinking was another great part of the camp.  Dave and Martin along with Theresa, Ted, Kathy and Christian did all the wonderful cooking and wrapped up cleaning too.  Stuart enjoyed drinking a total of five beers on the first day, and I enjoyed some wine too.  The boys had a chance to grill their own hotdog skewers for the first time.  Of course at the end of the day, we wrapped up with S’mores that everyone loved.

    Logan and Connor both were so thrilled about sleeping in the tent too.  They even played inside the tent for awhile during the day.  At bedtime, both boys were fine going to bed around 9pm when all the kids were sent to their tents.  Logan was content in his sleeping bag and trying to sleep while Connor twisted and turned a lot for awhile.  But fortunately, Connor suddenly got tired enough and fell asleep.  I then was able to sneak out and join most of the adults around the campfire chatting and snacking for a couple of hours.  Connor ended up sleeping through the night until 7:45am.  Logan woke up a couple of times overnight, but otherwise, he slept well til 6 something too. 

     This was another fun and relaxing camping trip.  There were so many enjoyable moments, from hanging out and chatting at the fire pit, watching the kids playing, hiking in the beautiful woods, and eating some great food.  Logan was quite independent during this trip that we did not have to worry about him much.  Connor followed and played with the kids and sometimes played with aunties too.  He also spent some time sitting on me at the camp fire which I loved.  Tonight at dinner, we had a great talk about everything we loved at camping, and both boys already asked to return.

    Here is a nice group photo from Theresa along with some photos from my camera.  I ended up being in the kids photos as Connor would not stay in the picture otherwise.