Marine Corps Birthday, Veterans Day and More!

We had a great Marine Corps Birthday and Veterans Day weekend, and we hope you all did as well.

Since Veterans Day fell on Saturday, I had work off on Friday (the Marine Corps Birthday), but the kids still had school. We decided to finally go and see the Sixth Floor Museum in Downtown Dallas. What better way to celebrate the Marine Corps Birthday than by going to a museum dedicated to the most famous shot ever taken by a Marine? Too morbid?

Here Eliza and I are on the seventh floor, since (a) they don't let you take pictures on the sixth floor and (b) they have the infamous window surrounded by some sort of plexiglass. So here we are, exactly one floor up from where the shot happened. Gotta be honest, looks like an easy shot to me. Eliza was really well behaved, though she did ask more questions about the exit wound than I was comfortable with. 

From up in the Sixth Floor Museum, we saw that they were having a Veterans Day Parade right nearby, so we went over and watched for a while. My wife was very happy to see a parade for Veterans Day. Eliza was happy to get candy handed to her by strangers. Just with Mommy and Daddy, okay?

Gotta have cake on a birthday.

Clark has been intentionally wearing clothes to match Sabrina recently which I think is super cute, but can annoy Sabrina. On Veterans Day, Clark decided to wear clothes to match me (and I helped a little by switching shirts to have one the same color as his) and I still thought it was pretty cute.

Okay last thing! Sabrina told me about the Dude Perfect YouTube videos where a group of guys do a bunch of trick shots. I thought it sounded lame, but she got us to watch one and I loved them! So after watching a whole bunch yesterday, the kids and I decided to start doing a little trick shooting of our own. This is super short, but we might do more in the future.

Clark's Birthday!

 The big event this week was that Clark just turned 6! He is growing up so fast, and it will be nice for a little while to have his size and age match up a little better. Planning for Clark's birthdays is usually pretty easy - he knows what he wants for gifts and to eat all day. He had chocolate chip pumpkin pancakes for breakfast, a Lunchable with an Oreo for lunch, spaghetti with meatballs for dinner, and a s'mores cake for dessert.

Clark had already blown out the candle before taking a photo, so we had him pose like he was blowing it out. It looks like he is unhappy with the cake, but I assure you this is just his attempt to look like he is blowing out the candle.

Clark got a lot of presents he was looking forward to. Here he is holding nerf-like blaster guns. Along with the transformers he got, his gifts kept him entertained for a good deal of time.

A side view of a piece of yummy s'mores cake. in addition to the chocolate cake, there were melted chocolate pieces between cake and graham cracker crust and beneath the marshmallows.

Clark got a little backhoe that has sensors that enable it to follow a black line that you draw on paper. I had a big board with a non porous white surface out in the workshop. We tried a couple different patterns with a dry erase marker, and the little guy followed it just fine. This Clark shaped track was my favorite. 

One of Clark's big wishes was to go to Legoland in Grapevine (about 30 minutes away)(not a real Legoland like in Carlsbad, a much smaller one). My lovely and resourceful wife found major discount tickets so the whole family was able to go for much less than I thought we would. Now if we could only find such a deal for places like Disney Land, maybe I would consider going. No probably not.

While the older kids rode the two rides that were for bigger kids only, Eliza got to play in Duplo land. She really enjoyed herself. 

Eliza and some new friends.

They obviously have lots of things made out of Legos in Legoland. I had to put one of my favorite parts from the section with downtown Dallas buildings. You'll notice that a certain one of the windows is open. I would say that's nice attention to detail, but there is nobody with a gun on the grassy knoll.

Clark had a wonderful birthday, and we are so glad to have him. He has been learning so much in Kindergarten and we can't wait to see all he learns over the next year of his life.

Just in case you want to know how autumn is going for us here in Dallas, this is a picture of our backyard thermometer today (Nov 5) when we got home from church at 1:15. And no, this has not been in the sun at all today.

Halloween

For Halloween, the kids have a "Characters Alive Parade" at their school where everyone is encouraged to dress up as a character from the book on which they are doing a book report. We decided to find a book that had an easy read kids version for Clark and a normal version for Sabrina so they could dress up as characters from the same story. We settled on Peter Pan.

Tinkerbell, of course. 

Peter Pan himself (dagger not pictured).

Tiger Lily.

You'd be surprised how many people hadn't heard of Tiger Lily. After dressing up that way for Trunk or Treat and her school's event, she decided to just start telling people she was an Indian. I was worried that if she said that somebody would give her a lecture on cultural appropriation and white privilege (heaven forbid they learn that she lived in Charlottesville), but we are in Texas, so most people were disappointed not to see her in redface.

Off to trick or treat at the first house of the night! Eliza insisted on carrying her own bucket and walking all by herself for roughly an entire hour of trick or treating. I had forgotten how much two-year-olds love Halloween.

Crazy Hair Day

The kids have Crazy Hair Day at their school each year. After shaving Clark's head a few weeks ago we were about to give him a high and tight to avoid the awkward half inch buzzcut look. I figured since I'd be shaving the sides soon, we might as well have some fun with his hair. He got announced over the school PA for being one of the winners for crazy hair! I cut it the night before and Yogurl colored it in with hair chalk the next day. That helped make it look less like alopecia areata.

 I tried using the school's pawprint as a guide for the back of his head. This was the hardest one, but I think it turned out all right.

LHE pride!

Not related to his school, but helps him run faster. 

The picture of Sabrina from the front came out blurry. Her hair had pipe cleaner in it so it was sticking out in long swirls. Maybe next year double helices?

I smooshed 3 wasps with a single blow. Not quite the Brave Little Tailor, but I felt pretty mighty. They kept building nests on our fence and I figured I had to actually kill them rather than knock down their next over and over and over. A couple were still in pretty good shape after the smooshing, so the kids spent some time looking at them up close. This one was still wiggling its mandibles. If anybody would like to render a more accurate classification of this bug (than just wasp, which might not even be accurate), I'd be happy to hear it. Clark loves bugs, but my knowledge of them is pretty elementary.

Port Arthur

I was able to go down to Port Arthur to help with the clean up after Hurricane Harvey. I am glad that my wife was willing to make the sacrifice of spending a weekend alone with the kids so that I could go do it. It was really an experience unlike anything else I have had.

I left at 4:45 Saturday morning. We met at the church and then headed down to Port Arthur, which took about 5 hours to get to. Not long before we got to Beaumont we began to see the heaps of trash and furniture piled up in front of houses. When we got to the neighborhood where we were working in Port Arthur, almost every house had huge heaps of furniture and building materials piled up in front. The first house was so hot and stagnant inside that I thought I was going to have to take a break every 15 minutes all day. Fortunately we weren't there long and then it started raining. That created some inconvenience, but it cooled everything down which was really a blessing. The last house we went to on Saturday was so disgusting. The carpet was still soaking wet and there was a thick band of fuzzy mold on nearly every wall of the house. Only the tile walls in the bathroom and the wood paneling weren't moldy on the outside. We had to rip them out too, though. After working there for a few hours I was feeling so discouraged and disgusted and humbled. I also was feeling angry about bad government policies that encourage excessive building in flood plains, but that only increased my feelings of sympathy for the poor people who had their lives turned upside down by the hurricane.

We slept that night in a sports arena complex, and while getting a warm shower in a shower truck was nice, I didn't sleep very well. We met the next morning for sacrament meeting in the arena, with probably 40 people passing the sacrament to however many hundreds of volunteers had showed up. It was one of the most beautiful sacrament meetings that I can remember. I left feeling so good about what we were doing and about life in general. The house we worked in on Sunday also was a house that the owner had worked very hard already to fix. He was so optimistic and grateful that it also lifted my spirits considerably.

My main takeaways from the experience are that no one should live in Houston, people are amazingly resilient, service is a truly beautiful thing where we can be the answer to others' prayers, and that God is watching over us even at the worst of times.

Just Random Stuff

 We all got sick last week, so I had to stay home from work for a few days. That's what sick leave is for, so no big deal. Eliza puked in her bed Sunday morning, then Yogurl got sick Monday morning, then Sabrina threw up in class Monday mid morning, then Clark threw up in bed Monday night. I managed to stay well until late Tuesday, by which time everybody else was on the mend. I was back at work Thursday, and back to normal by Friday. Not sure what happened, an early flu I guess. It was probably viral since Sabrina was in the middle of a run of antibiotics for pink eye and an ear infection. We are all doing fine now. And on to some random pictures!

I think they said they were going to work. 

I've done this with the older kids, but I think this was the first time Eliza got a straight comb "shave" with real shaving cream.

Clark said he wanted me to use a real razor, so I went ahead and gave him his first real shave. I used a gentle soothing after shave rather than giving him the "Home Alone" experience.

Clark started taking Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu lessons. He really, really likes them so far. They cost a little more than gymnastics lessons did, but it is closer to home and he is really into it. We still don't know how to tie his belt on.

We are famous!

We went on a date to the chocolate festival, which is always a lot of fun, and my wife was so beautiful that they had to put her on D Magazine's website!

Clark is way ahead of Sabrina on losing teeth. I'm pretty sure she had only lost one by time she turned six. Clark has lost 5 with another wiggler. Losing the top front teeth is the best. I still giggle every time I look at him.

I found some really good poutine in Dallas! It is at a restaurant called Moxie's. I heard about it and rode my bike over there to eat at lunch time one day. Turns out it is sort of like a high class Hooters, so I probably won't go there too often. The poutine is really good, though.

We found a live cicada on our tree. Normally we just find the shells and the kids stick them on our clothes when we aren't looking. This was a live one, though. We took turns holding him, and he held very still for some pictures.

Baptism

Sabrina got baptized this month. Yogurl's parents and my mom were all able to come to be with us. It was a nice baptism even though there were some hiccups. She got to wear the baptism dress that her mom wore when she was baptized. We are so happy that she made the decision to get baptized. She is such a wonderful girl.

First Day of School

Even though it is still hot in Dallas, summer break is over and school is back in. Of course, if you had to wait for it not to feel like summer, kids wouldn't go back to school until October.

A big breakfast for their first day of school. 

Sabrina is now in third grade (she got the teacher she wanted) and Clark is in Kindergarten (he got a teacher we didn't know, but she seems very good). Eliza isn't going to school, but she wanted to be in the picture. 

Clark in front of his shared locker on his first day. They are all growing up so fast! 

Bonus picture of some bubble bath fun.

Birthdays!

This might seem unfair to lump my three beauties' birthdays into one post, but their birthdays are pretty close together and I am way behind on posts. Yogurl and Sabrina both had their birthdays right near the end of our time in DC (Sabrina's was the last day in fact) so they might have gotten slightly simplified parties. But that doesn't mean we love and celebrate them any less!

My lovely wife's 29th birthday. I won't tell you how many 29th birthdays she has now had, but it is very few. 

Her cake was made by a bakery in Arlington that we really enjoyed. The cake was delicious. We went out to eat that night and while we were gone, poor Sabrina got sick to her stomach. We came home pretty quickly after that, but the babysitter was totally on top of it. She got a good tip that night. 

Sabrina turned 8! Her cake was made by a friend we knew in Charlottesville who now lives in Arlington. It was spectacular, as we knew it would be. Since we were leaving soon we had to eat a whole bunch of it two days in a row. What a shame. 

Yummy!

Eight years old in our house means ears pierced! Sabrina has been so good about keeping them clean and rotating them and whatever else you are supposed to do. My little girl is growing up so fast! 

Speaking of growing up fast, Eliza turned 2 this month! We had a fun day and I think she really enjoyed herself. We had been so busy with getting back to Dallas and getting ready for Sabrina's baptism and family coming to visit that we were worried her birthday would get a little forgotten. I think we managed to pull it off pretty well, though. Above, you can see that we took a little trip to the children's aquarium where she got to pet stingrays and have them suck a shrimp right out of her hand. What fun! 

Enjoying some lemon cake with lemon curd in between layers and whipped cream frosting. Very tasty! 

Happy Birthday Eliza!