Highlights from the Month of May

--Connor and Caleb had Tang Soo Do testing.  They each moved up to the blue belt.  Actually this was the end of April.

--May 8  Cody went to Prom.  Aaahhhh!  He asked out a darling girl named Jordan.  About a month before we (and I mean me and the mouse in my pocket because Cody was at work) spent an entire afternoon composing poems as clues for a scavenger hunt that he sent her on around the valley to ask her to the dance.  She answered him by kidnapping him from a friend's house, throwing a paper bag over his head, driving him around in circles in the back of a truck and then yanking the bag off his head so he could see her standing in front of him with a sign that said yes.  She called and told me that's what she wanted to do and asked if it was ok with me. Then she talked to the neighbors around the friend's house to let them know that it was just a joke when a truckload of masked boys ran into a house and grabbed 2 boys and threw them in the back of the truck with bags over their heads.  It was a good thing because right across the street lives a cop!  We went to Vegas about 2 weeks before the dance and ordered him a tux. Since he has been working he was able to pay for everything!  Thank goodness!  The group that he went with had about 7 couples.  They picked up the girls Saturday morning around 9 and went to the river and played games and BBQed hamburgers.  Then they all came home to get ready for the dance which was held in Vegas at Treasure Island.  The Bellagio Hotel sponsored them and paid about 70% of the cost of the ballroom, decorations and food.  Cody ordered a corsage from our local flower shop and went to her house for his date's family tradition of her dad pinning the boutineer on the date (him).  Funny story-the dad is the principal of the high school!  The big group met at one house and loaded into 3 cars and drove to Benihana and then they went to the dance.  The dance was a masquerade and Cody wore a Phantom mask.  Like you had to guess on that one!  After the dance the whole big group met at a lady's house out here who is photographer and has a studio at her house.  She spent about and hour and a half taking pictures of the group, the couples and individually.  Here is the link if you want to see them.  Cody got home around 2:00am I think.  And we had early church.  Some of us did not make it! :)

 --May 17 Don and Connor planted 3 new plants in the front yard to replace some that were dead and they planted 2 raspberry plants in the back yard.  Our garden is coming along and we should have some tomatoes any day now.  The squash and zucchini are not doing as well as they have in the past but that may be because I attempted a pre-emptive strike against the squash bugs and used a spray that killed ALL the bugs and I think that kept the bees away too so they could not pollinate the flowers.  A few mornings this week I have been out early using a Q-tip to gather pollen from the male flowers and swab it on to the female flowers.  We will see what happens.  We have harvested quite a few onions but they have been small.  We also got a little bit of basil, cilantro and thyme.  We picked one zucchini that was odd shaped last week but hope to have a few more by the end of weekend.  The yellow squash might give us one or two by the end of next week. **Update We did get 2 yellow squash, 2 good sized zucchini, and 2 tomatoes.  We had fried zucchini, zucchini and squash in a hash dish, zucchini chicken pasta and I have shredded zucchini ready for zucchini bread when I get the motivation.  

--May 20 Don turned the big 39.  I could not order a cake from Lin's because they only have one cake maker and Thursday is her day off.  OK whatever.  Luckily Dena came to our rescue with a delicious lemon bundt cake.  Because I dislike wrapping presents so much we forgo that tradition and just give out the presents one at a time.  Don got a new travel bag, a new Dean Koontz book, some clothes, and some flipflops.  Connor, who always remembers birthdays and wants to get a gift on his own, gave Don some metal clips to hold the bag on the lawn mower.  Don has been needing them and has been using my little pink ones from the pink tool kit he gave me for Christmas 2 years ago.  Connor always remembers and gets something useful and needed. 

--May 20 was also the night that the boys had their end of the year band concert.  They have enjoyed band a little bit but not enough to continue it next year. :)  My camera had a dead battery so no pics!

--The week of May 23 was sick week.  Cayden had croup and a cold and missed school for 3 days.  Connor had a cold and missed school for 2 days and Caleb ended up with Strep and missed 3 days.  They were all better by the weekend which was good because Caleb had earned a trip to Disneyland  (paid for by us though) by good attendance and citizenship throughout the last trimester.  He left on a bus at 1:30am from the school with about 80 other kids and 10 adults.  They got to Disneyland when it opened and stayed until 11pm.  He got to run all over the park basically unsupervised and do whatever he wanted.  The school loaded back onto the bus at the end of the night but Caleb came with us.

--May 22  Don, me, Cayden and Connor drove down to California Friday afternoon and got there around 6.  We checked into our usual hotel and were at the park by 6.  Our passes expire June 11 so we decided to go one more time.  We had a hard time with Connor late into the evening even after some intervention strategies that we had decided to implement.  They did not work so well that night but Saturday it was slightly better.  After a rough start things were ok for him and we had an enjoyable day.   There is just so much going on and so much overstimulation that Connor just gets too overwhelmed and does not know how to handle himself.  The boys had fun as usual and we left Sunday morning.  Cody declined to join us again because he could not miss any more school.  Good point!  No use in getting suspended for non attendance the last 2 weeks of school.  Because there were only 4 of us on the trip one way and 5 of us on the way home we took Don's car.  It was a good idea on the way down but not so much on the way back with all 3 kids sitting next to each other and poking and pinching and laying on each other for 5 hours.

 

This is how much it cost us.

 

Connor loves the characters more than anyone.

--May 25  Cayden had to have a tooth pulled.  Add that to our huge list of medical bills.  We also went over to Don's parents for a late birthday dinner.  Don asked for Carbonarra for dinner.  We had that and delicious garlic bread, excellent strawberries and a family favorite-self frosting cake.

--May 26  I have been buying produce from this co-op called Bountiful Baskets.  We just recently got a site for our valley and had our first pick up on Saturday the 22.  We were out of town but a sweet friend of mine picked up our produce.  I ordered an extra this time with usual 1/2 veggies-1/2 fruits.  I got 25 pounds of carrots.  Holy cow!  I gave away about 1/3 of them and then spent about 25 minutes with my delightful Quisinart slicing and shredding.  My hands were orange as was my counter but I got 7 quart bags of sliced and 7 quart bags of shredded.  I made carrot muffins, carrot cake for a neighbor who is retiring and threw carrots into anything that I could for dinner.  The kids also took carrots and ranch to school for lunch.

--May 31  Over Memorial Day weekend Connor went to McGill with grandma and grandpa.  The rest of us went to the movies.  Oddly enough Cayden wanted to see the chic flic with me instead of the fight flic.  He and I saw Letters to Juliet-totally cliche and predictable and too long for it's own good but sappy and sweet too.  Don, Cody and Caleb went to Prince of Persia.  They loved it but Cayden definitely would not have and it would have been a repeat of all the other action movies that we have taken him too in the past that I have had to take Cayden out of because it is too loud and he hates it.  My eyes have been opened recently while looking into some things and I have realized that Cayden probably has some sort of Sensory Processing Disorder that makes everything extra loud and too overstimulating for him.  He did ask repeatedly if the movie we were going to had any guns, any fights, and any blood to which I said no.  The details of this issue will be disclosed in another post sometime.  Sunday was just an uneventful and quiet Sunday other than me getting dizzy and having to leave church.  That actually started at the movies Saturday and just kind of kept going.  Monday me and Don took Caleb and Cayden to the pool in Mesquite.  We met our friends there who moved from Logandale 2 years ago.  The kids played in pool for about 2 hours and I sat in a lounge chair and read my book.  Love those kind of days!  After the pool we stopped at Walmart for some flowers and then stopped at the cemetery in Logandale to put some flowers on a few graves.  It was so nice to see the many headstones adorned with wreaths and flowers and even flags donated and placed by a family who just recently lost their dad.  Connor got home around dinner time and we did our "Summer Rules" FHE.  Oh were the kids happy about that!