Wild Weekend!

 Above is Ashley a couple of Sundays ago-wearing a new to her dress from the Killingsworth girls!  Thank you!

 Scott with his new/bigger euphonium this school year.  It weighs nearly 20 pounds and of course the band room is on the 4th floor at school.  He is continuing to enjoy band though-Greg and I have talked about how the long uniform pants make him look so much older!

 Ashley's class has been talking about air in science.  They made parachutes in class recently with a paper towel, stickers, and string and for homework had to make one with different materials.  Below is what we made.

 Here is Ashley throwing her doll out the window-didn't work too well-it was too far to throw her out before she actually started going down because of the roofline

 2nd drop zone-it was a fun project and no dolls were harmed (too much) in the filming of this process!

 We did doll parachutes on Friday afternoon, watched Sean the Sheep cartoons on Friday night-if you have never seen it, it is a really funny British cartoon.

 

 On Saturday am, Scott was picked up by a friend to go on his first Boy Scout campout.  They went to a school near Subic Bay and camped for 1 night.  They swam, played dodgeball, volleyball, and Scott's favorites were archery and tomahawk throwing!  He got home on Sunday afternoon with a sunburn, smelly clothes, minus 1 sleeping bag but a big smile on his face.  Then had to get to work pretty quickly on a powerpoint presentation about a city (he chose Vancouver) for Social Science class that was due Monday.

 While Scott was gone, we had scuba class at home.

 Here is Ryan going under and Ashley is breathing off his extra regulator-she doesn't want to miss out on ANYTHING that the boys are doing!

 On Sunday afternoon, we finished Ashley's rocket for school-made from soda bottles and decorated and also held together with Hello Kitty duct tape-thanks for a great Christmas gift from Grammy last year!  They are going to launch rockets on Wednesday at school-you fill the bottom with water and launch it from a launch pad-cool idea that Ashley's teacher found on you tube, just search baby scientists bottle rocket and you can see how to make one and watch them launched.

 This is not how PADI teaches to put on weight belt but I had told Ryan not to drop it on his foot or the pool tiles

 day 2 of class, putting on his own gear-he is not taking a real class-junior certification doesn't begin until age 10 but I rented a tank, weights, and a bc for him from our local scuba store.

 Ashley getting into walking sideways in her fins!

 The camper returns with PATCHES!  cool!

 Ryan is laying on the bottom of the pool and Ashley is watching him

 Scott used up the last of the air in the tank when Ryan was done.

 Ryan

 almost

 flipping into

 the pool!

Building with Greg and Ryan

 For our Christmas in July, my Aunt Ann who lives in Denver gave Ryan this really cool kit to build a robotic arm of his own.  We all decided that it was less likely to get broken on the way back to Manila if we waited to build it here. 

 The 2 of them spent several hours on day putting it all together and then all 3 kids wanted to try it out and it is SUPER cool!

 Thank you Aunt Ann!

Funny things in Manila

 Boxer Manny Pacquiao apparently likes Pizza Hut

 We had a bat living in the roof of the pool house.  I am thankful they eat bugs but have always thought that bats were ugly.  It was pooping on the pool deck and between cleaning that up and the water Greg shot at it from one of the kids water guns I think we made it feel unwelcome.  It has not been seen recently.

 I wasn't going to buy these but then I saw them again and really wanted to try them-green tea flavored Kit Kats-they taste better than they sound and Ryan really likes them!

I came across recently online a list of the funniest flavors that Pringles potato chips come in and the list sounded weird to us-the kids thought some sounded really awful-roasted turkey, fish balls, blueberry hazelnut, soft shell crab, etc.  We were surprised that they did not include the seaweed ones that I had bought here.

Really and Truly the last of summer!

 Our brother in law, Chris, found out about this lego expo so he and Greg went and took the 4 oldest kids and they had a blast.  Greg was mostly with Scott and Katie so there are more pictures of them.  How cool just to sit in a pile of legos and build!


There were some really neat lego sculptures!

 Pirate Jack Sparrow

 from Lord of the Rings

 Ian and Ryan had a blast too!

 This hilarious weather rock was hanging outside the Mercier Orchard store in Blue Ridge-we had seen this before but never the last one

If Missing...tornado

 We went with the triplets to a neat indoor pool that had a playground, a lazy river, and a tube slide that leaves the building and comes back in.  Here are 6 kids who love swimming!

 A few last park pictures!  Grammy with all 9

 They spun on these swings until they could not walk straight!

 Love this note Ashley made us to celebrate our 20th Anniversary-creative spelling always makes me laugh!  We had a SUPER fun dinner out just the 2 of us to the Melting Pot.