Monday, after dropping Tyler off at school, Katelyn and I had our first "Tippie Toes" dance class. I had been looking for some classes to take Katelyn to and this one fit the bill perfectly. Super close (at Woodbury commons), not too expensive, 6 weeks, right after dropping Tyler off too! Katelyn had a great time and was super involved. I must say (proudly clearing my throat) that she was the best listener and direction-follower there! Haha! My phone was having issues that day - so annoyed with its recent repairs - and there was a glass shard stuck right in the camera lens. Hence the weird lighting issues. Anyway, she had a great time! That's her in the hot pink tutu chasing the teacher around.
On Thursday, Woodbury Elementary had their first Kindergarten Citizenship Awards Ceremony. They have a handful of these a year and each time ~5 kids from each Kindergarten class get an award for showing a certain characteristics. By the end of the year, ALL the kids will have gotten an award. I think it's pretty random, but it was exciting to get an email from his teacher that Tyler would be one of the first in his class! None of the kids were told which kids would be getting awards, so it was all a surprise for them. I'm sure they figured it out though, when they saw their parents sitting in the auditorium! Thank goodness Will was able to make it as well.
I had dropped off Katelyn earlier in the morning at ICDC before taking Tyler to school. He fell asleep on the way to school!! I can't remember the last time that happened - in the morning. He must have been really tired for whatever reason. I think that kind of made him not so excited. Here he is shaking hands with their principal Mr. Battenfield.
Proud mommy! His award was for showing Initiative. That's a good one - especially for a wannabe Tiger mom like me. :)
Here's Katelyn with her friends when I picked her up from school. She's so big compared to them, huh! I'm a little bummed for her that she doesn't get to play with her friends every day at school anymore. But, I think she's having fun with me at home and I'm really enjoying our time together! Plus, I'm not exactly thrilled with some things going on at school. While she has a near perfect record of potty training recently at home with us, apparently she is full of accidents at school. Hmm. When I asked the lead teacher if they were reminding her to use the potty, she said, "no, we want her to tell us herself". Needless to say I was not happy with that response.
Friday. The weekend of our first family camping trip! I was a bit stressed the whole week leading up to it. What to bring? What not to bring? How will the kids do? I need to shower! ... but by Friday morning my excitement had really amped and we were pumped to go! Except it was H O T. We picked up Tyler after school at 1:20pm and hit the road almost immediately. The kids knocked out quick. The drive up to Malibu was not fun, took us about 3 hours with traffic. I think if we had left later we would have hit MORE traffic and it would have been getting dark and it'd be more difficult to put up our tent and get everything set up.
CAMPING! Getting to the campsites first gave us ample time to pick the site we liked best (I had reserved two) and also pick where we wanted to set up our tent. Will chose a nice spot under some shade that worked out perfectly. Then tent went up quickly, as did our little 'bathroom tent - which was our shade tent for sports with a 'luggable loo' in it. No more hiking to the bathrooms, which were actually not that far, but not that clean. We let all the kids use this bathroom. Note to self: all kids need supervision in it next time. We had some unwelcome messy surprises over the weekend. LOTS of antibacterial wipes! The kids were so excited as we got everything set up. :)
Dinner that night by flashlight. I loved doing something different and the kids were stoked having their friends to play with.
The first night we had 3 families, the Sundarums, the Changs and the Garners. Our kids have been friends since they were in the toddler room at ICDC!
Katelyn discovered that she liked dipping her Doritos in ketchup.
And singing karaoke with our flashlight!
Notice the dirt smudges on her face. A common occurrence on ALL the kids all weekend.
S'mores!
What started as a loving embrace between Katelyn and Tyler...
...became an Elmira-inspired vice grip!
Check out how dirty the kids' shoes were! They weren't allowed into tents. This one was the Garners'.
Bedtime already? Love our tent. It's an 8 person tent that I was worried was going to be too big. It has a divider about 1/3 of the way into it. We had planned to put the kids in the smaller 1/3 and Will/I in the other part. Instead, the front 1/3 was almost like a foyer for all our junk, and we all slept in the back part. There's an opening in the back too that we left the only the screen zipped so we'd get a nice cross breeze. It was still really roomy in the back with all of us in there as well! Will/I had a queen air mattress and the kids slept in sleeping bags and small inflatable mats. Tyler knocked out quick, but the unfamiliar environment totally threw Katelyn. It took her forever to fall asleep. Then, around 11pm, came her first ever NIGHT TERROR. WTF! Imagine a really quiet night, and then a 2 year old waking up and screaming and crying at the top of her lungs. It was crazy and probably the only low point (VERY VERY LOW) of the whole trip. She finally calmed down after who knows how long, and went back to sleep. Then she woke up at 1am, and then 3am again. It was exhausting. By 5am, when she woke up again, I gave up in trying to console her and just gave her the iPad to appease her. Will and I were pretty beat, and I could tell Katelyn was going to have a long day. Is it possible for a 2 year old to have bags under her eyes??
Once the sun came out, Katelyn was in good spirits. She went rock collecting and was excited to show us her new collection.
They boys ran off and played and did some tree climbing too.
Oops, Katelyn had just whacked Tyler on the head with her badminton racket...
They were really into playing with their little walkie talkies too.
See, camping isn't that bad! :)
Thank goodness for Uncle Stacy! Katelyn loves her Uncle Stacy and he has amazing patience with her. Almost like a 3rd parent who is willing to deal with her and not have frustration issues like Will/I have sometimes. Haha!
After spilling her juice one too many times (we didn't bring any juice boxes, just a big thing of juice that we would mix with water), I put Katelyn's juice into my coffee cup. That's a lot of coffee!
By Saturday morning, the Saitos arrived to join us. The group is complete!
We headed down the way to the nearby Leo Carrillo State Beach, just a quick 5+ minute walk away. I was excited to see the tidepools they had there. Unfortunately, by the time we got there, 1) the tide had come in and we couldn't get to the tidepools anymore and 2) it wouldn't have mattered anyway because Katelyn totally passed out in my arms. I knew she was tired. BOY was it hot carrying her...
The kids still had fun playing in the water though.
Tyler was very focused on chasing seagulls.
Love this set of photos.
The boys also did some mini rock climbing. :)
Katelyn, meanwhile, stayed completely knocked out. It was so hot, poor KK. She was dripping sweat while she slept! She finally woke up an hour later and thank goodness, did not fly into one of her rages that she's been known to have after unrestful naps. Whew.
Back at camp, as much as I was dying to get us all showered and cleaned up, we held off since the kids were still busy getting dirty. Love that Katelyn was back in a good mood after her little nap.
Miss Attitude!
Dinner time!
Group picture!
Oh yes, just imagine the dirt Katelyn is attracting.
I think the sticks must have been getting warm, check out Katelyn's worried expression!
Glow-in-the-dark sand. HUGE HIT, and unfortunate that I only had one set. The kids were totally fighting over it.
Guess what word the kids are writing with their glow sticks!
2 chairs, 5 kids!
Sunday morning came and it was time to pack up. Here's our little tent. I wish we had gotten a photo from the side so you could see how long it was, 12 feet I think!
I can't wait to go camping again, seriously! Loved that we all had a nice shower Saturday night to freshen up, but definitely could have done without the dusty ground. Our next site will have to be nice and grassy. :) And the kids LOVED it!
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