Life lessons from Callum

Mom, when you get older you don't like all kinds of stuff. And when Briggs wants to play with me, he only wants to play Pirates of the Caribbean. And I don't like to play Pirates of the Caribbean or Peter Pan.

Mom, is that a train I hear?

Why yes, yes it is. :)

My goofy dinner date tonight

He always makes me laugh. 💗

Cursive!

I was delighted to see Logan's homework last night had a cursive worksheet! Glad our school is continuing to teach it (so many schools now don't, and I think that's a shame).

Friday morning

Another successful morning off to school!

The second pic shows our boys with our neighbor's son. The boys lined up on their own, by grade/age: 1st, 2nd and 3rd grade! :)

First Day of School!

We now have a 1st Grader and 3rd Grader in the house! 😱

They got off to school really well today - so much energy and excitement. Looking forward to a wonderful year! ❤️❤️

1st Grader Party

I'm super pooped - but happy to report we threw a fantastic "Back to School" party for all of the 1st graders in our neighborhood!

Tons of kiddos showed up (not all of them captured in these pics if you can believe it) and everyone seemed to have a great time. What a fun way to end the summer and kick off a new school year. Looking forward to the rest of the week! 👍🏼

The final countdown!

As of today, Callum has ONE MONTH LEFT of his chemotherapy program! 😍😍

(It's also my grandmother's 91st birthday - woohoo!! 💪🏼 HBD Nana! 💗)

I took these pics a couple of weeks ago, but thought it was appropriate to post them now - since we couldn't have done it without his incredible oncologist and RN team either. 👏🏼👏🏼👊🏼

We're getting pretty excited with the end in sight! 🎉💃🏼💜

Back to School Parties

Today starts a wave of parties over the next week!

We had a number of Logan's friends over for a "3rd grader" pool party today to reconnect the kids before school next week. Here the girls are posing with their water guns for me. ;-)

This weekend we'll be celebrating Robert's birthday (the boys are super excited about this). Monday we will probably have a few friends over for a play date.

Tuesday is Callum's "1st grader" pool party with a number of his friends (and most of the neighborhood!). Wednesday we meet their teachers, followed by the PTA sponsored back to school parties (most of the classes will go to those).

And then Thursday is their first day back to school! Phew!!

Private Swim Lessons

Now that swim team season is over, I wanted to get the boys started up in swim lessons again. I decided this time, I'd hire one of the senior swimmers from our team, who also happens to be one of the kids that taught the beginner water polo classes over the summer.

The boys really like him and he does a good mixture of fun and practice for an hour. The pics are a little distant because Logan asked me to go back into the house and leave them alone for his lesson - I'm not sure if he was embarrassed or just wanted to have a little independence. So I had to sneak pics from inside instead. :)

Tooth Knockout!

Yesterday, just before their swim lesson, the boys came running out of their room screaming. Callum was a little upset and Logan was in high defense mode.

Apparently they were wrestling and Logan knocked out Callum's loose tooth. And this time, he managed to NOT lose it! ;-)

So, this morning, he brought his tooth pillow to me, laid everything out, and began counting his money. He was a pretty proud, and happy, camper.

Arcade fun today!

We worked up an appetite!

We had to fuel up after our ruthless game of (mini) golf.

I'm not sure we ordered enough food. 😜

(That was a kid's plate!!)

Mommy Summer Camp

This is our last week of summer, where the kids asked not to attend camp but hang out with me (and each other) instead. Ohhhh sure, why not?! ;-)

So today we headed to miniature golf - where we sweated our butts off but had a great time! :)

(The last pic is Callum celebrating his Hole in One - the only time he, or any of us!, got a hole in one today!) :)

Summer Olympics 2016

We went to a 2016 Olympics Opening Ceremonies party tonight. You were supposed to dress up as a(ny) country to cheer on - so I snagged these t-shirts at the very last minute - this afternoon! - to be "in costume". Shhhhhh. ;-)

This is always a favorite time for me - I have loved watching the Olympics ever since I was a kid. I'm super excited this year since I'm hoping Logan's recent tango with the swim team will create an interest in watching some of the world's greats swim these next couple of weeks. We shall see!

Go Team USA!! 🇺🇸🇺🇸🇺🇸

Last day of Summer camp

I found Logan's biggest fan in the front row of his PlayMakers Summer Camp performance.

Passport Photos - Check!

His first take looked too aggressive and toothy (the US Dept of State actually doesn't want you to smile, among other crazy requirements, I've recently found out!!!), so I told him to stop smiling and this is what we've got. ;-)

We don't have any international travel plans yet, but his passport is expired and I've heard renewals (in person, esp for kids) are taking awhile, so I decided to take care of it now, while we're not in a rush.

I've also been itching BAAAAAD with the travel bug since we haven't been able to go anywhere for the last few years (due to his treatment). Once he's done, I'm hoping to pull the trigger soon! ;-)

An iPad Play date...?!

Logan made a new friend in Theatre Camp last week (and this week), who got Logan hooked on some new iPad game that the boys now love to play. Non. Stop.

As it turns out, Cameron was at the Swim Championships last weekend (he swims on a different team), so the boys were delighted to hang out in between their events. They also BEGGED me to set up a play date, so I tracked down Cameron's mom and quickly got her number so that we could coordinate something this week.

I love that Logan is getting braver, and more comfortable, meeting and making new friends. I also love that Cameron is 2 years older (he's going into the 5th grade!) yet totally hung out with both Logan and Callum today, like it was no big thang.

I also loved overhearing a slightly older kid speak and interact with my boys. It was like getting a tiny glimpse into my future. LOL. At one point, he said to Logan, "It doesn't work like that Bro" which I had to really stifle a chuckle from. It was great hearing this kid tell my (very stubborn and obstinate, at times) kid "no" but in a nicer way.

And the "Bro" was a nice touch at the end.

Neighborhood Wildlife

We came across a flock of turkeys (we think?!?) sauntering across the street this morning, as the boys and I headed to summer camp drop off.

This was literally seconds m after we had to slow down for a couple of deer lazily crossing the street, which didn't cause the boys to even bat an eyelash (deer are pretty common).

But this!

This was exciting!

This was something we had to take a picture of Mom!! ;-)

Swim Team Championships

Saturday was a big Swim Team day!  Jon and I drove separately to the Championships that morning, because I wasn't sure how long Callum would last with a long, hectic, full day of swimming events (7 teams competed, so it's a MUCH bigger ordeal than any of our normal meets have been).

Sure enough, circling in the parking lot was enough for Callum to call it quits (it was jam packed and hard to find a spot).  So, he and Jon didn't bother parking and left to hang out at a nearby friend's house for a few hours, while Logan and I soldiered on.

We were a little late given the packed parking lot, but so were a lot of other folks, and we were still there in time to set up camp with everyone else, sign in, and have Logan do a couple of warm up laps before the meet actually started, which was nice.

Here's a pic of the team doing their Ladera Dolphins chant, psyching themselves up just before the meet began.  I'm pretty sure we're the biggest team, at roughly 150 swimmers, of the 7 teams who competed in the league champs.

Logan decided that for his final meet, he'd give 3 events a try - so he was entered in the 25 Free (they don't start swimming 50s until age 9), 25 Back and 25 Breast.  It was a little confusing at first - the meet (and pool) was so big, that they were running two heats at a time, separately, on each end of the pool.  Logan started to get really nervous that he'd jump in the water after hearing the other heat's gun, vs. his own (he was just fine, but needed A LOT of reassuring from me and the Jr. Coaches, that we'd scream at him to jump in when it was time).  :)

Here's a few of him just before he took off, and during, his 25 Free.  He did AMAZING.  He placed 3rd in his heat (but didn't place in the overall event, there's STIFF competition in Champs!) - but more importantly, got a HUGE time of 27.75! (His previous best was 29.80)

He was almost in tears when he got out, because he didn't think he did well - when I explained he placed 3rd (in his heat) and shaved off a ton of time on his best, he had a huge smile and was so proud after that.  :)

Here's Logan and his fellow team mates lining up to head to another event - goofing off and having fun! :)

His Back Event was next (after long waits in between, mind you).  He didn't do as well on his backstroke - he had quite a bit of trouble keeping straight in his lane, which slowed him down quite a bit.  So, he was pretty disappointed at his time (he was last in his heat and probably close to last in this event) - but I reminded him that he's never actually competed in Back before, and hasn't really practiced it much.  And that, it just meant we would need to work on it more if he wanted to compete again in the future (which he agreed with and was okay with).

After another long break (I was also juggling a volunteer job on the side while we were waiting between breaks, so I was running all over the place), it was time for Logan's Breast Event.  This was also his last swim of the day, of the meet, and of the season!

One of the older swimmers giving him a last minute pep talk - one of the things I love THE MOST about this swim team is the community that we are a part of - and how all the older swimmers on the team really look after and mentor the younger ones!

And, he swam another personal best in Breast!! He's actually quite slow in breast stroke but for some reason he likes swimming it (more power to him - it's a hard stroke!) - so he's again, one of the slowest out in the pool, but I love that he keeps going back out there and giving it his all.  :)  So, his previous best time was 1.00.62 (before that it was like 1.15, so he's really been working on shaving time off each meet) - and this time he broke the minute mark and came in at 57.87!!  I couldn't have been prouder.  :)

After his last swim, he was pretty pooped (and frankly, so was I!) - so we headed home, even though there was still a few hours of the meet left.  We later heard that our team won - naming us the West Bay Swim League Champs!  Woohoo! :)

We got home and rested a bit before heading to the Swim Team Awards Dinner later that night - where the entire team gets together for dinner, cake and celebration.  All the kids got little trophies (even Callum, who didn't actually compete this year but practiced with the team, so he was particularly thrilled) and some of the MVPs of the team are recognized for their stellar contributions.  Each year, one of the parents likes to put together a video at the end of the season, with a collection of pictures and music, etc. that he and others have taken throughout the season - it was a lovely collection of our Swim Team summer and we absolutely loved it.  :)