Rain Concert

Six months ago or more we saw that the Beatles Tribute band Rain was coming to a town near us.  We decided to get tickets. Evidently they are very popular because we got some of the last tickets. The concert sold out within a few days. 

So we have been looking forward to this show for a long time!

 Our tickets were not all together so Molly and I sat on one side of the room.

 This was our view of the stage. We had seats all the way at the top, last row and in the back. We didn't hear any complaints though.

The boys had seats on the other side of the room and then Sophia and Papa sat in seats in the row behind them. There wasn't really a bad seat in the house. That was all that was left for all 6 of us to go see the show. 

It wasn't a huge venue so no matter where you sit you saw a great show.

 They start the show dressing up as the Beatles in the early days as they play songs from this period.

This year is the 50th anniversary of Sargent Pepper so almost the whole 2nd half of the show was the songs from that Album.  I admit there were a few of those songs I had never heard before.

We all loved he show!

New shirts

There were no chocolates for Valentines this year. My kids were each given a new Doctor Who t-shirt. They all seem to like them!

I don't usually buy shirts for my kids. They live in hand me downs mostly. I also usually don't like words and such on shirts but Sophie has loved the Mickey Mouse shirt I got her for her birthday and then she also got a Hogwarts shirt for Christmas that quickly became a favorite so I decided Doctor Who shirts was going to be alright too. 

Projects for School

My boys have been cooking quite a bit for school. This year they have been traveling to different countries of the world and studying their different cultures and government systems. One of the projects they are either assigned or they choose from the list of options is to cook a food from that country. This semester they have visited Italy and made pizza.  Henry was not very adventurous and only made a margarita pizza.

Ian was brave and tried the mushroom and eggplant toppings. 

I think they both prefer the pepperoni or canadian bacon pizzas that I usually make them. 

They also visited Germany so needed to make a German meal. They decided to make Schnitzel. We just made chicken schnitzel rather than pork. We just don't eat a whole lot of pork.

Ian added a salad and some apple cake to the meal and then we had some ginger ale to represent the beer that would usually be served in germany. It was a tasty meal but not one we will be making again anytime soon. It was pretty greasy!

Ian has also been working on his Cooking merit badge so he has been asking to make breakfast, lunch and dinners quite often. It is nice to have my boys cooking so much. We are motivated to try new foods and they get to know their way around the kitchen a little better.

 Whenever they can, the boys like to try to fulfill their assignments by using legos.  While visiting Germany they read a number of Grimm's Fairy Tales and then they needed to create a scene from one of those stories. Henry made a gingerbread house and had Hansel and Gretel visit the witch.

 He even wanted to make a scene from inside the house too. It is hard to see in the photo but Hansel  is in a cage with the witch reaching in. He has a bone he is holding out to her. Poor Gretel is sweeping the house.

 Ian's scene is from Rapunzel. I think they turned out rather cute!

 The boys also studied some famous paintings for one of their classes and needed to try to recreate one. They both decided to do Van Gohn's Starry Night. Henry's is above and Ian's is below.

 Not to leave Sophia out. She doesn't get to do nearly as many fun projects for school. Her classes are much more academic and so I have far less things to take photos.

Here she was supposed to make an infographic about viruses.  She did a great job!

No school projects for Molly. 

 School work is very boring. She only does bookwork! Not really. She just doesn't want to do much school work. It is like pulling teeth to even get math, reading and spelling done each day. Beyond reading books and those few assignments each day she is not interested in doing much else. I also am busy trying to help the others get their projects and work done so this poor girl is not given as many "fun" projects as she could have. I really should remedy that but it is hard to fit everything into our schedules.

But she finds ways to add projects into her life. This girl always has art projects going. There is always little bits of paper scattered about the house because she has cut up something or is making something.
She decided one of the boxes that we got in the mail one day was perfect to be a Tardis for her barbies. So she painted it blue and then then next day added the details. Now her  Rory and Amy barbies have a Tardis to travel in.

School work at home is always an adventure and does keep us very busy!

Fun Socks

 Everyone got fun socks for Christmas and Henry loves his clown fish socks especially. He pairs them with orange shorts and blue jacket. They just happen to match his orange and blue shoes too.

Funny boy!

Snow Campout

Every year the Young Men in our ward head up to the snow for a campout. It is the most well attended campout of the year.  Ian missed it last year because he turned 12 a few days before they went and we were not ready to send him up into the snow to camp. We didn't have any snow gear to help keep him warm. I spent some time this year gathering snow gear so this year he would be ready with snow pants, boots, gloves and such that he would need. When you live in the valley or near the coast snow is usually not something you are prepared for.  

 We have received quite a bit of precipitation this winter so there was plenty of snow for the boys to build their snow caves into.

 A little fun in the snow is required too.

 Here is the group of 12 and 13 year old boys that went up early and got camp set up. These are the non high school age boys that get out of school early on Fridays so could get on the road for the 2 hour drive up to the Tahoe area where they were going to camp.

Ian loved it. Henry can't wait to get to go next year. I guess I better start finding some more snow pants and gloves for him so we are ready for next January when the YM go to the snow again.

Killer Bunnies

For Christmas this year Henry was given a new card game. We had played it before at a friends house when we had gone there for a family game night. Henry has asked for it ever since.  So we finally got him the Killer Bunnies game. The box we got him came with the starter deck and the yellow expansion. I think we played it everyday sometime multiple times a day since that day.  About a week before Ian's birthday I decided we needed to add the next booster deck to the game so brought out the red box of card that I had been saving for this birthday. I knew we couldn't wait.

Then after playing that one for a few days the kids decided they needed to get Ian another booster for his Birthday so they pitched in and bought yet another booster, the purple deck.

Ian opened this deck on his birthday and it has only added to the fun. 

 We are a bit obsessed with this game at the moment and play it all the time still. I am surprised the cards aren't worn out yet.

 When we first started playing there was some moments of crying and people getting really upset about their bunnies getting killed but I had to remind the kids that that is what the game is called. It isn't fluffy bunnies, it is Killer Bunnies. We get to kill each others bunnies with weapons of all sorts. Molly especially is known for using the biggest weapons. She unleashes the Ebola Virus or wipes out large amounts of bunnies with stray astroids quite often.  The rest of us tend to try to kill bunnies or take carrots from others players through more subtle means like starving them or gambling them. That is part of the charm of this game. There are tons of different ways to kill each other's bunnies and try to keep everyone from gathering carrots.

I have a feeling we will be adding more and more decks to our game. We can't seem to get enough of this ruthless game. We even had all the 12 and 13 year old youth over one night to play the game and all seemed to really love it. Great game for large groups. There is no real limit to the number of players especially if you have booster decks with more an more cards. 

Ian had a birthday! He is now 13.

I have many excuses to offer for why there was no posts in January but why bother posting such things and just get down to some of the happenings of January.

 January always starts with Ian's Birthday. He requested Quiche for Breakfast so I woke up early and made him a lovely ham and egg quiche. I think next time I will just buy a crust. I can never make mine thin enough. The quiche was so good! What would expect when you have that much cheese and egg and ham all baked in a crust. YUM!

 I decided to give Ian all his gifts in the morning this year. He was going to have a busy day and an activity that night so I figured he would have all day to then set up his Raspberry Pi.  Which ended up being a bit more problematic than we thought. We had a hard time getting all the cables and such set up on the TV so he could do it there but then the SD card that I had bought preformated and with the operating system installed, didn't seem to work.   So...... then we had to learn how to reformat and then download the Raspberry Pi operating system. That evening we finally had it working.  We certainly learned a lot!

 Chocolate cake after the Ravioli dinner was the  end show. I don't know what I was doing with the icing. I just got started and did whatever in order to cover the whole thing. We all agreed that this cake pared with this Ice cream was the BEST I had ever made. I was happy it turned out so well.

Here are 13 facts about my now 13 year old boy.

1.  Star Scout at the moment. One more merit badge and he will be ready to move up a rank to Life Scout.

2. Loves to tinker with things, take them apart, and see how they work.

3. He is a Harry Potter and Lord of the Rings expert. He is always rereading these books.

4. Master Lego Builder. He makes the coolest creations without any directions. It is amazing to see what he comes up with from the huge mish mash of legos that the boys have collected.

5. Has bigger feet than his Papa which is not a surprise since he is already taller than both his parents.

6. Has checked out every book about computer programming that our library system has in its catalogue. Even the ones that are from the 80's and way out of date.

7. He is an introvert and man of few words. He uses this as an excuse to get out of having to talk to people sometimes

8. Not sporty. He is willing to give sports a try but really is not that excited about it.  

9. Sleeps with a little plush creeper.

10. Is the resident masseuse. He is always giving back rubs to his Papa. He is the master and finding the knots and rubbing them out. 

11. Eats just about everything. This boy can put away a lot of groceries!

12. Always the last one to head to bed after giving us "just one more" hug and kiss good night. 

13. Still speaks his Bardar language at times.