Fun School Days

Fun Run fundraiser for the school.  Elisa would not stop talking about it the weeks prior. She wanted us to donate $30 or $1 per lap so that she could get a cheap-o fold up frisbee.  Nope.  Not that I have anything against donating to the school, its just that the school would only get a small percentage of the donations.  I'd prefer just to donate straight to the school instead so the school can get 100% of the donation instead of a middle man. So in order to not feel like a complete jerk, I donated.  $6 per kid.  Perhaps a laughable amount, but hey its something!
I went to see the kids run because they both wanted me to come.  Gabe was on one side and Elisa was on the other so I spent the hour walking back and forth between the two sides, trying to pick out Gabe or Elisa in the sea of children who were all wearing the same exact shirt.  No easy feat! But must of the time either kid found me.  Here are the pictures:

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Elisa's crazy hair day! We looked through lots of different crazy hair day styles together on Pinterest and she chose the bird's nest hair.  It was fun and easy to do! It's just a (very) messy bun with twigs and grass inserted into the bun.  She also had a couple of cute little toy birds that I had to secure with wire thread:

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Elisa had a Kindergarten field trip to The Children's Museum of Phoenix.  I met her there.  I had been wanting to take Ian there for sometime and this was the perfect excuse! Ian had a great time and so did Elisa.  She went with her best friend Kassidy, and Kassiy's dad was the chaperone.  I just kind of trailed them since I wasn't technically a chaperone. I remember taking Gabe when he was just about Ian's age to The Children's Museum of Phoenix.  It had been awhile since we had been there! We all had a good time!

 Elisa and her friend, Kassidy, had so much fun on these foot scooters! 

 Ian really liked these raised circle platforms (or whatever they're actually called).

 Elisa in the big huge play structure

 She had so much fun!

 Me and my girly!

 Ian was too little to pedal, but he wanted to try anyway!

 The rice was dyed green for St. Patrick's Day.  The rice is always a big hit with the kids! I feel sorry for whoever has to clean all that rice up, though!

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Gabe also had a field trip, about a week later.  His second grade field trip was to the World Wildlife Zoo.  I had always heard about it but we've never had the chance to go (mostly because I think $26 per person for a zoo is way too expensive), so this was the perfect opportunity for me to go since I think I paid only $8 or so for my admission.  Gabe didn't even go with his group; he followed a group of boys instead.  I don't blame him since his assigned group was made up of all girls.  So, I followed the group that Gabe followed.  The zoo was ok.  I'm not a fan of zoos so there's not too much that impressed me.  I guess everyone likes this zoo because you can get really close to the animals.  Which basically means the whole zoo smells terrible.  Gabe had fun, I guess.  One of the kids in Gabe's group is LDS, come to find out.  His dad was the chaperone and took me off guard when he randomly asked what ward I was in, lol. I suppose discovering that there are LDS people all around you is bound to happen here in AZ.  

Gabe and his friend Rounak.  Rounak is a strange kid, you'll have to just take my word on that.  But I'm happy that Gabe has a friend!

Gabe and all of his buddies! 

We hung around for a little bit after the buses left. There wasn't much left to see besides a small aquarium.  We left because Ian was getting tired.

A Very Fun Saturday

 On Saturday, March 11th, we took the kids out of the house for a fun day!

Our first stop was the North Mountain Visitor Center.  We browsed the displays for a bit and were about to leave when one of the workers (librarian, I guess?) told the kids that if they read some books and summarize it on a piece of paper, then they would earn some gemstones.  So, we stayed longer than we anticipated and the kids enjoyed reading some books about Arizona.  They mostly enjoyed getting their hard-earned gemstones!

Erik and the kids looking at an exhibit about animals that live in Arizona

Elisa and her gems!

Then we went on a short little hike, it was pretty warm that day, but nothing like I know it will be in the summer!

A short hike is perfect for 3 squirmy kids!

Aww, my adorable matching boys!

Our next stop was North Mountain Hospital where Erik works.  The kids were hungry so we got them some food from the cafeteria.  I was hungry too, but I was holding out for Mexican food!

"Eesa Eats a Piece of Pizza"<---that is a tongue-twister I made up for her.  Say it 5X fast!  And here is a picture of her eating a piece of pizza.  As big as her head! She ate all but the crust.

After the hospital trip we went to Paquime, a street-style Mexican food.  It was worth the wait!

 I couldn't choose just one taco so I ordered 4 different kinds.  And I ate them ALL.  I enjoyed all but the fish taco.

Erik's Torta. I've never actually had or even seen one before, but it was pretty good, even though I prefer tacos.

Lastly, we headed over to the bowling alley.  We paid for 1 hour, but next time we'll just pay for two games so we don't have our 2nd game cut off right in the middle!  The kids had a ton of fun! Ian wasn't having the best time at first because I had to keep steering him away from the lanes.  But once he found the arcade just behind us he didn't never bothered us bowlers again and didn't want the leave!

Gabe had a great time!

Elisa had a great time, too.  She had to use the ramp because she could get the ball to have enough momentum to make it all the way down the lane. We had to call the employee a couple of times to rescue her ball that was just sitting halfway in the lane. 

I used to be okay at bowling but that was a looooong time ago! I didn't score much better than the kids! My ball kept swerving toward the right.