Weekly Happenings: The beginning of the week was pretty average. Paul got off of work early on Friday because it was a holiday in San Antonio (The Battle of Flowers parade which was started a long time ago to recognize the heroes of the Alamo, along with Fiesta, which is a 10-day celebration that was started to coincide with The Battle of Flowers parade), so we went out to eat after he got home. Saturday we ran some errands and then went to lunch and the zoo. At lunch, Joseph had gotten a toy in his kids’ meal (a little plastic X-Men figure) which he wanted to carry with him everywhere afterwards. When we got to the zoo, the parking was all full, so we got adventurous and tried some roads that we hadn’t been down before to see if we could find some more free parking. We ended up fording the San Antonio river (no, i’m not joking, and yes, it was legal) and found parking in a secluded part of Brackenridge Park, which is a huge park that is right next to the zoo. It was only about a 10 minute walk to the zoo, through a really pretty and scenic part of the park. There are nature trails all over. We will definitely need to go back and explore it another day. We were wandering through the zoo when a mini-disaster struck: Joseph dropped his beloved new toy over the wall, into the Addax (a type of African deer) enclosure (I didn’t realize that it was still in his hand). He started flipping out and Paul and I were worried about a foreign object being dropped in there (we weren’t sure if they would try to eat it). While I got Joseph under control (and myself, too…I was pretty embarrassed that I had let something like that happen), Paul notified an employee of what happened. They sent some of the workers in to retrieve it, who reassured me that stuff like that happened all the time, so not to worry. Well, needless to say, this is the end of letting Joseph bring toys with him! After we got home from the zoo, we got ready to have friends over for dinner. They are the family that lives next door, and they have little boy who is a little bit older than Joseph, and I think they are going to be really good friends. The boys liked playing and the adults had a good time talking. They even asked us about the church and said they might like to check it out some time soon.
The Weekly Weather: It has been rather hot and humid. Methinks that spring is already behind us and summer is in full-swing.
What Paul’s Up To: His weight restrictions from his surgery are no longer in effect, so he can pick up Joseph again, which made both of them really happy. When he picked Joseph up the first time, Joseph just snuggled into him (practically melting into his shoulder), wrapped his arms around him, and didn’t want to be put down. It made my heart just about melt. Paul’s also done quite a few jobs around the house/yard. He dug up a chunk of sod so that we can eventually transplant the tomato plants (he wants to mix some healthier soil/fertilizer in with the top soil before we transplant them, though), he replanted some cilantro (the last storm wiped out half our seedlings, but new ones are already popping up), he changed light bulbs and batteries in smoke detectors which had been chirping and scaring Joseph (they were pretty loud), and he’s done a bunch of other stuff which I’m sure I missed. 🙂 He’s also getting involved in scouting again since he finally has another 11YO scout (he’s the scoutmaster for the 11YO scouts, but there haven’t been any for quite a few months).
What Sarah’s Up To: I had two more piano students start this past week. They are the only ones whose mom didn’t start out as a friend of mine first. They live next door to some of my students, so my students’ mom referred me. That’s kind of flattering. I have nine students and it’s been really great. It’s kind of challenging, because they are all on different levels, so I’m constantly having to rethink my teaching strategy with each student, but it’s rather fun. The other thing that I did this past week was practice my flute like crazy because I was playing it for part of the musical number that the ward choir did for ward conference today. 🙂
What Joseph’s Up To: He’s let out some pretty cute phrases this week. Here’s just a few: “Cookie! Om nom nom nom!”, “Ummmmmm”, “Hey, I know! Let’s go for a walk!”, and “Mom! I missed you!” (this was after I had been gone to the bathroom, so all of 3 minutes?). 🙂 He is also surprising us with new vocabulary. The other day he was holding the thick dowel that we keep in the track of our sliding glass door. I walked up to him and he said, “Look, a cylinder!” (Paul has mentioned cylinders to him, as well as some of the shows he sees on PBS). Another word he whipped out was “crescendo”. He was walking up the stairs with me, and was patting his belly and saying, “Crescendo!” This is from Little Einsteins. To get their rocket to go faster, they have to start patting louder and louder (the show is really music-based), so they talk about crescendos. Pretty great!
This Week in Pictures:
Bonus Video: Joseph “exercising”
