Geocaching, Birthday, Grandpa and Cross Country!

We did it! We finally found our first (real) GEOCACHE! I've staged a few for the kids sake, since we've been searching for 2 years and never found any. I mean we've hunted in cobwebbed, bug infested tunnels, trampled through stranger's yards and scoured neighborhoods, hills and even a lake. It's really hard for us to find one without a GPS, but thanks to a helpful hint from a friend, we discovered one in a neighborhood library box in someone's front yard, just blocks away from our house.

It was so gratifying to sign our first log, which was hidden in a hollowed out old book, such a clever place for a cache! It feels so great to officially be a part of this world wide treasure hunt after so many failed attempts! We celebrated with ice cream!

In other news, Winston and I have been keeping ourselves entertained while Stanton and Noelle are in school. I love giving him my undivided attention. He is the perfect little companion all day. He tells me I'm his pretty mommy, and he lets me squeeze and kiss him all day, as long as I give him snacks. His little personality is so distinct, and he's funny even when he's grumpy. He makes me so happy! I just love everything about him!
We have learning group at our house every week. his friends come over and we do a different letter, number, color, activity and snack. This picture was from the letter "C." I bought some real crickets for them to chase around the yard.

We went to the Human Rights Museum in Couer d'Alene. That guest book hadn't been signed in a while, which is shocking cause it was SO fun! We saw a giant fish coffin, made pretend flour with a giant stick, and decorated tee-pees. It makes my heart happy that my kids share my love of my museums!

We're also doing a lot of hanging out at the Children's Museum. It's insanely fun there!

He loves when I outline his chalk body on the museum floor. Hopefully that's allowed?

Their new bee keeper exhibit is AWESOME! After we changed out of our bee suits Winston pretended to sell me honey for an hour. He would say "that be 3 bucks pease" and then throw an empty honey bottle at me. It was entertaining.

We also stop by Stanton and Noelle's school for lunch pretty frequently cause we miss them! One time we brought them McDonalds, which made them feel very cool!

Stanton didn't want us to leave, and Winston didn't want to get his picture taken. Kids are the best!

I went out to my first Spokane girl's night, and boy was it a blast! We saw Austenland and had dessert at the Melting Pot, fancy fun!

Stanton had his 7th birthday party! Despite my sorrow that he's growing up so fast, I managed to plan a pretty fun party for him. Robert took him and his friends to laser tag, and when they got back I had an army boot camp and obstacle course ready for them.

They trained hard to prepare for the upcoming zombie attack.

And they were super surprised to find out it was a real zombie dousing them with silly string. They beat me badly with all of their plastic weapons.

Then we had pizza and my special homemade tank cake. It doesn't look too much like the example, but Stanton was impressed, which was all that matters.

And after the boy dance party (to the Star Wars and Indian Jones theme songs, Party Rock and Call Me Maybe) Stanton got  the surprise of his life! We shocked him with a Wii. We've told him a million times, not until he's 12, but we decided to surprise the boy who never asks for anything, and it was totally worth it seeing his happy smile! He is so special, and he has no idea how happy he makes us!

A few days later Grandpa Curry (also know around Spokane as the "Silver Fox" thanks to me. My friends were admiring him at church :) came to visit us for the weekend! It was 3 days of pure happy, fun! He got off the plane, and we went straight to the farms. We went on a train ride, got totally lost in a corn maze and picked pumpkins!

We took lots and lots of pictures with pumpkins too.

The pumpkins were enormous and still attached to the ground.

We had fun testing our strength and picking them all up in search of the perfect one.

We ended up going home with a 73 pound pumpkin and 6 of its little baby pumpkins, best purchase of our life!

Grandpa wanted to see the fall leaves so we showed him pretty much every tree in all of Spokane. We spent Saturday at all of the parks...

and the Japanese Gardens...

and our favorite place in all of Spokane, the Arboretum!

We showed him our special crick there where we race leaf boats. He added a new element of fun to our game by dive bombing the boats with rocks. It was a big, wet hit!

 The kids showed him their secret hideout and the giant catapult tree branch!

And then he let the kids throw rotten crab apples at him! He is more fun than anyone I know!
After that we we went to Couer d'Alene and to the movies and out to eat for every meal. It was the perfect weekend, and we all miss him terribly!

The next day Stanton had his last cross country meet. He did excellent! He improved his time from the last race, and he was 31 seconds away from qualifying for the city meet. It was so cute watching him run through the "woods." I was so proud of him for sticking with it, and for even running at all in the first meet after he got trampled at the starting line and then his shoe fell off. He was long passed by everyone, but he put his shoe back on, wiped off his tears and got up and ran. He even passed a bunch of kids and came in 26 out of 52 kids. I cried cause he was crying, and then I cried again cause I was so proud of him! Oh man, I'm crying now again just thinking about it.

Sweet little Noelle just started dance, and I love watching her flit, twirl and trip all over the dance floor. I love hearing her very detailed reports everyday after school and hearing about the "tan skinned boy in her class who has an accent, is always on time, is always nice to everyone, has a clean desk and only wears black shirts to school." She's very fond of him, and she told us she can picture him in her mind anytime. I love watching her be friendly and compassionate she is to everyone. Everything she does is darling, and I constantly look at her and can't believe she is mine!

I could gush all day about these kids of mine, and don't even get me started on my patient, smart, handsome husband! I'm one lucky girl!!!