The series on King 5 continues.

This is the latest report on shortened school days.

Playing catch up

So I'm playing catch up, but these past few weeks have been so busy!

The blog is really keeping me busy to the point that I now consider it a part time job.

Enough so that it brings in as much money as a part time job would too.

Yeah! 

And the kids school activities are keeping me busy too.

I'm normally volunteering in the schools at least 3 days a week.

This week, I have two all day events for the kids, and the next few weeks look very similar.

Not sure when I will fit everything in, but I usually find some way!

As part of a blogging job that I had, I attended a conference on teen driving in Seattle at EMP.

Our attempts at having Aidan babysit for an hour weren't working out, so I took the older two kids with me, while Mike took Owen with him to a church meeting.

Bella found a crazy throne chair to sit in in the lobby at EMP.

This girl had quite the week.

Her art was featured in the district wide art show that was showcased at Columbia Jr. High.

Art is her favorite subject and Mrs. Danielson is by far her favorite teacher.

These are the banners that greeted us when we walked in the door.

Isabella helped work on the R.

This is the back of it.

 

Isabella also received notice from the Kohl's cares scholarship program recognizing her as the local winner for her volunteer efforts with peanut butter and jelly.  She got a $50 gift card for Kohl's (that she used for new running shoes), and is entered in to the regional scholarship award of $1000!  We should hear in June if she is selected.

Aidan and I finally cashed in our Segway tour of Seattle that I bought on Groupon.

It was so much fun!

We went up and down the Seattle waterfront and would highly recommend the tour.

Look Ma, no hands!

No trip to Seattle is complete without a stop at Starbucks.

In celebration of Memorial day, the kids were off school on Friday AND Monday.

Val is nearly ready to pop with baby number 2 and Steve has been working LONG hours rarely getting off on the weekends.

I thought I would take advantage of the kids day off of school and give Val a little break from toddler duty.

The kids had a super fun time hanging out with Bri.

They wanted to take Bri to Snake Lake Nature Center in Tacoma.

It's a super cool park that opened up right about the time that my kids stopped visiting parks on a weekly basis.

The water is shallow, and you can see the fish, throw rocks in, walk across bridges, you name it.

There are slides made to look like they are built out of tree trunks.

Going again with Bella

Tunnels to explore

and Owen's favorite, things to climb

I seriously wonder what people in the Pioneer days think of us, when we put water pumps at kids parks as an attraction.  They are probably all rolling over in their grave wondering why we think this is entertainment!

But the kids love it!

Yep, throwing rocks in the water never gets old.

The cool thing about snake lake is that there is a free indoor animal area with more room to explore.

Bri liked this turtle.

They also had tons of puppets to play with.

My favorite was the snail.

Cutie cousins

Owen my tree hugger.

Thinking this little girl needs a tree house.

Snake Lake also has trails to wander on.

We started to take a little hike to the pond and stumbled on this outdoor play area that wasn't here the last time that we were.

It had human sized lincoln logs that totally knocked Owen's socks off!

Bri was fantastic at supervising while Owen did the work to make her a log house.

They even had those little logs so Owen made Bri a window to look out of.

Totally digging her new digs.

We wandered down the trail and found this adorable little guy on a log in the pond.

I love turtles, so that was a super awesome treat.

I thought we would just find some stupid ducks.

 We had a super fun time hanging out with Bri.

I forgot how much I missed doing those toddler things like exploring a park or going to the children's museum.

We can't wait to meet the new little one.

Three of the five of us are guessing she is coming on June 2.  

Can't wait to welcome her into the world.

rainbow

Out our back porch we had a beautiful double rainbow.

My interview

My King 5 interview was on the air last night.

I was really hoping they wouldn't edit it in a way that made me sound like I was putting down our teachers.

They did start out the clip with me calling my dog fat, so we've got that.

Aidan has been going to a youth group in Des Moines that he really loves.

Saw this picture of him last night while there.

Yep, white men can't jump.

Or, at least not my white man!

King 5 Investigates

Several months ago I sent an e-mail to several media outlets explaining my issues and thoughts on increased half days in our school districts.

 Chris Ingalls at King 5 was the only one who listened.

He continued to think that I had something to fight for even when I was being pushed away by our superintendents and half smiled at like a crazy person by our legislator at a town hall meeting.

I was told that my interview was completely erased during editing, which is why you don't see it in this footage.  But, the investigation continues despite this report.

Chris is coming back today to film the interview again.

Here is the link to the investigation that he has put together so far.

The Mighty MeterGnome

Owen had his second grade play on Wednesday.

They were practicing for months!

The play was put on by their fabulous music teacher and was called The Mighty MeterGnome.

When Owen told us the title of the play we kept correcting him.

Telling him it was metronome.

Even got out Aidan's metronome to show him!

But alas, there was some Gnome in the play and it was a funny play on words.

HA HA!  I think.

Anyway, Owen had a speaking part as a beetle.

He wasn't thrilled about having to wear a headband.

He even had wings.

Owen did a great job on stage.

And like his brother, he got a bit distracted with something shiny and ended up drifting into Owen land at the end.  Good thing he's cute!