Hikes, messes and other crazy stuff

On Saturday, we went on a Cub Scout hike with Oliver to "Little Yosemite" in Sunol. The hills are always so pretty and green in the Spring in the Bay Area that it was past time we got out hiking. It was a 3.5 mile hike and we were quite the production with Lael and Lulu and Henry in a jogging stroller. As usual, Oliver and Lael couldn't hold their water and had to pee five times each. My favorite quote of the day was from Lael, who said, "I'm grateful for trees, so we can pee."



Oh, Henry. The first thing he still says every morning is "Awba" for Oliver (and Lael). And Erik and I are still "Mama." He also says "Wuwu" for Lulu and he belts "No!" quite often. He also repeats things and jabbers a lot. He loves to tell other babies no and is still figuring out his pecking order in the nursery at church, but he is a pretty friendly guy. His most recent discovery is that he can move chairs around and climb to reach things, which has caused no end of problems. Last week, he got to the water on the front of the fridge and flooded the kitchen a couple times. But his most destructive stunt was to move a chair to our utility drawer and get out a Sharpie, which he used to draw on the wall, door casing, cupboards and Kitchenaid Appliances. I ran out of Magic Eraser trying to clean it up and took a picture of him the next morning, which I've attached.

The sad part is, this happened while Henry was of course being quiet, and I was holed up in the bedroom trying to get the other two to sleep. This is usually Erik's task, but he was on a conference call for work. Erik has been getting up to check his emails, going to work, coming home in time to catch some of the kids' baseball games and then doing a conference call with India at 8 or 9, since it is the beginning of their workday. So it feels like he is working around the clock, with a few breaks. The idea is that the work continues in India after the workday here is done. He says that works great when communication is going well and can be very problematic when it isn't. With a house as small as ours, it's a challenge for Erik to work from home, especially on conference calls. He uses the mute button unless he is speaking. So it's been stressful around here. I just hope it all pays off someday! It is a high-profile job he's doing right now. The director (his manager's boss, who reports to the VP of Adobe) even brought him lunch last week. Of course, that was so Erik could continue working at his desk, but still. I do hope this pace doesn't last forever. He's got a companywide shutdown for Spring Break in a couple weeks. (And two more scheduled: for July, when we're going to Utah, and for October, when we're probably stuck here).

For Spring Break, we're sending Oliver to Tech ID camp, where he is going to learn how to make his own web site and design video games. Erik says it will help him start thinking like a programmer. Oliver is very excited. The summer camps are an outrageous $750, but they offer this Spring beta camp – where they test out tweaks in the planned summer programs – in Santa Clara only for $200, so we thought we'd take advantage of it since for Spring Break 2010 we're off to Las Vegas. This does mean we're stuck here this time, but that's OK. We have lots of home improvement projects to tackle and Erik wants to try to scuba in Monterey one of the days. It's easier to take just Henry and Lael to museums anyway because I can stay in the same areas. The stuff Oliver is interested in is often in a different section and it's hard to keep everyone entertained, so it'll be less stressful for me - and I'm all for less stress! I am really looking forward to the break - just 8 more days of school - because I'm losing it. On Friday, as I was dropping Lael off at school, I realized her whole class was coming out and I remembered it was an early day. You would think I would know this, since it was for an awards assembly - which I make the awards for. Thankfully she wasn't getting an award that day (or I'm sure I would have remembered), but still.

Lael had her last violin lesson Friday, where we turned everything in. She just wouldn't practice and didn't even want to go to the last lesson. It's sad because she was so excited at first. Maybe next year ...

We had the library Book Fair at school and it took me a week to recover. I am finally feeling "normal" - just in time to hold a Pampered Chef party for a friend – let me know if you need anything! – and I'm not doing another party for a loooong time. Last Saturday, I went to a Daughter's of the Utah Pioneers Camp Meeting, where I was the youngest member by about 30 years. The theme was the Ship Brooklyn and they had pulled out all the displays from the 1996 reenactment and sesquicentennial celebration. I am now working on using this for a Fourth Grade assembly for Oliver for next year and I would like to have an Olson family reunion out here with our Pugh cousins who want to come, since we have an ancestor who came over on the Brooklyn and who happens to be buried a couple blocks from my house. Why I'm willing take on these projects, I couldn't tell you. I like to think they are inspired, but sometimes I think it is just some personality flaw. I am also planning to be Boosters President one more year but then I would like a break. Anyway, next year, here we come.

Erik was released from his calling teaching Sunday School to the teenagers (this was ironic, since he was never actually called again after our ward merged and we were all released). But we're waiting to see what calling is coming next for him. His classroom had a broken clock, so he used our ipod as a timer to tell him when time was just about up and during his first Sunday back in adult Sunday School yesterday, a fire alarm sound went off and it took me a moment to realize it was coming from my husband's pants pocket right next to me. I guess he's still adjusting.




I bought the kids some Easter outfits and they wanted to wear them last week, so I attached a couple pictures of that. Lael asked me if I would put curlers in her hair. I guess it had been long enough that she had forgotten what they do and she was very distraught that her hair was so curly but I talked her into leaving it. Lael was also featured in the newspaper last week in a supplemental section put out by the school district about the bilingual program. Of course, they spelled her name Leal, which does pain me greatly as a copy editor, but since we put her into the Spanish program, this happens constantly.

In Olson family news, my sister Angie blessed her baby Alexis Sunday and my sister Sky has decided to go to BYU (yay!) and she has a half-tuition scholarship (congrats!). So say hi to her if you pass her on campus this coming fall. OK, I think that's probably more of an update than you wanted, but there you have it. Hope you all have a great week!

Another crazy week at the Swansons

Monday started out cRAZy with Henry hiding ALL the keys and me walking Lael to school and then walking to pick up both Oliver and Lael (Erik takes Oliver to school in the morning on the way to BART, thankfully). I took pity on poor Lulu, who doesn't get out nearly enough, and brought her along on the walk. Halfway there, while I was picking poop up off a lawn with a bag, she was attached to Henry's bike handle and led him off the curb. He got scraped up and Lael was late for school. So I let Henry play at the park and then came home for his nap and tried to make cookies for the dessert for someone in our ward who just had a baby. I must have added an extra cup of flour because they weren't even edible. At that point, I was ready to call it a day and end the torture and just go to bed. Erik ended up coming home early to find the keys and rescue me so I could get the dinner over.

The rest of the week is somewhat of a blur. Lael finally hit the baseball and made it on base (she's really young to be playing in Minor B and it took her 3 games, but it's so nice to have them both on the same team and she's doing fine). She got the team ball, so she was happy. Oliver got the first team ball on Opening Day the Saturday before. We let him take a one-day training camp taught by professional baseball players a couple weeks ago and he's doing great, so it's definitely paid off. When I told him he needed to work on his throwing arm, he told me, "It's just that I need to fully rotate and follow through on my throw ... something about extension and release ...", so I guess it made an impression! On my birthday on Wednesday, I took two friends up to San Francisco and showed them around Yerba Buena Gardens and took them out to lunch at a neighborhood I hadn't been to but Erik recommended. I took Henry, which worked out great, since both these church friends had babies around 1 year old, but they are in their early 20s (one of them was turning 21 that day too) and they were shocked I am 34. I find it more shocking that Erik is almost 40, but I do find it interesting that I gravitate toward 20-somethings. It's also because there's hardly anyone out here my age to choose from anyway. That night we had a $7.99 Trader Joe's ice cream cake that I had bought that was really good. It was a fun day and reminded me that I would like to spend a lot more time in San Francisco - but it's going to have to wait for summer.

Saturday I did a makeup class for Lael's gymnastics and took Lael and Henry to a Chuck E Cheese party while Erik took Oliver to the batting cages and bought him gum (more on that later). For my birthday I tried a mineral body wrap, which did about 25 percent of what I wanted it to (my stomach still hasn't recovered from having an almost 11-pounder) but I guess I'm going to have to try to work the rest off on my own because I could only afford the one! But I was exhausted the rest of the day and Chuck E Cheese nearly did me in. Oh yes, I remember what else happened Saturday. Our three little monkeys jumped on the bed too much and when Erik sat on the corner, it collapsed, so he had to run to the hardware store and fix it later that evening. The bed was repaired just in time for Lael to throw her gum at Oliver and for him to throw it "just on her shirt" which of course got stuck in her hair so we ended up cutting it out (Erik didn't want to mess with the peanut butter - I don't know why). We have of course found gum all over the house now and it almost goes without saying we won't be having gum again for a long time. Sunday at church I actually started getting pictures up on the ward bulletin board I have taken it upon myself to work on and then we actually rested. We usually go to Erik's parents, but since they are on a cruise, we stayed home, made one of our Dream Dinners meals, cleaned and didn't have anyone over and it was good to have a break. Now onto the next crazy week ...

It's baseball season again!

Opening Day was Saturday and Lael and Oliver had their first games of the season. They are both playing on the Giant's team in Minor B. They have a great coach and hopefully they'll both have lots of fun and improve a lot this season. They are the oldest and the youngest players on their team. Oliver should have a great year - he was able to hit the ball every time he was at bat and got the first game ball. Oliver will definitly move up to Minor A next year. Lael just turned 6, so she's a little young but she's got a great throwing arm and I think she'll do well. Thankfully the park they play at is about 2 miles from our house. There are two games and one practice a week, so it's pretty intense, and hopefully Henry will cooperate and stay off the field cause I volunteered to be our team's Safety Coordinator, and that's going to be a little awkward.

I've also signed them up for the Mission Valley Swim Team. They're going to be Barracudas. We'll try it for this swim season and see how it goes. Practices are every day after school and they should go to three each week and then meets are on Saturday mornings. When school is out, practices are in the morning through July. We'll see how the kids take having to jump in the pool early in the morning. At least they'll get good swimming skills out of it!

And, yes, I've heard all the advice about not overscheduling your kids and I've taken that into consideration. But my kids need to be active, or they become TV junkies. I would be more than happy to just stay home but that just doesn't work for us. And I do tire of the ladies in Relief Society giving their opinions about this issue. Gag me. Really what I'd like to cut out is the homework. We get insane amounts. Anyway, now you know what we'll be up to for the next few months!