Mother's Day 2014

While I was away......

Even though I was only away for a week, I missed two firsts in the Sylar family.  First, Maggie had her first softball game of the season.  Doesn't she look cute in her uniform????

She played short stop at one of her games. I think she looks very professional, but I think she hated playing that position.  How did I get that feeling?  By the way she yelled "WHAT?????  Why do I have to do it?" after the coach told her to get suited up!!!!

The other first was that Ben mowed Caroline's grass for the first time.  Sam has been threatening to make him mow our lawn for a while, but our mower may be a little too heavy for him.  Sam has settled for him mowing Caroline's grass for now, we'll see what next year brings....

Trip to San Diego

I think everyone knows how much I love San Diego.  Some people have answered "oh, I couldn't live there, I'd miss the seasons"  Really?  You'd miss the brutal Winters and sweltering in the red hot Summer?????"  Not me-give me 70 degrees and sunny every day.  However, on this 6 day trip, we went from 50 to 93 degrees-I think that's a good enough season swing for anyone!!!!  Took this couple of pics the first day we were there, you can see how cloudy it was and it even rained a little bit

This was taken from the top of the Convention Center, our crazy hotel is on the right.  We had some very interesting stories after staying at this hotel.  I think we (John) picked it because it was a little cheaper than some of the others, but across the street from the Convention Center.  However, it should NEVER be listed as a meeting hotel.  First, they messed our room reservation up and Shannon and I were in a room with a single bed.  They brought us a roll away bed, but it was horrible and Shannon had a sleepless night.  When I asked about moving rooms, they told me they had nothing available.  Eventually, Shannon said she was going to talk to them and she read them the riot act.  Amazingly, they found us a room!!!!

Our new room was overlooking the pool, where they had a huge drunkfest on Sunday afternoon!!!!  What a contrast in one place-conference attendees and people passing out in one hotel!!!!  Luckily, the party was over at 7 and they cleared everyone out immediately, but it was quite an interesting afternoon.

Shannon and I went to tour Midway on Monday afternoon, it was really interesting to see.  I can't imagine being on it out in the middle of the ocean.

We found this huge statue on the Embarcadero

Oh, we did some work too (actually, we did A LOT of work!!).  Janhavi even flew down to see us, it was great to see her after so long

Great article about St. Louis

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/03/21/st-louis-reasons-to-love_n_4993763.html

Ben's latest band concert

We went to Ben's band concert right before I left for San Diego.  They really do a great job together.  I wasn't going to tape any of it, but couldn't resist Phantom of the Opera...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DPtjFr-Lqbk&feature=youtu.be

Easter 2014

Even though Ben is now a teenager, Ben still has as much enthusiasm about Easter as he has always had. Arline had mentioned that she thought she would go ahead and do the Easter baskets because she thought the kids just did it to help her out rather than enjoying it.  My immediate response was "What?  Ben loves doing all that kind of stuff" and of course he does and loved doing it on Saturday.  We dyed 42 eggs!!!!  We left a bunch with Arline and brought 2 dozen home.  They came out really well this year.  We added extra vinegar to some bowls so that the colour was more vibrant and we left some in for quite a while to make them darker (like the red ones).  As the kids get older, they are getting much faster, we were done in just over an hour this year!!!!

The Easter bunny did not put any eggs in our yard this year, but she did leave the kids a few sitting on the kitchen counter.  They were quite happy with them......

As we were walking out the door to go to church, I said, you both look lovely and you know what that means.  Ben groaned and said, pictures!!!!!  Maggie wore her Easter dress from last year and I bought her some new shoes.  She looked great, but she did take shorts and a shirt to get changed into once she got to Jan and Julie's

Of course, you can't ever miss an opportunity to do a few handstand push ups, no matter what you are wearing......

It was an absolutely beautiful day to go outside after church and let the balloons go.  I took this great photo of Ben and Maggie with their godparents

The balloons made it up into the air without getting caught in the trees this year!!!!

We stayed behind after the church service so that Jan and Julie could put out eggs in their garden.  The church always has donuts after the service and the kids love to get one

It was the perfect afternoon to lounge around in the garden after lunch.  Took a couple of pictures of the kids on the hammock.  About an hour after I took the pictures, the hammock fell apart, I guess it had been out in the heat and sun for too many Summers.  It doesn't help that Maggie launched herself onto it when Julie was sitting on it!!!!!

We played two games of croquet, Bruce (Caroline's friend) won both of them despite insisting that he's never played before!!!!

Arline looking regal

Me looking scary!!!!

We have a teenager in the house

Ben turned 13 this week, I cannot believe he is a teenager already. The time has gone by so fast and yet we have done so much together over the past years.  I took him to the doctor for his growth check up today and he is now 98 lbs and 5 ft 1.2 inches tall-he's less than 3 inches shorter than me!!!!  They decided to measure his IGF levels this time.  They haven't done it since he started on growth hormone, almost 6 years ago.  My first thought was "why on earth did they have to do choose this day, it's his birthday for crying out loud..."
Poor Ben, we had to wait for quite a while and every other child that went in the blood drawing room was screaming.  The lady that drew his blood was horrible, she almost missed the vein and managed to blow it out, no wonder the other kids were screaming.  I think his face says it all.....

There is one of the St. Louis 250 cakes at Cardinal Glennon, so I made Ben stand by it while I took a photo.  He was still refusing to bend his arm at this point!!!!

We celebrated Ben's birthday by going to eat at Mi Linh.  We took the usual friends-Jan and Julie, Arline and Caroline.  Jan and Julie bought Ben these stick on eyes and they had fun sticking them on everything.

They also bought him this fantastic gymnastics sweatshirt, I'm thinking it might be big enough for me to wear too, so I may have to snag it!!!!!