Taking the Scenic Route

Zach’s birthday was pretty low key this year.  Zora helped make the brownies for Dad because she insisted that he needed a cake of some kind.  Both the kids made cards, and Zach’s best friend came over and bought him a burrito from Chipoltes for his birthday.

From Zora, picture is a truck

From Zane, picture is a skateboarder

The robot detects objects, gives a warning, then shoots a ball.

The biggest change in our lives on this day was that Zach went back to work. YAY! The unemployment was over and we had to adjust to regular life again. He is now an application engineer for a balloon company. The best part of the job is that it is really close to us, which allows him to come home for lunch and, since it is across the street from where the kids get ST and Zora has preschool, he is able to drop her off when she has school so that Zane and I can eek out a little more time for school without Zora underfoot.

The other big surprise was the sheer volume of stuff sent to us for Zane’s school. He is enrolled with Lawrence Virtual School (public school district in Lawrence, KS) and doing the K-12 curriculum. I was expecting a shipment of a few textbooks, but was shocked when I got several big boxes including everything from art supplies (paints, brushes, modeling clay), science stuff (pulleys, levers, graduated cylinder, a rock collection that shows the hardness scale, magnifying glass, thermometers), math manipulatives (gram cubes and bars in a different color than ones we own, wooden 3D shapes, a balance scale exactly like we have so both kids can do their own thing with a scale, and some connecting unicubes), and maps, inflatable globe, and books. LOTS of books. Science books, art books, and every language arts book we will need during the semester. It was like Christmas. It took us a while to even open everything. We don’t have to return any of it.

A few days later I went to a meeting and picked up the laptop and nice case that we get to keep as long as he is enrolled in the class.

#192: Happy Birthday Zach! Zach was excited to spend his birthday with his mom for the first time in years. It was a lot of fun. In the evening we went to Carrabbas.

Naturally, I couldn’t stop with one picture. lol.

Zach sucumbed to the begging of Zora for Bubbles. Both kids were out enjoying the fun, but only Zora was dressed appropriate for internet viewing.

Robert followed Zach home from work (Robert is a contracter working on some computer stuff). He hates taking the interstate in his van, so there is usually a little lag even when they leave at the same time, so we just hung out for a few minutes while waiting for him.

I like these pictures of my wonderful husband

There is something about this one that makes him look very Italian

And the evening programming festivities commence (with Chili)

By the way, she dressed herself. Yes, the top shirt is backwards, and I don’t know why she wanted to wear two shirts because it wasn’t all that cold this afternoon.

Some of the photo quality is crummy (I think my camera is dying and it is causing a great deal of frustration for me. It won’t stay in focus and photos are terribly grainy), but I included them anyway because they are fun.

Around Italy, Texas (what a name. lol) we needed to stop for gas and coffee. We pulled of the highway and low and behold, this was next to the gas station. We had to take a closer look….and pictures, naturally.

Trying to get the kids to do the vulcan greeting.

So, are there extra geek points awarded for wearing your NASA hat while posing for this picture?

And, I gotta say that I loved the van. It was so roomy and rode so smoothly. It made the trip so much better than it could have been.