Pinewood Derby

Big year at the Pinewood Derby! The Wolf Scouts ran the event for the Pack, so John was very involved.  And William's car was the second fastest car of the entire night!  His den mate, Henry, had the fastest, so Henry was pack grand champion and William was Wolf champion! 

 

Since John was traveling, I was in charge of weigh in.  It was perfect, but I have to admit my naivete with regard to the graphite powder that gets put on the wheels.  Note for next year, don't wear a white jacket when handling a Derby car. . .

  

 

 

Kansas City

We made a quick trip to Kansas City for the weekend to celebrate some very important people!  

 

We arrived on Friday evening just in time for my brother-in-law's 50th birthday party at the Tanner's by our old house.  It was fun to check out the old neighborhood - and eat cheeseballs dipped in ranch! - and see a lot of John's family! 

Meanwhile back at the Koudeles there were many epic Nerf battles going on!  It's fun that all three kids play together.  Aiden was at a Cub Scouts campout our first evening/morning, but William said Addie was a lot of fun!  Yes, she has her own purple dart gun......And, of course, the animal whisperer was in heaven to have Willie and Indy to play with!

On Sunday we met up with my entire family for brunch to celebrate my mom's birthday.  It was a great coincidence that Ryan was going to be in Kansas City the same weekend an we could all get together!

And no trip to Desiree's house is complete without her famous chocolate chip cookies.  They may an amazing anytime treat, but I'll admit to enjoying several with my morning latte!  Two nights, three days, priceless memories with all of our favorite people!

Valentine's Day

I was traveling on February 14, so didn't get a chance to exchange Valentines with my Valentines until the 15th.   William (and Daddy) very creative with their Valentine's "box" and instead of crafting something took in an old pencil box!  I was proud of them for realizing that crafting something wasn't worth the effort if they didn't want to do it.   Grandma and Grandpa VanMeter sent a Star Wars card in the mail.  Yay!

When I got back to the office on February 15, I had a new, bigger office waiting for me!   Our group moved floors into newly renovated space and I finally got upgraded from my senior manager to partner office.  It feels so spacious after 5 years in an office the size of a powder room! :-)   Around lunchtime, flowers from John arrived to make it even nicer!

Seattle

I traveled to Seattle on a Sunday for a Monday meeting and scheduled my flight to spend some Sunday afternoon fun time with my Theta sisters.  I was also thrilled that since I was flying at off peak business travel hours (Sunday morning and Tuesday morning) that I was upgraded to first class both legs.  Whoo hoo!

 

I stayed at a cute hotel downtown called Arctic Club that had a polar bear statue in the lounge and explorer themed rooms.

But the best part was meeting up with three of my sorority sisters that I have only seen a few times since we left K-State.  We had a great lunch and lots of laughs catching up on life! 

I know that Seattle can be gloomy and dreary, but I've usually lucked out weather wise when I've been there.  I was impressed with a few of the views I captured.

Friendship Party & Disney on Ice

I took the afternoon off work in order to lead the Valentine's party for William's classroom (actually known as the Friendship Party).   I may have been a little naïve in thinking the kids would use the candy just for building a craft project and not for eating. . . .

That evening, we took a friend and his mom to the United Center where we had the Deloitte suite for Disney on Ice, which had a loose storyline around the Inside Out characters with "greatest hits" from all Disney/Pixar movies from the last 10 years.  Even the catering menu was specific to the event with hot dogs, chicken fingers, mac 'n cheese, Jell-o and cookies instead of the more traditional game food.  Well, I guess except for the Jell-o, I've eaten most of those items as a game, too!  This was the first time we had done Disney on Ice.  I really enjoyed it!

 

 

 

 

 

 

Mealworms

My time as a mealworm parent - thankfully - came to an end.  Those cute little larvae turned into beetles and really grossed me out.  Not to mention that William got bored of them, so I was the one cleaning the petri dish and adding new apple slices.  That behavior didn't bode well for his ongoing ask of getting another dog.    I was happy to release these little critters into the wild of the front yard.

Cub Scout at the Police Station

As the finale of their Hometown Heroes unit, the boys toured a local police station.   Last weekend they had a meeting at their den leader's house about service dogs with two in attendance.   John accompanied William to both events.  For the dogs, they went on and on about how hairy the long-haired German Shepherd was!  We knew how much hair Rachel shed, so I can only imagine with that fella! 

 

I borrowed all of these photos from the den leader's Facebook update.  I love how she catches the progressively nervous faces of the kids as they go from their favorite spot (viewing "The Beast" and the other big vehicles) to booking and finally in the last photo - on a cell tour.   Scare those kids straight!

 

 

 

Half Birthday

Half birthdays are totally worth celebrating!  Mostly it was a fun excuse to get together on a Sunday afternoon with my neighbors to eat Mexican food, drink margaritas and eat a "chocolate piñata!"  Fruit and churros were inside that chocolate shell!

Welcome 2017!

We hosted New Year's Eve for some friends, and it was a great incentive to get the new sink and toilet into the powder room, reorganize the living room to better store William's Legos, and generally get the construction materials and tools that had been lingering around put away! 

William still had one more week off school. . . .so we signed him up for daily swimming lessons during the lunch hour.   He got that Bears stocking cap as a sign up gift.  After briefly using it as a Christmas tree topper on his new-to-him tree (a neighbor gave it to us on 1/2 when she was clearing it out of her house), he wore it all day every day for the next week!

Our other project during break was a set of mealworms that William's class had studied.  Each kid was allowed to have four.  William's four are named Will Jr., Liam, Karl and Charlie.   A few weeks in, we discovered a fifth one buried in the oats!  He was given the name Bart.   They move from larvae (worm) stage to pupae to darkling beetles.   Our neighbors each have them at various stages, including beetle.  We're still waiting for the larvae to transform.   I was tempted to throw them out since I'm the only one feeding them (they get apple slices for water and a bedding of oatmeal), but agreed to keep them at William's request.   I'm sure there will be future posts on these. .. .