For some unknown reason, Kaylee was playing with the Mungi Bands she got for Christmas and… a sock. She struck up a pose when I pulled out the camera.
Mark decided to jump in on the next shot.
Kaylee was not happy about having a co-star. ;)
One of the games Todd had taught Matthew was poker, and as more family began arriving Thursday evening, an intense (and apparently very entertaining) game got underway.
Up in Illinois, we slipped away for a few hours for a return trip to the Abraham Lincoln Presidential Museum. It’s a very cool museum, but mainly Mark wanted to see their Ghosts of the Library show again, which uses an old magic trick as the basis for its presentation. We all saw the show once, and then Kaylee and I looked at the gown exhibit and hung out in the kids interactive area while Mark and Matthew saw it two more times.
We had another lecturing magician stay with us this weekend, Alan Sands. He had a little time off between stops, so he was able to hang out an extra day and keep Mark occupied. ;) Even got down on his hands and knees and worked on trying to refinish one area of our wood floor that is especially scratched up. I swear it was all his idea. We don’t normally put our guest magicians to work doing home improvements. LOL
He left behind a little souvenir as well. Can you tell what part of his lecture covered? :)
One of Matthew’s friends had left these Munchkin card games behind last weekend, so he and Mark decided they would see if they could figure them out and play a bit while we have them here. They spent the better part of the afternoon and evening reading rules and analyzing strategy and explaining thing to each other, and I think they might have actually gotten to play a little bit too. ;)
Kaylee asked me for help this afternoon with her math homework, which described dealing cards in a certain complex order, resulting in a specific sequence of the cards that were dealt. The problem was to determine what initial order the cards needed to be in to achieve that result. Mark overheard us and immediately chimed in with, “oh, that’s the Australian Shuffle!”, and told her it was used in magic a lot. I don’t know if I’ve ever seen him so eager to jump in and help her with her homework. LOL I think they must have spent nearly an hour on that problem until she finally understood. I wonder if the homework was harder or easier for the kids who don’t have a magician for a parent. ;)
For various reasons, we haven’t had a guest lecturing magician stay with us in aaaages, but this weekend we had the pleasure of hosting “The Las Vegas Kid” Chris Randall and his assistant for this tour, Adriana.
Chris is one of our “repeat customers”. He was previously here in the fall of 2007 …
Welcome back, Chris. Would you like to make a reservation for 2017? :)
Mark saw me with my camera looking around the room, shooting random post-holiday chaos, and asked what I was doing. When I told him I was planning to restart my photo-a-day, and I was looking for something to shoot, he promptly struck a pose. Gotta love enthusiastic support from the family. :)
Had to sneak in another post for today. I love this shot of Mark helping Kaylee with her shoe-tying practice. She got it down pretty well last summer, but her shoes this spring had Velcro rather than laces, so she’d forgotten how to tie and is doing a little refresher. :)
Mark gave Matthew his first lawn mowing lesson today. He doesn’t totally have the hang of it yet (and won’t be able to do it without being closely supervised anytime soon because of his seizures), but he did pretty well for his first time. :)
We had some Speed Zone gift cards, so we headed across town to check it out today. This roller coaster simulator was definitely one of the kids’ favorites. They rode it several times.
Other hits were air hockey…
mini-bowling…
and putt-putt golf!
It was more than a bit on the hot side for the golf, but fortunately most of the holes had trees where we could grab some shade while waiting our turns. Although Matthew did pretty well, Mark ended up winning. I kept putting too hard and overshooting. Kaylee kept turning her club around backwards, putting from the left-handed side of the ball, and reversing her grip. It’s amazing she ever got the ball in the hole. LOL
Mark helped Matthew work on perfecting a new card trick this evening.
Kaylee wanted to take advantage of her new bedroom setup to host a movie night. She and Mark and Matthew watched “Jungle Book”. :)
We celebrated the 4th with a family game night. This is the same Dungeon game that Matthew and Kaylee were playing the other day. Afterwards, the kids shot off party poppers in the back yard (a bit to dark for decent pictures), and then later we watched some nearby fireworks from the front porch. :)
There was a magic convention in town this week. While Mark didn’t attend, he did help out with a few rides to/from the airport, catch a few shows, and just go hang out with friends a few evenings. He invited a few people to the house for lunch when it was over. Here Kaylee and Matthew are dining with living legends Johnny and Pam Thompson, but all Kaylee was concerned about was Pam’s little dogs who were anxiously watching them eat from the nearby couch.
There was also just some general hanging out as Mark showed some of his prize collectables to fellow collector Chip…
and Johnny gave some lessons to Chip’s student who’d accompanied him to the convention.
‘Twas a lovely afternoon. :)
We went for a walk around the park today. Kaylee decided to run crazily on her heels. Sore feet later made her realize that was probably not the best idea. ;)
Matthew as he was getting ready for bed. Apparently on the run from Mark. :)
For Father’s Day the kids presented Mark with a magic trick, homemade cards, and a certificate for a free car wash! :)
Yep, it’s another post for today. It’s my blog, I make (and break) the rules. ;) Excuse the funky color in some of these; it was nearly sunset, so I had to boost the exposure.
I ended up needing a nap after all the labor of Kaylee’s room, and during that time, Mark decided to take the kids out one more time to look for new bikes. They needed them desperately, since they’d outgrown their old ones to the point of knees banging on handlebars. We’d gone looking once before and hadn’t found anything, but this time they scored some affordable appropriate rides at Wal-Mart.
Kaylee still had her training wheels on the little bike. She hadn’t gotten enough time in on it to get the hang of it when she was smaller, and trying to learn when she was so much bigger would have required sending her to clown college. So this was her first time without the training wheels. She was nervous, but she did very well!
Matthew was pleased to find that his skills from last summer were still with him. :)
(We’d also gotten the kids new helmets, but Matthew mistakenly grabbed his old one without realizing. LOL)
