Manhattan and Ryan's Birthday Party

On Thursday I took Kim to her doctor appointments while Esther got to take Ryan and Ethan as well as their friends Doran and Amory to the top of the Empire State Building. Our guys have been there once before, but it was Doran and Amory's first trip to Manhattan.
They really liked the Subway.
The top of the tall building was cool, too.
Today was Ryan's 5th birthday party. He actually turns 5 on the 25th CLASSIFIED, but no real spy lets anyone know private information. He had said he wanted a spy-themed party, but changed it at the last minute to a Rescue Heroes one. He still got lots of cool spy gear including binoculars hidden in a football and a secret code book with decoder pad.

We made him a Rescue Hero symbol birthday cake.

He got lots of presents.
We had 3 rescue games for everyone to play. First we put a bunch of plastic balls and some crumpled newsprint into a tent along with 2 dozen parachute guys. We covered the tent with white sheets. (Thanks Karen for tent and sheets and Mik for the newsprint!) That was a tragic avalanche in which the parachuters were trapped! The kids went in with flashlights and rescued them though so all ended well.
Next we made cardboard flames and set the swing set on fire. Ethan and Amory were trapped inside! Luckily, we had some water balloons to use to douse the flames. Teo and Kyle were happy to aid in the rescue.
In fact, we found no shortage of volunteers.
Ethan and Amory were in no hurry to be rescued though.

Oddly, some people preferred air in their balloons.
Finally, we hung some small foam airplanes in the tree. We said they were having internal fires. of course you can't use plain water to dose a jet fuel fire. Since foam fire spray is expensive and dangerous, we settled for whipped cream.

Sam was willing to demonstrates good firefighting technique.
But really, who could have whipped cream and waste it all on some silly airplane fires?

Certainly not Ethan!

Nor Amory!
Piper managed to make a can explode.

Ryan was content to just play the gracious host, or is he taking them back to fill water balloons?
So, we had a very full week and now we have four sleeping boys and several slippery spots in the yard where the rain is busily washing away the whipped cream.

We also have a little bit of leftover cake.

This week in pictures

On Monday Kim generously invited a bunch of people over to her house.

The slip and slide was a favorite activity.

Goat herding was also very popular.

Tuesday was a very busy day! First up was Ryan's gymnastic class where it was parent day. Ryan hates parents day. He doesn't like so many people looking at him. Ethan, however, got to show off in front of the parents as he demonstrated some cool moves to the younger kids.

This a photo of all the kids with the medals and certificates they got for finishing the class. Spies don't let people take their pictures. I mean, really, how would it look if a spy got photographed at training camp? Ryan is in the photo. He is hiding behind the girls standing in the back row, but you didn't hear that from me.

Next we went to Stephanie's house where Ryan got an early birthday present. Actually, he got 2 presents. One is a mandala drawing kit and the other is a stuffed olar bear. Last year Stephanie gave him a stuffed jaguar which he still carries around.

One of Stephanie's cats was very interested in a bag of beads and string I brought to work on.


In the evening we went to homeschoolers night at the New Britain Rockcats baseball game. There were 508 homeschoolers there. It was 97 degrees at game time, but that didn't stop Ethan and Ryan from settling in for food and fun with friends...
and without.


Of course, what's a sporting event without a bench-clearing brawl? Really Ethan is just tweaking Teo's nose. Teo thought this was big fun.

What's up with that?

Life is just a laugh riot when you're at the game.


On Wednesday we hung out with friends at Petersen Park in Wolcott, CT. One of the kids found a snake (a Northern Watersnake) which obligingly let me photograph him.

I also noticed a cool looking Green Frog in the creek.




I'll write more about the rest of the week later when I get the photos downloaded to the computer. Now it's time for me to have a hot drink to soothe my sore throat while I watch some television.

Rainbow Boys

I was watering the garden today while Ethan and Ryan jumped on the trampoline. "You can't spray us Ba!" they yelled. I pretended not to hear them and continued watering.

They yelled some more and I turned innocently asking "What are you saying?" I "accidentally" sprayed them. This became a wonderful game. As I sprayed Ethan across the trampoline, I noticed a rainbow in the spray. It arched gracefully across both Ryan and Ethan. I wanted to grab the camera and get a picture of it, but there was no way to use the camera and the hose without interrupting our game. I love that my guys were playing in a rainbow today. They didn't even notice, but that made it all the more perfect.