Minneapolis Week Two

This week was a little slower at the start.  On Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday we spent time at the parks, pool and library.
The kids like to go out onto our deck throughout the day.  It is definitely not my favorite place for them to hang out.  My irrational mind is so worried about something happening to them which would result in a 4 story fall.  I know this isn't going to happen because they are too short to get close to going over and there is nothing for them to climb on, but I still get super nervous.

Ben likes to people watch and look for the doggies.

Thursday was a big day.  Neon Trees, the band my brother-in-law, Dave, plays for was in town that night and I really wanted to go.  The band was probably going on at about 9:30, so we planned on putting the kids to bed early (by 7:30) and having Big Ben, the other UCLA Mormon intern, come sit at our house while they slept.  So my job all day was to exhaust the kids.  We woke Emilee up at 7 a.m. while we let Ben sleep because he was not getting a nap.  By 9:30 I had the kids packed up and out the door.  We met up with the Thursday play group up at a park at 10 a.m.  Then we proceeded to play there until almost 1 o'clock.  At that point I loaded the kids up for the 30 minute drive home, but I had scheduled a stop at a Walmart halfway to keep the kids from falling asleep in the car.  It worked perfectly.  Once we were home we stayed there for a little while and played and then at about 4 p.m. we headed to the neighborhood park's wading pool.

The wading pool is 1 ft 7 inches deep, perfect for toddlers.  Ben was a little unsure at first, but once I walked him around for a bit he warmed up and started walking around.  This lasted until he decided to pick up a wasp that was swimming in the water.  The expected outcome resulted and he was not a happy camper for about 5 minutes.  He did not want me to touch his hand that was stung.  I was extremely grateful he was not allergic and was happy within 5 minutes.  He got back in the water and played, while refusing to pick up any other floating debris in the pool.

Sad boy after the wasp got him

But it didn't last long and then he jumped back out there.

 The best part of the wading pool was Emilee getting adventurous.  She took some swim lessons back in California with a small group of other toddlers and got some good one-on-one attention and lessons.  The next step in her lessons would have been to start going underwater and learning to swim without any support.  While at the wading pool she was throwing a ball under water and then swimming to it.  While retrieving the ball she started putting her whole head under the water, even though it was shallow enough to reach it without doing that.  I used my waterproof camera to take some pictures and video of her, which she thought was cool so it encouraged her to keep doing it.  After doing it for a little while she told me that she could see Ben's legs under the water.  I realized that she was starting to open her eyes under the water.  This was such a big step and I was so excited that she was doing this.

Looking at the camera

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She figured out the breathing all on her own.

We stayed at the pool until almost 6:30.  Then it was dinner time and straight to bed for these tired kiddos.  Both kids were asleep within five minutes after story and prayer, allowing us to be out of their room by 7:30.  This was better than I planned for.  We figured it would be 8 before they would be asleep.
So it was off to the show for us.  We met up with Dave before the show to chat and catch up.  Then the band started playing at 9;30.  It was a great show!  I don't get to go to as many shows now that we have kids because some of the shows don't work well with finding sitters for the kids.  They played a lot of my favorites, including my newest favorite.

The band

Dave hanging out during one of Tyler's (lead singer) chats

 We had VIP passes that allowed us to stay in the venue after the show, so we waited for Dave.  We talked to him for a little while, but it was a weeknight and Chris had work the next morning so we had to head out.  During our chat Dave told us that the bassist, Brandon, asked if we were there because apparently he saw us in the crowd and was confused because we were in Minneapolis and not LA.  The lead singer had also seen us.

Dave and Chris hanging out after the show

 A few days later Dave came back into town with the lead singer, Tyler Glenn, and they both joined us for a Third Eye Blind concert.  We are all big fans and have been since we were teenagers.  Tyler is the same age as Chris and I.  Luckily for this concert my in-laws had come into town late the night before so they got to babysit the kids while we went to the concert. It was a great show, but had a weird vibe because it was outside in an empty lot and on the street and it was an early show, starting at 5:30 and ending at 9, we think due to noise ordinances.

The early show allowed me to see Stephen Jenkins with a new look- nice shades

The evening was topped off quite nicely with this hat thrown up on stage during the encore.

 It was such a fun end to the week to be able to go to some concerts with Chris.  Sometimes it is nice to be young and carefree again.  Next week we have even more going on since the in laws are in town. Stay tuned to that post coming soon (it may have to come in two parts).