So it has been a very long time since I have posted anything, but life in Bloomington is plugging along well. Our little man, Beau, turned 1 back in January and is such a great little kid. He is a big kid and is walking all over the place, throwing anything that he can find and grunting a lot (no speaking yet though). He is such a good kid and he loves his mommy! He likes to be held and cuddled more than our two girls did, and the girls both love him.
Eva continues to grow up and become a little kid, definitely not a toddler anymore. We often forget that she is still only three because she is pretty tall, speaks pretty well and is a fun kid. She is also our little rabbit and is not quite a vegetarian, but she loves her veggies. Her favorite foods are peas, cucumbers, mushrooms, olives, and pop corn. She really loves to play with her dolls and is good at playing by herself. She also loves to play with Beau and can really get him laughing hard.
Maggie turned 7 last month and she is also a wonderful kid (I know I am biased, but they are all great). She is in 1st grade, but is in a mixed grade with both Kindergardeners and 1st graders at the Bloomington Project School. She really likes school and absolutely loves doing crafts. She has done some crochet and sewing classes in school. She started sewing a sleeping shirt for Beau, but it wasn't big enough so she started making it for a cabbage patch doll. It was pretty clever and she just did it all on her own. Her Grandpa C made her a cool art box for her birthday to hold all of her papers and other projects. She is very creative, loves art and is also getting pretty good at piano (though she hates to practice). Also for her birthday she got Just Dance Disney and she loves doing the dances with Eva. It is really cute and fun to watch them play together. Most of the time they play really well together.
Megan has been very busy in the Relief Society Presidency but it has been good for her to be involved with so many neat ladies in our church. She is getting excited to get her garden started this year and is ready for spring to come so that her and the kids can spend more time outside. One of her very favorite things to do here in Bloomington is to play basketball on Tuesdays with several ladies from our church. She really enjoys it, and while I am not able to go and watch them play, I hear rumors that she is called "The Bruiser" because she is not afraid of anyone. Ok, maybe not really, but she has gotten pretty good and she really loves it. If it is ever cancelled, she is in a bad mood...
Justin loves working in the Instructional Consulting Office in the school of education, where he gets to work with faculty members on integrating technology into their classes, or teaching workshops on technology use in education. He is still trying to make headway with researching the topic of 'Informal Learning.' Basically there is a lot of learning that occurs outside of formal classroom settings and he is interested in understanding the learning that occurs in these settings. He probably still has two years left in his PhD program, but he enjoys what he does.
Other than that, our big event was a recent trip to Disney World with some of the Christensen family (16 people). It was such a fun trip and we had a great time. We left Indiana with three inches of snow and arrived to mild (70 - 75 degree) weather.
Justin was as excited as any of the kids and really loved seeing everything. Megan had a great time too, but definitely decided that she HATES big crowds! We went to three of the four parks and we (Megan & Justin) were even able to take Maggie back one evening and have some time with just her that was pretty special. Maggie went on some big roller coasters, but preferred the kiddie rides. Eva says she didn't like any of it, but as you can see from the pictures, she loved it too. Beau probably had the hardest time because he had to stay in the stroller quite a bit, but even he did really well and liked the shows. Justin really liked seeing all of the Star Wars stuff with the ride and the fun merchandise. Since Disney recently bought the rights to Star Wars, there is some really fun stuff to see there. Justin had to really restrain himself and not spend all of his money on the Wookie hat, or the storm trooper helmet. Good times. We even got to spend one of the days with Scott Myler, one of Justin's friends from BYU-I that lives in Orlando and worked in the parks so we got some nice behind the scenes info.
I (Justin) must admit, that I was really impressed with pretty much everything. The rides were fun, the park was clean, employees were nice, the shows were AWESOME!!! and the whole atmosphere was pretty great. There is so much attention to detail that goes into all of the rides and it was a lot of fun. Even waiting in line to go on the rides was fun, and because of the FastPass system, we rarely had to wait more than 15 minutes in line. I have been to some really great amusement parks with better roller coasters in the past, but the overall experience at Disney World was fantastic! I hope that we can go back again sometime in the future and enjoy more of the park as my kids get older. Thanks to the Christensen's for making it possible (it was everyone's birthday present for the year), and we had a great time. I think that perhaps the Whiting's need to consider a family reunion there in the future. Disney Land 2015 anyone???
No comments:
Post a Comment