Caleb is working really hard at learning to read. Daniel's mom gave us a book with reading lessons in it and so he and Daniel work on it most days. He's really into sounding things out now and loves writing too. He's also trying to figure out humor. He thinks knock knock jokes are the funniest and is always making up new ones. He's cute enough that even when the joke itself isn't funny, it's still easy to laugh because of his facial expressions.
Caleb has decided that he likes sleeping on his floor. It's funny because he sleeps in the corner right in front of his closet door, but he likes to have the door open a little bit so that he has some light (we leave the closet light on for him) so he sleeps kind of cock-eyed. I guess it works for him, though, because he always insists on sleeping there rather than his bed or even the middle of the floor.
Kaiana develops more of a personality every day. She's talking some more now. She says "What's that?" "Hey there" "Daddy" "Jane" and I'm pretty certain she was saying "Love you" to Daniel last night. He's become her favorite person. If she hasn't seen him for a little while and then he shows up, her face lights up and she calls out for him. She's also figuring out how to communicate even without words. If she wants a drink, she goes to the fridge and yells until we come and help her. She also really likes having her hair brushed, and her favorite stylist is Daddy. Kaiana loves to play upstairs in her bedroom all by herself. Sometimes she'll spend hours up there entertaining herself.
Caleb and Kaiana love to play out in front of our apartment, so we all went outside to play one day. Caleb took this picture of Daniel and I.
It's really hard to convince Caleb to let us take picture of him, but I snapped this. The umbrella is one of his favorite toys.
Kaiana decided to work on blowing bubbles that day. She was pretty successful. I tried to get a video, but she was only willing to cooperate for still shots. :-)
We went on a hike with Daniel's family. We did the Green Mountain Trail up on Mt. Lemmon. It was fun, but a little too hard with the children. We had fun anyway, though. Here are the men:
Here are Kaiana and Jane:
She wasn't a big fan of the carrier, but I'm so glad we had it. We all took turns carrying her. Here is Kaiana at the end of the hike after a few good falls.
I put in an application for a team lead position at work. We had a team lead retire at the end of May so I was hoping to get his position. Unfortunately, management decided that rather than hire a replacement team lead, they just split his team among the other team leads so that they could save money. It was frustrating, but I still have hopes of a promotion eventually. The plan is to hire a new training class in August, which means that they will have to hire more team leads. I have some of the best stats in our department, plus I have the respect of the other team leads as well as the operations manager, so I figure I have good chances. I've been asked to do one-on-one coaching with some of my coworkers and management chose me to represent our location in a conference call with Medco and a focus group with a potential client.
Daniel's and my fifth anniversary was May 22nd. We took a trip up to Oro Valley and stayed at The Golf Villas there. They were really nice. We reserved a single suite, but got a comp upgrade to a 2 bedroom apartment that was bigger than the one we live in. It had a full kitchen, large living room, and a balcony. It was really nice. Here are some pictures of where we stayed.
The Living Room
The balcony
The kitchen (And Daniel... :-D)
Okay, obviously this wasn't part of the hotel, but I just have to say that you can tell you're in a nice section of town when you hardware store looks like this. :-)
I tried out golfing for the first time. Daniel has been before, when he was on his mission, and I think he did a good job. I, on the other hand... Well, let's just say that I can putt, but other than that my aim is atrocious. :-) We decided not to keep score so as to keep from embarassing ourselves. It was really fun anyway, though, and the weather was perfect. It had been raining in the morning so it was a little muddy, but we didn't get rained on and it was overcast so the temperature was great.
Daniel planned our meals. We knew we were going to have a kitchen, so we brought cookbooks and food. We tried out a few new recipes. They turned out really well.
This was our appetizer. I can't remember its name and for some reason I can't find it in the cookbook, but it was really tasty. I think when we have it again, though, we'll eat it for breakfast. I tend to view eggs as a morning dish, not evening.
I have to say that these looked a lot tastier in real life than they do in the picture. We had Asparagus Parmesan and Chicken Breast with Cheese Sauce.
This was the best food we ate all night... It's called Peaches Zanzibar. We had extra ingredients so we made it again Saturday night for the kids. Kaiana's been really picky lately but one bite of that changed her mind! :-)
