"Dinosaur bone museum"

Brody and I spent the morning at the Arizona Museum of Natural History in Mesa with his preschool class.


He loved seeing the dinosaurs and dinosaur bones, but there also was some pretty cool exhibits about black lights, optical illusions, color and more. We saw some authentic old west jail cells and panning for gold too. Both of us were pretty tired, but we had fun!

"Valentine's Birthday Party"

For some reason, Brody thinks the only kind of parties are birthday parties, so they had a Valentine's Birthday Party at school today ... without the birthday. It was a Western themed event, with cowboy hats and bulls on their bags. The kids also got to decorate their own cookies and listened to Mrs. Merriam read "I Know a Coyote that Swallowed a Flea!"

Bobo Pump-Up Song

Corey's hockey team listens to "I Gotta Feeling" to get ready for a game. Bobo likes Daddy's Irish rock song!

Bobo the Biker

For some reason (it could be the 7-year old computer) this video plays almost in slow motion, so hopefully it works better on the blog so you can see our maniac biker.

Typical Sporty Weekend

Another typical weekend ensues for the Arizona Sinclairs... filled with soccer, biking, hockey, basketball and football! We are woefully behind on our blog, so let me see what I can do to fill some gaps.

Prescott Valley - Hockey

We went to Prescott Valley (very close to Prescott) where the Arizona Sundogs are based, and Corey's Capitals were invited to play the Junior Sundogs. It was cool because the mites got to play at a "real" arena - the Arizona Sundogs are a professional team - and just a new team to play.

We went up Saturday morning, and it took about 90 minutes or so to get up there.... Straight into the arena, Corey's team was probably a little over-excited - from the drive, from playing a new team, from playing in a professional arena.... They didn't win, but it was fun to watch! We had a nice lunch at Buffalo Wild Wings with the team.

Of course, when you're talking about my boys, hotels are so much fun, no matter what they are. We stayed at the Comfort Suites there, and it was very nice. We went back to the room to clean up (Corey showered) and decided to join the rest of the team for sledding. Rob had sledded with Corey in Minnesota, so I said I'd go this time. Mind you, we didn't have a winter coat for Corey (we'd borrowed one from friends for Minnesota/Kansas) and we'd earlier stopped at K-Mart to pick up a fleece jacket for him, just in case. So fleece jacket and knit gloves and I think fluffy Crocs were all Corey had!! Meanwhile, I was in jeans and my Skecher Mary Janes without socks.

We got to the national park, and apparently the way into sledding was over a creek, under a barbed wire fence and up a forest's hill. My shoes and feet were soaked, but because I wasn't wearing socks, they dried quickly atop the sledding hill. Corey wasn't so lucky. By the time he was done nearly two hours later, his fleece was soaked, he'd soaked through his gloves and my gloves, and his socks were wet. He had a great time, and at one point, nearly the entire time loaded on to the "white trash" sled (a huge piece of cardboard). In the video, Corey is wearing gray fleece with a Vikings scarf, toward the front. Luckily more parents had real sleds (come on, who in Phoenix owns sleds???) but Corey was more interested in throwing snowballs.

We got back to the hotel and I thought Corey would crash (and rest in preparation of Sunday's 8 a.m. game!) but all the families hung out in the lobby and had pizza while the kids ran around and played spy. Amazingly, the next day brought a great win over the Junior Sundogs, and we went home quite happy!!

Bicycles

The kids got gift cards from Great Grandma Sinclair and Aunt Debbie, and they spent them on bikes. (Okay, we helped a little too.)

Bobo is in LOVE. He is a complete madman on a bike, and pedals as fast as possible. I predict the training wheels will fall off before we're able to remove them to teach him to bike. Meanwhile, Corey hasn't let us remove his training wheels, but at 7, I'd say it's imminent and he's been warned!

Brody runs around the cul-de-sac shouting "Woohoo!" with blatant disregard for how early it may be, so we have to make sure he bikes during normal awake hours.

Soccer

Brody is finally enjoying soccer. He looks forward to it, which is good, and best of all, he doesn't cry when we put his jersey on him. He was even upset a few weeks ago when practice was canceled due to rain. We really lucked out, because the game he would have missed due to our Prescott Valley trip was rescheduled for March since it got rained out! Last Saturday, he made his first real goal (read: in the right goal and during a game!) and he was so excited! He proudly tells anyone that he plays soccer.

He's also loving school. They've been talking about dinosaurs, and he loves singing, "We are the dinosaurs, marching, marching." He also loves singing "3" by Britney Spears, but that's a whole other subject!!!

Other Stuff

Rob just finished grilling some chicken and corn, and we're ready to eat, so I will see if I missed any good videos (I'm sure I did) and update later. In the meantime, Rock Chalk Jayhawk! We'll go to a friend's house tomorrow to watch the Super Bowl, even though the Vikings won't be in it.