Huzzah for a Week of Fun in the Sun!

Fortunately, the Nutt House (knock on wood) can claim to be illness free once again!  Kara had a minor battle with the flu, but nothing compared to everyone else and she was over it in 24 hours.  All of this led to a week of fun and adventures for the Nutt House. 

We did engage in our standard weekly activities of school, dance, My Gym and play dates and enjoyed our time while doing so.  For Kaden’s school this week while I was teaching we celebrated the birthday of Dr. Seuss with a slew of activities.  We’d read a Dr. Seuss book then complete an accompanying activity for each book, and we used some of our favorite Dr. Seuss books for the week – “Green Eggs and Ham”, “Ten Apples Up On Top”, “There’s a Wocket in My Pocket”, “The Foot Book”, “Cat in the Hat”, and “The Cat in the Hat Comes Back”.  I had such a fun time teaching this week, and felt that the kiddos enjoyed themselves and learned a thing or two.

Two rock star preschoolers

Cat in the Hat's hat made out of fruit

Green eggs and ham

Kaden's interpretation of a Wocket 

At My Gym Kaden achieved a milestone – he completed his first summersault all by himself!  Where Kara practices dance each day at home Kaden started practicing his summersaults because he wanted to show his teachers he could do it without help.  When he achieved his summersault he was so nonchalant about it while I was sitting there trying to contain the enthusiasm I felt.  I didn’t do the best of jobs as Kara who was sitting with me looked at me and commented, “what’s’ wrong mom?”.  I was beaming with pride over the improvement this little man had made. 

Log rolls under the umbrella, because of course I didn't
capture the summersault

He did not like the circus ladder so much as it
was, "too wobbly"

One of Kaden’s little friends celebrated his birthday this week and the kiddos were excited to attend a Minon’s themed birthday party for him.  The kid’s enjoyed making a drive-in movie car where afterwards they sat in their cars to enjoy watching the second Minon’s movie.

Cars finished, waiting for the movie to start

This week brought a trip to the Halle Heart Museum, a place Kaden has been asking to go for a few weeks now.  This is a smaller museum and one that we fortunately don’t seem to run into too many other people at when we go.  I enjoy this as Kara can run to the bathroom by herself when needed, or I can take Kaden without making Kara go too without worrying about Kara.  The emptiness while we are there allows us to spend as much time as we’d like at each exhibit without worrying about others.  Kara and Kaden always enjoy the grocery store area where they work to buy 7 food items to make a heart healthy meal without consuming too many grams of fat.  This exhibit is one I appreciate as it provides us with a chance to discuss good eating habits as a family.  Another family favorite area is the golfing area where the kiddos roll golf balls through an esophagus tube that is blocked off from smoking.  Where Kara has someone she cares about that does smoke this exhibit is good to remind her why smoking is not good for her as her first tendency is to try and emulate this person.  This week while we were there we were fortunate to be able to take advantage of their art/craft time.  So, the kiddos made elephants made out of heart shapes.  They naturally seem to enjoy arts and crafts and this was no exception. 

Kaden with the giraffe's heart

Two awesomesauce heart elephants

Waiting to see if their food choices achieved the
protein and fat intake goals

Golf ball rolling through the esophagus

Kara had fun playing a Kinect
Fruit Ninja where she had to use her body
to chop the fruit

Of course this was not all our week consisted of, we enjoyed some time shopping and playing at the outlet stores while doing so and relished in some family treat and dinner times.  After Kaden’s summersault accomplishment and Kara’s dance class we celebrated with Bahama Buck’s shaved ice treats.  These hit the spot also for throats that were a tad bit sore thanks to horrific allergies.  Earlier in the week the Nutt House put on our adventurous hats with a trip to a teppanyaki grill for dinner.  Kara and Kaden have been to a teppanyaki restaurant before but could not remember the experience which made it even more enjoyable for us big Nutts.  The looks of awe and amazement on the little Nutts faces as the food was prepared brought smiles to our faces.  I knew they really enjoyed themselves when the next day while cutting an onion for dinner Kaden asked if I was going to make a volcano and a train with it like the restaurant did. 

Us Nutt's are serious about our shaved ice!

Sporting new spring hats

Jump, jump!

All of these experiences were fun but the piece de resistance of the week came from our trip to the Arizona Renaissance Festival.  The Nutt House had been looking forward to this event since we left the festival last year.  For this year’s journey we arrived much earlier in the day, arriving just 30 minutes after the doors opened and we stayed until the gates closed.  Each minute we were inside was chalked full of amazement, we enjoyed several shows – watching a daredevil balancing act, a bagpipe group, a whip cracker, and some belly dancers.  At each show my glance would dart between the performers and the faces of the little Nutts.  I found myself looking forward to the faces of the little Nutts more so than the performers themselves.  Kaden watched the whip cracker with amazement in his eyes and the bag pipe performers with a perplexing look.  Kara admired with glee the balancing act as the tricks they could pull off far outweigh her current skill set and same could be said about the belly dancers, especially when one wrapped up in ribbons to dance, for this performance, her look was pure awe.  Of course, we didn’t just watch the shows though that was much of the day, we did some shopping where Kara procured a new fan that she eagerly used throughout the remainder of the day and a mermaid necklace.  Kaden became the proud new owner of a knight’s helmet that he too utilized for the rest of the day, though, that meant his vision was slightly obscured, fortunately, he didn’t mind at all.  As we were leaving, we walked through the glass blower’s area, his presentation on how he makes his art last year was my favorite, hands down.  Well, this year we missed his presentations but hit the jackpot when we noticed a bowl he had made was significantly marked down thanks to a minor flaw.  Brent, being the sweetheart that he is, then purchased the piece as he knew how much I had fallen in love with the glass blown art.  So I am now one proud Nutt with a breathtaking hand blown glass bowl sitting front and center high up on my dresser, far out of reach from little Nutt’s and Uno.  When we weren’t shopping and watching shows we were checking out some of our favorite exhibits.  The highlight of Kara’s day came when we went to the new this year live mermaid exhibit.  Kara could have stayed in that area all day, watching and interacting with the mermaid in the water tank and the one that was out for photo ops.  Kaden wasn’t disappointed as the pirate who was rescued by the mermaids was there and he was able to have his picture taken with the pirate, after he was convinced the pirate was a nice pirate like Jake from Disney Jr.’s Jake and the Neverland Pirates.  Both kiddos enthusiastically hopped onto an elephant to ride with Brent, though I have a feeling as fun as the elephant was they will not remember it come next year.  Kaden also enjoyed riding on a boat, carousel type ride while Kara fell in love with Twig the Fairy after getting a meet and greet with her once she purchased her mermaid necklace from her booth.  In between and during several of these events we munched on several of the festival fares.  Everything from ice cream, to turkey legs, to chicken on a stick, roasted corn, chocolate covered frozen cheesecake, pretzels, root beer floats and more.  Fortunately, we shared all of the delicious goods and we ate them throughout the entire day.  Our day at the renaissance festival ended with our attendance at the final jousting match of the day.  It was a blessing in disguise when we weren’t able to attend an earlier performance as it shorted the lines for things like the elephant rides and allowed us to have prime seats for the final and best jousting match.  We sat on the front row in the same area we had last time and fortunately, our knight was the winner!  After winning the joust he had to defend himself and take back the winner’s gold chain necklace from a rival knight who stole it out of jealousy.  After assuring the little Nutt’s that no one was really hurt the entire Nutt family was able to continue cheering on our good knight with several Huzzah’s until he recaptured the golden chain and defeated the rival knight once and for all.   As the jousting match came to an end so did our day and we left gorged on medieval fun and fully delighted as the Nutt-y family that we are.

It is pink and perfect!

Love this little Knight!

Stunning!

Mother Goose

My favorite knight

This mermaid has solidified to Kara the existence of
mermaids and fairies!

A real mermaid princess! *who knows Ariel, is related
to her distantly, and knows many of the dolphins in the ocean

Pirate Captains!

Waiting for the jousting to start

Our knight

Post victory with my two favorite knights

Statue performer as we exit the festival...
same as last year & still makes me think of  N'awlins

One last picture request from Kaden before we left

Now, once that was done, I thought the adventures of the Nutt House were done for the week, but no.  After church today the two little Nutts enjoyed some play outside which morphed into some water play that ended with two naked little Nutts giggling their Sunday afternoon away. 

What a week for the Nutt House, we know we are so very fortunate for the adventures we enjoy and look forward to the escapades this next week will bring!