Hynes Family: Finishing Up February

Unable to let Disneyland go so easily, we brought the caramel apple home and ate it the day after we got back. The vacation was such a great break form life; we didn't worry about bills, work, we didn't answer calls, we just spent time together and made memories. We decided we were able to squeeze more quality one-on-one family time into those 4 days then we would have been able to in a month of being home. It helped us remember how much we enjoy each other, and what a fun group we are. It was nice to drag it out for one more day. It was a perfect way to end the adventure and close-out my birthday week.

Mike was honored at work with the Pharmacy of the Year!!! He works so hard and is so good at what he does, it is so nice for him to be appreciated. We're pretty proud of him. We think he's pretty great.

I brought a sinus-bug home from Disneyland with me (I suspect it may be the same sore-throat Elliott had on that first day), and I shared it with Lucy. Even though she had quite a fever, we couldn't resist a picnic in our old park (yep, that's our old house in the background) on such a beautiful day.

Being a sharing kind of family, she then shared the bug with Archie.

Once we were all feeling better, it was back to life as normal. Again, . We all wished we were still back at Disneyland. This is Archie's bad-guy convention. It was quite a party, everyone was there: Xibalba, Darth Vader, Hook, Hook again, Zurg, some Zombies, Ursula....it was great.

Leaving for Disney for a week was especially hard for Lucy. She's in middle school now and in the gifted and talented track, so they don't like it when she checks out for 5 days in a row. I thought the second week of the new semester would be relatively harmless, but I didn't realize that she had a big National History Day group project they were finishing up, and a science fair project that both carried over from the last semester!!! YIKES!! Her teachers weren't happy, but they were very helpful and she was able to work VERY hard and get everything done that she needed to. This is her performing in the Trial of the Century at NHD.

Another nice February day inspired us to take a bike ride to the park. Archie has been fixated on Aladdin since we watched it in our hotel at Disneyland, so he claims that he isn't, in fact, Superman in this costume, but Jaffar, the bad-guy from Aladdin. Of course :)

Lucy and Rowan had their first BIG band concert!!! It was super-fun!

To understand the significance of these next two pictures, you have to know a little back-story. Archie did NOT like Pete the Cat at the beginning of the year. He wouldn't want to go to class, and when he did go, he made me ask his teachers not to read the shoes book. He has been very brave and has powered through, and actually learned to LIKE Pete!!! This was on his classroom door, and I thought it was very cute.