May was a beautiful month, with "cool" temperatures for Arizona. The kids spent so much time outside in May, whether we were at splash pads, or just playing outside with all their little neighborhood friends. I have a little weight loss group I'm part of, and we usually meet at different parks across the valley that I would never go to otherwise, so that has been fun.
Reilly and Jaina actually had their school "end of the year" concert very early in May, which was nice to get done before the rest of the month got pretty crazy. It was also nice because the 1st and 2nd grade sang all their songs together, so we got to see them both perform at once. They did a really nice job. They really like their music teacher, Mr. Burr. He does a great job with the kids and has so much enthusiasm. They still sometimes sing a few of their two-part songs here and there.
One of Jeremy's friends and part of his study group at Palmer was named Maureen. She was about our mom's age, and managed to get her doctorate before she turned 50. She is actually the one who watched Reilly and Jaina overnight for us when we had Katy in Iowa. Anyway, she lives and practices in Ireland now, and she came back to the U.S. in May and married Brendan, who is Irish. When they told us they were coming through AZ as part of their little honeymoon before they headed back, (she has a grandbaby in this area) we were excited to go see them. They invited us to their nice resort to swim in the pool. Of course this ended up being one of the very "mild" days, and it wasn't really all that hot outside when we finally got there (about a 40 minute drive) around 4 pm. And guess what we forgot in Mesa. The bag with all our swimming stuff, including all the kids' suits. Seriously? Our community pool still hadn't opened at this point, so they were very eager to swim, and I knew their little hearts would be broken if they didn't get to. So I drove very quickly over to a JCPenney (because we had a coupon, but a Wal-mart would have been a better idea in retrospect) and found semi-reasonable suits for them. You know, to add to the 3 other suits they each already had. Sigh. But they enjoyed two different pools that evening, though they were slightly freezing. The second one we went to was especially exciting, with fun splash areas and a couple of water slides that Reilly tried and Jaina couldn't get enough of (as long as I went down just before her to catch her at the bottom).
We were starving by the time we left, and it was almost bedtime. We had snacks, but we knew there would be way less complaining or sadness on the way home if we filled their little tummies, so we stopped at In-N-Out and everyone got some burger and fries. Shawn even got his own little tray to hold with hamburger bites and french fries. He was happy the whole way home, even though we headed home about 7, which is when he usually goes to bed.
One funny-ish thing that happened in early May is that Jaina went in to clean off the bathroom counters, she suddenly called me to come in there. I went in and saw Jeremy's portable USB speaker with water standing inside it. Not good. I immediately knew that Katy was responsible. When I asked her why she did it (while she was holding a blow dryer on the inner part of the speaker) she said, "I was trying to wash it!" "Why would you do that?" "Because it looked dirty." Sigh.
It actually did work again just fine, which was nice, since one listing for it said it was waterproof, but everyone said it was actually just "splash-proof," which definitely doesn't mean it can survive a few hours with water sitting inside it...
The other noteworthy thing that happened early that month was that after much last-minute scurrying, Reilly managed to fulfill all the requirements for his Wolf in Cub Scouting. The program was changing after the end of May, and since he was so close, we made a few things happen and got in under the wire. Much thanks to his scout leaders, the Shoemakers, because there really wasn't that much that we had to finish up with him. They have been amazing! He had to "wolf" down strawberries and whipped cream, which wasn't really his style, but at least he said it was yummy. :) (extra picture of Reilly and his Lego obsession because I don't get many pictures of him for some reason.)
Oh, and the other thing that happened is that I finally got my hair cut after cutting it myself for like a full year. Which was fine, except I didn't really have the option of straightening it during that time, since you would have been able to tell that -I- had cut it. It wasn't amazing timing since it's almost too hot to straighten it for a few months now, but I have really missed straight hair, at least sometimes.
