dolphins, the house, and how we are :)

We are lucky enough to live near the zoo! We got a year membership and have not enjoyed it twice!  With our membership, we got one time tickets to the dolphin show. It was WONDERFUL! Talia has now decided she wants to be a dolphin trainer when she grows up. Tabitha keeps asking to go back to the dolphin show... not sure how we'll keep away from it the next time we go to the zoo! 

 Since we live in  a little space, it's gets messy REALLY easily. I found this idea on pinterest and decided to try it out. So far, so good...atleast for the week!   Here's our activity "bucket".  They are color coded for what type of activity the kids are up for.  The sunny day ones include riding bikes, going for a nature walk, having a water gun fight. The $ ones are for ice-cream at McDonalds or an icee...the catch on those is that the kids have to pay (hehe).  The pink ones have to be pre-approved because we need about a 3 hour time frame to do them (zoo, children's play place -FREE!!!, etc)

 Here's our pick a job... the pink are daily jobs (dishes, toys, clothes, trash).  The green are for bi-weekly jobs (vacuuming, dusting, and another I can't remember right now...) and the blue are the bathroom jobs (mirrors, toilet, and bathtub).  It's taken aLOT of the stress off of me and knowing that their jobs aren't set in stone and it's literally the "luck of the draw" has helped the kids be okay with it...though we still have the meltdowns when Bergen get's "trash" and Talia gets "dishes."  oh well. Can't win everything!

Today we went to a FREE children's indoor play place. SWEET!  It was basically a cross between McDonalds and nursery (with riding toys).  It was a coffee shop owned by a church.  They just ask for donations or that you purchase a drink or something while there.  The kids LOVED it and I did too. It was so nice.  And...bonus, it's 5 minutes away by car! SWEET!!!!!!

Still no friends here, but we are doing really good. We are having some good quality time and keeping busy.  Tabitha still struggles with living in this "new hotel"-soo sad! Talia really misses her friends... Bergen REALLY misses our neighbor and friends... Svend and I just got a calling teaching a "primary class" to a 28 year old man who is severely developmentally delayed.  We are really excited for this calling and are even more excited to be in a setting with a few couples that we HAVE to get to know and become friends with, right???