SueHouse: Under Construction!

Sue's Studio has been under construction for a month now, and as you can see it is well underway!
Here's a view looking up our driveway from our front door. Hey, there's a building there now! Not bad for a month's progress!

I took this picture while standing in the driveway. There's the happy customer there on the left!
This is the main room (bathtub insert to get moved to bathroom!) and the doorway behind leads into Sue's studio area.
This is a view from the other side, that shows a small room on the left, and then on the back right, a little bathroom.

Sue is so excited she can hardly stand it! The windows and roof are going on next week! Check back soon for more pictures!

Lewises in Las Vegas!

This past weekend, we went to Las Vegas to see Joy, Rod and Erin Haneda-Agor who were visiting from Hawaii. Erin and Sophie were adopted in the same group, and they always light up when they see each other!

Here are Sue and Jack with Erin. What a cutie!


Erin seemed to have a special affinity for Jack, who was great with her. It was fun to see Erin and the boys interact. Erin is so QUIET compared to Sophie who is so LOUD :) Peter enjoyed Erin as well. We were in an outdoor shopping mall called "The District" that was a great place for the boys to stretch out and enjoy some frisbee.

We also saw this HUGE Great Dane which the boys petted for awhile. Check out that tongue!
Of course there was an REI there which we plundered for lightweight / washable clothing for China. Since we don't have an REI in Prescott, it was a good find!
Here are Rod and Jack giving a "1 - 2 - 3" to Erin. She really enjoyed this!
Sophie had a terrible time sleeping in the hotel room and kept us AWAKE for most of the NIGHT! Arrgh! Here I am ready to strangle her the next day...
It's ok though, we made up right away, but we were sleepy from the long night! I think being up all night with Sophie affected Jack too. He was tired!
Guess who wasn't tired at all the next day??

Sophie was very interested in Rod. So interested in fact, she awanted to see if this straw wrapper would fit up his nose.

Here's Jack and his new little buddy, ErinHere's Sophie pushing Erin on a little push car in the hotel room. Sue got them matching outfits and they sure were cute!Here are Joy and Sue with the two cuties!That's all for now, I hope you enjoyed this episode!

Summer in March??

Well summer has come early to the Lewis household, with temperatures in the low 80's in mid March! Lucy went crazy the other day chasing after some critter, so Jack and Peter helped and found this cute, colorful lizard! It conveniently played dead for awhile so the boys could play with it.


Look Mom, my new pet!







The boys were playing basketball, so Sophie decided to join in:









Hey, isn't that a per-sonal foul??

Sophie isn't much into swimsuits at this age. We got the kiddie pool out and she did some wading with Sam and Perrin. Unfortnately someone was a bad pool citizen and the water had to be dumped out due to something besides kids floating in it. Oh Sophie!!






Perrin, hangin' in the sandbox. Someone come play!!







It's so nice to warm and clean and sitting on Auntie's lap!

The Phoenix Zoo!

Today we woke up and sat around thinking what we could do on such a beautiful day. Our final decision was to drive to Phoenix, have some chow at the Spaghetti Factory, then hit the Phoenix Zoo. By the time we got there it was HOT! Tipping the scales at over 90 degrees, we were all a bit surprised when we got out of the car!

Peter ready to enter the zoo.

Wow it's hot Mom, but Peter mentioned how the evaporative cooling on the water would make this a good place to stand. Smarty pants.
Wow, it's hot and sunny - time to get all of us white folks (with the exception of Sophie) lubed up!
Jack and Peter's faces were kind of long in the heat, until they found a water play area. That sure changed the mood!
This was a baby orangutan that was just a few weeks old. Cute!

Awww...!!
There was a monkey exhibit in which you could walk around and really see them.

A mister provided some much needed relief part way through the zoo!

This guy was obviously tuckered out from the heat as well. Spring hits fast in Phoenix!

This Bengal Tiger hopped up in a tree to get a better look at the tourists. I think he hungrily spotted Sophie! Chinese anyone?

Going Home

We stopped at Anthem on our way home where we ate some dinner and they have a great play area. The kids played there for quite awhile while we enjoyed the warm temperatures. Today we had our first taste of summer!

Is it Peter or Albert Einstein?

Peter spent all week preparing an oral report where he had to act like Albert Einstein and tell all about his life. The 5th graders lined the halls of the school, each person a different famous historical person, from Johnny Cash to Mother Theresa to Bill Gates.

Here we have some pictures of the boy genius :)

Monster Trucks in Prescott Valley!

Here are some pictures from our recent foray to the Monster Truck Jam! We took Jack, Peter, and 6 other (not so) little boys to the show which was really LOUD!

The trucks did lots of jumps over squished cars, spun out and generally did things that most people wouldn't do on a city street :)

Happy Birthday Peter!

  
Today our eldest son Peter turned 12 years old.  He received his first cell phone for his birthday, but his real desire was a remote control helicopter he had been eyeing at the store.  Sue went 2 days ago to the store and saw they had only one left, so she secretly bought it for him.

Yesterday, the day before his birthday, Peter wanted badly to go to the store and buy the helicopter.  Diabolical parents that we are, we took him back to the store to buy it, even though we knew they were out of stock.  After the disappointment registered on his face, we told him they would be getting more in stock soon, but not in time for his birthday.

At dinner last night, he said, "Hey, I bet you already bought one, and just took me back to the store to trick me!"

We said, "Hey, that would be a good idea, but do you think we would think of that?" 

"No" he replied with great disappointment. Ha!  We had fooled Mr. Smarty-pants.  This morning, Sue put together a treasure hunt for him and he was SO SUPRISED.
 

Next it was off to the field next to the university next door.  We had to get past the security guards (3 of them!).  I explained in my broken Chinese that it was my son's birthday and we would only be there for 15 minutes and could we PLEASE use their field.  At first they said they didn't have a field, but then I said I could SEE it from our apartment window.  Oh.  The guards looked at the helicopter and the boys.  They smiled and let us through  :)

The take off...


Airborne!

A perfect windless day for the maiden flight!

Don't cut the power now!  Avoid crash and burn on the birthday!

The battery ran down with no major ground collisions.  It was a good day.