Arizona Teacher Strike

Date: Apr 26 - May 3rd

Well in unprecedented fashion,

the Arizona Teachers finally had had it with the 

less than stellar funding and treatment that schools here receive

and they went on Strike!!

Crazy enough....I totally support them and agree with it.

Also crazy enough...I now became my kids' teachers!

AGGGHHHHH I wasn't mentally or emotionally prepared for

Summer Break to already start!

C'mon people I thought I still had a month to train for that task! lol

Needless to say these kids think they're on one big extended vacation!

Mom what's next? Mom what's next?! (insert pulling my hair out emoji here!)

Strike Day 1, Thursday:

Actually the party started Wed night with sleepover with friends.
Then Thursday the big kids went to Castles and Coasters with their Dad.
Then it was back home for sports practices that night.

Strike Day 2, Friday:

Another round of partying.
Friends, friends and friends.
Football practice for Taylee
Followed by more and more sleepovers.

Strike Day 3, Monday: 

(which let's be real is actually Day 5 since the weekend was one continuous party too!)

We figured that we better just enjoy this unexpected vacation and hit the lake!
Yes that meant we talked Ryan into ditching work that morning too!
Woohoo we're all slackers! lol ;)

Oh they're still one more kid in the car...Anden's blocked by my head!
Holy bus full!!

(crappy phone pics is all you get when I'm juggling this many wild ones!)

Anden wakeboarding

Soon after this pic they were all tubing and hit a huge wave.

Taylee flew off the tube!

I spun around to get her and hear the kids yelling at me to stop

while Anden is covering his mouth and Sophie's holding her head!

Ohhhh noooo

Yep he and Soph hit heads

Anden's lip was about the size of his entire head and totally bleeding.

So we hurried and pulled him in and gave him a frozen gatorade to put on it.

His tooth was bleeding also and bit wiggly...as he kept showing

DON'T TOUCH THAT TOOTH DUDE! IT'S A PERM ONE!

After all that drama we forgot Taylee was still floating out in the lake! lol oops

She finally got annoyed waited and swam all the way back to us!

You have to love sibling jealousy when she says to us with quite the snarky voice,

"Well if anyone is wondering...I AM OK TOO!"

(insert eye roll here lol)

So kids that is your home lake school Science lesson for the day about Newton's theory.
A head in motion stays in motion....until it hits another head!

Showing him who really is the boss! lol

Well other than the headbutt incident,
we survived out trip and loaded up for home.

Is that mean that we kept asking him to say Flip Flop or French Fry?!

lol he totally couldn't say his Fs! haha 

We were back around noon for the littles to nap.
Anden and his friends stayed at home playing.
While Taylee and Sophie went over to her house for more swimming.

A few more boys ended up at our house.
They did their usual of bounce between video games, trampoline, bugging me,
then back around.

The peak of swelling...even after icing it for hours!

 Not that it stopped them from wrestling on the trampoline
and giving Owen a bloody nose to go with Anden's fat lip! haha

A couple hours later they loaded up a bunch of stuff to take to their fort in the wash.

I happened to leave soon after and passed them walking down the street.

I snapped this pic and sent it to Ryan...

"Should we be embarrassed or proud that our son suckered his friends into a free ride?!" lol

Later that day the boys had football practice.

Riding scooters home after admiring our amazing AZ sunsets!!

Taylee ended up just staying over at Sophie's all day and spent the night.
While I kept the boys spent the night with us.

Anden's friend Kal fell asleep first.
Anden tagged him with marker on his face.
When I went to the theater to put them to bed,
poor Kal was fast asleep...with a big smiley face on his forehead...in sharpie!! lol boys

Strike Day 4, Tuesday:

The next morning Kal came down first...with a clean face.
He said he washed his face...and then tagged Anden's face since he was still asleep! lol

Strike Day 5, Wednesday:

Mommy's Choice...means Dental Cleanings! lol
Luckily we have the coolest dentist office
so the kids think it's fun to go there!
Although Anden thought Laiky was teasing him when she woke him up at 8am
all excited telling him we get to go to the dentist! lol
Nope dude, for real!
Brush those chompers and get in the car!

The lobby is an electronics heaven!
Xbox's and Ipads

Coco was also playing in the theater while we waited our turn.

And it was also a random rainy morning!

Quick dust off the umbrellas and bring them along!

(the rain was no longer exciting when we realized we didn't cover up the boat from the other day!!)

As usual the staff gives us extra tokens for the toy machines on the way out.

(it's either cuz we're friends with all of them....or they just want us the heck outta there! lol)

Everyone was extra pleased with their crap trinkets on the drive home! lol

And yes I did have them take extra x-rays of Anden's lake headbutt tooth!

Phew! The root is fine and the tooth will tighten up on its own!

Strike Day 5, Thursday:

The big kids chilled with their Dad and then went to Great Skate.
The littles and I tried to recoup from entertaining the bigs!

Grammie came up and played with me and the littles!
We hit up the Splash Pad!

All ready waiting for Grammie to arrive!

Eastlie prefers snacks, rocks, trees, outlets and anything else

over the water.

Laiky loves the splashing water!

Luckily the rest of Anthem hasn't figured out that the splash pad is now open for the summer!

We had the place to ourselves!

Then the bigs came back home for football practice that night.

Friday May 3:
HALLELUJAH!!
They returned back to school on Friday!

I think I skipped the whole way back from school drop off! lol
Now to really prepare for summer break!
I realized I need a lot more activities planned!

But at this rate we don't even know when they'll get out for Summer.
The state has to figure out how many days will now be added on to the end of the year!
The kids are NOT happy about that part!
Me, on the other hand....well it gives me more time to prepare for half the neighborhood
spending the long summer days in my home!

After school the "strike" continued with nonstop friends,

sleepovers, movies, treats and video games!

Taylee had her final Soccer Tryout that night.

She did awesome and actually received a pre offer letter before tryouts even started!

So yep, she's back on the team for next season!

So there's our week of an unexpected "vacation"!

Let's see how long school will be extended into summer though!

I personally think there won't be many days added!

Or maybe I should pray for more days added! lol