125th Harker Picnic celebration and Gma Susan helping out while I was in St. Louis

Here is the picture I promised of Axel with his head gear on. I have been very impressed with Axel and his new found maturity. He initially brushed his teeth and tried to put it on by 7 pm every night so he could get in the 12 hours recommended by the orthodontist. Now he doesn't put it on until around 830 to 9 pm because he often has a before bed snack. I think 10 hours a night should be plenty. We have not had to tell him once to put it on. He has taken full responsibility. I am so proud of him!

What I forgot to mention during the last post is that we had a string of car break ins in our neighborhood and the surround neighborhoods. Her is a picture of Keith's car. Apparently he left his door unlocked. They didn't take anything, but rummaged around. I received a phone call from Keith while I was driving to work. He asked me if I went through his car. Can you believe after 10 years of marriage he would think that I would leave a mess? I had to tell myself he was in a stressful situation and obviously wasn't thinking straight. I am the least messy person I know! Anyways, the funny thing was a few days after this incident, when other neighborhoods were still getting their cars broken into, he not only left the car unlocked but left the back door open. He forgot to close it after taking out Axel's bike. Luckily, his car is still like new and nothing has been stolen. This is one great perk about never carrying cash! Since then we have a bike rack on the back of my car so we don't have to worry about putting any bikes inside our cars again :)

 A few weeks ago Axel went to Nico's 10th birthday and he made a really cute card. I wanted to share it because I thought it was creative. I am not sure how he comes up with these ideas.

 I left for St. Louis, Missouri on Sept 27th. The night before I picked up G'ma Susan as she was gracious enough to agree to help out Keith with the kiddos during the 6 days I was gone. She did an amazing job of entertaining the kids, organizing my cabinets, cooking meals, dropping and picking up the kids and most of all decorating my house. Apparently, the previous visit Axel, Phoenix and her worked on several of these decorations. Now they had the privilege of displaying their art work.

 I wasn't quite sure how I felt about spider webs, spiders, mummies and skulls all around my house, but boy everyone had fun.

 This is definitely a notch up from how the house normally looks around Halloween.

 Grandma even took it upon herself to help Phoenix with her costume. She is going to be a cat princess? We will have to wait and see what the finished product looks like. I still need to make sure Axel and Rubix get their Halloween costumes situated as Keith leaves for Japan next Friday and we are solo until the 27th of October.

On Saturday the 24th Daddy drove the kids to Pescadero to meet up with Tyler, Cynthia and their kiddos Jade and Zoe who were camping. They invited us to camp with them, but Keith decided it was best to just go for the afternoon. The kids had a great time playing together and cooking dinner on an open fire. 

Here is Tyler and Axel sterilizing the end of a stick. 

After an afternoon and evening of fun Daddy and the kids headed home. Unfortunately, on the way home Phoenix threw up. It was a messy clean up for Daddy to do solo, but he managed quite well. Here is a picture Keith took of the kids sleeping after Phoenix had thrown up. 

On Sunday, Daddy took Rubix and Phoenix to the park while Axel stayed home with G'ma Susan. Here is our amazing 2 year old who can climb, jump and run like no other 2 year old we have ever known. 

It was great for the kids to be able to keep their normal routine despite me being away. Having G'ma their allowed the kids to swim during nap time and get to the park. As my mom said, "Keith is a great father and does so much with the kids." I almost felt a little sad that I wasn't missed, but I was so happy that everything went smoothly while I was away. 

I had the privilege of being with about 60 other clinicians and the entire Washington University faculty for 5 days. Here is a picture of me and Shirley Sahrmann, the founder of the movement system and an inspiration to hundreds of thousands of clinicians across the world. She is 82 years old now and still contributing. She teaches about 20 international continuing education courses per year! I even got to see her do kettle bell swings! I learned so much and had a ton of fun while doing so. Being apart of this Movement System Fellowship is such a blessing!

I finally made it out to Forest Park, while in St. Louis. It is one of the largest most beautiful parks in the country. 

Because Rubix is so into planes I captured a picture of the sunset from inside the plane on my way home. 

 I also took a picture of an airplane on my lay over. We were delayed a bit because of rain and a lighting storm. Luckily, it passed quickly and we made up time in the air so I arrived relatively on time at 11:20pm Tuesday night.

 This is a picture from inside Stanford Outpatient Orthopedic facility. I thought it was an interesting view of the bay and salt beds, which looks like snow. I never knew their were salt beds outside of Salt Lake City :)

 Last Friday, Rubix was so excited to go to the park. We were their for 2 hours and he didn't want to leave. He decided to get wet right before we headed home. It was only about 72 degrees out, but he still enjoyed the ice cold water.

On Friday after school, Rubix and I picked up Axel, Phoenix and Kiefer. Both Axel and Kiefer were very excited at having a play date. Here they are pushing down the cardboard that I made them rip up as they decided to destroy the fort that Axel and Phoenix so meticulously built while I was giving the two little ones a bath. I couldn't figure out what the banging could possibly be. When I saw the boys throwing Rubix's toys onto the cardboard I kindly asked them to take the fort outside. Thank goodness they didn't miss the fort and throw Rubix's lawnmower and other toys into the wall. Apparently, the boys had a blast and Kiefer can't wait for another play date!

On Saturday morning, Keith took the kids out to breakfast while I treated one of his coworkers. His coworker asked if I could look at her neck, shoulder and arm symptoms and I needed someone to do an upper quarter case report on so it worked out well. I saw her for the first time Wednesday afternoon and Saturday was her second visit. She is doing much better and is going to work out great for my case presentation. I am happy to be able to help her out and get some "school work" done at the same time. 

Keith had a blast with the three kiddos and Tyler with his two kiddos at breakfast. It worked out really well to have them out of the house so I could focus on treating Tami, his coworker. I saw her for the third yesterday (Friday) and she is doing much better! 

 On Sunday, Harker had their 125th year picnic celebration. The entire family had a blast. Here is Phoenix and Rubix on the pony ride.

 Here is a couple of pictures of Axel performing. The 4th and 5th graders along with the middle and upper school dance and choirs performed in an hour long performance. Axel was suppose to perform in the afternoon with the Jazz ensemble, but Keith started to have his allergies act up from the smoke that blew in from a fire in Solano county. It was amazing at how quickly the smoke spread to us and how bad the air quality became over the course of just 30 minutes. As Rubix and I were leaving around 1 pm you could smell the smoke. By 2 pm you could hardly see the blue sky.

 I can't forget these pictures of Daddy and Rubix playing basketball.

 Although this picture is blurry I wanted to show Rubix's improved jump shot form. This kid continues to amaze me. He now can jump off a 3 foot ledge by himself and tried to convince me he could jump off a 4 foot ledge by himself. He is impressively coordinated and confident, yet he does have his senses and can be open to when things are dangerous.

 At 2.5 he is putting the bins away with the older kids. After figuring out the smallest garbage bin, he attempted to move the big recycle bin by himself and was successful! What a champ he is!

Axel just finished up his swim season at Harker. Here is a picture Keith took of his relay team on Thursday.


 I missed a meet while I was in St. Louis and then I missed the second and final meet on Thursday because Phoenix came down with a fever. I luckily got called on my way home from Stanford and drove right over. She stayed home Friday because of the 24 hour rule for fevers, but she appears to be her normal playful self.

Here she is showing me her new skill of the monkey bars at the park yesterday. She mastered this skill a couple of weeks ago and she has been practicing every time we go to the park. This was the fastest that she has completed the monkey bars and you can see how happy she is with herself by the smile on her face.

This weekend we hope to make it to a pumpkin patch, but we have a lot of preparations before Keith leaves for Japan. I hope to capture Keith with one of his new suits and shoes on! My man is growing up and ready to wear big boy clothes! He had to purchase new suits and business clothes for his Japan trip as the dress code is much different there than here. He goes to China 5 weeks after her comes home from Japan so he is going to be all set for international travel.  I am so proud of how hard he is working. He is really enjoying the new responsibilities and growth at work, just as much as I am enjoying my fellowship. We are all very blessed in the Szolusha household. I hope to post again after Halloween.