More Shark Time

Mark's nickname growing up was "Shark," and Robert's was "Boomer," pronounced "Booooommeeeeeeeer". Uncle Mark finished his last final at BYU for the semester and flew to California for the Christmas break.

Since Mom and Dad are in Hawaii celebrating their 30th wedding anniversary for a few more days, we were lucky to get a little extra shark time.

Yesterday we played for an hour at the kids' favorite toy store.



We went to the Old Spaghetti Factory for lunch.






Grace has loved having Uncle Mark around to read her the longest Berenstein Bears book on record, her favorite book lately.



Before dinner we battled in a serious game of hide and seek. Robert and Mark were professionals at this game, growing up and Mark taught Grace the trick of going for the aerial approach:



He tried to teach Blake the trick of hiding under the clean laundry but the part about not moving while hiding in clear sight was a little difficult. I saw the clothes breathing up and down and found my BB's!

Last night he and Robert and the kids had a wrestling match with the kids and stuffed animals while I giggled with my hoarse December voice and occasionally tossed a stuffed animal across the room. Robbie and I have both had colds this week and hope to be better before Christmas.

Mark has some professional sports events to attend and then he'll be back with the rest of the Monterey bunch for Christmas morning. I am liking having two major holidays, four weeks apart. Let's create a few more of these throughout the year and have family in town all the time!