Gizmo In Action

 Here's some video of Gizmo's antics over the last few weeks:

Gizmo's First 2 Weeks as a Kingman

Gizmo is settling right in as our puppy. Here he is making himself at home on the couch with Dad. 

He LOVES playing tug.

And is super lazy while he eats his meals.

Sometimes he snuggles with Mom while she works at her desk...

But mostly he sprawls out behind her on the bed, or at her feet on the floor. 

When he's not sleeping, he looks like this:

Snuggly while sleeping...

Insane and biting things while awake. 

Mom's work bought him a new blanket. We think he likes it. 

He loves to chase things, and is working on bringing them back. And he LOVES playing with Tommy in the backyard. 

We even got him a squeaky chicken like Chewy's old one, except this one is technicolor with a dinosaur inside. But we still call it his chicken. 

Every once in awhile he'll snuggle, and Kat LOVES it!

He's very cute, and has grown at least 50% since he's been here. 

Sometimes at night when he's worn out he'll sleep on the couch between Mom and Dad. 

And in the morning he begs to go out and bite at the sprinklers. 

He loves cardboard boxes for chewing and playing in. 

And we know he's going to be a great dog.

 But right now he's still a puppy and a stinker. 

But we already love him whole big bunches. 

And can't wait to have lots of adventures with him. 

Quarantine Chronicles

We got in a few outdoor, safe summer camps over the break. Tommy had a blast at surf camp...

Hang Ten, Tom Tom Frog!

We came to cheer him on for his last day. 

He wants to do it again next summer!

We didn't get any pictures of it, but Kat took a baking class on all things chocolate. 

Here she is trying out a recipe at home with Tommy as her sous chef. 

She also did 2 weeks of beach volleyball camp. Here she is having lunch with her buddy Giselle. 

And they also took some time to have a book club with the neighbors. 

 

August Birthdays: 12, and Older Than 12

Dad got his favorite, Thrifty chocolate malted crunch ice cream, for his birthday.

The day before her birthday Kat went shopping with her friend Kayla. She got a couple of new earrings, this choker necklace, and this bandanna headband. 

Gizmo gave her these earrings that look like him!

And she had a birthday Zoom call with a bunch of her friends for FOUR HOURS!

And her friend Emily came over to drop off a present and meet Gizmo.

For dinner, she requested homemade pasta with prosciutto cream sauce and non-alcoholic mai tais. 

And got to blow out the candles on her beautiful birthday cake (that she made herself). 

Happy 12th Birthday, Big Pumpkin!

Brain Chase

We tried a new virtual adventure called Brain Chase over the last few weeks. You had do creative tasks at home to unlock videos, then find clues and try to figure out where in the world a gold treasure was hidden. We didn't win, but we made some fun stuff while doing it!

For one of his engineering tasks, Tommy built a Mars habitat, complete with rovers and solar panels. Inside there's a garden, repair station, machine that turns ice into water and oxygen, and room to relax and play video games.

He also had to build a structure from tape and dry spaghetti. It was pretty strong! It held up a flip flop, a sunscreen bottle, but couldn't support his massive tennis shoe. 

Kat did the baking challenge. First task: surprise cookies. Hers were normal sugar cookies with a surprise tie dye middle. 

Second was special occasion cupcakes. Kat made some "pupcakes" in honor of bringing our new puppy home. 

Next challenge: sneaky bread. Instead of normal banana bread, Kat added zucchini too. She didn't tell Tommy until AFTER he'd had a bite and said it was yummy. There's his face after she told him he ate a vegetable.

4th Challenge: Tart. Kat made a lemon tart, and then used lace to sprinkle powdered sugar over the top to make it extra pretty. It was yummy too!

Last challenge: layer cake. This worked out perfect because it was the week of Kat's birthday, so she made her own birthday cake. She made the whole thing from scratch. It's a chocolate cake with ombre blue buttercream frosting and a chocolate ganache drip, topped by a fondant rose. Pretty impressive!

So impressive, in fact, that she was the overall winner of the bake-off! A different person won each week, but she was the overall winner! Go Big Pumpkin!

Our New Puppy, Gizmo

We finally got to pick up our new puppy! Meet Gizmo Grunticus Kingman. You can just call him Gizmo.

He was a good boy the whole car ride home, but wasn't sure what to think of his surroundings at first. We wanted him to be comfortable, so we brought his food and water outside. 

Then we gave him some belly rubs...

And he decided he was ready to come check out the house. 

We love him already!

And I think he likes us too. He especially likes chewing on Tommy's hair. 

Here he is in action: 

I think it was a successful first day, because here he is sprawled out for the night. 

He had a little bit of trouble staying asleep the first night, but then had some good snuggle time with Mom in the morning. We're so happy he's here!