Bug Day

It was bug day at the library this week and boy was it busy!! There were hordes of kids and parents and only a handful of bugs. I think there were only 8 live bugs and a display of dead tarantula parts. Of the live bugs, only two were insects - a ladybug, which I saw the "buglady" catch outside right before we went in, and a cockroach. They also had a tarantula, scorpions, millipedes and a black widow spider. Incidentally I saw a toddler take off with the small box that contained the black widow. Luckily the spider was retrieved before anyone (spider or human) was harmed. It was cool to see the bugs, but I couldn't shake the feeling that my brother-in-law, Dana, could have put together a much more impressive collection of critters. I think I see more bugs just going to their house. In any case, we had fun, elbowed our way in to see a few of the live specimens and did a few bug crafts. Matthew really wanted to hold the tarantula, but there were too many kids wanting to hold him and only one poor tarantula to go around, so we didn't get a turn. Oh well.

One of the crafts was doing crayon rubbings of different insects.
Matthew liked that!

I just had to take a picture of the crowd, 'cause it was incredible.

The kids doing some bug rubbings.

The other craft was glueing bug shapes to a paper bag to make a bug lunch sack. Here's Matthew working on his. Anna had her own ideas about how this should go. She took the bug shapes and put them inside the bag. Then she (sort of) wrote "Anna" on the outside. She carried her bug bag around the crowded library, stopping periodically to take all the bug shapes out, line them up on the floor and then put them back in the bag.

She took some of the bug shapes and glued them in her bug rubbing book (gasp) instead of on the paper bag. Anna is such a craft rebel.

Here Anna checks out one of the tarantula containers. Not sure if he was in there at the time or not. It was a fun "bug day" but Dana, if you ever start doing the library bug circuit, you'll have to come to our library to show them how it's done. :)

Learning to Swim

Matthew is finally old enough to take swim lessons without Mom! We signed him up at the local YMCA (he is in the "Pike" class) and he's loving it. Anna, Grant and I sit and watch while he has his lessons. Anna claps and yells "YEAH MATTHEW!!!" anytime he does anything. She's very supportive. They swim a short lap with a kick board, another one with a float belt, float on their backs with the help of their swim instructor, put their faces in the water and blow bubbles and for a grand finale, they jump into the pool. It's all about getting comfortable in the water. On the very first day, for the very first swim across the pool Matthew volunteered to go first. He used to be very fearful of new experiences (a lot in Okinawa) so I'm very happy he's having such a good time swimming.

Here he is doing the kickboard swim. He was the first one to try it.

And swimming with the float belt. You have to imagine Anna screaming "HOORAY!!" and clapping while he swims. Luckily Matthew is not embarrassed by this. :)

I think he's kicking here.
He told the swim teacher his legs weren't long enough to make a big splash.

And here he is floating on his back like a star fish.
I was very proud of him!

The Royal Gorge

On Memorial Day we took a little trip to the Royal Gorge - about an hour from Colorado Springs. I forgot to bring my camera on our trip!! I guess I have a lot of things to keep track of these days. So Scott and I took pictures all day with our phones...our regular dumb phones. So they aren't the greatest pics. But at least we got a few pictures. We started out by taking a ride on this little train to a lookout spot over the gorge.

Here we are sitting on the train. Grant cried for part of the ride, but felt better after a while.

The scenery on the ride looked just like a sterotypical western. Cactuses, rocks, sage brush.

Here's a view down into the gorge. That's the Arkansas river down there, which runs all the way to the Mississippi River.

Here are the kids at the lookout. It was windy!!

Here's a view of the Royal Gorge Bridge (in the distance), which spans the gorge.

Here's our little train!

We drove over to the Royal Gorge Bridge.

We walked across the bridge and it was scary. It was so windy and you could see through the wooden planks down to the river way way way below.

We managed not to fall off the bridge, despite the wind.

Here is a look from the bridge down to the river below. If you look hard you can see the train going through.

And a view from the other side of the bridge. You can see rafters going down the river if you look real close!!

There was a cool western town near the bridge (part of the Royal Gorge Bridge and Park) and I took some pictures of the kids by some BIG longhorn cattle there. Somehow I didn't get those pictures saved on my phone correctly, so they're gone. :( I'm thinking I'll see some more longhorn cattle before we move out of Colorado. The summer rodeos are coming up! We also saw a western show at the park, and now Matthew has been making everyone yell "Howdy!!" before he does his puppet shows. :) Anyway, here's Matthew at the petting zoo there. We had a fun time even with the crazy wind! Next time I'll try to remember the camera.

Oh, how I love to go camping

Scott took Matthew on his first camping trip this weekend. Matthew has been so excited about this trip. He's been asking us about it several times a day for weeks. It was a boys only trip with Scott's friend and his little boy. Here are Matthew and Scott at the campsite.

Scott's friend, Todd brought their dog, Lucy, with them. Matthew was very excited about playing with Lucy! He's always telling me he wishes he could have a dog. Here are the boys and Lucy running around.

More running around!

Here's Matthew hanging out around the campfire.

Matthew stayed up long enough to have some s'mores.

They also did some fishing! Matthew got a fishing pole for the trip and he was so excited about it.

And he (with Scott's help) ended up catching the only fish of the day! Good job Matthew!! That's Todd helping him pose with his fish. Matthew told me the fish was "sticky."

Matthew had a great time and had lots of fun playing with Luke. Here they are having a little walk together. Matthew reported that he had a lot of fun, and I think there might be another camping trip in the works.

Picture Perfect

We took the three kids to get pictures taken this week. I took Matthew and Anna to get haircuts the day before so their hair would look nice. It didn't seem to matter though. Hair still got messy. I even combed it right before the pics were taken!! The photo lady thought this was our best group shot. Matthew was laughing a little too much!

On the car ride to the picture place Anna scratched Matthew in the face. Something like that has to happen on picture day, right? And somehow his hair was sticking up, but I didn't notice it until we saw the pictures later...and then it was too late. This picture makes me think of Tom Sawyer (or maybe a pirate?) for some reason. Matthew has a mischievous look in his eye.

Anna looked cute...even though the dry air here really makes her hair go crazy.
I tried to brush it in place during the photo shoot, but it didn't seem to matter.

Grant has the least hair and his looked just perfect. I like his very surprised expression. He was good for the picture taking and only cried a little bit.

This was the group shot that I liked best! Grant's chin is receding into his shirt a little bit, but you just can't get a perfect picture with so many variables. :) Everyone is at least looking in the right direction. That's something, right?

I like Daddy best

Anna said this today:

"Mama, I'm so excited we got a new baby at our house, but I like Daddy best!"

I thought Scott might like to know that, since sometimes he thinks she doesn't like him too much. She spent a lot of time today painting a picture for him and writing (I use that term loosely) nice things on it like, "I hope you are here, Daddy," "I love you so much Daddy" and "I will write you a letter when you go to work, Daddy."

Everyone loves Daddy. Matthew is beside himself with excitement about going on a camping trip with Scott this weekend. Grant also loves Daddy's attention! And Scott is happy to give everyone their needed attention, even after a long day at work.

I'm glad they at least somewhat appreciate what a great father they have.

The Weekly Update

Nothing exciting to report...so here are some unexciting things...

This past week my mom came to visit. It was a short visit, but we were glad she could come. The kids loved it. Here is Grant wearing some little booty socks my mom made. I have a matching pair, also courtesy of my mom.

So cute!

Grant is growing bigger, but not that fast. He's still the little guy around here. But look out Anna, he might catch up to you. He weighed in at 13 pounds this week, Anna at 26 and Matthew at 39. All multiples of 13...curious. Scott didn't think it was that interesting of a coincidence. :)

Anna told me she wants to be a "cooker" when she grows up. She loves to help me cook and cook on her own for pretend. She likes to make pretend dinner with her clay and will work at it for hours! She calls her little clay cutters her "paring knives" and always wants to use a real cutting board. :)

Here is Grant sitting up for a burp courtesy of Grandma. We had fun seeing my mom last week, but it went by too fast! Before we knew it she had to leave. :(

We've been going through things in our garage with renewed intensity this past week, and actually cleaned it out enough to fit both cars in there at the same time. The next day we had a severe hail storm warning. It makes me unspeakably happy to have that done (the cleaning out I mean). The garage was filled with a lot of boxes that we had left in storage while we were in Okinawa, so going through some of it was like stepping back in time. I went through a lot of things from my old job, including a large amount of Boeing merchandise/propaganda. Sigh...memories. PS: Boeing is a great company to work for!!

Close up of Grant relaxing.

The kids played with the marble race kit a few times this week. Matthew always wanted to build the big set ups shown as examples on the box and directions. I was the consulting engineer on these projects.

Matthew has also started wrapping "presents" (on his own) and then sending us off on treasure hunts to find them. We did something like this for his birthday and he wanted to do it for the rest of us. Here is one of his wrapped presents before we open it.

Also keeping us busy for the past few weeks has been yard work. We've been focusing heavily on getting the bizillion dandelions out of our grass. My mom, who is plant smart, helped us get started with some of the other plants around our yard. Ahh, the joys of home ownership. ;) The kids planted some flowers and tomatoes in some planters. And I started a bunch of vegetable seeds as well...to go along with my unnatural love of produce. ;)

There is a small garden area in our yard and I planted some cilantro and jalapeno there (I'm growing my own salsa!) Maybe we'll use Matthew's tomato plants in our salsa.
Also this week Scott got his walking boot off and started physical therapy. He can now walk (or limp) around without his boot! He's gradually getting back to normal...pictures to come!