Sunflowers

Our mammoth sunflowers have really taken off! We started the seeds inside this spring. They are supposed to be 12' tall when they are fully grown.



Here is a "before" picture. I cropped this out of a picture of the patio I took in early May, so it's not very good, but you get the idea. We had recently transplanted them and weren't real sure they were going to make it. They were very droopy, and the resident rabbit thought the leaves were tasty. About 1/2 of them survived.

The bugs didn't help much, either. I found this colorful little guy one day. It's a candy-striped leafhopper. I realize they are harmful to plants but isn't it amazing how colorful
he is?



Here is Danielle with our sunflowers today. I am doubtful they'll really get to 12' tall, but it would be cool if they did!

Happy Summer!

Today is the longest day of the year. Thankfully I missed the sunrise, but we did watch the sunset. In an attempt to avoid mowing the yard, Ron decided we should go fishing after dinner. We just went up the road a bit to a nearby park and stayed until the sunset.

This is typically how Danielle spends our fishing trips. She's perfectly content to look for critters along the banks. Tonight she caught a little fish and 2 cricket frogs. She decided to fish for about 15 minutes before we left and managed to catch a turtle! It is an Eastern spiny softshell turtle (kind of scary that I knew that without looking it up!), and apparently it likes nightcrawlers. They are supposed to be rather difficult to find, so we felt kind of lucky to be able to see one up close. When Danielle lowered her pole enough that the turtle could touch the ground, it let go of the worm and scurried back down to the water. No damage done. (Check out that nose!)

Tyler caught a fish tonight, but even more importantly, we finally convinced him to bait his own hook! (He hates to get his hands messy!) Ron and I didn't catch anything other than mosquito bites, but we had a nice time anyway. I love summer!

Father's Day

For Father's Day today we took Ron fishing. We had a very nice afternoon. Danielle fished for about 5 minutes and then entertained herself by scooping up snails, minnows, rocks, etc along the water's edge with a container she keeps in the car for just such occasions. Ron caught the first fish of the day, which was only right since he had a brand new pole, but Tyler caught the biggest. We let Ron catch the most fish, too.

Hopefully Ron had a good day. Dads so often get the short end of the stick, but Ron really is our family's unsung hero. I feel incredibly blessed to be sharing this adventure in parenting with him.

And... a special thank you to my father-in-law, who modeled what a good father should be. Our family wouldn't be the same, Ron wouldn't be the kind of dad he is, if you hadn't been the type of loving father you were (are).

Camp Invention

The kids attended Camp Invention this past week. Tyler went last year and really enjoyed it, although he said this year was even better. This was Danielle's first year. The camp was from 9-3:30 Monday-Friday, so it was quite a full week, especially for Danielle who is not used to going to school all day, every day yet. Danielle sprained her foot Tuesday night and couldn't get around very well 1/2 the week, either. Even so, Danielle said it was the most fun thing she's ever done. I think Tyler really enjoyed having Danielle there. We even got compliments on how nicely the two of them worked together during the week.

They did lots of different activities. They had 5 different modules they attended each day. I don't remember specifics about each one, but I know they learned about fractals, created robotic pets and habitats, created a virtual world complete with aquaducts, stores, and their own avatars, and created an invention out of a broken household item. That sounds simple, but there was so much more to the week.

They were supposed to design a robotic pet for a scientist that couldn't have fur in her lab. I don't remember the entire scenario, but the kids put together motors, learned about different types of energy (solar, wind, etc), and created pets out of recyclable materials that actually moved. It's hard to see the details in the picture, but their "pets" were very cute.

Their inventions were supposed to solve a problem. Danielle's problem was a dirty hamster cage, so she made an invention to clean the cage. Of course, she couldn't resist adding pretty ribbons and other things to make it look girly. I should have taped her explaining the function of all the items on the inside of her invention. It was really quite creative and suprisingly detailed.

Tyler created an invention to do his homework. Again, I should have taped him explaining it. It's neat to hear what the kids come up with.

This is Tyler's avatar. There is a tiny little head in the bubble. Danielle's avatar had pony tails. Again, creative work. I'm very thankful the kids had the chance to go!

I threw in the towel and returned Danielle's hamster. It had a 14 day unconditional guarantee. Danielle found another that is a little younger and seems to be "well adjusted" as far as hamsters go. She has named it Tiny. It looks healthy, doesn't mind being held, and hasn't even acted like it wanted to bite anyone yet. Third time's a charm, right?!? Who knew finding a hamster would be so difficult!!

Another Mouth to Feed

As I mentioned a few posts ago, Danielle got a hamster. Unfortunately, the hamster she picked out was apparently sick when she got it, and it died 4 or 5 days later. Oh my, you should have heard the wailing! The hamster had a guarantee, so we took the body back and wanted to pick out another. All of their dwarf hamsters looked sickly, though, so we went to a different store. Danielle picked out another winter white dwarf hamster. Although she held it in the store and it seemed fine, it has been evil since we brought it home. It does NOT want to be held AT ALL. So, we are going through the lengthy process of training it to be more tame. (It bites!) Isn't that crazy? Who knows if it will work. I feel bad for Danielle. Although she hasn't complained, I know she's disappointed Princess isn't very friendly. I have to give her credit for sticking with it. Danielle has such a heart for nature and animals. I wouldn't be surprised if she ends up working with animals in some capacity when she's older. That's one reason we're so willing to let her bring home frogs and turtles and hamsters. She's a nurturer.


This week a former coworker of Ron's wanted to find a new home for his son's gecko. It was his son's pet for 6 years but the kid recently got his license and lost interest in the gecko. Tyler has asked for a gecko many times but we never seriously considered it until this "free" one became available. (No pet is ever truly "free".) Tyler was SUPER excited. The gecko is very low maintenance, which is perfect for Tyler. He (the gecko) eats occasionally, goes to the bathroom even less frequently, and only needs his cage cleaned every month (or less if we "spot" clean).


It is a blizzard leopard gecko. He is 6-7" long and is fully grown. It is about 6 years old and could potentially live to be 15-20 years old. We told Tyler this guy will be moving to college with him. Tyler has chosen to name him Blizzard. Blizzard is very tame and rather slow. Geckos can drop their tails if they feel threatened, so I think Tyler is being extra cautious to prevent that from happening. They also clean their eyes with their tongues, and if you shine a light into one ear hole, it will shine through to the other ear hole.



Tyler spent a lot of time today scrubbing Blizzard's habitat and finally moved the gecko upstairs into his room. After doing our research we realized it's dangerous to keep a gecko in sand, so Tyler took all that out tonight, too. (These pictures are from last night.)


So, we now have 2 dogs, a turtle, a hamster, and a gecko. I'd like to say we're done, but as soon as I do, something else will find it's way into our home. I guess I'll just say I think that's more than enough mouths to feed for now. I think there's plenty of "life experiences" in the livestock we have.

More Treasure Hunting

We wanted to get the kids out of the house for awhile yesterday afternoon, so we went searching for a few more geocaches. This time we ran across a couple that we couldn't find. We think one was in an overgrown wooded area that was all soggy due to all the recent rain. We'll try looking for that one again when the weather improves.


The most clever hide yesterday was a cache that was a sprinkler head, hidden in the green space of a neighborhood. The sprinkler head pulled apart and a small log was inside. It was the only sprinkler head in that area - the green space wasn't watered - but it was still difficult to find. We're still a little uncertain about pulling things up/out/apart. If it's not the cache, we could be vandalizing something!


One cache was hidden in the bottom of a lamp post in the middle of a parking lot in a very busy shopping strip. Although it was easy for us to find using the coordinates, it was difficult to be discreet about it! Really, very little is discreet with 8 and 6 year olds.


One hunt really stood out yesterday, though. The name of the geocache was called Excalibur. (The name is usually some type of clue.) Apparently the guy who owns this property is an avid geocacher. He really put a lot of time and thought into this hide.


As you can see, the coordinates led us to a giant rock by the drive. The rock had a sword in it. It also had a plaque that had nothing to do with anything. Here is a close up of the sign. We thought that was amusing.

















There was a treasure chest behind the rock. Inside the chest was a long rope and more instructions. The instructions indicated the rope should be looped around the sword. The treasure could be found by walking the exact radius of the circle, using the sword as the middle point.

















The kids stretched out the rope and walked. Tyler walked a little outside the circle and checked a patch of weeds, where he found a box. Inside that box was a note that said they weren't walking the exact radius of the circle and to keep trying.








They continued walking and found the cache inside a culvert on the other side of the drive. The kids exchanged some unopened Happy Meal toys for some trinkets, and we signed the log. We had a lot of fun with that hunt!

















And check out the guy's house. That's a giant water slide on the right side of the picture!! Ron has decided he wants to live there when he grows up. :)

Bikes, Books, and Birds

On Tuesday the kids and I hit the bike path at the metropark. We also walked a small trail through the woods and took some time to play on the playset. We saw 2 deer - one on our ride and one on our walk. We followed this one out of the woods to see if there were any others. There weren't, but we thought it was funny that she was still watching us, too.

On our bike ride, we saw 2 bobolinks that were singing to each other. They are very pretty birds with a very pretty song. On our walk we were lucky enough to see 3 pileated woodpeckers. This is the one bird I have been hoping to see since I started birdwatching, and wouldn't you know - I didn't have my binoculars or my good camera with me! Oh well. Regardless, we had a really good afternoon together. It was a great way to kick off our summer adventures.

Danielle has become quite the reader. She persuaded Uncle Ron to let her read about 20 books to him the other night. When we went to the library Tuesday morning, Danielle decided she wanted to learn about peacocks. So, she picked out a book about peacocks from the nonfiction section, took it home, and read it. I thought it was so cool that she wanted to learn more about something and took the initiative to do it. Watching the kids learn to read ranks right up there as one of my all-time favorite milestones!

Here are a couple more pictures of the bluejay babies. I've heard them, but haven't seen them in my trees since earlier in the week when I took these pictures.

High Tech Treasure Hunting

I read about geocaching a year or so ago and thought it would be fun to try with the kids sometime. For whatever reason, we never got around to it...until yesterday. Our nearby metropark had a "Geocaching for Beginners" class yesterday afternoon, so we decided to try it out.

After attending the class and practicing on a couple caches the instructor had hidden, we set out on our own. We used Ron's TomTom and a gps program on his cell phone and had a blast! What kid doesn't love a treasure hunt?

Our first solo hunt lead us to a cemetery about 2 miles from our house. Danielle navigated us to the right spot, and Tyler found the container. This one only contained a log, so we signed our family's name and replaced the container (after taking pictures).

We found 4 other caches yesterday, all within 5 miles of our house. 3 of the other caches contained trinkets in addition to the log. The kids brought small goodies to trade for goodies in the container. For example, Danielle left a flower ring and took a mini notebook at one find. At another find, Tyler took a mini yo-yo and left a little metal soldier he found in the practice cache at the park. The kids had a lot of fun looking for the containers once we found the right coordinates. The most challenging find for us was a cache that was concealed within the cap of a fence.

Now that we know what we're doing, we're looking forward to trying this on vacation. We had to cancel our plans to visit Gulf Shores, AL due to the oil spill and are going to the Smoky Mountains instead. We thought this would be fun to try on the ride down to break up the trip some. It would also be fun to look for some that may be hidden on some of the trails within the national park. We were surprised there were so many so close to home, too. This will be a fun weekend activity when we are bored and can't think of anything else to do or just want to be outside and explore.

This and That

Hooray! School is out! Friday was the last day of school for the kids. I filled 75 water balloons and waited to ambush the kids when they got off the bus. This has become a tradition for us, but this was the first year Danielle was on the receiving end of the ambush. We had a lot of fun. I could hear Tyler talking about it when he got off the bus. There was a lot of giggling, and we were all soaked by the time we were done. For dinner that evening we made homemade pizzas and enjoyed strawberry shortcake for dessert. We finished off our school's out celebration by staying up late and watching a movie. It was a great way to kick off the summer.

Earlier in the week the kids had field day. The kindergarteners on Danielle's schedule had a seperate field day. The games included some water games, including a sponge relay and a fill the tube game. The tube had holes in it, so the kids had to work to cover the holes while someone poured water in the tube. There was a rubber duck in the tube, and the first team to float theirs to the top won. It was a little chilly that morning, so the girls were all shivering. Didn't stop them from having fun, though.




















Tyler had field day the next day. He asked me to volunteer, so I did. The problem is that I didn't get to watch him do anything because I was busy manning my own game. I sent Danielle over to take some pictures, but she was a little embarrassed so I didn't get many. He was playing water limbo here.










Danielle is doing really well in tball. She hasn't used a tee in her last 2 games! Here are a couple pictures of her in action. She didn't get the runner out, but she stuck with it.


































When we went to buy supplies for Snappy back in April, Danielle fell in love with a dwarf hamster she saw in the pet store. I was dead set against getting one because I do not want to take care of another pet. Ron was convinced Danielle is old enough to be responsible for caring for a hamster herself. So, when Danielle asked again last month if she could use her garage sale money to buy a hamster, Ron agreed. Danielle did not make enough money at the garage sale, though, so she had to do extra chores around the house to earn the difference. I took her out to the stores so she could find the items she'd need and make a list of prices so she knew how much she needed to earn. She finally earned enough to buy Cheese today. According to the pet store, Cheese is a winter white dwarf hamster. I read they are commonly misidentified, though, so it's possible she has a different breed. We didn't know it when she picked it out, but winter white hamsters change their coat colors in the winter. So, if this guy really is a winter white hamster and if his amount of daylight changes with the seasons, his gray coat will change to white. We thought that was rather interesting. He is very docile and much smaller (& cuter) than our other hamsters were. Danielle loves him. Hopefully she will prove Ron right.


I have seen lots of baby birds in our backyard lately. A couple weeks ago I was lucky enough to see this downy woodpecker dad help his daughter find a little food. He was getting it from what was left of the woodpecker suet Danielle gave me for Mother's Day.















I saw these bluejay fledglings yesterday. They were still very fuzzy and their tail feathers were very short. Mom and Dad stopped periodically to feed them and squawk at me a little.















I have been trying to get a decent picture of a hummingbird but haven't had much luck. I took this one through the smudgy sliding glass doors.

Now that we're officially on summer vacation, I'm looking forward to lots of fun filled days with the kids. Hopefully I will be able to post a little more frequently. If it doesn't rain tomorrow afternoon, we're going to go to an Introduction to Geocaching "class" at a nearby metropark. I have been wanting to try it, so this seemed like the perfect opportunity.