Baby Robins

A mother robin and her three babies have been making the rounds lately. The babies are old enough to fly, but the mom is still feeding them.

In other news, Danielle's team won again tonight. They had to work a little harder, but the final score was 15-2. Tough game tomorrow night.

And, tomorrow is the last day of school! HOORAY!!

A Girl & Her Dog

Some things never change...and I'm glad.

2009

2011

2013

Play Ball!

Apparently this is how one of the college baseball teams runs. Standing this way gives them more leverage when they push off to the next base and gets them there a little faster.
(Thought you'd like to know, Uncle Ron. I forgot they practiced doing this.)

She wanted to steal so badly. But, when your team is up 10+ points, you aren't allowed.
Final score 18-0.

"Wheels" in motion

Tyler's First Dives

Tyler completed his check out dives this weekend. These were 4 open water dives with the instructor and a couple other students at a quarry that has been filled and is used for scuba diving or snorkeling. For the first 3 dives they reviewed the skills they learned, such as flooding and clearing their masks, removing their weight pockets, saving their buddy, etc. The 4th dive was more of a just for fun dive.

The quarry. Despite the lower than normal temps, we had beautiful weather both days.

The air and water temps made this a little more difficult than we had hoped. When we left home for the first two dives yesterday morning, it was only 37* and it had frosted. The water temperature was only 65. Because of this, Tyler had to wear a very thick wetsuit (2 pieces) and a hood and gloves. All of these were sized to adults, so nothing fit him perfectly, the neoprene was very stiff, and he had never practiced in the pool while dressed in these items. He was very discouraged by all of this when he was trying everything on in the store Friday evening. He found he could move easier than he expected once he was in the water, though, so it all worked out ok.

All bundled up for his first dive yesterday morning.

Because his suit was thicker & more buoyant, he had to carry more weights. The suit and gear are heavy enough, but the additional 22lbs made it very difficult to climb out of the water afterward! It also made it difficult for him to stand upright for fear of tumbling over backward! (This is why he's hunched over in almost all the pictures!) Despite all this, he did not complain and did a great job! I was so proud of him for how hard he worked this weekend. I know he was very nervous, but he didn't let that hold him back, either.

Getting his equipment ready

Ready to get in! (He added gloves after this.)

Hi Mom!

Going down. Sometimes it was hard for him to control his buoyancy.

That is a smile.

Done with the 2nd dive & exhausted!

Our certified diver!

He really enjoyed the dives and saw lots of neat things under the water. He is now a certified diver and is really looking forward to his first diving trip with Grandma and Grandpa in just a few weeks!!

Working on his dive log with the instructor.

Play Ball!

Because I don't have anything else to post tonight, here are a couple pictures from Danielle's softball game last night. The rain held off, the company was good, and they won 15-0.

A Fog Day

We had the most wonderful surprise last Friday - school was cancelled due to fog! It was totally unexpected, which made it that much better. Tyler might have actually shed a tear because he was so happy. :)

The heavy fog left tons of perfectly shaped water droplets on everything. I wanted to go to the park to look for photo ops, and Danielle hoped to find some tree frogs, so we went to the park for a little while Friday morning. At the park we shared the quiet with another photographer, but we didn't find any tree frogs. We left once another school's 1st grade field trip arrived. They were not lucky enough to even have a delay!

Here are a few of my flower pictures from that morning. I am a little disappointed the pictures are not more crisp, but that probably bothers me more than it will anyone else. I am also throwing in a mushroom picture I took in my backyard a couple weeks ago. I discovered a clump of mushrooms  behind my trees and thought it looked kind of cool.

Red Fox Kits

I've gone back a couple times to see the fox kits. The second time I got permission to enter the fenced in area so I could sit and wait for the foxes to come out. Obviously it was so much easier to take pictures inside the fence! They were SO stinking cute! I saw 5 at a time, but I don't know if they were all babies. They were all about the same size, their coats all looked similiar, and they were all very playful. In fact, they rough-housed and fought like naughty little kids. My guess is that they were all babies, but I don't know for sure. I ended up being there almost 2 hours and took nearly 400 pictures! Thank goodness for digital cameras! The first three pictures were taken through the fence the first time I went back, the rest were taken during that second trip. (I know the pouncing picture is really blurry, but it was too cute not to share!)

 

 

He studied that chunk of mud and then...

he attacked...

and attacked again.

He was sneaking up on his brother.