Zoo School Graduate

After 25 hours of ambassador volunteering, and 32 hours of training, I am now officially a volunteer educator for the Sedgwick County Zoo!
(AKA Docent : )




It's been lots of fun with more to come over the following year. I plan on volunteering mostly on Tuesdays while Amanda is in a Mom's Day Out program but I'll also do some nights and weekends here and there. My hope is to be on the inside track when future jobs come open and line up a paid position for when Amanda starts school full time next year. It's been long and bumpy road, being a stay-at-home mom for almost 7 years, but I'm glad I did it. Now if I can just make it 12 more months, I'll be golden!

A Busy Week

Sorry for the lack of posts this week. We've been very busy enjoying the cool weather. (And it's a good thing we did. The temp is back up today!) The nice weather inspired me to do some "spring cleaning" a season late. Amanda has helped me clean out the playhouse and re-paint, re-organize the garage, clean carpets, wash windows, and re-organize our closets.

We also picked Logan up from school one day and took our bikes to the park. Logan is getting very good at riding without training wheels and Amanda now thinks SHE is ready to take hers off! Not yet, baby. Momma can only handle so much!

Our garden has been bursting with fruit so Eric and I spent the majority of Friday making and canning salsa. What a mess, but SOOOO tasty!

We ended our week with a visit from Eric's Grandparents. The kids had a great time showing them around (their first visit to Wichita) and showing off! They were so cute... and so were the kids! : )

So there you have it. Not anything earth shattering, but lots going on.

A Happy Monkey Momma Birthday

What a great birthday weekend I have had. Yesterday we went to the farmer's market down town because the insects ate my zucchini plants while we were out of town... no zucchini means NO ZUCCHINI CAKE and that's just not acceptable. While searching out the vegetable stands for the best zucchini Logan, Eric and Amanda spotted a fresh cut flower vendor and decided that I needed a bouquet for my birthday. How sweet! : ) On the way back home, Eric asks if I would like one of my presents early... "Ummm, do I need it early?" Well the answer was yes. He decided that I needed a new attachment for my Kitchen Aid mixer. After shredding all the zucchini with my new toy, the kids helped Eric bake my cake. They were super excited to eat it, but Saturday wasn't my birthday. It would have to wait until the next day.



Jump to this morning. Eric got up with the kids and let me sleep in. When I rolled out of bed (at 8:00!!!! - THAT's sleeping in for me!!) The kids shouted "HAPPY BIRTHDAY MOM! CAN WE EAT THE CAKE NOW??!?!?!" Why not! So we had a lovely zucchini cake breakfast.



In our house, on your special day you get to choose the activity for the day. My choice was to visit the Chaplin Nature Center near Arkansas City, KS. It's run by the Wichita Audubon Society and I've been wanting to check it out since we've moved here, but I've never found the time... UNTIL TODAY! We got going pretty early since the weather man was calling for another hot day.



We hiked the trails and saw lots of animals. Spiders were the most prolific, but we also saw deer, a toad, two frogs, some fish, and many butterflies. I only spotted a few birds because my monkeys were a little loud, but that's how the cookie crumbles some days.

One of the trails leads to the sand banks of Arkansas River. At first the kids just wanted to put their feet in...

Then they started splashing around...

And all of a sudden. They were both soaking wet. Oh well!

After our hike, we headed into town to get some lunch. I made a quick stop at Wal-mart to pick up some clean dry clothes for the kids. Then we found this wonderful park and HAD to stop and play.

There was also some really cool playground equipment, but all my monkeys wanted to do was play on this train.

For TWO HOURS!!!

And they STILL hadn't had enough.

I had to promise that we'd be back again real soon.

But the nature center building is only open from 1 to 4 on Sundays so we had to hurry back and check it out before they closed.

They had a great time checking out the exhibits... studying the animals under the magnifying glass...

Watching the birds on the deck...

And playing in the moon sand / track table. I think we spent almost two hours there as well! A great birthday indeed.

RUSH

Last night was the Rush concert here in Wichita. We had fabulous seats and it was a great performance.
The drummer for this band, Neil Peart, was Eric's idol in High School. The man is truly a genius with those drum sticks and Eric and his drum line buddies looked to him for inspiration. It was a delight to see him in concert.

When we were getting ready for the concert, my eloquent husband tried to pay me a complement... but fell WAY short. I believe his exact words were:

"I'll have to keep an eye on you tonight. There's going to be lots of old guys there who will hit on you."

hmmmm. Not quite as flattering as he was shooting for.

"Ummmm, thanks hun. I'll just ignore that reference to my age and how only OLD people would find me attractive."

SCHOOL DAYS

Logan's first day of school went great. He came home very happy and when asked what he did at school that day he said "boring stuff". I'm taking this as a sign of things to come. This way I won't be overly surprised when he doesn't talk to me about his day as a teenager.

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His second day (Tuesday) had some drama. He came home on the bus (as usual) but we didn't meet him at the stop (we stopped doing that about March last year). However, because of the nice weather I had the front door open as well as the window screen to let in some fresh air. I was standing in the living room when I hear my son SCREAMING at the top of his lungs in TERROR. Of course my super mom instincts kick in and I go RUNNING out the door to save my baby. I find that f***ing chiwawa dog from across the street snarling and snapping at my son as he runs away... I MY OWN DRIVEWAY!!!! Now it's one thing for a dog to defend it's own territory, but to attack my kid when he's in HIS OWN YARD!?!?!?! Unacceptable. So after Logan calmed down and we instructed him on the proper way to defend himself from said yappy dog (KICK IT'S A** ALL THE WAY BACK ACROSS THE STREET) Eric has decided that as an extra precaution to our son being terrorized again that his dog, Hunter (appropriately named) will be meeting him at the bus stop until further notice. You see, our 85 pound alpha male Golden Retriever likes to eat yappy dogs for breakfast. So now Logan feels well loved and protected by his mammoth of a dog. Thank you, Hunter!

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Day Three ... First day of homework! Logan came home today with his first official school homework. It took him all of 3 minutes to finish but he was very proud of himself. I like that they are easing us into this. By September we'll have a nice routine down. Oh, and Hunter DID meet Logan at the bus stop. No yappy dog in sight. CHICKEN!

Let's Go Fly A Kite

We FINALLY got a nice cool day here in Kansas. Our first in over two months! The kids declared it was a perfect kite flying day.

Then we ate lunch and headed to the zoo (per Amanda's request). The weather man was calling for more rain, but we went prepared.

We got there just in time to feed the Giraffes (always a family favorite).

Then we hurried to the Gorilla for the 1:15 training. This is our zoo's newest gorilla. They were trying to train him to let the keeper trim his nails. He was having none of that, but it was fun to see him tease the keeper. He would also do some other "tricks" to try to get the treats. Apparently he did something right because here is his eating a snack.

Then the rain started to pour... we broke out our umbrellas and checked on a few of our friends to see how they faired in the rain. I didn't break out the camera, but the river hogs put on a pretty good show playing chase and tag in the rain. : )

We also made it to the snake demonstration in the reptile house. The kids touched a california kingsnake. Amanda was in HEAVEN. I think she's really misses her frequent visits to the nature center I use to work at.

It was a great family day and a very relaxing end to our official summer. Logan starts back to school tomorrow (and Amanda's a little bummed that she has to wait until September 8th for her first day).

Canoe Trip

We took our guests and kids on their first ever canoe trip. When we got there Monday evening we had to check out the water right away. We had about 2 hours to play before night fall.
The water was crystal clear and they all enjoyed snorkeling. No one caught any fish, but not for lack of trying!

I didn't get any photos of our campsite, but it was up on a small bluff overlooking the river. That night we saw two bats flying and diving over the water catching some bugs.

The next morning we loading onto the bus to drive 4 miles up river to our put in spot. We thought the short float would be best for their first time.

These are the only "boat" pictures I got. We all spent a lot of time in the water floating (it was HOT ya know).

He was a champ at maneuvering the kayak. Eric had a canoe with the other boys and I had the girl canoe.

This is how we went down the river most of the time. I debated not getting any canoes and just floating down river in tubes but when Eric was able to join us we ended up going the canoe route.

I'm not sure the boy can see at all with all that fog! : )

Amanda takes after her mother in a lot of areas. Picking up trash from the river is one of our passions. She was such a good little helper, wading to the shore to find the illusive cans.

Some people have no respect. We filled up two big bags with cans. This is a major party river on the weekends (which is why we went on Tuesday! : )

My fearless kids saw some big kids jumping off these trees into the water and had to try it. Eric was a Nervous Nelly but you know me... "That which does not kill them makes them stronger."

It was rather high out of the water.

All agreed that we MUST do this again SOON!

Our Secret Gem

Today we too the cousins to our special swimming hole for some exploration. We found frogs, tadpoles, fish, and tons of mussels. We all had a grand old time. Check it out.

It's a little bit of a hike to get there, but we took some short cuts.

Once at our special swimming hole, they all jumped right in.

Those girls are inseparable... and Logan idolizes his big cousin (monkey see, monkey do).

It had been a while since we had taken the dogs. They were ecstatic to be able to join in the fun.

We were digging for the critter that was making bubbles in the creek... it was a HUGE mussel (looks like a clam).

Casey's favorite thing in world is playing fetch with his ball (which he did for most the day), second is digging holes... combine a ball on loose sand and what do you get??? Fetch in a hole! : )

Here's the big D himself... I hope he never grows up.

Eric was the party pooper today. He has this little problem with wet butt so he prefers to stay on dry land when ever possible.

Now, he's not in the picture, but Logan was actually the one who started the mud thing. He spread some on Little D's back and called it sunscreen. Then ALL the kids had to apply some sunscreen of their own.

Bye, bye wonderful creek. Until we meet again.