Where Have We Been?

Well, here it is the last day of May.  School is out for the summer and I am left wondering where all my time as gone.  I know I have been lax in keeping up with the blog, but since this is like my diary I'm going to post date some of our events from the past three weeks.  Feel free to look back at them if you like to see where we have been!  

And since school is out, I must post our traditional before and after school year photos!  I'm sure you can tell which is before and which is after just from looking, right?  What a difference a year makes!

She when from sweet an innocent to attitude in these photos!  STOP GROWING UP!

I had to go back to July to find this one.  

Wow!  What a year it has been.

Goodbuy Popup. Hello Travel Trailer

Eric and I have enjoy hauling our little popup camper all over the US for that past 4 years, but the chore of setting up camp became more and more of a pain.  I think part of the problem is the way we like to camp.  We are not a drive to the lake and say for the entire vacation kind of family.  We like to drive and camp along the way at many different campsites.  This makes the chore of popping up and down the camper each night more bothersome.  After MUCH discussion, we decided to upgrade to a hard sided travel trailer with bunk beds for the kids.  Its a small camper compared to the other big rigs out there, but it's the perfect size for us.

We purchased it last weekend and took it out for a trial run at a local campground.  I didn't think to take any photos at that the campground or inside the camper.  I'll have to remember to do that the next trip.  I did, however, take a  few photos on our hike!

We found a black rat snake curled up inside a tree.

 And a cute little toad on the trail.

We took our dogs too and they were a happy, tick-y mess!

 I'll try to remember my good camera next time!

Field Trips!

 The last few weeks of school is always field trip season.  Between the two of them, Logan and Amanda had 6 field trips!  I was able to go on three of them.

Amanda's class went to a fossil program where they learned about fossils and got into the creek to search for fossils.

Amanda's class also went to a farm to learn about animal life cycles.

 We will have to go back when the apples are ripe for some U-pick fun!

I was able to go on only one of Logan's field trips and his class went to the zoo.  His teacher assigned each parent volunteer three kids and let us go our separate ways.   It was nice not having to stay in a big group, but I had two very enthusiastic boys with Logan and me.  They wanted to see the ENTIRE zoo and we DID!  In less than three hours we saw it ALL!  And this is a very large zoo!  I didn't have time to take many photos since we were practically at a jog the whole time, but I did snap a few...

 These photos didn't turn out great, but these fun little monkeys would jump at the glass and try to smack your face if you were close enough!  Very fun!  All the boys had to try this out so I got a little rest at this exhibit.

After each field trip I was exhausted, but very happy that I could join my children for their adventures.

Fishing Derby

My sister heard about this fishing derby and asked if we would like to join her and her youngest D?  My monkeys LOVE to fish so of course the answer was YES!  

 We had the most stylish chairs of all, but the fish were not plentiful for us.  Amanda did catch a large stick and almost caught someone's Dad!  I don't think either of those would grant an award.

 This was Logan's first and only fish caught.  It was only .25 inches shy of getting him an award!  : (

Oh well, it was still a great day for fishing.

Learning to Fly

At dusk last night I was in our front yard when I noticed a large bird in the distance.  As I watching this bird fly closer and closer to me I noticed it's strange flight pattern.  Rather than fly in a straight line it had an erratic path.  The bird almost hit two trees and barley missed crashing onto my neighbors roof.  With little fineness and a lot of noise the bird landed in the tree next to me.  Then the bird began to hoot.  The notes were a little off, but I recognized it as a great horned owl.  I came inside to get the kids so they could enjoy the sighting and while I was looking for Amanda, Logan saw another owl fly into the tree and land.  This new bird would call to the other bird and the other bird would answer, but this newer bird sounded like the owl that I am use to hearing.  I believe what we were witnessing was a young great horned owl learning to fly and a parent watching over the fledgling and giving encouragement.  After only a few short minutes of watching the owls in our tree the juvenile few a short distance to the trees behind our house and the parent quickly followed, hooting all the way.  I wish I had  taken photos or video, but by the time I pulled my jaw off the ground and thought about it the pair had already continued on their way.

The BIG Move

The reason for the lack of posts lately is our BIG and FINAL move.  Eric says he'll believe it when he sees it, but I say this is IT!  I'm not moving AGAIN!  We purchased the house three weeks ago and it has been not stop action since.  I said before that this is a fixer-upper... well here are some fixing up action shots.  I didn't think to get too many photos since I was so focused on getting the work done but I did manage a few...

The first thing that happed was ALL the carpet in the house had to be removed.  The kids helped me with the carpet in the ledge above the front door.  Nice 1980's chandler, huh?

We piled the carpet up in the garage and the pile was so big that the kids could reach the open garage door.

My family came over to help paint... and my sister ended up painting herself!

I really, really, really didn't like the wood beams in the family room.  Mr. Tall helped me prime them and he didn't even need a ladder!

You can see that most of the beams have a coat of primer, but it's messy work.  My sister got a giant paint drip in her eye!  Funny, but painful.

The kids and their cousins helped them paint their rooms.  Amanda likes to have fun with her painting.

You missed a spot!

The kids each got to pick their own room colors, and they are very similar.  I'm going to have to double check the paint can before I do any touch-up painting!.

I only had one roller when I took this photo so Logan was waiting his turn to paint.  They were so excited about painting for about 10 seconds!

I got as much painting done as I could before the carpet installers arrived.  It wasn't enough, but that's all I could do.  Moving day took three days.  Most of our stuff was still in storage from our move out of Wichita and HOLY COW do I have a mess to contend with!  This is what my dining room looked like after the movers left.  And LOOK!  Another nice 1980's chandler.  (Please don't judge me based on this room color. This is one of the rooms I didn't get to yet.)

With all the nice weather we have had this past week I have found myself working outside rather than unpacking boxes.  The yard needs just as much love as the house does.  With this in mind, we stocked up on mulch when we found it on sale.  : )  Think this will be enough?

Yesterday I spent a good 5 hours getting the garage ready for my car.  The weather man says bad weather is coming and I was motivated!  I'm very happy that my little car has a roof over it's head... even if I have to squeeze my litter rear to get in and out!

Logan has had several check ups with the last one being this morning.  He is currently fighting an upper respiratory infection, but they are very happy with his progress.  His new immune system seems to be working perfectly.