Weekend Photos

On Saturday the kids got to attend their very first parade for the Corn Roast Festival. Rowan was initially pretty scared, being sure that there were going to be cannons. But there were of course no cannons, and even the marching bands turned out not to be too loud for him. I think the loads of candy that were thrown at the children probably helped too. Niamh's dance studio had a float in the parade, and Niamh was thrilled to see her teacher in it. After the parade we made a quick stop at the festival itself, but it was too hot for anybody to get much enjoyment out of it. We will have to try going in the morning or evening next year.

Then on Sunday morning we got up bright and early to watch the hot air balloons being launched. So beautiful! And much more pleasant than watching hot air balloons in the bitter cold!

Weekend In Seattle

At the beginning of this month I was able to spend a wonderful, but all too short, weekend in Seattle. Had breakfast with my parents, got to hang out in Ballard with friends, finally met a sweet baby that had been born while we were in Switzerland, and-the point of the whole trip-attended a baby shower for my dear friend Eve. I'm afraid that I came back to Colorado fairly homesick. But I'm so glad that we are at least close enough to the west coast now to be able fly over for events like this!

my mom at Señor Moose
(wishing I had thought to get a picture of both my parents!)

sweet baby Corbin

house in Ballard

at the Ballard Farmer's Market

Eve

More pictures can be found on Flickr.

Niamh's First Day of Dance Class

Niamh went to her first dance class on Monday afternoon, and surprised Pat and I by doing so well. Even though this was all her idea, I was doubtful that she could do it without the tears, pulling on Mama, hiding behind Mama, leaning on Mama, hugging Mama, etc that is normal every time we go somewhere new. Even if I am staying with her! Even if she has done it all before, like with preschool or hanging out with friends. She wouldn't let go of me at the very first, and whined a little, but the teacher suggested that I sit in the studio with her for a few minutes, and that did the trick. She let go of my hand, sat down with the other little girls, and that was it. She even spoke when her teacher asked her questions! She smiled through the whole class, and has declared that all of the girls in it are her friends (though she can't remember their names). We are so proud of her and happy for her!

at Dairy Delite after class

Fishing: Round Two

On Saturday we went back to Trout Haven Ranch to try our hand at fishing again, this time with the Metcalfs. For the first two hours or so we were almost completely unsuccessful.

The fish (and there were a lot of them) swam past most of the worms without any interest.

But not always! They were really good at taking the worms off the hook and hardly having their mouth touch it at all. There were a couple of times when a fish was hooked and even out of the water, but still managed to wiggle away (see above photo). Using the worms John was the only one of us who caught a fish. We were just about to give up and go home with only one, when Jen saved the day and asked the guys inside the shop for help. Before that they had been very hands off. But when asked they not only gave us corn as bait instead of worms ("corn is like a steak dinner to the trout"), they also came out gave us pointers on actually catching the fish.

I unfortunately have no photos of fish being caught, but we did walk away with nine between us, which made the children very happy.

One of the nicest parts about fishing the easy way is having someone else clean the fish.

That evening we all convened back at our house for playing and a delicious, if bone-y, dinner of grilled trout. John did most of the cooking and he did a really great job. I think we all agreed that while the experience was worth it, the trout had entirely too many bones to make eating them very enjoyable, even if they were tasty.

There are a few more photos from our day up on Flickr.

First Day of Kindergarten in the US

Rowan's first day of Kindergarten was today. He was a little nervous, but I think he kept the nervousness mostly internal. He needed a photo of his family for his classroom, so we set the camera on a chair and used a remote to take this photo at the last minute. It's printed on computer paper and sandwiched between two pieces of contact paper. Not super great, but I hoped it was better than not going with a photo at all.

Then he was off to Kindergarten! Thankfully we can still walk to school, though it was so hot today Rowan was really wishing he didn't have to.

And here he is coming out at the end of the day. As with school in Morges, I really have no idea what he did. When I forced him to tell me two things he said "eat snack" and...can't even remember the other! Whatever it was, it was equally as informative. But he said the time went by very very fast, and he seems excited to go again tomorrow.

Cowgirl in Pink

Bug Hunting

The kids have been enjoying hunting for bugs a lot lately. Actually, it would be more accurate to say that they enjoy helping me hunt for bugs, which is not quite what I envisioned when I got them the nets and bug "houses". I really don't like bugs. I've found lady bugs pretty gross ever since my dorm room in college was invaded by swarms of lady bugs one autumn. And every time one of the grasshoppers we've got jumps I've have to work hard to suppress a squeal of disgust. Guess what the most common kind of insects are we've been finding? Yep, ladybugs and grasshoppers. Also a few roly-polys, and some sort of little hopping/flying beetle that lives in our grass. We almost caught a month/butterfly once, but it got away at the last second. Anyway, I'm really hoping with some more practice that this is something the kids can do somewhat independently!!!

Backyard Sprinkler Fun

There were no thunderstorms yesterday afternoon (somewhat unusual), so the kids spent some time in the backyard playing in the sprinklers.



For some reason Muriel is not very fond of sprinklers in our backyard, though we go to a spray park with sprinkler-like things, which she likes quite well. The sprinkler in the first two photos waves back and forth, and she would not go near it. The one in the last photo doesn't move around, so she'd play in it a bit more...but not much, as you can see from the photo.

But all three were up for popsicles afterward!