Easter

A couple weeks ago we made a trip to Idaho Falls for my cousin Savannah’s wedding.   It was fun to see family and visit with my parents and siblings. Savannah’s reception was simply amazing!  I can’t even begin to describe it, just know that it was awesome!  While we were there, my dad helped the kids dye Easter eggs.  The kids were so fast that it lasted about 10 minutes and they were done!  Needless to say, we didn’t take any pictures!  SO, in the spirit of things, I thought we should try again at home.  On Easter Sunday, after church, I helped the kids dye eggs.  I found a cute kit that let the kids make faces with their eggs.  I have to say, it was pretty fun to see them make their people. 

Here we are before the mess begins…..

I had learned a few things from the week before …. notice they are ALL wearing aprons and we have newspaper covering the counter!

Miranda, however, didn’t learn anything from the week before as she again finished up with a green hand!

Crazy girl!

Here they all are with their finished masterpieces,  pretty cute!

Kaydra

Kanyon

Miranda

Hope you all had a Happy Easter!

Soccer

We have started spring soccer.  I like soccer in the spring because I am ready to be outside after the long winter and the kids are happy to be running off some energy.  Kanyon and Kaydra are playing in a league with the Park and Rec.  They are both on teams with kids from their school and they are having a good time.  I am impressed with how much they have improved since last year…we aren’t going to have any world class soccer athletes from our family but they are improving!  Saturday morning we spent at three different games.  Two for Kanyon and one for Kaydra.  Looking at the calendar, that will pretty much be our schedule for the next four or five Saturdays.  Hopefully, the weather will cooperate!

Kanyon is playing 3 on 3.  They play on a small field with little goals.

He takes it very seriously!

He scored a goal in his second game on Saturday and was very pleased.  He keeps telling me how much easier it would be if the goals were bigger!

Kaydra plays on a full sized field with 7 players.  She scored her first goal EVER at their first game.  It was a cold day but she was so excited!  We celebrated with hot chocolate when we got home!!

Saturday was much nicer weather and much more enjoyable to watch. 

She enjoys offense the most and is improving on her aggressiveness this year.  We teach them all their lives to be kind and nice to others and then we put them on a soccer field and say “Take the ball from them!!!”  No wonder they think we’re crazy!  Here’s to a good, safe soccer season!

Mr. Sun?

Three days ago we woke up to this….

Is anyone else ready for spring? 

Luckily the next couple of days were very spring-like with temperatures near 60.  It’s supposed to snow again this week though.  Summer, if you are listening, we are MORE then ready for you!!!

Frog Hunting

The frogs have started croaking on the ponds here in Coeur d’Alene.  This always entices the kids to a frog hunt.  We wandered over to Grandma and Grandpa’s pond one night for the search.  Miranda was excited until she realized it would take place in the dark.  She decided to go inside with Grandma and Grandpa instead.  She said, “You bring the frog to me, OK?” She wasn’t disappointed as the kids were excited to show off their finds.

Kaydra was the first successful one with a bright green frog.

 

Kanyon found his next, a little more brown then Kaydra’s.

The best part of frog hunting?  We can put them back in the pond for next time !  

I think I might be raising some serious country kids!

Wax Museum

As I try to catch up the blog it seems that I fall further behind.  Oh well, we’ll just keep plugging along.  I wanted to make sure I made a blog entry about Kaydra’s recent project at school.  They were all assigned a biography to read.  They got to pick one but it had to be one that no one else was reading so the pickings got slimmer as the class went through the line.  Anyway, Kaydra ended up choosing Princess Diana.  After they read the book, they did a little book report on it and created a poster about their person.  Then on a day during school, the 4th grade put on a wax museum where they all dressed up as their character and pretended to be their person for a couple hours while the rest of the school came through and looked at them and their project.  Kaydra had a good time learning about Princess Diana.  Our only disagreement was that she wanted to cut her hair to look like Diana so it would be more real – uh, not for only two hours!!! We did her hair up instead!   It was a pretty fun project – kudos to the 4th grade teacher for their great ideas!

Final Day–Spring Break

On the third and final day of our vacation (Saturday, April 2) we had an early breakfast and headed to the Seattle Aquarium.  We were there at 9:30 when it opened.  This was one of the favorite places for the kids – they love animal life. 

They had some huge aquariums and people swimming in them cleaning the tanks and feeding the fish.   The favorite spot was the hands-on tide pools.  They were much more impressive than the little tide pool at the Science Center the day before and they were a lot more friendly with the “hands-on” part.

Here is my favorite picture because you can really see all the colors and animals they had in the pools.

We wandered around there for a couple hours.  We saw billions of fish, seals, birds, otters, sharks, and tons of other sea life.  The kids thought it was pretty cool.

These little cut outs were a favorite of Miranda’s…she would say, “MOM, Take my picture!”

After the Aquarium we headed up to Pikes Place Market to do a little shopping.  The kids each had some money to spend and it was burning a hole in their pockets.  Kanyon found a framed sand art thing that the sand changes the picture every time you turn the frame.  He is fascinated with all the things he can make with his sand.  Kaydra found a hair wrap.  It’s made of polymer clay and twists around your hair to hold it in certain styles.  It’s pretty cute.  She also spent her money on another apple from Rocky Mountain Chocolate Factory.  She got an Avalanche apple (Apple dipped in caramel, rolled in rice krispies, dipped in milk chocolate, rolled in marshmallows, dipped in milk chocolate again and then drizzled with white chocolate).  Miranda got a couple of wind up toys from the wind up toy shop and a rubber duck for her bath.  She also bought an apple to share with Kanyon – although she wasn’t really happy about sharing it.  They shared a caramel apple rolled in M&M’s.  Can you say sugar high?

After our spending spree – I bought some fresh cut flowers and Leonard bought a soda (we’re the big spenders in the family!) – we headed to one of my favorite places in Seattle.

We had been talking about going to Ivar’s since we planned the trip.  I remember going there with Mike and Stephanie when they lived in Seattle and knew my kids would love it.  The rain had stopped and the sun came out which gave us the perfect opportunity to sit outside and eat and watch the seagulls.  Of course, we had to feed them as well.  Kanyon LOVED that they would eat french fries right out of his hand.  He was not timid about it at all.  There were some older teenaged boys that wouldn’t do it, but Kanyon showed no fear!

I had to make them sit down to eat because they would have fed all the fries to the seagulls if we had let them.  Plus, the fish and fries are delicious at Ivar’s!  We can’t let the seagulls have all the fun!

After lunch we headed for our final destination of the trip.  Alki Beach.  It was a short drive around the bay and we wanted to at least say we had seen some sand – even if the water was 40 some odd degrees!  The kids had a chance to search for shells, sea creatures, and play in the sand.  Leonard found a crab, of course, but I didn’t take a picture.  Here is our cold beach day….

They each had a handful of shells to take home with them as we climbed back in the car for the drive home.  On the way home, I snapped a picture showing that the trip must have been successful…

It doesn’t get much better then to have three sleeping kids in the car on the drive home!  In fact, they all slept until Spokane – except for Miranda – she slept until we got off the freeway in Coeur d’Alene!  It was really fun to spend some time with my little family and I am so thankful for all of them.  We are so blessed!

Seattle–Day 2

On Friday, April 1 the kids were up at 7:00 wondering when we could eat breakfast.  We headed to the hotel continental breakfast – which was actually pretty good – around 8:00 and we were back to the room and ready for the day about 9:00.  Then I found out that the Science Center didn’t open until 10:00.  So we waited an hour before heading out.  It was pouring rain that day (it was Seattle, after all) which was okay because we planned to spend the day at the Science Center.  We decided to walk because it was only three blocks from our hotel and we didn’t want to pay for parking.  I had come prepared with a stroller for Miranda and a few umbrellas.   We made it there pretty easy and decided to try the Science Center as well as an IMAX movie later in the afternoon.  We headed into the Science Center and were impressed with the first exhibit of dinosaurs!  They were pretty cool except Miranda was sure they were real and would not stop SCREAMING!! 

She was so scared.  She was sure they would get her and she didn’t want any part of that.  Unfortunately for her, we had to walk through that exhibit about 4 more times that day to get certain places – she was just as scared each time.  Kanyon, however, thought they were amazing.

Right behind him on the pink wall is some petrified dinosaur poop – one of his favorite things!   We spent about 4-5 hours there (including the IMAX movie on Lewis and Clark)  They had a lot of hands on exhibits and some fun things to see.  They had a tide pool where you could hold hermit crabs and touch other sea creatures, a space shuttle you could sit in and pretend you were getting ready for lift off, a bunch of little experiments where you could test your speed, strength, and sense of smell, and our favorite, a butterfly garden.  

Those are butterflies eating the rotten fruit on the plate!  It’s hard to tell from the pictures, but there were butterflies everywhere. You had to watch your step so you wouldn’t step on one by accident.  Plus it was about 80 degrees in there so it felt like summer!   One butterfly landed on Miranda and she about came unglued!  She did not want a butterfly on her.  The other two kids were jealous, of course, and tried their hardest to get one to land on them without much luck.   We stopped in the middle for lunch at their little café which was pretty much like eating at a gas station except about 4 times as expensive.  Other than that, we really enjoyed the day.  We walked by the Space Needle a couple of times but with the rain, never got a good picture.  We decided not to take the expensive elevator ride to the top – maybe next time.  I did manage to snap this picture through some windows while we were waiting for the movie

Not bad considering it was inside and that outside it was pouring rain. 

After the Science Center we headed back to our hotel.  It was about 4:00 and we decided to spend the rest of the evening in the hotel and let the kids swim again.    We spent a couple hours in the pool which was nearly empty because it was early afternoon.  The kids had a really good time until Miranda slipped on the concrete and gave herself a pretty good goose egg on the side of her head.  I was doing all my neuro checks on her because it looked pretty bad and I was pretty sure she was about to throw up but she did fine and just has a sore spot on her head – even tonight, a week later, it’s still there.  We decided to call it a night after that and headed back to our room to order pizza delivered to our hotel and watch a movie.

One thing to remember…as we were waiting for our pizza, Leonard said, “I’m hungry” and I said, “We had a late lunch.”   He replied sarcastically, “And I had a HUGE Burger” (Remember our gas station lunch)  That’s when Miranda chimed in, “Well, then blow your nose Dad!!”  It took us a minute to figure out what she was talking about – In fact it was Kaydra that pointed out to us that Miranda thought burger meant booger – funny kid.

Another good day to remember on our little vacation!

Spring Break

This year the kids had another long spring break – 11 days!  Last year we spent much of their break driving to Southern California and while it was a fun trip, we decided to stay closer to home this year.   We decided to take the kids to SEATTLE.  It’s about a 5 hour drive and Len remembered visiting as a kid for spring break, so we thought we’d give it a try.  We started off by trying to convince Miranda that we were going to Seattle, and not to “SEE” ATTLE!  She kept trying to tell us that Attle was nice and Attle would let us sleep at his house and it would be “so fun!!”  In fact, I think she is still a little disappointed that we never met anyone named Attle!

Len had to work most of the break but had a long weekend off starting Thursday, March 31.  We got up and on the road about 9:30.  We planned to stop just after we passed the Columbia River at the “Petrified Forest”.  Len remembered this from his trip many years ago and we packed a lunch and planned our first stop there.  Unfortunately, the visitor’s center and gift shop were closed for the season but we guided ourselves along an interpretive trail and saw different species of trees that had been petrified long ago.  It was a good break along our trip and a good spot to eat lunch.  I enjoy going over the bridge that crosses the river – it’s a beautiful place.

See the bridge in the background?  The kids were a little nervous to go across!  Here are some pictures of us on the “interpretive trail”. There were warnings to watch out for rattle snakes and Miranda was again disappointed when we didn’t see any snakes – “You help me find them, ‘k mom?”   Uh – no thanks!

Honestly, the highlight of the petrified forest was that Leonard managed to find a lizard. 

The kids had a good five minutes holding him and playing with him…

Until he got scared and jumped out of their hands and right under Miranda’s foot!  She promptly stepped on him, never more to move.  Oops!  Leonard set him in the bushes hoping that maybe it was just a defense mechanism and that he was pretending to be dead.  Then we piled in the car.  It was only after we returned home that we learned that Kanyon pocketed the lizard and carried it around Seattle with him the entire trip so he could show his friends at school – WHAT!!!  Like father like son apparently….

Our trip took us up Snoqualmie Pass where there were waterfalls all along the freeway.  So much water was falling off the mountain – it was impressive.  We decided to pull over and try to get a look at Snoqualmie Falls.   Apparently, they often look like this:

But unfortunately the runoff was so high that we just got wet!  I am not kidding, there was just mist everywhere and we couldn’t even see the falls!  We could barely see the water cresting over the top and that entire section of rock in the picture above was COVERED with water.   It was not raining, but here are the wet girls after our expedition:

We made it to our hotel about 5:00 and headed to the pier to have dinner at the Crab Pot.  Lots of fresh seafood – we both said, Dan and Dad would love this place.  They just dumped a bucket of crab, mussels, clams, oysters, sausage, corn on the cob, and potatoes on our table, gave us a bib and a hammer (seriously) and said, have at it.  It was kinda fun, even though I’m not much of a seafood lover – I enjoyed the crab, corn, and potatoes though!  We followed up dinner by stopping at Rocky Mountain Chocolate Factory to buy an “apple pie” caramel apple (large granny smith apple covered with caramel, dipped in white chocolate and then rolled in cinnamon and sugar – yummm!) to enjoy later.  We headed back to our hotel (free shuttle service was great!) and went swimming in their heated indoor pool.    It was a pretty packed day, but we had a great time.  The kids settled into bed and even Miranda was asleep pretty quickly.  The last time we stayed in a hotel with her she was awake until 3:00 AM! 

I think I better split up the posts into days because otherwise, it will be pretty long – hang on for more of our trip to See Attle!