Lewis and Clark Festival

This weekend was the 21st annual Lewis and Clark festival in our city. They had lots of stations for the kids to go to and they could earn gold tokens. At the end they could exchange their tokens for something at the trading post. Alan and Conner's favorite station (unsurprisingly) was the candy cartridge station. Someone showed the boys how to make a "gun cartridge" using a gumball and raw sugar crystals. Alan also made a dough dumpling (see picture). Both of the boys learned about using a compass and they found 3 different places with their compass, which earned them a couple more tokens. By the time we were done with that we were hot and tired so we went inside and watched the a man give a presentation on snakes. He had several live snakes from our area and he talked about some of the myths that surround snakes. Then we looked around the museum for a few minutes and they traded their tokens for an alligator bead kit, 2 pretty rocks and one small reddish bead. After that we were ready for lunch and naps.

Summer Fun

We have had a very cool wet June so far. Our highs have been mostly in the 50's or 60's F (10 to teens C). Then all of a sudden we jumped into summer. It got up to 80 degrees a couple of days ago and we decided to celebrate by filling up our wading pool. I also bought the boys some small squirt guns and we spent a lot of time outside. They both had fun in the pool and Alan especially liked his squirt gun.

Enjoying some popsicles

We also went to the splash pad this week and eventually both of the boys had fun. It took Conner a while to warm up to the idea but he finally started running through the jets. The only bad thing about the time outside was that the mosquitoes are out and they seem very attracted to Conner. After we came in I noticed Conner had several large red/purple bumps on his body. I think they are mosquito bites and for some reason they swelled up to the size of quarters and turned reddish purple.

Flower Surprises

This year I was curious to see if anything would come up in the flower beds on our property. I decided not to plant anything except some sweet peas, which never come up for me anyway. I was pleasantly surprised by the amount and variety of flowers that have bloomed this spring. A few tulips came up and then I had a ton of purple irises some up. Here are some pictures of what has bloomed this week:

These flowers are about 5 feet tall

I am grateful that I didn't have to plant anything in the flower beds this year - between taking care of our lawn's weed problem, planting a garden and building a new fence I feel like we have enough outdoor projects right now.

A camping we will go

On Friday night we went to our ward camp out. We weren't sure how many people would come because it rained all week long. Not many people showed up but it wasn't very wet at the campsite, thankfully. We got there kind of late but we still got our dutch oven dinner going and enjoyed everyone else's dutch oven food. Yum, I love dutch oven food! We let the kids stay up late with us while we chatted around the fire. We finally all headed to bed at 10:30. I thought for sure the boys would fall right asleep since it was so late and they had been so busy running around. Alan fell asleep after a couple of minutes and then he didn't stir until 7:30 the next morning. Conner on the other hand was not so easy. We got him dressed in warm pjs and put him in his sleeping bag. About 10 seconds later he popped back out and we tucked him back in. About 10 seconds later he popped back out....this happened for a few minutes until we gave up having him lay down and he excitedly bounced all over the tent - from corner to corner, then he would tackle Alan, then he would bounce onto our mattress. He squealed and jabbered excitedly the entire time. He finally fell asleep in my spot and I fell asleep in his. Then of course he woke up with the morning light - he was ready to go by 6:00 am. We were all pretty tired that day. I am glad we went camping - it was a nice test drive before we go camping for the Bassett reunion. I think I might have Conner and Alan try sleeping in sleeping bags in their room this week so that Conner can get more used to the idea. Sorry there are no pics, I just got busy and forgot to get the camera out!

Destructiveness

Lately it seems the boys have been more destructive than usual. Alan came home from church a couple of weeks ago with his tie looking like this:
I am not even sure how he managed that. The extra frustrating part is that this is the second tie in a month that has come home from church looking like this. After the first one we emphasized that he was not allowed to play with his tie but apparently our warnings didn't sink in. Now he doesn't wear a tie.

Now to Conner. Conner seems to have some kind of vendetta against my pumpkin patch. I started a couple of pumpkin seeds in a cup and so did my friend down the street. I put both of our plants in our pumpkin patch and told the boys they couldn't dig there. The day after I planted them Conner stepped on one and killed it. The next day Reed stepped on another and killed it. I told myself that they were weak plants and might not have survived anyway. I went to ACE and bought a new plant that had a thick stem and 4 or 5 large leaves. A few days ago the boys and I were outside enjoying some fresh air. I turned my back on Conner for a minute and when I turned around he has squatting next to the pumpkin plant, happily pulling each leaf off the plant. I yelled and ran over there and he just looked at me like "What?" Now my plant looks like this (you can see the remains of the leaves around it). At least I saved one leaf.
I am thinking I should buy another plant and build some kind of fence around it, but then I started to think about what kind of fence I would need - something over 4 feet tall, non-scalable, strong enough to withstand pushing yet able to let sunlight in. Hmm, I'm drawing a blank.

A fishing we will go

This weekend we went to a kid's day at a local pond that the fish and wildlife people were doing. They set up four educational stations and if the kids completed all four then they received a free fishing pole or a free tackle box. We decided that it sounded like fun so off we went. I figured that it would be popular since they were giving away free stuff, but I didn't think it would be too crowded because it was about fishing. I was wrong. We drove up to the entrance gate and saw a huge sea of cars by the lake. We stopped the van so that an older couple could count the kids and I asked what number we were. The answer: 836. Wow! I guess by the end of it there was about 1050 kids. So we met up with a friend and went to get in line for the stations. The lines were huge but it helped to have a friend there to play with and there was also free hot dogs and pop. The lines went faster than I was expecting and in a little over an hour we had learned how to tie a hook on a line, watched someone make a fly for fly fishing, practiced casting a fishing pole, and learned how to identify several kinds of fish. We finally earned our fishing pole. Alan chose a pink fishing pole and we got a tackle box for Conner.

The fishermen

Alan with his friend Alex

We were too tired to go fishing after that, plus the lake was really crowded with fishermen, so we went home for lunch and rests. Later that night we went back and tested out the new pole. Conner couldn't figure out how to cast the line but he enjoyed holding the pole after we cast it. He thought he was such big stuff!

Reed is trying to help Conner reel in his line.

Conner just wanted to do it himself

Alan caught the hang of casting the line quite quickly. He was so proud of himself when he figured out how to throw it out and reel it in. Every time he would reel it in he would look closely at the hook to make sure he hadn't caught anything.

When we first started I went to put a worm on Alan's hook. Alan asked in a surprised voice "What are you doing?!?" I replied that I was putting a worm on his hook because fish like to eat worms. Alan just stared at me and said "No." So we didn't put a worm on his hook. He just used a plain hook.
After a half hour or so we told Alan it was time to go home. He was very disappointed that he didn't catch a fish and he wanted to stay later. We told him it was time to go. Suddenly he says "I have an idea. If we stay until it is dark then the fish will turn on their tvs and start watching a movie. Then they will get hungry and they will start to explore for a snack. Then they will see my hook and they will bite it because they will think it is a snack!" I love his imagination.
Also Alan thought the fish in the lake talked (I think he was thinking about Nemo). We explained that the fish in this lake don't talk. Alan: "So after I catch them they won't talk, right?" Us: "Right".