Alex's Week

Last week was a big one for Alex.

He got the ants for his ant farm and we had tons of fun trying to get them into the farm from the little tube they came in.  You would think it would be a relatively simple process.  I guess it's not too bad, except for the fact that the ants the company sent are harvester ants. Big red biting/stinging harvester ants.  But rest assured, the bites and stings are not harmful, just irritating, or so the packaging said.  Getting the ants into their home involved stunning them by sticking them in the refrigerator for 15 minutes and then attempting to dump them into the ant farm.  Problem was they warmed up super fast and climb the walls, oh and they don't actually want to leave the tube so they cling to it, so it was a race to dump them in before they warmed up too much.  They also move pretty fast when motivated.  Anyway, after several rounds of stunning and dumping we finally got them all in.  Now we feed and water them every so often (there's a schedule for this) and watch them dig their tunnels.  It's sort of mesmerizing actually.

Part 2 of Alex's big week... he got braces! He's probably the only kid I know that was deliriously happy about having a bunch of metal glued to his teeth.  It's not too bad - just brackets on his upper teeth, and just the front at that, and some metal spikes on the back of a couple of teeth.  The good news is that the lower teeth will probably always be fine.  But the uppers, well, that's a totally different story.  This is round one, he'll most likely have to go through this again in a few years.  Long story short, he's got some teeth coming in very badly and this round is to straighten out the front, close a gap and maybe create a space for the teeth that haven't come in yet, maybe just maybe they'll fall into place neatly. He's done a great job with it, not too much complaining about the aching/discomfort of the whole deal.

So that's what's going on in Alex's world.

One more for today...

I've hit the highlights in the last few posts.  Ben, Alex, Winnie.  As for me, I'm still trudging along with school stuff.  Reading to all the kids is fun, although sometimes it is a little hard to keep track of all 15 of them and what they are doing.  I seem to be endlessly busy but I'm not sure what it is that fills my time!

I do spend a few minutes stargazing every morning. Anytime there is a celestial event and it's somewhat doable I try to watch.  Most recently it was the alignment and visibility of 5 planets.  It just so happens that the prime time to see the planets every day happened to be when I walk out to get the newspaper in the mornings.  Up until this week it was optimal viewing.  The sun rises a little later here and it has been so clear that just about everyday I would get quite a show.  The moon is waxing now and the sun is coming up earlier and the position of the earth has changed so the show isn't quite as it was. I enjoy my quiet moments with the stars though.  I think the alignment and moon will be right again for another few days in August.  Until then I'll watch my constellations, look for shooting stars, and catch all the eclipses I can.  I guess it's no wonder where my son gets his love of space.  I hope his dreams come true.  I hope he can fly to Mars one day.  I hope he can clean up all the space debris that's out there.  I hope he can live amongst the stars.

Finally, in a rare work/school schedule difference I got a day off with Mike while the boys had school.  While the rest of the US observed president's day, Leander ISD was just trucking along.  The weather this winter has been mild to say the least and yesterday was no exception. After a nice leisurely breakfast Mike and I headed up to Leander to check out some dinosaur footprints.  After about a half mile hike up a river bed we found them. They are real, they have been there for 65 million years (or whenever it was that the dinosaurs tromped through the area). It's so surreal though, hard to imagine what this area looked like then. Hard to imagine 1 million of anything, let alone 65 million, never mind trying to put that into terms of time. When we are lucky to live 90 - 100 years, and we can only really connect with history back a couple thousand years, how is 65 million of anything possible? Anyway. dinosaur footprints.  A very cool thing, very close by, and very easy to see.  It was a good day.

Happy Birthday Alex!

The kid is 10! What more is there to say? We had a great birthday weekend.  Alex got a special birthday lunch with Aunt Stephanie & Uncle Michael on Saturday.  Sunday was full of love and orange, all things orange.  Orange pancakes with orange syrup, orange birthday cake with orange frosting. Orange chicken for dinner. Orange wrapping paper and streamers and balloons.  Orange plates and napkins and utensils.  I don't know why orange, but it was fun.  And the kid was happy. Love you little dude!

Meet Winnie

You knew it wouldn't be long before we got another pup.  Winnie is probably about 1 1/2 years old.  She's a boxer/black mouth cur mix. And, she came fully loaded: completely house broken, crate trained, and knowing a few basic commands. She doesn't jump (much), and she's so very very sweet. Yeah, pretty much the most perfect dog ever.  We adopted Winnie through a rescue league, which, out here anyway, means we had to jump through plenty of hoops. But it was worth it.  She's a great new family member.

Ben's Special Day

Ben was chosen to be a greeter at a leadership conference downtown last week.  It was a pretty special honor, just 4 second graders and 3 first graders were picked to participate.  Long story short, the conference was for educators to learn about the "Leader In Me" program.  Our school is currently undergoing certification in the program right now so a few Cypress kiddos were there to show off their skills.  Ben was the perfect choice for this.  Mr. Personality always has a smile for everyone.

I rode the commuter train with Ben and the other kiddos downtown bright and early Thursday morning.  He did his job and we rode the train back up our way and headed off to school.  It made for a long day for Ben, but a happy one.  He was thrilled.  Perhaps the most exciting part (aside from the train) was that the people running the conference made each of the kids their own name badges and gave them lanyards and a couple of other little trinkets to remember the day.  He proudly wears his badge every chance he gets!  Here are a few pics from the day...

Caverns of Sonora

Got to take a little road trip a couple of weeks ago.  It feels like forever since we've done that.  Ben is doing a project for school on the Caverns of Sonora and it just so happens that this magical place is right in the heart of Texas.  So, to help boost our sad hearts after losing Tucker and CoCo we decided to spend a weekend having a little adventure. We headed out early on a Saturday morning and drove out to San Angelo.  We spent the afternoon touring Fort Concho and enjoying the sights of San Angelo. Found a great burger place for lunch, spent some time along their little riverwalk area, wandered through an art museum for a bit and ended our afternoon designing t-shirts and playing in a park.

Sunday we drove down to Sonora and toured the caverns, grabbed some lunch and headed home. The cave was absolutely spectacular, thus far easily the most beautiful cave I have been through.  The formations are stunning.  Calcite is the mineral responsible for most of the formations.  Everything is glassy and beautiful, crystals everywhere. There is one part of the cave where you are actually walking through a geode. Very beautiful. You can visit the website for more details about the cave, but I'll put up a few pictures for you.

Hello!

So many posts have gone through my head, I just plain haven't felt like posting anything here lately.  I intended to, then life happened, and well, I didn't.  So.  Merry Christmas a little late. Happy New Year a little late.  Happy 8th birthday to Ben.  Might as well be pre-emptive at this point and wish everyone a happy Valentine's Day and a very happy early 10th birthday to Alex, because I'm not sure when I'll sit down and update the blog again.

To recap, fill in, catch up, all that jazz...

Had a lovely Christmas here in TX.  It was very warm.  Grandma Rita was here, and we all had a fabulous time.  I think the kids were very happy.  This seems to be the year that they discovered that mom & dad are really Santa.  The best part is, they don't really care, and are very happy to keep on playing along.  Makes it a little more fun actually.

Kids are doing well in school and piano.  Work is going well for Mike.  I seem to be busy, but who knows what I'm ever actually doing! It's about time for another big house project, but that's a post for another day.

The weather has mostly been warm.  The drawback to a mostly warm winter is the mostly part.  Because on days when that mostly goes away, the sort of cold feels REALLY cold.  Like today.  Yesterday was up to 76 and sunny.  Kids wore shorts & tees to school.  Today topped out at about 52, warm for all those east coast people sitting under 3 feet of snow, but feeling terribly icy cold to us longtime Texans. Instead of shorts, we are bundled up, even wearing coats today. But, it will be warm again, and soon.

Along with the good comes some sadness too.  Everybody knows by now, but I'll post again anyway.  We lost both Tucker and CoCo recently, just 10 days apart as a matter of fact.  CoCo's loss was very unexpected - her epilepsy sent her into a series of violent seizures that we couldn't stop.  It was a horrid way for her to go, but she wasn't alone. Most importantly I like to think we gave her a good home and loved her madly.  Losing Tucker was just as devastating if a little more expected.  He was very old, and that hit him hard in December.  We did not expect for him to make it to Christmas, and he hung on for another month.  He went peacefully, with all of us with him. He's got CoCo to take care of now and we'll meet again someday.  He gave us 16 wonderful years.  Arthur is the only 4 legged friend left for now.  He's a bit lonely, but is hanging in there.  Overall, the house is far too quiet and I miss the chaos of a trio of dogs.  In the words of Winnie the Pooh "How lucky I am to have something that makes saying goodbye so hard."

I've got the urge to travel and no plans to do so.  Time to plan some trips. We may head out to western Texas this weekend to see some caves.  Thanks to Ben's school project for clueing us into a little adventure.  If we go, well, maybe there's a blog post in there. In the meantime... here's a final thought.