Cruisin' Christopher

So last Saturday, Chris decided he wanted the training wheels off his bike. This was after months and months of literally not touching his bike at all. So Brian took the wheels off, helped him get started a few times, and that was that. Chris was on his own.

It wasn't until we were at my mom's house later that day that I realized I should be taking pictures of his first bike ride sans training wheels. If it had been my first child, I'd have taken two rolls by then. Poor Chris.

But that's okay. I took lots of pictures AND wrote a blog post about it. So that proves I love him just as much as everyone else. ;)

I Could Keep Him Here Forever

You know, five days sure beats five hours. That's what Uncle Mike's previous two visits have been. About five hours. This time it was five days.

Still not enough.

I think my uncles should just move here. What do you think?

I didn't take hardly any pictures this time, but here are a few more random shots of the family get-together we had last Saturday.

Looky What I Found

See him?

Here's a better look. He's in the sun now, moving fast.

Yep. It's a three-foot long Bull snake. The fire department caught him once round the middle, then let him go and caught him near the head so I could get a better picture. (I swear, I did not ask them to do that.)



The guy decided to just hold him, but the snake was mad after so much handling and gave him a nice bite.

But they're harmless.

Mmm-hmmm.

Good for eating rattlers too, they said. Good for having around. I considered that for about ten seconds. Afterall, if a rattler decided to come into my yard, it'd be handy having something nearby that wasn't scared, just hungry. Still, even though my boys would've LOVED having this guy, I would just be too freaked out having him in my yard.

So, the nice fireman who wasn't afraid of a bitty snake bite walked him to the foot of the mountain one house down and let him go.

It was fun having Bull for a visit, but I hope he likes the mountain better. Maybe he'll find a nice, tasty rattler to snack on.

Thanks guys!

Ben's Bobcat

Ben is officially in cub scouts and he is LOVING it! This is his first official pack meeting, where he was introduced along with the other new Wolf scout:

This is after he received his Bobcat award. (Look at that cute little smile.)

John is in the Webelos den now which has been fun. Here he's receiving several awards he'd earned as a Bear, and one he's earned as a Webelos. They haven't had an awards pack meeting in awhile, and John missed the last one, so there was a lot of catching up to do!

This is a demonstration by the Bear den. They built their own radio. It was cool!

And this was the tree right by our van.

Apparently, it wanted to be climbed.

One Word

Fantastic.

Whether you have kids or not, this book is a must-read. Absolutely wonderful. If you do have kids, read it aloud to them. My whole family loved this book. We checked it out from the library (naturally) but we'll have to get our own copy. The beautiful illustrations are a bonus.

Snippets

Snippet #1

You guys are wonderful. Thank you so much for all the comments on my last post. I'm feeling much better now. :)

I, too, have read a few blogs where people are astonishingly honest about the trials they're going through. It's usually very inspiring. But that's not what I want my blog to be and that's okay. My journals cover the serious stuff just fine. My original intent for this blog was to keep in touch with long-distance family, and to create a cyber-version of my photo albums. (Since our photo albums are about a decade behind.) Between the two my personal history is pretty much covered.

An unexpected bonus about this blog is that it captures elements of my life I don't think would be captured any other way. Little things, but still part of my life. I tend not to journal about APOD, pizzokies, or funky sidewalks. But life, as they say, is in the details. I like having a place to put mine.

Snippet #2

Well, this is really more than a snippet but I'm fond of my title, so there you go. I finally heard back from the heart doctor and the results of the Holter monitor are in. No episodes. No nothing. And Christopher hasn't had any episodes since that really long one weeks ago. So HOORAY for that!!!

Snippet #3

I went to the park this morning, all by myself. It was lovely.

Just for the Record

Blogs are curious things.

My blog shows one little slice of my life. It's a very true slice, but if it's all you know about me, it gives a very skewed picture. Reading back over my entries, there's only a tiny hint of what this year has been for me. To be brief (and blunt) October through March was pure hell. March to now hasn't been as horrible, but it's still been extremely difficult. Truth be told, this is turning out to be a pivotal time in my life. There's been only one other time, eleven years ago, that changed me as deeply as this year has.

Most of the things I've been dealing with (and there have been several) are of the sort that I'm not going to talk about them on a blog. Or even with most of the people I know. Some people know one or two things, but very few know the whole story. And that's fine by me. I'm not saying any of this to whine or get sympathy.

My point is, sometimes I feel like these blog posts are a lie. The Carolina's one is a good example (and why I felt I had to write this post). Everything in the Carolina's post was true and we did enjoy ourselves. But what I didn't say was that the situation that prompted us to go was pretty serious, and that taking pictures for the blog was a grateful distraction from the somber events we were there to discuss. And truthfully, it was no where near the most stressful thing I've dealt with - I'm not trying to make it sound like it was life-changing or anything.

Still, I have zero desire to talk about any of those things here, but omitting all that makes the afternoon sound like a playful romp and nothing more. It makes me feel dishonest.

A good friend of mine made a comment to me about the discrepancy between this blog and my actual life. She's right. I've thought about this before. I'm not trying to be deceitful or paint a false picture. I'm just keeping private things private and leaving the rest. I know I'm not alone in this. But I feel funny about it sometimes. Does anyone else ever feel this way?

Edit: Just to clarify, my friend was not saying that in a negative way at all. It was just an observation - she was by no means the source of my guilt. I did that all on my own. ;)

Carolina's

Thursday Brian and I had an unexpected opportunity to have lunch together. He suggested a place he'd never been to before which had been recommended to him by a client. He described it as a "hole-in-the-wall" Mexican restaurant with great food. Sounded good to me!

We get there, and this is what we see:

Not only does it have a pay phone, it has a graffiti-laden pay phone.

"Are you sure you want to do this?" I ask.

"I'd like to give it a try," he says.


"Will you protect me?" I ask.


"Yes."

See how willing he looks? Notice the tin shed behind him. Uh-huh. Okay then.

Well, we get inside and it's a bit, um, basic. You could also choose the words "old" or "run-down." A word you would not use is "charming." The concrete floor was peeling and the walls were bare... save for several magazine articles in cheap frames declaring the place one of "Phoenix's Best."

Magazines or no I'm still wanting to bail out, but Brian was all for it, so I agree to stay.

The food had better be good, I thought.

We placed our order at the counter fast-food style and got a number. There were several orders ahead of us, something I took to be a good sign. By this time a good five minutes had passed and no one tried to mug me, or even glare at me, so I started to relax.
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We went to get our drinks at the fountain. They had a station for Coke products, Pepsi products (to Brian's delight), and another for products with Spanish names I'd never seen before. Brian accidentally filled his root beer too high and some spilled on the floor. I grabbed a few napkins from a nearby table and held them out for him.

"What's that for?" he asked blankly.

"The floor."

"This floor?"

"You're right," and the napkins went back on the table.

We selected a spot and sat to wait. Several people came and went while we were there, and I'd never seen such a diversified clientele in one place before. We saw people of all colors, as you do just about anywhere in this city, and most the time we were in the minority. What was unusual, though, was the fact that we saw so many people whose appearances suggested a wide variety of backgrounds. We saw business men in shirts and ties, heavily tattooed girls, younger people dressed all in black, an elderly couple who looked like they came straight from Sun City, and men with scruffy beards and worn clothes who looked a step away from being homeless. I didn't see anyone who scared me.

Nevertheless, I wasn't too keen on drawing attention to myself. Here's a picture I furtively took from our table, flash off:

Can I be frank and say it's weird that I happened to take this picture when there were so many white folks in the house? When we first got there, we were in the minority, but most often there really wasn't a majority or minority of anything. I should've taken a few more pictures, at ten minute intervals say. That would've shown the cool variety people filtering in and out of this place.

Most importantly, here is the food:

I ordered the chimichanga. I have two words. Oh. Yum.

Brian ordered the flautas. I didn't take a picture of those, but I did take a bite and they were pretty good. Carolina's sells their freshly-made tortillas by the half-dozen, so we ordered some to take home.

The bag was comfortingly warm, and the tortillas?

Huge. My initial reaction to their taste was: "Not as good as I imagined." But they were pretty darn good, and now that we're finally out of them I'm tempted to go back for more.

So, final verdict? I'm glad we went. The food was good and, if nothing else, it was an experience. I don't think I'd ever take anyone there, but if Brian and I were in the neighborhood and felt like Mexican food, I'd be willing to stop in again.

Assuming the sun was still up.

Now That's Just Cool

Extinct volcano crater in Mount Bosavi, Papua New Guinea

You may have heard about this already, but if not, I think this is totally cool. Scientists recently descended into that picturesque volcano crater and discovered a bunch of new species. Having never seen humans before, most of these animals had no fear of the scientists.

Check out an article about it here (which includes a short audio interview I found interesting) and go here if you want to see more pictures.

King Bird of Paradise

It's nice to know there's still unchartered territory left on our planet. Makes me want to be a scientist so I can go play too!

Party Postscript

As an aside, I found some very interesting posts on Steve Spangler's blog about science education (or the lack thereof) in our elementary schools and the effect that's having on the future of our country. Intel had something alarming to say about it too.

Go here and here to read them.

Bottom line: teach your kids how to read and add, teach them what elephants and atoms are and all that good stuff. But most importantly, teach your kids how to think and how to learn.

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Considering that (as Mr. Spangler says though I can't find the reference) most of the jobs our kindergartners will hold haven't even been invented yet, teaching them how to learn is pretty critical.

Based on my childhood experiences, I believe parents can give that gift to their kids no matter what the schools are like. Even though there were times when my dad's lessons in logic were frustrating, for the most part they were enlightening, and I learned how to wonder and ask right along with him... "HOW do we know?"

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Just food for thought.

Science Birthday Party

I realized I've been putting off doing this post because I didn't want to spend hours putting it together. So I won't. What I will do is say that last Saturday we had a birthday party for John and Ben with several of their friends and we had a blast! The theme was science experiments. Here are some pictures along with links giving more details about how these experiments were conducted, if you're interested.

It was a bit of work putting this together, but not as much as you would think and I had a great time planning it. Thanks to all of you who helped contribute materials. Deb gave me a great idea for the cake, but I didn't have time to really put it together. If we do a science experiment party for Chris in December, I'll use her cake idea then. :)

One of my least favorite things about putting a party together is the rushing around I'm usually doing right before the party begins. My goal this year was to have the house cleaned, decorated, and everything else ready an hour before start time. We hit that pretty close and it was sooooo nice. These first few pics were taken by the kids while we were waiting for the guests to arrive:

Chris took a picture of my feet. Where do kids come up with these things?

A little pre-party dipping...

Science supplies standing by...

Cutie patootie

Admittedly, the "decorations" for this party were excessively simple. One of the many nice things about raising boys is they just don't care about that kind of thing. As long as they have some balloons to pop when it's all over, they're happy. :)

Okay, first experiment. (This was one of the experiments we saw in John's Webelos book, for the Science Activity Badge, so I don't have a link for it.) Basically it's demonstrating that the pressure of a gas (like air) decreases the faster it goes - the principle which allows planes to fly. I was a little apprehensive about bringing out my sewing kit for the first experiment, but it worked out fine.

We learned the hard way that not all spools are created equal when it comes to this experiment. Ah well...

Okay, this is the "straw oboe" experiment and it was a hit! Some of the kids had a hard time making the sound, so I wouldn't try this for a younger group. The ones who managed it loved it!

An experiment demonstrating atmospheric pressure (another from the Webelos book). It's a fine experiment, but I'd cut this if I had to do it again just because it doesn't have the fun or "wow" factor that some of the other ones did. At least it was short, so I don't think they had time to get bored. This is a great one to do at home with the munchkins where you can really have them think about it, take the time to explain, etc.

Mini lava lamps. This is a cool one!! Check out the video at this link.

This is a "tie dye" experiment using colored Sharpies and rubbing alcohol.

Okay, we don't have a good picture of this, but this was a fun one too. In my left hand is an empty Powerade bottle, upside down. In my right hand is a de-shelled hard-boiled egg, with two lit birthday candles in the narrow end. (This IS a birthday party, right?) To see what I did with that, go here.

Making CO2 sandwiches. Boys love to make things go BOOM!

Another fun one. Take a mason jar and fill it with water. Fit a piece of screen into the ring of the lid and put it on the jar. Cover the opening with a playing card (since this jar was big, I had to cut a big piece from a laminated piece of cardboard that used to be a JoAnn's mailer). Flip the jar over and carefully remove the card. The water stays in the jar. We even inserted a toothpick through the screen and watched it float to the top! (I saw this at the Steve Spangler site too, but I can't find the link now...)

Ben requested the Diet Coke and Mentos geyser trick, so we did that too. We don't have a picture of the actual geyser because it happens quick!

Then it was time for presents:

... and cake and ice cream.

Then we let them play with dry ice (well, the fog dry ice makes when you put it in water) as we waited for parents to arrive.

This is a dry ice and bubble trick I found at Steve Spangler's fantastic website, where I found most of these experiments.

The dry ice was a huge hit. :)

It was a fun party and about an hour or so after the party was over I completely crashed!! LOL.