Wildlife

I rode my bike home from work again today. It's a 13.5 mile ride, and it takes me just over an hour. On the way, I saw some deer. They were right off the side of the road. I stopped and took some pictures:

This one was probably only 10 feet from me. It turned and ran just as I took the picture.

The deer were on the south side of the Cherry Creek resevoir, at the X in the lower left corner of the map below. Later, I saw to more deer at the X in the upper right hand corner.

KidSpree

Here's something different: a blog post from Spencer. Back when my family was visiting from Lewiston, we went and saw Aurora's 4th of July fireworks. The grand finale was the best one I have ever seen. Click here for a video of them that someone posted on youtube. The finale starts at about 1:45 in that video, in case you want to skip right to it.

When I was looking online for info on the fireworks, I also found out about a free kid's festival that Aurora had today, and I took the kids to it while Mommy and Geewah were shopping.

There was lots of fun stuff for kids there. We spent about 5 hours there, and we didn't have time to do everything.

Some of the image links for the larger images are broken for some reason. Sorry about that. I'm having a hard time with pictures today. I brought the camera, but left it in the car. So, I just used my phone. The first thing we did was a life-sized Chutes and Ladders. They had a pathway of squares to follow, and some of them said to do things like touch their toes or spin like a top. Along the path, there were also 10 or so little slides.

After that, we came across a dog. CJ tells me his name is Harry.

The next giant board game was Hi-ho Cherry-O. They had chunks of swim noodles cut up that they put in the holes in the trees, and the girls picked them and put them in baskets.

One of the highlights was something they called the "Musical Petting Zoo." I was expecting animals and music; instead, the zoo was a collection of musical instruments that the kids could play with. They had volunteers there that were sterilizing the mouthpieces between kids.

I shot some videos of CJ and Avary playing music, and here they are:

After the music, there was a pile of PVC pipes and fittings to build things with.

These kites were pretty cool. They were all strung together in a group. They are stunt kites, so the guy flying them made Them swoop and dive all around.

The maze was fun. It was one of the things that CJ wanted to do when she first heard about this festival. I could see over the walls, so it was easy for me, but it was a good challenge for the girls.

CJ had so much fun the first time that she had to go right back through again.

I let them lead the way. At the dead ends, they had pictures of different landmarks. Here are CJ and Avary, posing at one of them.

Continuing with the board game theme, here's Candy Land.

I think this thing is the chocolate monster. He had a crank in front that would move his eyes.

At the exit, they had a tent with hundreds of swim noodles hanging down. The girls thought it was so much fun that they ran back and forth through it several times instead of just exiting. I had to stop them when they started running in to people.

There was a frisbee dog group that put on a show. We didn't stay to watch for too long, but they were fun to watch for a bit. The ones I saw dropped the frisbees a lot, but they also had some good tricks and some good catches.

They must have found a good deal on those swim noodles, because they were everywhere. They had a huge pile of them, along with some foam connectors so that you could build things with them.

CJ found out she could wear them, and Avary had to follow along. I had some fun here, too, and I built the ball the girls are playing with.

After that, CJ made a snake. She seems to have snakes on the brain since our visitor came along.

To go along with the guy in the dog costume, there was also a giant inflated cat.

Next up was a round of (very) miniature golf. CJ was so helpful, pointing to Avary where to hit the ball.


Another thing they had was a big pile of sand under a tent.

This one is called Wildly Beautiful. They had costumes to dress up like local plant and animal life. CJ is a snake, and Avary is some kind of grass.

I'm not sure if this one is a dinosaur or a dragon, but we called him a dragon. Avary was scared and hid behind me. When we were getting ready to leave, she was sad because she wanted to hug the dragon. I told her that it was gone, but we happened to see it again as we were walking out. Avary got scared again, and he turned around and acted sad. Then, Avary blew him a kiss and he blew one back.

This one is a Dress Up and Dancing station. Avary really wanted to go there, of course. They spent a lot of time there.

The last thing we did was go through the inflated castle maze. The girls are in there...somewhere...

Oh, there's CJ.

It took a while to finally get them out. In fact, the girl that was helping out there had to crawl in and tell them to get out and that their turn was over.

It was a fun day, and I'm glad we went. It looks like they do this every year, so we'll all need to head out again for it next year.

Return of the "Garden Visitor"

No, you are not seeing a repeat post. Today I went outside to water the garden and while I was out there Jersey was too. I looked over to see her on the back porch of the house and I saw her jerk away. When I looked closer there was this snake slithering up the steps along the house and back down the steps to under the deck. When I say along the house I really mean along the house. If the door had been open to the house, it could have slithered in and I wouldn't have noticed. Anyway, I freaked out, of course, and called Spencer. Bad decision. He said cool, take pictures, when I get home I'll see what I can do, non helpful stuff like that. After I basically hung up on him, I ran over the the neighbors house and asked him to come over and take care of it. I am SO glad he was home. He came over with a pole with a hook and tried to get it. He had it too in a bucket but at that time I hadn't come back with the lid for the bucket and it escaped. He was over here for about an hour trying to get the snake for me (what an AWESOME neighbor). We had scared it into the front yard and it curled up in a bush out there in the front by the front door. Next year, those bushes are going away. Anyway, I called Animal Control and they came out and got it. The Animal Control guy said it was a Bull snake. He said that when the weather is hot they like to come out and bask in the sun. He noticed we have red brick stones on our property and he said they especially like that, great. He also mentioned anything that attracts mice or rabbits will draw them out as well, we have a vegetable garden. But the upside of this particular snake is that it eats Rattle Snakes. I'm cool with that. He reassured me that it isn't poisonous and it doesn't eat anything larger than a small rabbit. He assessed the length of the snake to be about 3 feet, "A big one", he said. When I had called he asked me how big it was and I told him anything larger than a worm is too big for me. He laughed. I liked him, he was nice. Thank you to my new heroes! Eduardo, our neighbor, and the Animal Control guy!!!

Summer of Fun

Well, we have had one crazy summer. I have really enjoyed being at home with my kids. It started off with a surprising report card.

Restaurant.................................................A
Career Developement..............................A
Food and Beverage (Wine Class)............A-
Menu Management..................................B- (Instructor was a PUTZ!)

I don't know why I got a B- in Menu Management. I can only think that he didn't write my grade down in his book on some assignments because at mid-term I had a B+. Anyway, like I said, he was a putz and the class was a waste of my time and money, but it is over now. What came as a shock was my wine class grade. I had to learn so much stuff about wine that I thought for sure I was going to loose my mind. I was very happy with my final grade in that class. My current GPA is 3.7, but I hope to bring that back up this quarter so I can hopefully graduate with a 3.8.

My mom left for Alaska for 3 weeks to spend it with my sister so we had company. At first my Dad flew in and spent 5 days with us. We had a lot of fun. We went to the Zoo.

The animals were really putting a show on for us, it was really fun. The peacocks were actually opening their feathers:

We got to see the Lions get fed:
And the Polar Bears were lounging in the hot sun in the cool water blowing bubbles:

Avary LOVES the Merry-go-round:

She always has to ride on the Merry-go-round when we go to the zoo:
And of course the trip to the zoo wouldn't be complete without a little bit of goofy from Spencer:

By the end of the day a huge storm came rolling in and the Giraffes were really putting on a show. We barely made it to the car before the downpour started. We all really enjoyed the time with my Dad. The girls were sad when he had to go.

After my Dad left for home, we had about a week to recuperate before Spencer's family came. They all arrived on the 4th of July and we went and saw the Aurora fireworks. They were really neat. 25 minutes of continuous fireworks and the finale was amazing. The girls got to wear their new 4th of July dresses to church the next day. They were really excited that their dresses opened when they would twirl:

On Monday we all went to the Aurora Reservoir. This was the first time the girls have ever been to a beach. They had a BLAST!



It was really hard to keep the girls out of the water long enough to eat lunch and then again when we had to leave. It was such a beautiful day, we all had a lot of fun.

After they all left we had some friends from Utah contact us and told us that they were in Colorado and wanted to get together. So, they brought brownies and ice cream over and a new found talent that Spencer and I didn't know about. Our friend Mark apparently has found a calling in making balloon animals. He was the hit of the party:

He made caterpillars, lady bugs, flowers, killer whales, dogs, and he even attempted a Huckleberry Hound as per CJ's request. While they were here, Spencer found a new "pet":

Apparently this was sitting on the side of our house and he went out and got it. CJ's hand is the one we scaled it next to. I have NEVER seen a moth as big as this. I woudl say the wing span was at least 4 inches. I finally made him take it outside and let it go. I was afraid of that thing getting loose in my house and eating us or something. It was HUGE!

We have had a great summer break together, but alas it has come to an end as I start school on Monday. We have had some pretty crazy storms this summer. We even had a toranado warnign when my Dad was here. we stood by our patio door and watched the clouds swirl in front of our eyes, but they combined and didn't do anything, thank heavens.


It's nice getting our water bill because it isn't as high as it usually is. We LOVE the rain. Our garden is growing really fast and we don't have to water it everyday because of the amount of rain we are getting this year.

My summer blog has come to an end. We hope every body had a great summer as well.