Afternoon at the Zoo

Every year we buy a membership to the Binder Park Zoo in Battle Creek. Usually it is a fantastic deal and nearly pays for itself after the first visit. This year though, try as I might, I couldn't seem to work in any zoo trips. Finally when the calendar showed that we were in the last days of August and I knew I had yet to use our membership, I decided we had no choice. Kalen was already back at work and Mom was in Kentucky, so I took all five kids one afternoon all by myself. It was later in the day when we could finally get away and go so the kids agreed that we would save their favorite portion of the zoo, Wild Africa, for the next trip and that way we wouldn't be too rushed. (For that one we would have to take a tram ride to a different section of the zoo grounds and it can be very time consuming waiting for the ride and folding and unfolding the stroller, etc). So we ended up staying in just the main part of the zoo and had a really nice unhurried afternoon. I should have done this sooner! The kids have always loved all the metal animal sculptures. I have SO MANY pictures of these same sculptures, but it's always fun to see how much the kids have grown over the years.

The kids love the "mist machines" as they term them. They are quite refreshing on a hot day and get you soaked surprisingly fast.

Like my special effects? Doesn't it look like the bird is perched on Kendall's head? And I didn't even do it on purpose! (Probably couldn't have if I had tried.)

Another sculpture. And some cute kids.

Kaya LOVED feeding the goats. She also tried to sample their food.

The prairie dogs are always a favorite exibit. Usually in the afternoon, a lot of the other animals are sleeping and being boring, but these critters are always busy and so much fun to watch.

And another sculpture! The kids have always loved this one. Pretty soon Taylor will be too big to pose on here. (He already thinks he is and I had to pretty much threaten to go home early to get him up there.)

We actually did see a lot of animals too but I couldn't seem to get any good pictures of them. Favorites included the snow leopards, cheetahs, the giant tortoise, and the red panda.

We'll be going again this Saturday to see if we can get to Wild Africa. We'll let you know how it goes.

Fiddlers in the Park

We always look forward each year to our community's summer concert series. We get to listen to a variety of different groups that play in all different music genres and since it's free, we never feel bad if we didn't care for a certain program. But we knew we would love one particular group because we have seen them before. The Saline Fiddlers is a group of high school kids who are all amazingly talented at playing the fiddle (and some guitar and banjo as well). The group is always changing as new students join and other kids graduate and move on, but they are alway fantastic. Our kids love them and enjoy dancing to their energetic songs. A few of the numbers even had some of the girls putting down their fiddles and coming off the stage to perform a clogging routine to the music. (Lynnsey's favorite)

It even got these two to momentarily forget to fight with each other!

Taylor took all of these next shots. Spencer was taking a break from smiling. The rest of the time he was having a ball dancing and playing. I just liked this shot because it is so rare that we can actually get him looking directly at the camera.

Kaya loved the music and has some pretty amazing rhythm for a one year old!

Daddy and Kaya took a little break during the intermission.

Lynnsey and Mommy sharing a seat. It was a very warm day and though I normally love snuggling with my kids, this time was a bit uncomfortable with a sweaty six year old covering me like a blanket. Oh well, I'll take whatever I can get for as long as it lasts.

More snuggling: Kendall and Spencer with Daddy. I love this one!

Anyway, it was a really fun time and a great performance. Definitely our favorite so far.

Adventures in Babysitting

I'm really behind on some of my posts so for the next few days I am planning to post a few past events and try to get caught up.

Kalen and I have joined a dinner group at church. The idea is that four couples (or singles if they want to participate too) plan to meet for dinner once a month at each other's homes. After four months then the groups are reorganized so that we'll be with a few new people. We're pretty excited about it mostly because it will get us out of the house on a date at least once a month but also it'll be fun to get to know the people in our branch better. We had our first dinner a couple of weeks ago and it really was so much fun. We had a delicious meal (the host of the month provides the main course and the rest of us are assigned a salad or side dish or dessert) and followed it up with a few rounds of Mexican Train dominoes. Now we are hooked on that game and can't stop playing!

Anyway, while we were doing that, our children were at home with their "babysitter" Taylor. We are loving having a thirteen-year-old so that we can actually go out once in awhile. We never leave him in charge for very long since he's still getting the hang of it, but the few brief outings we've had have been wonderful. But this particular night we ended up being gone for about four hours. It was much later when we arrived home than we had anticipated and so we wondered what we would find. We walked in to a clean house and some happy kids who had been dancing to the "I like to move it move it" song from the closing credits of Madagascar over and over again. Later, we discovered some interesting photos that Taylor took while we were away.

We're not sure what Kendall's get-up was all about but there were numerous photos of him dancing in it. Silly kids. We're just glad they had fun so that we can feel better about having fun too!

Published!

Remember the poem that I posted a few months ago that Kendall wrote about wild horses? Well, at the end of the school year he and his reading teacher decided to submit it to a kid's poetry publication and see if they might accept it and publish it in their latest book. The other day we got an envelope in the mail addressed to Kendall. He saw the return address and knew what it was. He ripped it open and read it quickly before jumping up and down and announcing: "They said yes!" He's very excited. We're pretty excited too that we get to spend $22 to purchase the book! Actually, we are really thrilled for him and proud of all his hard work. Congratulations Kendall!

Bean Teepees

Here are the promised pictures of how our bean teepees ended up looking. I found Lynnsey and Spencer outside one morning looking at books inside the tents. The bonus: they had a built-in snack!

What We Did for Summer Vacation

Okay, so summer isn't officially over for us yet. The kids don't start school until September 8th. But I had a few random pictures of some of the things we've done in-between our travels and other events that we've already posted about, so I thought I'd just show a few of the extra things we've had going on this summer.

SWIMMING LESSONS

Kendall and Lynnsey both took lessons at the high school pool for much of the summer. They both had a ball and looked forward to it every day. They both improved immensely in their abilities. Kendall struggled for awhile but finally near the end he got a teacher who made him take some bigger risks and he was able to actually do some real swimming.

Occasionally the kids were rewarded with some jumps off the diving board at the end of a session. Both of them had some fears to overcome to do this and a lot of the time they couldn't work up the nerve and had to have one of the instructors drop them off the edge. By the end of the program though, both kids made the jump on their own.

Lynnsey took to the water like a little fish right from the start. She even learned how to float on her back when she needed a break and her teacher used her as an example a few times to teach some of the other kids how to float.

We're thinking she may have found her niche. She's tried dance lessons but while she loved dancing, she hated being in front of an audience. She tried soccer with the same stage fright. But swimming seems to give her enough to think about without worrying about all the people in the bleachers. She loves the water and had so much fun. We hope to encourage her to continue developing in this area.

LOTS OF TIME IN THE BACKYARD AND GARDEN

Kaya adores the outdoors! If she sees someone putting on shoes she is right there wanting to go out too.

This year we tried something new in our garden with our green beans. We made teepees out of bamboo poles so that the beans could grow up them and make an enclosed tent for the kids to play in. I just took some other pictures of what they look like now and when I get them uploaded I'll post them. They really ended up being so much fun. And it was a good thing because that was about the only success we had in the garden! We don't know what is going on with our soil this year but we have really struggled to get any sort of a decent crop. Our peas were a complete failure and didn't grow at all. Unfortunately that is what we look forward to the most. We even had our soil tested but it came out within normal range. They made some suggestions for us to try for next year, so we'll see. We usually get a boatload of tomatoes but this year we aren't getting as many and they aren't getting ripe as fast as in times past. We did get a couple of delicious cabbages, but lost some to some resident deer that invaded the garden. Our green peppers are doing great though and may be our best success of this year's garden.

A COUPLE OF FUN EVENTS

A few of us went to a community production of the Rogers and Hammerstein musical Cinderella. It was really cute and Lynnsey loved it and still talks about wanting a dress like the one that the girl who played Cinderella wore.

Our library hosted the zoomobile one day this summer where we were educated about several different animal species.

We even got to pet the snake at the end of the program. Some of us even thought that was pretty neat.

The kids also participated in the library's summer reading program where they keep a log of all the books they read over the summer. For each book they read they get to put their name in a drawing for all sorts of fun prizes. We missed the reading party on Wednesday (somehow it didn't make it onto our calendar so we totally forgot about it), but we did find out that our kids won some of the prizes. They're so excited to go tomorrow to see what they won.

THE PLAYGROUND

Of course, no summer would be complete without a few excursions to the playground. We adore our playground. It was built several years ago by the community to replace the old and unsafe existing structures. Since then, several surrounding towns have built playgrounds in similar fashion so we now have a few fun places that we can visit nearby. We love ours the most though!

Kaya could swing for hours! And her cute little giggle makes me willing to swing her for hours.

A future rock star?

A cool, refreshing "drink"of water.

It's been a fun summer. I can't believe how fast it has gone. And I am actually really dreading the start of school. I've heard so many parents wishing it would come sooner, but I really prefer the crazy busy chaos of summer of the organized mayhem of the school year. Hopefully we can live these last two weeks to the fullest!

Blood and Nuts

I've mentioned in past posts the issues that we've had since Spencer's infancy with mulitple food allergies. The poor kid, who loves to eat, has no idea what he is missing out on. Not being able to have any milk, egg, wheat, or nuts in any form is a bit restrictive at times. We've managed over the last 3 1/2 years to get creative and to find things to feed our poor child and we are doing fairly well. Still, we long for a day when we can let him eat a candy bar or some French toast or even the sacrament at church. A couple of weeks ago, I was shopping in the specialty food store where I am forced to spend three times as much on Spencer's groceries as I do for the rest of the family, when I saw an allergy-free pizza mix and some soy mozzarella cheese that claimed to actually melt. I was so excited! We made pizzas that night; one for us and a special one for Spencer. He was thrilled too and had so much fun helping put toppings on. It came out of the oven looking fantastic. We sat down to eat and Spencer eagerly took a bite. He said in a not-quite-as-enthusiastic a voice as I'd hoped for: "Mmm...I like it." After a few more bites, he took back what he'd said: "Actually, I don't like it very much." He managed to eat his olives and mushrooms off the top and ate the crust before he gave up and announced that he would not be eating pizza again. Another $15 experiment down the drain...

Anyway, every year Spencer has to have a test in which they seem to siphon out an inordinate amount of blood from his little body so that they can re-test him to see if he happens to be outgrowing any of his allergies.

This year, Spencer was determined to be super brave and not cry during the procedure. He was actually really interested as they got everything set up. He started to tense up a bit when he saw the four empty vials that would soon be filled with his blood and he told me "I think my blood wants to stay in my body." He gritted his teeth when they tied the elastic around his arm, said "Ouch!" when he felt the first stick of the needle, and then he proceeded to sob as quietly as possible through the eternal minutes of the actual blood draw. It was so heartbreaking. When it was over and I told him he'd been so brave, he completely broke down and yelled: "No I wasn't! I cried anyway!" Poor kid. The nurse gave him three stickers instead of two and of course, I took him to get a treat afterward and let him get two instead of one. He did enjoy being the center of his sibling's attention when he got home and showed them his battle wound.

Here he is showing off his cool camouflage bandaid that matched his cool camouflage crocs.

So, Monday we had his big appointment to find out whether he's improving or not. It seems that he is definitely headed toward growing out of his egg allergy! Last year he had gone from numbers in the thirties (which is very high) to a 17. This year he is down to a 6. The doctor says if he is down below 3 next year, we'll actually do a food tolerance test where we let him eat egg and see how he responds. That is pretty exciting. Unfortunately, his other food allergies aren't progressing as well. His allergy to peanuts has leveled off and most likely won't change. His milk also only dropped a few points and is still at a 38. And his wheat came down ten points but is still a high 40. The allergist is always quick to assure us that there is still hope that he'll outgrow some of them but also has told us that the reality is that if things aren't going down by age 6 or 7, we can pretty much assume that these will be lifetime allergies. Which I'm sure we can deal with but I worry a lot about how other people will deal with them. I have to send Spencer off to school next month where I can't monitor everything that he puts into his mouth. There are so many misconceptions about food allergies that even people with good intentions can give him something bad. For example, some friends of ours who knew all about his allergies, once offered him a graham cracker. I explained he couldn't have it because of the wheat in it. "Oh, she said. Well let me get him a saltine intead." I explained that saltines also contain wheat. She said: "but they're made with white flour." It was news to her that white flour is wheat flour. And it's been news to many people we've encountered. So I worry. And I hope that someday he'll grow out of them. Or at least improve enough that eating an offending food won't threaten his life! I guess we'll just keep at it and see what next year brings...