Keep Away

The only pictures I have this week, come from our trip to the zoo this morning. I've got to get into the routine of taking photos in the evening, but this week was crazy busy (back-to-school night on Tuesday so I didn't make it home until after 8pm) and that didn't help.

As you can see, the elephants were playing a fun game of keep away today. We enjoyed watching them play with their ball, jumping in and out of their pool.

Levi also got to take his first ride on the zoo train today. Here he is waiting in line to board.And here's one of Levi and daddy on the train.
Turned out to be a perfect morning. This was probably the last sunny zoo trip of the year.

Crawdad hunt

We were up, and at the creek, bright and early with Gabe's dad and Joanne Saturday morning. We were ready to catch us some crawdads.As soon as the bait was set in the creek, Levi started calling out-"See one" whenever a new crawdad would come out of hiding.
In just a few hours we caught about 300 crawdads.
That was the easy part.
The cooking and cleaning over 300 crawdads is not so fun.

Here's Levi bravely showing off one of our soon to be boiled crawdads. (They are a bit easier to handle when they've just come out of a cooler filled with ice.)
And of course he had to give a crawdaddy kiss. Wouldn't be a complete trip to the creek without crawdaddy kisses.
Before we headed home on Sunday, we took a little trip out to Gabe's aunt Jaki's house. We picked some apples to take home.
Using the tractor instead of a ladder is apparently the best way to pick them.And we fed some apples to the cows too. Those girls sure love their apples.It sure was a fun time! And Levi even loved eating the crawdads as much as he loved helping dad catch them.

Happy Birthday to Me!

I had lots of help celebrating my birthday this year.

Someone helped me blow out my candles.Someone also helped me open all my gifts. Actually, I should say I was the one who helped open gifts because the only ones I got to open myself were the ones I opened after my helper was in bed.For my birthday, Gabe and I were also able to enjoy one of the best meals of our life (here). We've read a lot about the chef (she competed on Top Chef Masters) and her restaurant. But the price of the meal meant we needed to go for a special occasion. We decided my birthday was finally the perfect excuse. And I'm not kidding. The meal was amazing. 6 courses. 2 1/2 hours. The main dish was a cognac brined pork loin with house cured green cabbage, pickled wild plum relish, a parsley sauce, and duck & veal demi-glaze. AMAZING! But I think the soup course might have been my favorite. A wonderful cream of fennel soup with sake cured salmon roe that exploded in your mouth. It was a wonderful meal. The perfect ending to celebrate growing yet another year older.

Canning

We canned our first batch of tomatoes last week.
And this is the extent to which Levi helped us.Not sure what he thinks this jar lifter is really for...
some sort of back brace perhaps.

We've had a busy week. Lots of birthday celebrations I hope to share about later this evening. And a fun weekend splashing in the creek catching crawdads. I'll try and get some more posts up here in the next few days between more canning, laundry and making apple sauce.

14

That's the total number of pictures I took this week.
Sad isn't it?
With so few pictures to choose from this week, this is the only one I've got that comes with a little story. Along with Levi's continued obsession with skateboards (anyone know if they make skateboards for 2 1/2 year olds? Cause Santa may have to bring this kid one!), he is also currently obsessed with race cars and putting things in neat little lines. This line of cars was complete before Levi decided one ATV needed to take a spin along the edge of the couch. This current obsession with cars also includes reading this book at nap time and bed time. EVERY DAY! Good thing the pictures are so nice and the rhyming is actually done so well. If that weren't the case, Levi would be really upset when the book went mysteriously "missing". (Like I'm about to do with this book...another one of Levi's favorites. But not Mom's.)

Sorry that's all I've got this week. I'm lucky I survived the 90 degree weather in my not air conditioned class room with 35 8th graders. Yes...you heard that right. Class sizes are out of control this year and I have between 32 and 35 students in all 6 classes. I've never taught in conditions like this...I'm hoping for the best.

Unofficial last weekend of summer

We spent our labor day weekend doing just as the name implies...laboring. Getting some much needed work done around the house isn't exactly the ideal way to spend summer's final weekend, but it actually felt really good. Minus my aching back and thigh muscles.

We washed the cars (inside and out). I actually can't remember the last time they were washed.

We worked some more on clearing out the blackberries and English ivy from the side of our yard by the street. (Gabe's actually been working on this off and on for the last month.) We paid some landscapers to clear it and take all the debris away last month, but Gabe has been wrestling with the ivy ever since. Thankfully, it's pretty much clear now. We just need to haul away all the mess. We even planted a few more trees and will cover everything in mulch, in hopes that will help keep away the undesirable blackberries and ivy. But we'll have to keep on top of it better than the previous homeowners did...

See that bamboo behind Gabe? You couldn't even see it there before, the blackberries were that out of control!
Gabe also replaced some outside light fixtures that weren't to our liking. With the new paint job, we felt new lights would be another good addition to our new curb appeal.

Between all our hard work we did manage to squeeze in:
-lots of back yard pool time
-some delicious BBQ

oh, and this too!

-a walk to the park to play
-a sunrise trip to photograph my favorite flower. (Although Gabe was the only one out of bed at 5am on Sunday morning to do the photographing.)


-a picnic lunch in the backyard
-getting a blackberry pie made. It may not be the prettiest pie ever...but I sure hope it tastes good!

-going to see this with my mom and Becky
-and lots of time just being silly!

Oh, by they way, I am not ready for the summer to be over! Can I please get a one week extension?

Time with Grandma(s) at the zoo

Monday morning was cold and a bit wet. But Levi, Grandma G and I still met Peggy, the boys and Grandma Grass at the zoo anyway. It was fun to explore the zoo with the kids and their grandmas.
I thought Levi would love playing on the tractor in the farm/petting zoo, but he really didn't like it. Usually there are so many kids climbing on it he doesn't get a chance.

But Z really liked the big tractor!

Despite the rain, the polar bears decided to come out and play! That almost never happens!
Levi and I didn't get much more play time in this week. Going back to work really puts a damper on our play time...