Camping for Mother's Day

I know it's weeks late, but here is my second post about our Mother's Day. M asked me in February if I thought that it would be too cold to camp on Mother's Day; I told him that it would be great -- we have a heater and lots of warm blankets if it was cold. He knows that I LOVE to camp (been doing it all of my life.) With summers beeing relatively short here (compared to So Cal where I grew up) we end up having really busy summer weekends and have only camped twice each summer that we've been here. M and I figured that we could get a weekend of camping early and maybe we'd get to camp more this summer. So, after one of the busiest weeks in our household, we (meaning M) got the camper all ready to go. I went shopping and packed my and the kids' clothes. There are tons of places to camp within a mile of our house. We figured that we might as well go to one of them, since it would be too cold to swim in "the lake" (which is where we usually go camping in the summer time. We found a nice family-owned camp ground that has "day campers" as well as "seasonal campers". We took the truck (that's another story -- we have a truck) and M secured all four of our bikes in the bed of the truck.

What fun we had!! Campfires with S'mores, bike riding, playing on the beach, playing catch with a baseball and mitts, playing chicken feet dominos, and walking to the camp store for ice cream. Lots of good memories were made that weekend.

One of the best parts for me was on Mother's Day. I slept in while "the boys" made breakfast and set a pretty table. Here is M cooking an amazing breakfast of pancakes, eggs, sausages, corn beef hash (for M) and muffins.

Here's M's system for keeping the sausage and hash warm while cooking the pancakes -- it worked really well.

What a beautiful table I saw when I came out of the camper. The boys set it while M cooked.

A close up of the presents and flower that was on the table.

The boys and M insisted that I sit and read while they did the dishes :>

R, looking pretty happy and serene at the campfire. (We had to start the campfires when it was still light out. The sun is setting after 9pm here, which is waaayy too late to start a campfire with boys who are supposed to go to bed at 8pm! I think we got them to bed by about 9:15 both nights that we camped)

On Mother's Day, we rented kayaks and had a wonderful time kayaking down the river. We had two-seater kayaks; I had R with me and M had T with him. It was a really nice two hours spent on the river.

What a great weekend!

Mother's Day Program at T's School

I had the privilige of attending T's Mother's Day program on the Friday before Mother's Day. The program was an hour long, with the kids singing songs that they've learned all year. It was like a walk through the year, beginning with Halloween songs and ending with their Mother's Day song. T was featured twice: once explaining what his writing journal is and then, leading the class in "A Turkey is a Funny Bird" song. Here are some pictures from the fun event:

I asked T the name of this song and he said, "Hmm, let me see. Oh, we're all wobbling, that must be 'The Turkey is A Funny Bird' -- yeah, that's it for sure."

The ended with the song that goes, "A you're adorable, B you are so beautiful..."

It was a lot of fun!!!

Man of Many Talents

My husband is a man who can do most anything. As a matter of fact, my boss at the ad agency where we met used to call him "the man who knows everything." As in "call that man who knows everything and see if he has a solution to this problem."

So, that same man decided that paying ten bucks to get the boys' hair cut each time was silly, especially if they got crew cuts (which is an easy cut). Yep, he bought a clipper kit and gave them cuts tonight.

R wanted a mohawk and T wanted a crew cut.

Here is R's "before picture" with his cowlicks in full glory.


M is working hard at keeping the hair in the middle of R's head long for the mohawk.


And, the "after" picture -- R is so proud! He says that he looks like a rock star!

T's before picture -- his hair grows super fast, just like his mom's.

He did a good job of holding still for M, even when it tickled.


He is also very happy with his cut. He keeps rubbing it and saying how soft it is.

Bambi and Thumper Aren't So Cute Anymore

When we first moved here, it was wonderful -- a beautiful back yard with woods behind it. We'd wake up each morning and look at the cardinals and robins flying and look through the woods to see the beautiful deer prancing about. Remember, one day T and M even saw turkeys in our backyard. We thought we lived in a little bit of paradise.

Then, it happened.

The deer dug up and ate all of my tulips. My expensive tulips that I ordered from Holland. Two hundred dollars worth of tulips. This happened last year and I resigned myself to the fact tha I would grow daffodils and not tulips in the spring.

Last summer I had beautiful flowers -- hanging baskets, window boxes, a flower garden in the back yard and flowers in the front in pots and by the mailbox. It was great.

This year, my perenials came up, including these great Asters that the boys got from the Children's Garden and planted in the front. They were growing great and were about 10 inches tall and 8 inches wide with lots of leaves. Three nights ago, one got eaten down to the ground. I nearly cried when I saw it. But, at least we had the other Aster plant. I sprayed some Deer Be Gone (or some such name like that) around the whole front porch to ensure that nothing else would get eaten (and I chastised myself for not doing that sooner.)

The next morning, I saw that another beautiful plant got eaten to the ground. I forget what this plant is, but I ordered it from a catalog three springs ago and it's come up since. It would have had beautiful pink flowers on it, but it's gone.

And, yes, last night the other Aster got eaten. So much for the Deer Be Gone! AARGGHHHH!!! I was so mad I could spit! ARGGHH!!!

To top this all off, there were onions that were coming up in our vegetable garden and now all of their tops are eaten off -- I think this is the job of the new family of bunnies that are living down below our pine trees. I screamed when I realized that our great vegetable garden would be in jeopardy.

So, as I type, M is out setting two humane traps to catch those bunnies and take them to a field far, far away. He won't let the vegetable garden get eaten alive!

We don't know what to do about the deer, though. To bad that hunting season is over and that you can't shoot a gun in the city limits!!

In the 70's

We spent most of the weekend in the yard -- weeding, tilling, mowing, weeding, weeding, and more weeding. I planted some window boxes with hearty pansies a couple of weeks ago. We bought a bunch of flowers and were ready to plant when we learned that we are supposed to have a frost tomorrow night. "They say" to "never plant before Mother's Day" here. I was going to risk it until I learned of the frost. Argh! So, tomorrow night, we'll fill the kitchen table with all of the snapdragons, dalias, delphiniums, black-eyed susans, and hydrangea that I bought and cart them outside after the frost. I can't wait to get everything in the ground. I love to have beautiful flowers! Then, the vegetable garden...

Here's a poem that R wrote in school about Spring:

In the Spring you can ride a bike
Sometimes you can take a hike
Flowers are blooming everywhere
For everybody to share