Friday, February 22, 2013

Animals!

 
 
There are animals at the zoo!  Ok well human animals that is!  We went to the Pt. Defiance Zoo today, on our last day of break (Mid-Winter that is) as a last hurrah!  Today I had my nephews and we met a cousin and her kiddos there for a day filled with fun!
 

However, when we planned this day little did we know what the weather was going to be like...wow!  We picked like the worst day of the week to go...rainy, windy (gusts to like 50mph, power outage's in a few places)...typical Washington weather!  Oh! On top of that there was now in the forecast in our area...things could have gotten dicey! We both decided however that we would go anyway, and I am so glad we did! I think we all had so much fun. We spent a lot of time in the aquarium, in the enclosure that the tiger cubs are in (they are not little anymore...about as big as Dru is...wow!), and really enjoyed having the place pretty much to ourselves. It really wasn't all that bad weather wise until the last half hour or so we were there and then the kids had so much fun just playing in the rain.

As you can see the kids are having a good time, and why not take a picture like this right? I hope they remember this day, cousins hanging out with cousins...AND the adults got to chit chat!  We definitely need to do more of these things that's for sure! 

Today was a GREAT day! Glad we kept our week of school off busy but still fun...made me way less crazy!

Thursday, February 21, 2013

A Moment In Time

 
 
 


Let's take a moments of silence....


A few years ago a Black Hawk chopper crashed on the side of Mt. Peak a few years ago.  I don't remember it but Frank says he does. I guess we were out Christmas shopping and when we came back into town is when we heard about the incident.  He says they were doing an exercise and it all went bad...obviously.  As you hike up Mt. Peak on the back side of the mountain, you will see this memorial to the men and/or women that died. I'm not sure if you can hike to the actual site.  I wonder too if anyone comes to visit other than hikers. 

This is beautiful and sad at the same time...

Thursday, February 14, 2013

Red

I just wanted to share my view of Valentine's Day through pictures
 
Enjoy
 





Tuesday, February 12, 2013

Treasures

 
I think I mentioned somewhere that on my hikes last week I kept finding odd things in the woods...like a tree ornament hanging on a tree.  Just totally random things out there. I was talking to a girlfriend of mine and she was asking if I had found the Smurf out in the woods...I had to say no she hasn't seen the 2 things we'd found.  So who knows what's going on out there!  It's the Wood Fairies!!
 
Here is the figurine the kids found while hiking...I never would have found this because it wasn't at my eye level.  It was totally at eye level of kids. It didn't have anything written on it...just was there.  Weird right?
 Here is how it looks as you are coming up on it.  How the kids saw it I don't know but like I said, I think it was right at there level.  I almost wondered at some point if it was a letterbox...only cause one of my kids was wondering where the stamp was. Or if it was geocaching...but we didn't get coordinates to find it...we stumbled on it.  So I don't think it was either one of those. I think someone just planted it.
As odd and weird as I think this all is to find...it also makes it fun for me and the kids to see if we can find anything else.

Have a good day tomorrow! And may you find some random, out of place thing tomorrow!!

One GINORMOUS Rant

OK...so I started this post last night and only got so far as the title.  I was tired and beat...yesterday was a day like I hadn't had in a long while! 

There was a wonderful silver lining in the whole day and that was when I was able to see my Uncle who lives in Holland and my Mommom (grandma). My Uncle normally isn't able to come a lot so he comes about every 2 years and that's just him, the rest of his family rarely comes because it is just too darn expensive to come, and I can't blame him. I've priced it and just the flight alone is eye opening! Doesn't even begin to cover hotel, car, food, entertainment...so on and so forth! We met at Red Robin and then after the kids and I ate, we drove to our house! Very exciting as it's been since Ian was little that they had come to my house, they came and visited for awhile and I'm glad we were able to do that!

Sigh...so that was the good part of my day yesterday...the highly irritating part of my day...well shoot from the time I got up and got my day going things were irritating. Just dealing with things and situations and all around just highly annoyed.  To top that off I got a call from the school yesterday about Lee...no surprise there. If I was going to pick a kid of mine that I'd be getting phone calls about it's him. Love my boy but most of his problems are caused by him...he's gotta work on that!  Anyway, the phone call was because he was sent to the solution room...think detention room.  Here is the back story...in class they were decorating their Valentine bag holder and the teacher said draw hearts and other stuff.  So, my son, God love him. Drew other stuff. What is the other stuff you ask? Well I will tell you. He drew guns! I know! Keep it together people! He drew guns shooting birds (a hunting scene) and he drew guns shooting carrots (Lee being outright silly).  His teacher walked around and was looking at the different bags and saw Lee's and said that's not OK and sent him to the solution room.  I get SUPER annoyed when first they send him there with out stopping and thinking, OK...I left the comment "hearts and other stuff' to open ended and vague and this IS Lee we are talking about.  So instead of saying, " Lee don't draw guns at all anymore, and give him a new bag and let him start over. He just goes straight to detention. 

So there is the back story...forward up to the phone call and the gal in charge of the solution room is calling me.  She gives me a brief description and by that time I'm already thinking really?  Really? Of all the battles to pick with Lee THAT'S what you are going with!?! Honestly people! So part of what ever it is they do in this room, it requires at times for them to have the children talk to their parents. Therefore that means Lee is getting on the phone with me to tell me what happened.  So I ask him what's going on...he says he drew guns on his Valentine bag and then got sent here (and I will say I talked to his teacher today and that's is exactly what happened...) so I said OK well what happens now? He said he didn't know....great Lee...put the teacher back on the phone. And you have to know how honestly irritated I am now...really irritated.  So the teacher gets back on and I ask what happens from here, because I'm trying to figure out just what exactly the point of all this is and what do they want from me.  She is telling me that they aren't allowed to draw guns anymore and that's not what Valentines day is, and it's about kindness, hearts and stuff. To which I said well not to Lee it's not and he's a 9 year old boy, who could care less about hearts and stuff.  He drew guns on his bag...BIG FLIPPIN DEAL people!  As I kept asking this teacher what happens now, she said well he will fill out a paper on what not to do or something (so not a supporter of this place but I sorta get why it's there...) he missed a recess because of it and then she would go down and talk to the teacher.  But she thought maybe that might be it, or he might miss his Valentines Party or suspension.  Although she didn't think suspension because the last time they did that it was between 2 people.  Through this whole conversation I am getting more upset, angry and irritated and I just finally say OK.  Seriously, what the heck do they want from me? Yell at him over the phone? That'll really show what an awesome parent I am...hahahaha! I did get so mad though that I called her back and told her I was coming to get him and take him out of school. She was surprised and asked if I was mad and I said yeah I was pretty mad about the whole things...she again was surprised by it.  So I yanked my kids outta school and left it until today when I talked to his teacher.
   Talked to his teacher and I heard his side of the story and it was the same as Lee had said and I let him know what I thought and what I was mad about and why I did what I did. Let him know where Frank and I were coming from and what we told Lee.  And we told Lee that what he drew was not wrong...what would have been wrong was that if he was told to NOT draw guns and he did it anyway...and then he'd be in trouble for not obeying....then he'd be in trouble.  So, drawing guns wasn't bad, however we now know we can't draw guns at school because people act like this...lack of common sense!

*Here is my thing...I know exactly where the school is coming from and it's all stemming from the horror that happened at Sandy Hook. I get it...really I do!  But we have to remember that incident was a grown man (take out the whole issue of mental illness) that did that! And yes I know that elementary age children have brought guns into schools and shot kids....mostly by accident but it's happened.  But at what point did common sense walk out of the schools and turn people and situations into what my son was in the middle of!?!?! Seriously!!! Common sense people!  It isn't like Lee was making homemade cards to his classmates depicting crude images and then handing them out. It isn't like these scenes he had drawn were giving people cause to be distressed.  And if we are going to split hairs people then lets split them.  If you are going to tell my child he can't draw guns for Valentines Day, they why do you allow other cards with Star Wars and their light sabers on them, or Transformers scenes with gun fire, or better yet your traditional depicted figure of Cupid with is bow and arrow! If this is the road you are going to walk down then I'll go with you and back you up.  That means you can't allow those things in the school and it also means you have to make rule that no back packs, school lunch boxes, clothes, etc.. can't be allowed in your schools like this!! You can't have it both ways! It's ridiculous in more ways than one!  Oh so irritated!*

So there is my ridiculously long rant...I'm not as upset about it as I was last night but I certainly don't agree with the teacher and how he chose to deal with this, nor do I agree with the teacher in charge of the solution room.  I also do get where there are coming from, but when people are asking us to not let our children watch the Sandy Hook horror so they aren't afraid to come to school and keep things normal...I am doing my job, however I think in some ways they, the schools,  have gone a tad overboard and are making things in a child's world and mind bigger than they need to be.  I'm not saying don't talk about guns and what guns do...good and bad...and horrific...because we do need to talk about it and make people aware...but to me this just wasn't the way to go about it.

So there ya have it...

Friday, February 8, 2013

Random Things In The Woods

While on our hike up Mt. Peak today we came across some random and perhaps silly things.  We had such a good walk today Eli and I!  He is such a trooper and several people stopped and asked how old he was and they were just so amazed that he was trooping as far as he had.  Yet again we didn't make it to the top but it is never with out a lack of trying!  We are going again tomorrow with all the boys (wish me luck!) and I am hoping to make it to the top THIS time!  Eli does really well once we get to the woods part of it, but when we are on the gravel road hiking up he just has a hard time...are we there yet?...can we go yet?...where is our car? Can we have a snack yet? Then it's like a totally different kid when we get to the woods...complete transformation!  Weird.  Anyway, on our hike these are some really random things we came across...we only participated in 1 picture...you'll know when you see it.
 
We just thought this had the potential to look like so many things!  Some kind of duck animal running and it's head is obviously the one that looks like a duck and then it's two legs below it...like it's jumping over something?  What do you see?
 On our hike we were walking down a trail and these little birds were everywhere and I kept trying to get a picture of them but the dogs were less than helpful...really!  While looking through my camera lenses hoping to catch a bird I saw this!  What a random object to find out in the woods hanging on the tree!  But I just though it was beautiful there all by itself.
 Batman and Robin! They had their moment of fame today too! Always keeping an eye out for evil...thankfully we were fresh out! The only evil that could be found were 2 people who had some sore feet from walking! Yowzer!
We hope to see more wonderful and random things tomorrow on our hike!

Monday, February 4, 2013

I Wonder...

 
Does anyone think these fish will ever NOT be known as Nemo since the movie came out?
 
 
 
They will forever be Nemo at house and that it's a misconception that they are funny ;)

Saturday, February 2, 2013

Tickled

So when I got this computer one of the things I desperately wanted was a photo shop program...the one that comes with the computer is fine, don't get me wrong.  However, I wanted to have something to play around with my photos in...see what all the hype is about.  Let me tell you! So far I'm pretty tickled with it...I touched this photo up and I'm pleased...I might get this printed and hung up somewhere around the house.  I am having so much fun with this and that's what I want...and so we are clear I could kill more time doing this than I have available.
 
 
Before
 
 
After
I'm pretty happy with my amateur results.

Have a good weekend everyone!

Music That Moves You

I don't know about you guys, but there are times in my life that are defined by music. The summer after I graduated High school was Tom...