Eagle Watching

Last Sunday, Alea and I went out for a “girl’s night” (as she says) and attended an Eagle Watch auto tour at the lake up the hill from us. We had so much fun!

We gathered at the first stop and got a map-Alea was in charge of tracing our way once we were in the car- watched an eagle movie and then began our journey. We made three stops where we got to look through spotting scopes and saw three big beautiful eagles-in the wild. They looked so amazing. They had small spotting scopes set up for the kids and Alea felt so grown up looking through them. I don’t know that she ever really saw one of the eagles through the scope, but she did see them in the trees across the river. The final stop was at a lodge and they had a show, with a live eagle participant and then we got to watch a releasing of an eagle, which had been contaminated with lead poisoning, into the wild. As the picture testifies, Alea had as much-if not more-fun sliding down the hill of ice outside the lodge than the whole releasing of the eagle!

It was so fun and we really bonded so I thought I’d share the “girl’s night” and pictures with everyone.

Other Side of the Sun

Say, say, oh playmate, come out and play with me, and bring your dollies three, climb up my apple tree. Shout down my rain barrel, slide down my cellar door and we’ll be jolly friends forever more. Say, say, oh playmate, I can not play with you, my dolly has the flu, boo-hoo, hoo, hoo, hoo, hoo. Ain’t got no rain barrel, ain’t got no cellar door, but we’ll be jolly friends, forever more.

I always wondered about that song and thought it was literally talking about a playmate (as it very well may be) until I had an epiphany. Last week it was so warm, we spent a few days outside and even got our bikes out! The kids had so much fun running around and riding their bikes. Once we had been out of doors a little while, I couldn’t help but notice how they BOTH kept looking over to the side of them---at their SHADOWS. It was like they each had their own playmate that was right there beside them doing everything they did and wanted to do. Unlike a human playmate, their shadows didn’t give them any disagreement and was with them wholly, continually and completely. Benton would run like the wind all the while looking over at his shadow, cool . . . Alea would pedal until her legs burned and continuously looked over to see her shadow mimicking her, wow. . . I was blown away at how both of my children found such companionship in their shadows! I guess when you don’t see one for a while, it is such a novel rediscovery. Instantly, I thought of this song, probably the word playmate, and it had such a different meaning. Oh, the simple things we take for granted.

Happy Valentine's Day 2009

We'd like to say, Happy Valentine’s Day 2009! A little late, but here none the less. We had such an incredible week and weekend full of family time and an overindulgence of sugar. We began the week making Valentine’s Day sugar cookies and had a great time delivering them to friends. The kids were so confused as to why we couldn’t just stay and play with all our good friends at delivery time. How fun was it to just swing by and give away our sweet, yummy cookies? They had fun though and it got us out of the house. The “sweet treat fairy” visited them Friday night leaving a trail of chocolate goodies that they woke up to. The day was full of candy, food, more candy and more food. Greg prepared steak and king crab legs for us for dinner, mmm! He also gave me a night off and solely took care of the kids all the way through bedtime, ahhh! We ended the weekend by going on a surprise day trip to an indoor water park about 90 miles east of us. We were worn out and feeling really loved by Sunday night, what a great Valentine’s!

Going Out with Dad

For the past two weeks we have been psyching Alea up for her first Daddy Daughter Dance. She was going to wear her cousin’s special dress, a small amount of makeup, get a special hair-do and go out with her daddy only. She even toyed with the idea of getting her ears pierced for this grandeurs occasion. The fingernails had been painted, the makeup applied, the dress on and the hair curled to perfection, it was time to go. She looked like a doll and was all but pushing Greg out the front door.

Thirty minutes later I got a phone call saying that the dance was not at all what Greg thought and they were leaving. What a drag that this “Daddy Daughter Dance” had to incorporate such phrases (in the song lyrics) as “slap the booty”, “dip, dip, dip”, and other crude lyrics that I won’t share. Greg said his senses were on heightened alert and he did not want his baby girl listening to that, not to mention the type of dancing going on-he was embarrassed. It just wasn’t quite like the ball scene in Cinderella we were all picturing. Of course Greg came through like a Prince for Alea. They danced a few dances and had plenty of refreshments. The wrap-up of the night was getting “Madagascar 2” and M&M’s! Alea was floating on air upon arriving home and her first comment to me was, “Mom, I ate cookies and candy!” I am so blessed to have such a wonderful husband and Alea is so blessed to have her wonderful Daddy. Way to go Dad . . .

Volcano Days

Alea has been overly zealous about volcanoes lately. She makes up stories about volcanoes and plays games always managing to squeeze the word ‘volcano’ into them. Right now her game, Volcano, Volcano, World, World, is where any hard surface of the house-entry way, bathroom, kitchen-is a volcano whereas any carpeted area is safe. It’s hilarious to get her going, she’s hard to bring back once she begins VVWW. I thought, so teacher like, what better way to really understand how volcanoes work than to make one? You know that junior high science project every other child does, can’t be that hard! So, I quickly typed “making a volcano” into our computer and amidst one million plus ways to make a volcano, I jotted down one suggestion. I followed step by step instructions and nothing happened. She looked at me like, “Mom, that’s really not what I had pictured”. I stepped back and analyzed the situation quickly and with a little tweaking (pour on the Vinegar) we had one interesting volcano. She insisted on green lava, and thankfully, I insisted on putting the messy thing in the sink, she was so proud!

Yes, she's in her swim suit and yes, it's FREEZING (or below) outside, wishful thinking little summer girl!

Snow Cakes

In our eternal quest for preschool knowledge in the Meyers’ home, I decided that this activity was worth sharing. Inspired from a ‘winter activities’ email, I came up with this indoor friendly spin. I cleaned our kitchen sinks and wiped them dry, covered the faucet with a beach towel, gathered clean snow from outside and put the snow in the kitchen SINK. Alea and Benton proudly stood up on chairs with big mixing spoons and colored the snow with food coloring. Alea got to use a spray bottle filled with red colored water. They had so much fun mixing their “cakes” and combining colors to create new colors. This spurred on a lot of conversations about colors, snow, ice, melting and baking. I gave them mini bunt pans to fill with their snowy creations. Once they were finished playing/learning, about thirty minutes later, we simply removed the towel and turned the faucet on warm. They continued stirring the snow/ice until it completely dissolved. So much fun and so easy to clean!

Adventures in Sledding

If you stay home, you’ll go crazy-that is the curse of the Midwest winter! So, our theory has become, face it . . . go out and enjoy! We decided to be spontaneous, bundle up and go sledding Sunday. We made the trek ‘up the hill’ to Saylorville Lake where there was a designated snow recreation area. In my mind there were giggling, warmly dressed families enjoying leisurely sled rides down perfect, snowy hills. I don’t know maybe someone had gone to the trouble of making snow stairs so the sledders could go up the hills with ease? To my disappointment, once we got to the “snow area” there were no hills larger than a lump and the road dead ended at the frozen lake. Gone was my sledding fantasy. We made the best of it and had a great time. The kids couldn’t have conquered hills much larger than the ones we found and Greg sure couldn’t have ‘snow boarded’ (with the kids sled??) much farther than he finally mastered. So, as we watched the sunset in the generous 8 degrees temperatures, we could not have been having more fun on our first real sledding adventure.