All Hail the King!

As most of you know by now, my son is quite the ham. Fortunately, we have a local community theatre that he's very active in and the director provides numerous opportunities throughout the year for the kids to act. The most recent opportunity was a week long half-day camp on Greek tragedies, and at the end of the week the kids performed several scenes from "Antigone" by Sophocles.

Explain to me, will you, how a child who can't remember to pick up his dirty socks off the living room floor can, in one week, memorize 50+ lines of dialogue from a play written 2500 years ago?? 'Cause I don't get it. Of course, this is coming from the woman who can remember all the dialogue to entire scenes of Star Wars, but not where I put the car keys ;D

That'd be King Creon on the left. It's a good thing the director wanted a colored toga for the king - we don't own any white sheets! And keeping with Greek tradition, the kids made their own masks to be worn during the play.



"Ah me, I have learned the bitter lesson! But then, methinks, oh then, some god smote me from above with crushing weight, and hurled me into ways of cruelty, woe is me - overthrowing and trampling on my joy! Woe, woe, for the troublous toils of men!"

Final bow!



Next month he's auditioning for his first musical. Should be interesting considering he has never sang in front of people before ;D

Back by popular demand...

Stone Age Techie said she'd give her eye-teeth to see hubby do Dirty Harry - so here it is! Just keep in mind that by the time we'd finished laughing and started filming, there wasn't much helium left in his lungs ;D

And here's Sasquatch doing helium karaoke!

Helium fun

(Disclaimer: Yes, I know that inhaling helium kills brain cells, and no, this is not a regular pastime for us. But sometimes a few sacrificed brain cells is the price you pay for laughing your @ss off ;)

What happens when you have a bored man with leftover birthday balloons and time on his hands? Endless amusement for his family! You can hear the kid, gasping for air he's laughing so hard, because what I *didn't* get any video of (dammit) was Mike channeling his inner Clint Eastwood in that classic Dirty Harry scene, and his rendition of that 80's song "Mickey". And trust me - you haven't heard anything until you've heard Sasquatch sing an Alvin and the Chipmunks version of Mickey ;D

(You may want to scroll down to the bottom of the blog to pause the music)

Zoo!

This poor post was forgotten for a few weeks, but I finally remembered it (albeit after Cody queried as to where the pix for the zoo trip were ;)

As horrible as this may sound, we hadn't been to the zoo in years, so when a friend suggested that we all go, we jumped at the chance to hang out with some animals (you know -other than the teen variety that we normally see ;)

They have $2 Tuesday once a month, and that's when we decided to go. Silly, silly us. You see, that's when e-v-e-r-y-b-o-d-y and their dog goes, which we found out upon arrival. After finally finding a parking place in the overflow lot, it took us almost half an hour in line to pay and get in. As bad as that sounds, we ran into another family we know later that afternoon, and one of her friends had spent AN HOUR AND A HALF circling the lot, just trying to find a parking space! Call me crazy, but I don't love the animals enough to do that ;P

Around lunchtime, we decided to picnic on the lawn and wait for the bird show to start. The boys kept themselves, and us, entertained by getting into the groove of the music they had playing before the show.

Yeah - I'm pretty sure that the only way they'd *not* get eaten is if the smell of teen boy drives the bears off ;D

Cody desperately wanted to get some close-ups of the bald eagles, since the ones nesting in the trees near our house generally don't come close enough to get any really good shots of.

He looks so serious! Then again, I'd probably look pissy, too, if I had to spend each and every day with a bunch of kids going "Hey monkey! Look at me, monkey! Oooh, oooh, oooh, aaaah, aaah, aaah."

What does it say about me that I think these guys are really cute??

Cody's favorite animals of the day were definitely the polar bears!

A vicious jungle cat in her native surroundings?? Nope - just Jaci, hamming it up for the camera :)

So, what about you guys? Been to the zoo lately? Do you love or hate the zoo? What's your favorite zoo? (For the record - our 2 favorites are the San Diego Zoo and San Diego wild animal park).

Walkabouts - July

There's a group of us with teens that have been getting together to do outdoorsy stuff since last fall. The kids were originally taking classes through a local company, but their instructor left to take a job at Yellowstone National Park, and they didn't have anybody to replace him. We've been searching for an alternative for the last couple of months, and one of the mom's has found a great fit that we've deemed "walkabouts". The kids have had two classes in the last week, and even us mom's have been able to tag along!

Our first walkabout was a hike to search for Osprey (sometimes called a sea hawk). I'll admit that I was completely ignorant about the birds beforehand, which was a little embarrasing after finding that they are on every continent except Antarctica. Oh well - that'll be our little secret, right? ;) And so that you, dear readers, don't have to suffer from the same embarrasment, here is a little bit of info for you: 1) Ospreys have a wingspan of nearly 6 feet, 2) They have two reversable toes, enabling them to wrap their talons around their prey, 3) Their talons have scales that act as barbs. There have been occasions where one caught a fish that too big, and unable to unhook the barbs, was pulled under water.



We were there specifically looking for a nest, and as they almost always nest near water, we hiked down to the river to have a look.



Look up in the sky! It's a bird! It's a plane! It's...



an Osprey nest in the top of that tree :)



The kids not only saw both the mother and father Osprey, they even caught a glimpse of the chicks. We also spotted several turkey vultures.

On our way out of the park we were lucky enough to catch a glimpse of this doe...

and her fawn.

Our next walkabout was on animal tracking, and our first activity was identifying common tracks in the area. Our guide had 8 casts, and we split into teams of two to practice using our guide books. Some of us did pretty well, and some of us (ahem, Cody and teammate) will never live down misidentifying a fox track as that of a very large toad ;)

Next, we hiked down to a water hole and checked out all of the tracks around it.

Cody stopped to take a sketch of some of the tracks they found (and had *properly* identified ;).

After all of the tracks were identified, they tried to figure out who came when, and in what direction they went.

So what about you? Do you and your kids spend a lot of time outdoors? Have your kids ever taken outdoor classes?

What the hell kinda people...

spend the day at the coast and never once set foot on the sand??

Um...that'd be us ;)

As is the norm, we made a spur of the moment decision to head to the coast for the day. We grabbed the camera, some water and munchies, and headed to Astoria. For those of you who actually remember any of your 8th grade history class, that'd be the same place that Lewis and Clark finished their little stroll. For those of you who don't remember, well, that'll just be our little secret ;)

I was hoping to finally find the Goonies house this time around. (You are familiar with the Goonies, aren't you? If not, leave this blog immediately and head directly to Netflix, or your nearest Blockbuster. Don't come back until you've seen it ;)



We decided to try asking at the Visitors Center. I don't know *why* I had never thought of heading there before, but I hadn't. Blame it on the blonde ;)

As soon as we walked in the door, I saw this flyer:

Guess where I'm going to be the first weekend of June next year?? And if Emma can make it to Oregon, she'll be there with me! And sure enough, they had the address of the house.

Our first stop was the old jail where they filmed the opening scenes of the movie.

Next, we made our way to the houses and were greeted by this sign:

How geeky is it of me that I was actually giddy about being here??

(You may want to go to the bottom of the blog and pause the music before playing this next part)

I'm *so* glad that I have an equally geeky son :D

We then wound our way to the downtown area, parked the car and spent some time browsing the shops and antique stores. Our last stop was in the local comic book store, where I added to my geeky joy for the day by finding this comic book: Freddy and Jason vs. Ash (for those not in the know, Ash is the character played by the gloriously campy Bruce Campbell in the Evil Dead/Army of Darkness movies).

We then found our way to the Astoria Column, with the intention of climbing the 164 steps to the top. Cody made it about halfway up, but his fear of heights had kicked in big time, and wasn't helped by the fact that we were going up a spiral staircase with open risers. He headed back down to wait, while Mike and I headed to the top. When we got up there, the wind was so strong that we didn't stay out too long!

We did have Cody take our picture at the bottom, though!

Next stop was Fort Stevens, an old military fort that was used from the Civil War to the end of WWII.

Here's Sasquatch and the kid rehearsing for when he really starts driving! God I love my little hams ;D

We then headed to the gun batteries to have a look around.

At least they warn ya!

Caught a glimpse of these little guys and couldn't help snapping a pix.

Our last stop before heading home was the candy store for some salt water taffy. Yum!

The Backyard Unveiled!

Every weekend for the past 2 months has been spent working on our backyard. Hubby was determined to have it completed by his birthday party, and we finished it (the day before ;)

As you step out the back door, this is the new view to the right. Where once there was nothing more than a mound of dirt and some weeds, we now have a Japanese Maple, one of the birdbaths, and lots of river rock. Hubby would have been more than happy to have let the rock end up in the bottom of the (former) pond, but I insisted on keeping it because I knew we'd use it elsewhere. So we hauled it all out of the pond and put it in a pile. Then we realized that the pile was in the way, so we moved it again. Which also ended up in the way, so it got moved again. But look! We did finally use it! Which of course required us to move it - again ;)



This is our new outdoor dining area. Originally we'd planned on having the table on the flagstones, but quickly found that it was nearly impossible to get everything level enough for our liking. We ended up spreading our pile of pea gravel between the flagstones and the lawn, and since it gets sun in the morning and is shaded in the afternoon, it turned out to be the perfect spot for the table. Eventually we'll get some more pea gravel to go in between the flagstones, so it'll all tie together.



And where once there was pond...



Yep - nearly all of that was under water just a few short months ago. Our yard feels SO MUCH bigger now - we love it! We built a berm along the back side and added plantings and some solar lights.

Hubby did a fabulous job of dismantling, redesigning, and rebuilding the new deck. We finally have a usable area (as opposed to the large, nicely curving original deck that was way too narrow to actually be used). I won't lie - it was a huge pain in the ass to reuse the old decking, but as we were doing this makeover on an *extremely* tight budget, it was totally necessary. We were lucky that the wood was still in great shape, or we wouldn't have a deck there ;)



Here's the much smaller, but more enjoyable pond and waterfall.



Hubby designed the deck so that it overhangs a portion of the pond, which also alows the fish a place to hide when raccoons and blue herons come for a snack. He built a small section in the front that can be removed in order to get to the pump and filter.

So there it is - our new backyard. The re-do has also doubled our garden area, so as soon as we get time, we'll be building more raised beds. But for now, we're just enjoying our yard :D