Our Answer

Yesterday, I called the wildlife rehab. man, David, and was told to take the baby bird to the zoo. He wanted to identify the bird then keep it there. It was sad to see him go, but we knew it was the best thing. I knew that I didn't know enough about a bird of prey to raise one.

As soon as David saw the bird, he identified it as a Mississippi Kite. He was very excited about it and said it was a better find than a hawk. He already had one that was a little younger than ours, so he was able to put them in a box together. He said that our bird, Pete, was dehydrated and not doing so well. We had him on the wrong diet....they don't eat worms. We got to watch David feed Pete and Darryl, their bird, a rat while teaching us all about kites and what he does there at the rehabilitation association. Afterwards, we got to go outside and see the older animals that have been saved. It was so much fun and such a great learning experience. We were also shocked to find out that we could have been fined $5,000 if we had kept the kite and been caught!!! David told us that we could come back and see Pete again once he has been moved outside with the older animals.

When David was finished, he invited us to stay at the zoo for as long as we wanted. I wouldn't have chosen to go to the zoo in this heat, but I certainly wasn't going to turn down an invitation to go for free :).

You can look at Carter's face and see how hot it was out there. We reached triple digits again yesterday!

Here is the cutest monkey I saw in the entire zoo!!!

Someone hasn't been taught not to give the monkeys food, much less gum!! This monkey knew exactly what to do with this piece that he found!!!

We had the best time with the birds. There was one little white one that would dance every time we gave it a beat...humming or clapping our hands. A beautiful red one kept telling us "hello", and I was able to tape him doing it!

We woke up yesterday morning with no plans for the day and ended up having a very busy, fun day. Like I've said before, the greatest times are those that we don't plan for!!

Beautiful!!!

Our neighbors found this amazing baby bird yesterday. We think it is a hawk, but we aren't sure. It has a huge wing span and stands pretty tall already. We know it is very young because it has just started getting its feathers. The kids loved feeding it worms and holding it. So, do you think it is a hawk?I'm going to call our Wildlife Rehabilitators Association today to see what they think needs to be done with it. It's such an amazing bird....what a find!!!

Baseball Party/Campout

I can't express how proud I am of Jeff and the job he did coaching Carter's baseball team this year. He was so patient with the boys and always looked for the best in what they did. They won three games and lost more than that, but everyone had a good time. When Jeff told me that he would like to have a campout with his team, I was more than happy to make it happen! The boys may not remember much about the games this season, but they will remember this campout. I know we will!

The Best Parties....

...are the unplanned ones!Thanks, Chelita, for calling to ask if I would "babysit" you and the boys...haha!! It was a great day! I think we did a good job cooking outside!!
Oh yeah.....I better not see any strange videos of me on utube!!

A Weekend Away

We spent Saturday at a water park.We were all worn out from the water park. We went back to the hotel to rest before going back out and ended up taking long naps...well, everyone but me. Carter fought it as long as he could but finally gave up! We went to the boardwalk to eat that night. We wanted to eat at Joe's Crabshack, but it was too crowded. This was our first time to go to this boardwalk...we enjoyed it so much. We did finally get to eat at Joe's on Sunday before going to the science museum. We've been to this museum many times before, but they've done a lot of work on it since the last time we went. We also saw an IMAX movie while we were there. As always, we enjoyed just getting away from everything for a couple of days!!

I Think He Likes It!!

I wonder if he is dreaming about baseball tonight? Thankyou, PawPaw Larry, for Carter's new hat and for being there for him this week at baseball camp. He is so lucky to have you....we all are. Carter had an amazing time at baseball camp this week. This was his first year to do the full day camp. I didn't know how he would handle 7 hours a day for four days, but he did well and had such a great time. He was so tired by the last day that he actually fell asleep during one of his 20 minute breaks :). We didn't have to tell him when to go to bed tonight!! Baseball camp was a fun way to end a great baseball season. Jeff and I are having a campout for the baseball team this weekend...how fun :)!!!

Bible School 2009

We had Bible School at our church last week. This was Madison's first time to do Bible School as a youth. The youth do not have their own classes...they serve as helpers. Madison was my helper in preschool recreation. I really thought going into it that working with the preschoolers, especially doing recreation, would be hard. I found out that they are actually easier than the older kids because they just love anything that you do with them. On the first day, we just put out sidewalk chalk, water, and paintbrushes. It was amazing to see how how long the kids would sit and paint on the sidewalk with water :). We took bubbles on the second day. One day we poured out four bags of balloons in a big room and just let the 1-3 year olds do what they wanted with them...they LOVED it. We also played some games with the older preschoolers. It turned out to be a very fun week :). My niece, Kinley, spent the week with us and helped with the preschoolers as well. We had a great week, but we were so tired by Friday!The boys got to play on a water slide on Friday. The youth boys tortured them with water guns and whipped cream the entire time...it was all in fun. Patrick and Carter were in different classes but got to do all of their rotations together. My kids have been to so many great Bible Schools that I wonder what they will remember the most about them. When I think of Bible School growing up I remember the red Kool Aid and little round butter cookies. We didn't have fancy little snacks to match the Bible School theme. If I remember correctly we didn't even have Bible School themes, and the snack was the same every day. But see, that's just the way I remember it. That's why I wonder what my kids will remember about their Bible School experiences. I remember making a little birdhouse out of sticks and little blue clay animals. The only song I really remember from music is "Father Abraham". I would like to say that I remember the Bible lessons, but I just don't. I can only remember being in class one time because a boy named Jay kept making motorcycle sounds and getting us all in trouble for laughing at him. I'm just being honest....hopefully my kids will remember more of their Bible time than that!!!

Done!

We are finished with school and baseball for the year. Carter played his last game on Thursday. He told us that he does not want to play All Star, so Jeff didn't even put his name down when he went to the All Star meeting. Carter has seen too many boys miss out on so much summer vacation time with baseball....he gets all he needs of it during the season. He is, however, going to do a week of baseball camp next week. We finished school on Friday. The last thing we did was our frog dissection...finally! The kids all participated well. Carter loved it, but he got a little pale a couple of times. Patrick eventually started singing "Closing Time" in an attempt to drop the hint that he was done with it :). Even after the dissection was over, Madison was still at the table studying the muscles and stuff on the frog...she loved it. Of course, we buried the frog when we were done with it... just like we did the worm. The most exciting part of the dissection for all of us was pulling a beetle out of the frog's stomach!! When we located the stomach, we noticed a large bulge in it. I kept wondering what it was, so we finally decided to cut it open and find out. We saw something black in there, so we pulled it out with the tweezers....an almost perfectly formed beetle. We found the beetle's head in another part of the stomach and some of it in the throat. So, that's how we ended our school year. I feel so blessed that we have made it through our fourth year of homeschooling. It doesn't seem possible!! I'm looking forward to a summer of rest and fun.......and of course, planning for year five!!!