Salmon Upstream

For those of you who've never had the chance to see salmon returning upstream to spawn, thought you might find this video clip interesting. This is at a weir we pass on the way to our house, and the other day Andrew even got to help net the fish to pass through the counter up the river!


(FYI: A weir is a fence of sorts, built in the waterway so that the fish are diverted into a holding area that is actually a lift/elevator enclosure that the fish swim into. When it's full of fish, the biologist raises it up to within the building built right on the bank. Then they net the fish out of the elevator to release through a chute in the wall that empties them out to the area upstream where they would have ended up on their own anyway, counting how many each of gender. That way, the biologists can keep track of how healthy the populations are, and monitor fishing regulations that way. While we were there the other afternoon, there had been over 200 females and over 300 males...or maybe vice versa...that had passed through that day).
PS: The "whoo" sound in the background of the video is Jacob!

Mr. Conversation

Jacob is quite verbose lately, and his discussions and explanations are quite entertaining.
Just a few mintues he ago he came in from playing with the neighbor kids in our backyard, saying,

"Mommy, Collin got hurt, so do you have an idea to make him better?"

A few nights ago, long after we hoped they would be asleep, Jacob came out and launched into this lengthy, one-sided conversation. It was as if he knew that if he stopped to let us get a word in edgewise, he would be promptly sent back to bed.

"Hey mom and dad, Andrew's little Grover is lost, and Andrew is worried about
him, and we've looked evweywhere fo' him and we can't find him, so I have some
ideas. One idea is to dig and dig in our stuff to find him (it was here that he must have sensed our growing urge to stop the dialogue and send him to bed) and my next idea is for you guys to
look for him while I go back to bed."

With that, he turned on his heels and when directly back to bed without another word!

New pics abound!

Hey...my sister Tricia got her computer issues resolved and has done a ton of blogging on none other than my own three kids! From Anna's birthday (see if you see the humor in the pic of her with her cake), to hilarious Father's day pics (I encourage you to click to enlarge the collage of pictures of my dad, Mark, and the kids...we laughed till we cried at Jacob and my dad in the series)!
Anyway...I'm off the hook posting pics for at least two days, with all she has going on at her site! Enjoy!

Helpful Jacob

I had been sweeping the kitchen when I got interrupted (by what, I don't remember!), so I left my crumb/dirt pile and the broom leaning in the kitchen to finish in a moment.
Jacob took up the broom and announced

"Mommy! I'm brooming for you!"

I inwardly sighed and outwardly thanked him.
But when I went back to it, I was baffled at the lack of dirt...it really looked like he had swept up for me. I questioned him on where the dirt went, and with those wide, innocent eyes looked up and said

"I knew you wanted it to go away, so I pushed it under the dishwasher."

Gulp. Smile. Thank you, wonderful Jacob. No worries...it's a portable deal that was easily moved after he went to bed to retrieve the dirt so that I could really make it go away!

July 4th Theology

I will have pics of our 4th of July "celebrations" forthcoming! We spent the day being busy beavers at home together, and our neighbors had a delightful (albeit illegal, I believe) fireworks show in the evening, so we could just stand in our own backyard to enjoy!
After one particularly large, loud display, Andrew turned to Mark and said,
"Daddy, I hope those don't hurt God!"
:)

Howdy!

Sometimes my curiousity gets the best of me!

I check on where all of our site visitors are coming from, and it's hard to tell sometimes who's who and who's new!
If you wouldn't taking a minute to humor me, we would love to see where everyone is checking in from! Just post a quick comment to say "Hey, it's me here in ___________!" And sign your name, of course! (Many of the locations we know already...I think Aunt Carol is our most faithful blog-checker, coming through Silver Spring, Karen in Salisbury, Amy in Fountain Valley, Tim and Martha in Nome, Eric and April in Muncie, mom & dad in Indiana).

Thanks so much...and Happy Independence Day to you all!

Stuck again

Somehow, this scenario keeps happening to Mark. I think this time he and the boys were wrestling and it evolved into this. The funny thing to me is that as soon as they get to this point, they ask me to get Anna for them!

First tooth!

First tooth lost, that is! The big excitement here last week was Andrew's first loose tooth coming out! It was very, very loose...just hanging by a thread. He had been requesting crunchy foods at every meal for a few days, hoping to help it come out. Last Wednesday night it was finally to the point of just being bothersome, and he agreed when I offered to yank it out.

After two failed attempts at just using gauze to grip it, I tied a thread around it. After two cop-outs on mom's part, we finally popped it out!

We debated how to handle to whole tooth-fairy deal. We finally opted to tell our firstborn the colossal lie that if he left his tooth under his pillow that the tooth-fairy might want it and would pay him money for it. We spend perhaps far too much time contemplating stuff like this...after all, our parents lied to us, and we're none the worse for it, right? :)
Well, that was all well and good until the next morning, two quarters richer, he was heartbroken that he didn't still have his tooth to show everyone. I asked him which door thought the tooth fairy would have come in (he thought the front door), and then told him that after he got dressed we could check to see if maybe she had a hole in her pocket that his tooth could have fallen out of. Amazingly enough, it had! He was delighted to find it on the floor right in front of the door!
Now, in his terms, he'll get a new "huge adult tooth" in its place!

Life from the T-ball field

The great American "life at the ballfield" continued, and I don't think I've even yet unloaded off my camera the pics from the last game.

This boy has certainly loved every minute of it!

I love the "after-the-game lineup," and so did Andrew. One game he actually had to leave the field to go to the bathroom, and was devastated when he discovered he had missed this part! (It was okay, though...there was still snack-time to come)!

Anna at T-ball!

She was a trooper, generally hanging out in the stroller for each game. Did you know that the organic Disney animal crackers in bulk from Costco are worth their weight in gold?

Noble Steed

This was fun for everyone except maybe Mark! I think the kids are at about a combined weight of 100 lbs, give or take! Andrew~50 lbs, Jacob~35 lbs, Anna~18 lbs. Daddy is the noble steed to transport them to bed (no, Anna didn't actually stay on that long...the last pic was moments before I rescued her)!

Bull moose visitor

Here's the visitor we had several weeks ago. I tried to upload video of him stripping the leaves off all the branches and making his snorting noises, but it was too long to upload. Sorry!

Spring Babies

Saw this pair on our way home from MP the other day...gotta love seeing the babies around!

Sally

A few weeks ago we stopped by to see Sally! She could come home as early as this weekend, but since we'll be over that way for Andrew's birthday in a few weeks, we'll bring her home on the 19th! It was fun to see how much she's grown and how sweet she is!

This past weekend we picked up the fencing we need, and the shed-turned-goat pen is just about finished! I'll try to get pics of Butterscotch posted before too long...