How could I forget the SNAKES!!!

A good friend of mine, Sarah, is married to a herpetologist... a snake scientist. Bob works at OSU and has a snake lab on campus. For a several years we've talked about going on a tour of the lab and we finally did it last week! Sarah also invited fellow snake-o-phobe, Heidi.

Bob was great. He brought out a couple of the male red sided garter snakes for us to hold. Of course the kids were all over it. Wren, Sarah and Bob's daughter, was completely comfortable holding the snakes and showed us how it's done. Almost immediately Kahlil had a snake winding around his hand and settling in for a little quiet time. He seems to be a natural snake charmer. Jack liked holding a snake, but lost interest pretty quick. Not unusual for a two year old. Langston wasn't really into it as snakes aren't fuzzy like dogs, cats, and his favorite blankets.

For Jay and the two snake-o-phobes, Bob moved really slow and the whole time he was talking about the snakes and answering questions. He started with letting us touch them while he held them. This gave us a chance to feel their skin and see that they are not cold and slimy as they are often portrayed. Rather they are smooth and warm. Then we moved on to holding the tail to get a feel for how their bodies move; there are lots of muscles under that skin. Then, when feeling up to it, we could hold the snake and all both did it! I was very proud of us.

After holding the snakes, we went into the snake room where all the snakes are kept. There were dozens of aquariums with 2-5 snakes per aquarium. I'm guessing there were a couple hundred snakes in a pretty small space. They were all the same red sided garter snakes Bob studies... the females were big and several were about to give birth. The males, like the ones we held, were much smaller.

Then to end the tour, Bob gave us copies of the children's book that was written about him and his studies. He even signed them for us :-)

It was a great experience. I really appreciate Sarah and Bob being so kind and understanding. It must be strange to have job that some people find petrifying. And I'm totally proud of Heidi and I for going, holding the snakes, and showing our kids that snakes are nothing to be feared. I think we rock!

Summer heats up

The summer is flying by! Here are some of the highlights from that last couple weeks:

Jay's brother, Herb, and his son, Dean, visited for a few days on their way home to California. Even though Dean is quite a bit older than Kahlil - he's 11 - , they had a great time together playing and riding bikes. We all went to a Corvallis Knights (the semi-pro baseball team) game one night. By chance it was a 'Dash for Cash' night... basically kids go to the infield, and on the count of three a person at each base throws 1000 one dollar bills in the air, and then the kids do what they do. As Jay said the kids turn 'Lord of the Flies'. Dean only came back with one dollar... it's a sore subject. But after the game, they let the kids run the bases. Dean, Kahlil, and Langston all thought that was great. The video at the bottom of this post is of Kahlil running the bases.

Langston had his 15 month check-up. At 24 pounds, he is still 50th percentile for height and weight. He has been communicating more but mostly with grunts and head shakes. He will say 'uh-oh' when he drops something, which is very cute, but that is pretty much the extent of words... we're working on 'mama' and 'dada' but he's not really into it.

Blueberry season is in full swing. Kahlil's fantastic picking skills picked up where he left off last year. On our first day out last week, he filled his bucket and picked two pounds. We went again yesterday and meet a few friends. He was really disappointed when it was time to leave and his bucket wasn't full but he still managed to pick over a pound. Our combined efforts has yielded nearly 18 pounds so far. There is nothing better than frozen blueberries in the winter!

This is Kahlil running the bases. It's a little hard to see him, but he's the one with the goofy gate and getting passed up by everybody else.

Look what Kahlil can do!

And one more thing... We went to Jamba Juice today; Kahlil calls it Ba-Jamba Juice.

A 4th of July to Remember

We had a FANTASTIC holiday weekend. It is always great fun to spend time with my family and we love going to Modoc... so doing both at the same time is a double the fun. And however much fun I had, Kahlil's fun level was a least three time greater.

The roster - My whole family was there... all 13 of us - Morgan brought a few friends (Ross, Tracy, Damian, & Marty) - Janet and Jason came up - Timberlin and her family were there (visiting Modoc for the first time) - Vanessa and her friend, Cassey - and then there were all the locals. We had people in the house, in campers, and in tents. It was quite the group at Grandma's place.

The activities - Of course we went to the parade and picnic - it wouldn't be the 4th without doing that. And we spent lots of time socializing over drinks and guitars. And we spent some amount of time in ponds fishing and swimming. But there was also the horseback and quad riding. And a railroad tour of Bakerland - Modoc's own Old West Town, Botanical Garden, and Wildlife Preserve. Oh, and fireworks. Did I mention the BBQs?

The kids - I think Kahlil had the most fun of all. With Dean and Timberlin's kids, he had a blast running around like a wild boy. The kids had water fights almost every day. Kahlil loved riding the horses CR and Scotter and sitting on the quads (although he did fall of the parked quad and scrapped up his arm). And he got to sleep in a tent which he really liked. Langston, on the other hand, didn't have a very good trip. He seemed to be working on pushing through some teeth the first few days and was pretty miserable and clingy. Poor Jay spent a lot of time with Langston on his back. But by the end of the trip he was feeling better and enjoyed the last morning we were there.

Here are some of the photos from the weekend. Check out the rotating images at the left for all the other shots.

Water fights with Kahlil, Colin, and Aidan

Kahlil on CR... as soon as one person yawns, everybody yawns!

The intrepid pond fishermen -

Two of the cutest kids in the world! Cousins Langston and Helena -

What do you do when you need to get a lot of people to the Davis Creek BBQ? Load up the horse trailer of course!

Papa playing some tunes with Colin on drums and Kahlil on kazoo -

Kahlil helping the firefighters at the picnic -

Great father/son shot.

This is the dragonfly Janet saved from a watery grave -

Timberlin's family (Chris, Tyler, and Garrett), along with Auntie Valerie, Grandma Lana, and Great Grandma Grump (aka Pat) -

Kahlil and Aidan are ready for some serious quad sitting!

On the train at Bakerland -

Ettie and David's family of Lucky 13 -

Where's Bubba, Of Course

A couple fun verbal developments lately...

Kahlil as started to say "Yes, of course I can" whenever you ask him to do something... and he is in a good mood (that's a big 'and'). It's really funny to hear such a mature response... and I can already hear the grandma-eyes rolling... from the kiddo.

Langston seems to have one word: Bubba. As in Bubba the cat. If you ask where Bubba is, he will look all around to try and find the feline. He will also 'call' for Bubba which only occasionally sounds like 'Bubba':

Peak-A-Leak

Last Friday Kahlil and the rest of his daycare friends did a gymnastics demonstration at Peak Elite (or Peak-a-Leak as Kahlil likes to call it), a local gymnasium. Melissa takes them to Peak Elite every week to see Miss Maria where they learn to do all kinds of cool stuff like forward tuck and rolls and how to walk on balance beams. Peak Elite puts on a show every year so parents can see what their kids have been working on. It was very exciting and, of course, made me very proud to see Kahlil up there doing his thing!

Miss Maria put together a little story for Kahlil, Sean, Leo, and Cruz to wow the crowd with their gymnastic skills. The gist of the story was this... four friends are walking in the woods on a narrow path (hence the balance beam) when they hear a monster! They look high (everybody jumps up), low (everybody crouches down), and all around (everybody turns around) for the monster. When they see the monster they stick out their tails (everybody puts one foot in the air behind the other leg) and rise their arms (self explanatory) to scare the monster away. When that doesn't work they jump in the air and say "boo" (big dismount off the balance beam).

It was fantastic. The only person who didn't seem to enjoy it was Langston... during the whole show he was fighting to be out there on the beam with the rest of the boys!

What's the deal?

So about an hour after the post I did on Saturday, I was running to the bathroom to puke. I can't remember when I had a stomach flu before living in this house. In the year and a half since moving here I've had three.

The funny thing about this flu is that it's proportional to age. I got the fully blown yuck... fluids and gas coming from places they shouldn't, body aches, bad stomach, and low energy for 36 hours. Jay got all that but managed to keep all his fluids. Kahlil has been complaining of a bad stomach, but seems to be fine otherwise. Langston has been a little cranky, but that could be the two new teeth that just came in.

I hope we are done with stomach flues. I think I meet my quota for a while.