End of May

Rett had his last soccer game of the season and his soccer award party right after it. By the end of the season he was finally getting the idea of what he was supposed to be doing and was actually excited about playing. When it was his turn to sit out he started to get upset because he thought he was in trouble. He wanted to be out there playing! Next season Rett and James will both be playing, but in different age groups so we will have two sets of practices and two games each week. Pray for us!

Ready for pictures to be over!

His team and his two coaches. They were both so patient with him!

Loving his medal and his water bottle present from his coaches!

A train came by and it was the highlight of the soccer party!

We are watching the cousins' pets for the summer so we temporarily have added a rabbit and a hamster to the zoo!

Anthony made a deer feeder and put it up on a tree on the other side of our back fence. We have seen deer eat out of it a few times, but mostly it has been feeding raccoons, turkeys, and squirrels.

We caught a squirrel in the raccoon trap! We haven't been setting the trap recently, but the last time we did we caught this squirrel. I'm not sure what he did our how heavy he was that it sprung the trap, but he was very glad to be released :)

Anthony finally got to go out fishing one night. He and a friend took a few paddleboards out to gig flounder. They both ended up with quite a few to take home for the freezer.

A wildlife guy came to James' school and the kids got to pet an alligator, see some snakes, and hold a tarantula. James was so excited about holding the spider! He talked about it for days. These are a few of the pictures his teacher posted. Look at their expressions!

I love James' faces in these! He is holding the spider in the bottom picture and is sitting next to the boy holding it in the far right picture. You can just see the excitement! 

James randomly asked if he could wear some of my high heels so he got some from the closet and tried walking around in them. Then he told me that they are the shoes "the ladies at church wear", not the shoes I wear. I guess I wear flats way too much!

Of course, Rett wanted to do it too. You know the saying, "If everyone jumped off a bridge, would you do it too?" Well, I'm pretty sure if James jumped off a bridge Rett would only be two seconds behind him.

Our ward had a really neat International night ward activity. It was so much fun! Rett feel asleep right before it was time to go and Anthony had some house projects to work on so James and I went by ourselves.

This was the Switzerland room. They had famous classical music by swiss composers playing, swiss cheese and chocolates to sample, and the sister in charge told us the history of the guy who had to shoot an apple off of his son's head with a bow and arrow (which apparently happened in Switzerland). Then we got to act it out!

Antarctica was James' favorite country to visit. The family in charge rented a freezer truck and backed it up to the back door of the church so you could walk out the door and right into it. After you went inside and threw snowballs into the holes you earned a snow cone on your way out!

The country of Wales room had this awesome bearded dragon (the Welsh flag has a dragon on it). Someone asked me if we had one of those and I said, "Not yet!"

Making maracas in the Mexico room:

The cultural hall was decorated as a the dining hall of a restaurant and when you walked it you choose a meal ticket for one of three different "restaurants" that had different kinds of food. The centerpieces were these awesome hot air balloon decorations:

We brought our snakes as a part of the Australia room. Although they aren't really native to Australia, it is a country known for its snakes and wildlife. James was happy to sit next to his snakes and give everyone a little lesson about them when they walked by.

For half a second I finally had all the chickens/chicks/quail out of the house and in their pens! We moved the quail to the temporary cage inside the big chicken coop and it looked like it was going to work great. But then a few days later I came out to find that the big chickens were going underneath the cage and pecking the quail and eating them! They ended up getting three of them before we realized what was happening.

The culprits:

So we quickly put some finishing touches on the big permanent quail cage and moved them in.

Rett only takes naps every once in awhile now but sometimes he just gets so cranky that I force him to lay down in his room. This particular day, he decided that he absolutely didn't need a nap and that he was going to protest by coming out of his room with his blanket and pillow. And then he fell asleep. Mommy 1, Rett 0!