I spent the first few weeks of April terribly sick with infections, colds, and migraines, so we didn't do much. Just limped along on survival mode! Thankfully I was well enough to still chaperone James's class field trip to the Reptile Discovery Center. We love this place and had so much fun seeing all the reptiles! My group was James and his friend Kaitlyn from his class. All three of us shared a seat on the school bus. It was a tight fit!
We took a nature walk first to see all the outside animals. They even fed the alligators for us:
All the kids got to take turns going in to pet their three sulcatas. I realized that we have three also!! (just our third is still inside in an aquarium)
Then it is was time to come inside and see all the snakes. Once everyone was seated and ready for the venom extraction presentation, they brought out two ball pythons for the kids to handle. What do you know, we have two ball pythons at home too! We really are a zoo!
Watching them handle the venomous snakes never gets old. You are on the edge of your seat the entire time!! It was amazing!!
Rett and his dirty boy toes:
One afternoon I had to drop by the feed store to get Baymax's dog food. We walked by the chicks and I realized that they had the type of chickens we want on clearance!! Anthony and I were just talking about ordering a large number of chicks from a hatchery since we want more chickens that lay blue eggs. Here they were for $1 each! So I asked the employee if I could have them all. She filled up three small boxes full of chicks and we ended up with 29 of them. Half will probably turn out to be roosters and we will get rid of those, but still we should have about 15 more girls to add to our laying hens!
Finally moved into the empty chicken coop outside. No more cleaning chick bins every day!
Rett will not give me a normal face anymore when I take a picture of him. It's a fun stage.
We got free snow cones on tax day. Rett said he didn't want one, then he changed his mind once we got in the car so he ate mine.
James won a science challenge in his class, so his reward was a day of not having to wear shoes in class. He was so excited for it!!
Rett's preschool class picture came in. He is the one in the red shirt in the back row, not smiling and looking like he is in the middle of taking a mug shot!!!
James's cub scout pack had their Easter den meeting and he got his last few awards he needed for his wolf! Next month they will be having a special cross over camp out for getting their rank awards.
The boys love going over the back fence with Anthony to check on our game camera. So far the camera has taken pictures of deer, hogs, turkeys, coyotes, raccoons, possums, rabbits, and even a bobcat! Rett begged me to go with them, he said, "We are looking for clues!!" Anthony loves to show them different tracks and figure out where the animals were.
We got ducks! A family in our ward gets ducks for Easter and then finds them a home, so we offered to take them this year. They are the cutest things alive! We put them in with baby chicks in the chicken coop and they seem to be doing well together. Eventually when they are full grown, we will put them in our pond with the goats and the horses.
James asked me if they could take a bath with the ducks. How could I say no?
James's occupational therapist suggested we get his eyes tested by a developmental optometrist to take a look at how his eyes are functioning. They look at more than just vision and look at the ways he uses his eyes, how they function when he is reading, and the eye muscles. The closest one I could find is about 50 minutes away. They had an opening the next week, so I took it. It was just an initial exam, we have to go back in June for a more in depth assessment. He suspects that he is having trouble with weak eye muscles needed to sustain focus and tracking, which causes lots of problems with reading. James thought the whole thing was fun! I hope he still feels that way if we end up having to go back all the time for vision therapy.
