End of April

Taking pictures at a fun weekend festival:

The neighbor's horse got out (again!) and she ended up in the back pasture. The next morning she was right at our back fence and Baymax got to get a close up look at her. He was so curious about what in the world she was! He kept sniffing and her and watching her. Then he decided they could play and he would run back and forth across the fence and wait for her to follow him.

We started letting the older baby chicks out of their coop during the day so that they can free range with the big girls. They seem to really enjoy scratching around for grass and bugs. They are still very scared of us, probably since they were raised by one of our hens and not by us.

They have some really interesting markings! This one has deep red feathers on his/her chest and we have an all black one that has a mix of reddish orange feathers on its back. I still need to come up with names for these guys!

It was time for the annual Father/Son campout and Rett was so excited that he got to go this year! For days he kept saying, "I'm so excited for the campout!". Anthony took Friday afternoon off of work so that he could get everything packed and ready. As soon as we picked up James from school, they were off. (James got army hats from school from some activity they did so they wore them all weekend)

All set with their stuffed animals!

The tent all set up:

That night they had a bonfire and the kids got to run around and have fun. We brought glow necklaces and bracelets so that Anthony wouldn't lose them in the dark.

The family in the tent next to them brought cots and a movie projector and watched Star Wars. Roughing it!

Anthony sent me a text with a picture of their dinner: Oreos. As soon as the boys got home the next morning the very first thing they told me was, "We had oreos for dinner and breakfast and we didn't even brush our teeth!"

Waking up in the morning:

There wasn't much to do in the morning at the campsite, so the boys packed up and headed home right after breakfast. Since they were home so early, we decided to go to the opening day of the sunflower maze. I really wanted to pick some sunflowers for myself and Anthony wanted one for the bees, so we got four of them and let everyone pick one.

After the maze, we decided to try out an event that advertised "cow patty bingo". Apparently as a fundraiser they sell bingo tickets and then they let a cow out in a pasture with numbers painted on the grass and wherever the cow does her "business" is the winning number. Crazy! They had a bouncy house and a petting zoo also. Baymax was very curious about the bunnies and the pig.

For family home evening we watched "A Dog's Purpose" and it made us want to give Baymax extra snuggles. He loved it! Pretty soon he won't fit on our couch though...

Bees!

We finally got our bees! We put in an order for two starter colonies (called "Nucs" short for nucleus hives) from a place about two hours away from us. I was trying to figure out how we were going to get our schedules to work out so that we could go and pick them up, when Anthony texted me and said that he found a place locally we could buy bees from! One of his patients happened to mention that he got stung by one of his bees. Come to find out, he has 49 beehives and was ready to sell us two nucs that weekend! It was sooo much nicer to only have to drive 20 minutes to pick them up. They came out and loaded them in the truck and then Anthony strapped them down. We were coming directly from the boys' soccer game and we promised them smoothies on the way home, so we had these in the back while we went through the drive through. It was pretty funny!

After letting them settle overnight, the next morning it was time to transfer them from the box to their new home in our bee hives. We decided to put the hives inside the fence with Seabiscuit, since we are hiring someone to clear out the other parts of the yard later in May.

James was really excited about testing out the smoker. It creates cool smoke that calms the bees when you are handling them.

The inside of the hive has wooden frames that fit inside that the bees use for laying eggs, and storing pollen and honey. So transferring the bees starts with taking the frames out of the box they came in and placing them into where we want them to be. Each frame has an exact amount of space in between them called "bee space" which is exactly what they need to be able to communicate with each other effectively. Bees are amazing!

Here is a video of moving them. They are really calm, as long as you move slowly and calmly, they don't get upset and mostly are just curious about you. They will crawl over you and fly around you but in the three weeks we've had them not a single one of us has gotten stung. Sometimes we go over there and look in the hive without any kind of bee gear on and it doesn't seem to make a difference! Different varieties of bees have different temperaments and ours just seem to be very docile.

All done!

We put some branches in front of the entrances to both hives because when the bees come out and see it, they will be a little confused and it will make them take an orientation flight around the hive to see what is going on and help them recognize their new home.

We've opened up the hives and checked on them a few times, the first time a week later to find the queen in each colony. Then a week later we checked to see that the queen is laying eggs properly and to make sure there were no ants or mites or other pests bothering the hive. A few days ago we tried to collect a few bees to test them for mites and got to scrape off some honeycomb that they put on the outside of the frames (what James is holding in the jar). We are loving the beekeeper life!

More April Activities

I took Rett to sign up for VPK for fall and it is really starting to sink in that he won't be home all day every day with me! So I am trying to take him out and do fun things with just me and him more often, so I surprised him with a trip to the bouncy house place. When I told him where we were going later (big mistake!) he got so excited, he asked when we were going every minute until it was time to go. He really hoped that "friends" would be there. He loves it when other kids are around for him to play with.

A month before Christmas I ordered these glow in the dark blankets that are supposed to glow for 8 hours, like a night light. I didn't realize it was a kickstarter and that they didn't actually have them made yet, and all sorts of things came up that pushed back the delivery date farther and farther. So finally in the middle of April, the Christmas presents finally arrived! At this point I was glad we got anything at all, I thought my money was just gone.

Crazy goats!

The boys had soccer pictures before their game and after an hour of them running around and waiting for their turn, it just so happened that both boys were getting their individual pictures from two different photographers at the exact same time! What are the odds! So I was racing across the gym back and forth trying to make sure that they cooperated and smiled and everything (mostly Rett). It is times like these that I miss Anthony getting off earlier in the day. They let us take a silly picture of the team after they got their shot, but James didn't hear us say to be silly and kept posing. Look at that handsome boy!

Most the boys' games have been scheduled at the same time, so Anthony and I have been taking turns watching and trading off at half time.

Going blueberry picking for the first time this year! The place we usually go to raised their prices this year, so we have been exploring other nearby patches. We found a new favorite just down the road.

Sunday morning James woke up with an upset stomach and ended up with a strange 12 hour stomach bug. He would be totally fine and then have moments where he was nauseous or had diarrhea. Then he was back to being fine. Since I had responsibilities at church, Anthony stayed home with him and kept Rett home too just in case. I asked Anthony how they were doing, and this is the picture he sent me. So miserable! :)

James had a field trip to the Orlando Science Center, so my mom came to watch Rett so I could chaperone. They loved getting to ride the charter bus, it is seriously so exciting for them!

I was excited to go on this field trip since I have heard such good things about the science center and how fun it is. It was kind of disappointing to get there and find out that the kids don't get to explore the entire center, they have a tour guide that takes them to specific places that are just for field trips. The tour guide mostly felt like a security guard that was there to make sure the kids stayed out of the really fun areas that were just for "guests" (I guess people who pay regular admission that day? I mean, we paid too so what's the deal??). So even though the kids had fun, all of the adults were really put off by the experience.

Their first "adventure" was to sit in a classroom and take turns stamping animal prints onto a paper and creating weird animals with different animal parts. This was James' creation:

Then they came around with a baby alligator for the kids to pet. Issac was the only other kid in my group, the one sitting next to James. He was not a fan of the alligator!!

After this one activity, it was time for lunch. Once we got the kids settled in the lunchroom with their lunch boxes, they came in to announce that there were too many people in the room and that all the adults had to eat outside in the grass. As they led us outside, we walked through a huge empty food court area that we weren't allowed to sit in because it is for "guests". You see what I mean?? After lunch we saw one or two exhibits, then an Imax movie, a few more exhibits and then time for home.

James and Issac inside the sinkhole exhibit:

Our crazy chickens decided to start a rogue nest in the leaves between the boys' power wheels. I am thinking that it started when they got caught out in a thunderstorm and hunkered down in the carport. I noticed that the chickens were hanging out there more than usual, but one day I happened to see this silkie try to push all the eggs underneath her, under the power wheels. I shooed her away and started looking through the leaves. I found 9 eggs in there!

James went out shrimping for the very first time and loved it! Anthony and his dad went out on the boat right after he got off of work, and after the boys' soccer game James and I met them at the dock while Sharon stayed home with Rett. It started to rain a little bit as we were getting to our spot, but thankfully it stopped really quickly and were able to get down to business. As soon as the lights went into the water we started seeing shrimp. So exciting!

We ended up with around 2 gallons, some of the shrimp were huge! We measured the biggest one and it was 7 inches long! James stayed up with us until 1 am, helping to clean and put away the shrimp. When Tony said something about how awesome it was that he was such a good helper, James said, "Well, I like that we can do this together as a family!" Melt my heart!

Anthony found a baby squid in with the shrimp, so he and James got to examine it and dissect it. James was so excited when they found his ink. I wanted to throw it away when they were done, but James begged me to put it in the freezer. I guess I can't expect any different from the son of a man who put a bat in the freezer a few months ago!

Here a few pictures of Baymax in his puppy class. It is so hard to remember to practice with him!! I can barely make time to practice sight words with my human kids, how can I remember to train my dog?? I am pinning a lot of hope on summer this year. I am hoping that I can catch up on a lot of things!

Practicing sit:

The pictures above are from his first class in March and this picture is from last week. Can you see how much bigger he is??? I can't get over how fast he grows. He is up to 6 cups of food a day and he is only 5 months old. I know I should be used to feeding growing boys by now, but it still amazes me :)