Nature Study at the Zoo

Check out the fun we had today at the zoo. And it was educational to boot!

We have had our first sighting

I came home from t-ball with the boys this morning, and as I looked out the back door I saw something sticking up slightly from the water in the lake. When I went outside to investigate, my suspicions were confirmed - we have an alligator. I called our neighbor and she ran down the block to gaze in horror at the site with me. Looks like we'll be playing inside the house today!

Compare and Contrast

Not exactly the same angle, but just to give you an idea of where the lake is now in comparison to our back yard.

May 2008August 20, 2008

Not out of the woods

Or rather, not out of the water yet. The rain seems to be coming down even harder today. Chris has been draining the pool all day long, and is just barely keeping up with keeping the pool from flooding over.
As you can see, one of our trees has fallen over. And no, typically it is not located in the lake in our backyard!
Chris has now moved that tree further up into our backyard. If you can see that stick in the right side of the picture, that is our property marker...and from there (typically) the yard slopes down to the lake.
Here is our front yard. Once again, in normal circumstances, we don't have a river running in front of our house - it's the street. You can also see the sidewalk at the top of the picture underneath the water.
And the last view of the front yard. I moved the both cars up so that they are almost touching the garage as the water was already creeping up past the back tires. From the street to the top of the water line was 20 of my feet (size 8)

We're Still Here So Far

Fay has been fun so far. Lots of wind, and even more rain.


You can see how all of the plants and trees around our house are living at an angle right now. And this is during a relatively calm period!

We've emptied out the closet underneath the stairs and utilized the 'fraidy closet once already today. We're under a tornado watch until 1 am. A tornado warning just sprang up to the east of us.

Chris was draining the pool for 3 hours, and it's already totally full again. Here's a little video I took at around 4 this afternoon. My weather guy just told me that my county is the bulls-eye for Fay - happy day! Hope your day is not anywhere near as rainy or windy!

Nature Nextdoor

So, what's Colin looking at?These sandhill cranes were in our yard the other day. Right next to the house. I managed to keep Sean & Colin quiet long enough to snap some pictures of them. There were beautiful to watch.
Colin never moved from his spot. He kept pointing at them, and signing "bird".

Free Ice Cream & a Lizard

Yesterday was Free Cone Day at Ben & Jerry's. How great is that? Brian, Sean, Colin & I met up with our friends Ms. Kellie and Leighton at our local scoop shop. With all the yummy ice cream selections in front of them, Brian & Sean chose chocolate -boring! I opted for the ever popular Cherry Garcia - yum!

As you can see, I made a tactical error by not getting the boys' ice cream in a waffle cone for $1 more. Leighton stayed nice and neat, and well, you can see what happened!

Loving our free ice cream

Even Colin enjoyed his vanilla cone. Note the ice cream on top of his head from when he placed his cone upside down up there.

Now after ingesting all of that ice cream, we mommies decided that we needed to walk it off. We went to a local nature park and the kids ran around the boardwalk, and looked for insects and animals.

Here's Leighton and Colin on a bench in the defunct butterfly garden.

Please, let us out!

Due to the noise level provided by our children, not many animals or birds were enthused about coming out to see us. However we did see this lizard resting on a sign.

Ahh, what Old Florida must have looked like.

This was just a lovely shot of Spanish Moss hanging off a tree that our kids were running under.

As you can see, it was a fun day of ice cream and exploring - what more could little boys ask for?

I thought we left this in Virginia!

Yes, they are calling for snow flurries tonight. In Florida???? I'm glad the movers brought our coats today!

Wonderment

One of the things that I am truly enjoying about being in Florida is the abundance of "boy" stuff to see. The other morning there was a baby lizard crawling around on the apartment door. Every day since then both Brian and Sean ask me to look for the baby lizard when I go to take the dog for a walk. They also love chasing the lizards when we go outside to the car.

Yesterday there was a baby frog (yes, all of these babies seem to be roaming outside our apartment without their mommies - I should call CPS!) on the railing outside. As you can see from the picture, Brian was fascinated by it. I love all these nature learning experiences we're getting.

Stretching myself

Today I managed to break inertia. As I posted yesterday, I am really very content to stay at home with the kids. Part of it is dreading the thought of rounding up all 3 little people and then making sure everyone stays together, no one runs out into the street, I don't have to run after someone who runs away, etc.

But the insanity of being cooped up together in this small (at least compared to what we are used to) apartment finally took its toll on me. This afternoon I rounded the troops up and we headed outside. And boy, am I glad we did!

It was a nice day here - warm, but with a nice breeze blowing to keep us cool. We went skipping (at least Brian and Sean did - I was wearing Colin in my Moby!) down the path to the playground in the neighborhood. The big boys ran around, slid down the slides, played on the see-saw, played make believe games (Brian told me he was driving his new car to his new house in "Floreda"), gathered sticks, and just generally got all kinds of sweaty.

Next we headed off on the nature path in the neighborhood. It's not anything to write home about, but we did find some interesting things along the way. First off, we spotted an orange tree right along the path. Of course being "wild" oranges, they were not orange in color at all. The boys were fascinated and stood staring up at the oranges. Further down the path we spotted some dragonflies. Neither of the boys had ever seen them before and thought they were pretty cool. Heading over the bridge we looked at the "swamp". Finally, as we made our way back home, we saw a sandhill crane standing next to one of the lakes. It was beautiful as it took off and flew over our heads.

We had such a nice time exploring today. I'm glad my sanity sent me out of the house - I have a feeling this will become part of the rhythm of our day!

Confessions of a Closet Introvert

I'm in a bit of a melancholic mood. I've been thinking about my life a lot lately - can't imagine why, move to a new state, husband start a new job, living in temporary housing.

I've been talking with Elizabeth lately about Waldorf and how I might try and bring some concepts about in our house this year. Mostly I want to explore nature with the boys, and let them color and learn about beauty and just let them play. One of the concepts that Waldorf espouses, especially in the early years is keeping things calm, not schlepping the kids from one activity to another. This concept actually appeals to me.

I'll admit it; I'm a homebody at heart. I don't know that I was truly content staying at home before I had kids. Once Brian arrived, nothing appealed to me more than just being at home with him - snuggling on the couch, reading books, playing. Once Sean arrived, it was more difficult to get out and about, so staying home was even more appealing with my 2 little men. I just don't need a lot of external stimulation like I used to.

I remember talking with my friend Kary right after our first children were born. Kary left a highly successful sales job to be a stay at home mom. She told me that she was just not used to being in the house all the time so she scheduled lots of time out of the house - meeting friends for lunch, going shopping, things like that just so she didn't have to be sitting in the house all the time. I remember thinking how glad I was to be able to do that now.

Don't get me wrong; Kary is still a stay at home mom and loves being home with her girls. Her life is just different than mine. While her girls are in school, dance and going to play dates, my boys are with me all day, playing, doing "work" and snuggling on the couch. It's just a different lifestyle - not better, not worse, just the one I'm most comfortable with.

I'm looking forward to spending more time with my kids this year - we'll explore this beautiful world we live in. And I'll get the chance to step outside my comfort zone and leave my house to show my boys the wonder that God has put before us.

Virginia Bluebells

There is nothing so splendid as bluebells in spring,
They are so amazing I just long to sing,
Praises to God up in heaven above
For showing me through nature, his everlasting love.

Yesterday was a glorious day. My dad and I took Brian, Sean and Colin to Bull Run Park to experience the bluebells in all of their glory. I wasn't really sure what to expect. I had seen Elizabeth's pictures of her children running around the bluebells, but wasn't quite sure what the day would hold for my little guys. Both my dad and I were surprised at the exquisite beauty of all of the bluebells. The banks of the river were literally covered with a sea of blue. And the smell! My dad and I don't have the greatest smellers in the world, but the lovely aroma of all of those flowers permeated even our noses.

The boys had the BEST time! They wore their new boots, and really broke them in.
They tromped through the mud,

looked at geese,
played in the flowers,
and "fished" in the water.
They were thoroughly muddy,
and absolutely happy at the end of the day.