One of the Reasons I Love Wichita

Down by the Arkansas (Ar-kan-saw people not Ar-kansas. I swear.) River they have a really great park. We love the playground, but the absolute best thing -- especially on a sunny, hot, early summer day like yesterday -- is the fountains. The girls wanted to get out the pool, but because the ground was soaked from all the rain, I said no. I didn't want to pay to go to a public pool, and so I suggested the fountains. The girls loved the idea, and we spent an hour and a half running through the fountains and playing on the playground. We would have stayed longer... but Megan had to go to "work" at the library, so we had to come home.



Caitlyn's friend Amber came, too.


It took Kristen a while to warm up to the idea of the fountains. At first all she wanted to do was run around...

But eventually, Megan talked her into getting a little wet.


Everyone had a blast. :) More pictures up at Flickr.

Berry Picking

Or, resurrecting an old Memorial Day tradition. It was perfect day for picking -- not too hot, not too sunny, and not raining.

Waiting for the tractor ride out to the berry patch.


Alison and Kristen were good helpers. :)


Caitlyn with one of the full trays.


Megan was an AWESOME helper... she picked a whole bunch of strawberries. It's nice to have a good third person picking; it went so fast.

Caitlyn Has Talent

Well, we knew that already, but she got picked to be in the school-wide talent show this week.

Mmmmmm...

Why a picture of a bowl of strawberries? you ask. Well, because they're the first strawberries we've gotten off our own little strawberry patch. And they are good! (Yay for fresh strawberries!)

Last Day!!

It was the last day of school yesterday!! YAY!!


Caitlyn with her friends (from left): Cori, Serenity, Meredith, and Amber.

They had a fun day at Peterson for the last day; I think it's the first time Caitlyn has gotten to experience that. (They haven't had an all-out fun day at the last two schools we've been at...) Anyway... I went for the year-end slide show, but didn't stay for much of the rest (too hard with two extra kids!). Though I did snap this one (from across the street!) of Caitlyn and Meredith having fun.

Oh, and about the shirts they're wearing. All the second graders got one (it says "Are you smarter than a 2nd grader?") and on the back they each had a question. Caitlyn really liked hers:


And now... SUMMER!!

(P.S. Megan was ecstatic about it being summer, too. She just managed to hide every time I got the camera out!)

Moved

So, if you've tried to click on Megan's Diary of my Donut Days blog lately, you may have gotten this:

Blog has been removed

Sorry, the blog at mefdiaryspace.blogspot.com has been removed. This address is not available for new blogs.

That's because she decided she wasn't a "diary girl" and deleted her blog. You can now find here here: Bookshelf of a Billion Books, doing something along the lines of what I do at mine. At least this way (if she does keep it up), I'll know what books she's already read! (I have a hard time keeping up with what she has and hasn't read...)

I was Enjoying Spring

But the girls like that it's warm enough to get out the pool. (Monday's high is supposed to be 91; I told the girls the big pool could come out then...)

The (Peterson) Olympics

Today was the "Olympics" at Peterson -- otherwise known as Field Day. But I guess Peterson makes a big deal out of the whole thing (or maybe because it's an Olympic year?), having a whole opening ceremony and letting each class design a flag and march in Olympic-style. Caitlyn's class had a bit of a competition for the flag: whomever wanted to could submit a drawing and then the class got to vote on it. Caitlyn submitted one, didn't expect anything and came home Monday saying she was "shocked" that her flag one. She got to draw the design on a piece of plastic, and as an added bonus, be the flag bearer as their class marched in for the opening ceremonies.

I figured it was neat enough that I needed to go and see this flag for myself.

Glad I went. It was kind of nice.

The Pops Concert

Last night was the last band concert of the year. (Have I said how much I like going to band concerts?) The sixth grade band did three songs, America The Beautiful, The Pirates of the Caribbean theme, and the theme from the 1812 overture.

(Alison got squirrelly with the other two, and they're not as good as this one.)

But the really cool song was done by the Honor Band, called The Great Steamboat Race by Robert W. Smith. And, because I thought the idea was so neat (Mr. Goter, the band director, explained a bit before they played it), I recorded it for your enjoyment.

Da Mirror

My Mother's Day present:

Monkey in Training

Inch by Inch

We put in our garden yesterday. Tomatoes (I found Romas!!), peppers (both red and green bell), cantaloupe, watermelon (we'll see what happens), pumpkins (ditto), zucchini, cucumbers (for eating, not canning... we still have bread and butter pickles left over from last year!), and corn. Here's hoping everything grows and we can enjoy food from our own garden.

Alison, the Budding Photographer

So, I was checking email after I spring cleaned the living room, and Alison started playing with the camera. Some of what I found:

Of her homemade doll...


Of her Webkinz, Rose...


And of me...

The Merry Month of May

Happy May Day!
The girls loved their baskets (I let them pick their flowers. Caitlyn wanted orange zinnias; Kristen picked out a white geranium; after much deliberation, Megan found a pink hibiscus; and Alison wanted blue flowers and found some blue lobelias.)


We squeezed our egg hunt in between dinner and yoga...

Megan's getting harder and harder to catch on camera.

Kristen had a blast looking for eggs.

Caitlyn, not so much... she complained that Dad hid them too hard!

But Alison was the most excited about it all.

There are a few more pictures over at Flickr.

Hope you had a lovely May Day, too!

One of Those Moments

When you just have to smile because it's so sweet.