Last Tuesday (5-12-09) I spent 4 hours at COSI with Megan's 2nd grade class. I volunteer to go on at least one field trip a year with the kid's school. So over the last 7 years (including preschool) I have gone to the State House, a dairy, Velvet Ice Cream, an apple orchard to pick apples, pumpkin patches and to COSI quite a few times. I have always enjoyed the kids and after the field trip I usually have a new appreciation for how well my kids behave when they are out in the public. Well I now have an even greater apreciation, becasue for the first time ever I lost one of my kids. Well I didn't really loose her she wandered off with another group. We were in the "innovations" area that is set up to look like a little Midwest town circa 1962 (the year before my sister was born...back in the good ol days). Well we had just gotten done filling out our questions so I told the kids they could play and expore for a few minutes before we moved on. The one girl (I had Megan plus 3 others) asked if we were leaving and I told her "no not yet"....then while I was snapping pictures of them playing she vanished. I was doing a head count every couple of minutes and all of a sudden she was gone. So I gatherd the other 3 up and we checked inside the little shops, then we walked out into the hall and looked both ways, then we went back into the exhibit and I found another group from our school and told them if they see this girl to have her stay with them and that I was going to go to gues relations. Well on the way to guest relations I spotted a COSI employee and told him we had lost a kid from our group and I showed him a photo of her from my camera. Then I did the same at guest realtions. Then I called the teacher's cell phone and it turned out she had the girl with her becasue she had wandered out with another group from her class. So we met up with them and after that they all stuck together.

Here they are before "the lost and found episode"
from left to right, Megan, Sarah, Masey and Madeline.

After lunch we visited the frogs.

I thought I would share some more photos from my fantastic Mother's day weekend with my family. After I returned home from work Saturday afternoon I was happy to see that Mike was feeling better than the night before. We think he had a nasty case of food poisoning from eating some pasta (with cream sauce) that was left out at his work. He was pretty miserable Friday night but much, much better on Saturday afternoon. After Paige came home from her friends we all headed up to the mall. Megan had some shopping to do for her sister's birthday, plus she had saved up eight dollars of her own money from the tooth fairy and chores and it was about to burn a hole in her pocket. When we reached the mall we split up to do our shopping and agreed to meet back in forty minutes. After we met back up we decided to grab some dinner at Molly Woo's. Mike must have regained his appetite because he ordered some "firecracker chicken".
So that is where the photo's begin...at our table at Molly Woo's....

Here are our " waiting for our dinner let's take some cute photos" . You do know that I have to take a couple like the ones below to get just one like the one above. They think their comedians, and then they get tired of me taking their pictures. If they would just smile nice we could be done with one flash of the camera.



Ya know how "there's one in every crowd?" Well Megan is "OUR ONE"!

The girls enjoy eating their honey chicken with chopsticks....nothing like getting to play with your food in a fancy restaurant. They give the kids these cool little plastic doo dads that the kids attach to their chopsticks so they stay together like tweezers.

After a nice breakfast of waffles and scrambled eggs prepared by Mike we headed out to the backyard to plant our salsa garden.


Mike removed the sod and then we turned the soil. Paige was in charge of fetching rocks and roots out of our plot.


Rebel and Rowdy supervised...it's what they do best.


While Mike was transplanting the sod he removed. Paige, Megan and I got busy with the planting.


Garden photos courtesy of Paige


After the garden was in we had lunch and headed to the ponds to go fishing. As soon as we got there Mike baited Megan's new fishing pole for her. He showed her how to cast it and she was off and fishing like an old pro.


It was not long...less than a minute when she got her first bite. She had lots of coaching...."Pull up...Set the Hook.....Reel it in....KEEP reeling..... (as her little pole is bending like a bow). So the youngest caster caught the BIGGEST fish of the day...a Bluegill that was a little over 71/2 inches long.
I know this shot above is not perfect but I love how her eyes are in the shadow of her hat and you can see her big grin.
Then this one below is "classic Megan".....commonly referred to as the "FREAK OUT FACE!"


Oh look finally a perfectly normal nice shot :)
Yep Paige and I were there too...the fish count was 9 fish...each of us girls caught two and Mike caught three (show off).

Here are some more pictures from the art show at the kids school last Thursday. Deb and I were in the art room and saw this sign hanging up on the cabinet. I liked it so much I snapped a photo of it.

When we arrived at the Art Show Paige saw her friend Sydney and asked her to sign her art show shirt. All of the kids that volunteered to work at the show received t-shirts with special iron on decals on the front and they were having their friends sign the backs. I had to spray out a few of the kids last names (in paint shop) so I could show Paige's shirt below.

Here is Sydney, Cameron and Megan coloring Mona Lisa pins at one of the art activity tables.


Paige and I went into the art room so she could show me her dolphin.

Megan is pointing to her "Wild Thing".

Paige was working at the "paint your own cermaic necklace" booth when Aunt Deb arrived so we stopped by for a visit.


These bird pictures were done by the 4th graders. They didn't do these last year when Paige was a 4th grader. I sure hope they are still doing them when Megan gets to 4th grade. Our neighbor girl did the owl. They are so cute and have great personalities too.

Cameron made the cutest little owl out of clay.


Megan and Cameron modeling their "Derby Hats" with big attitude!

My what a big hat you have and big eyes too!