Field Day

What's the end of school without a field day?

What was FFM's favorite part?  His new hat that he picked out.  He looks like a little old retired man in all plaid.

Dance, Dance, Dance

Last week we were gone for about a week to visit family and attend a wedding in Kansas City.  I have to admit, I was unprepared to have as much fun as I did.

We were able to spend a couple of days visiting with my grandparents who live in a smaller town about an hour outside of KC.  Who knew FFM's first camel ride would be in Kansas?

There was a visiting "Educational Petting Zoo" in town, complete with exotic animals like kangaroo (he was not impressed), zebra, goats, and a porcupine (he was impressed).  I found out my only grown up girl cousin (my only other girl cousin is in grade school still) is going to have a baby.  And to top it all off we got to attend the wedding of my cousin Matt and Lindsey.  What a great week!

Mr. Man was so proud to be Matt and Lindsey's Ringbearer.  He's turning into a real pro.  If he wasn't already my kiddo I might have just stolen him right out the church he was so cute.  As it was I had to tackle the Father the Bride to get him out of the reception, FOTB was pretty sure FFM needed to stay in KC and hang out for a while.

Aren't they just a stunning couple?  I am so lucky to have a such lovely family, and these two are just the cutest, sweetest pair you've ever met.

The wedding was probably the most FUN wedding I've ever been to.  FFM definitely had a blast and had to be dragged from the dance floor, sweat and bridesmaids dripping off of him, when it was many, many hours past his bedtime.

 I learned a new thing about our child that night.  He is a DANCING MACHINE.  He has some dancing gene that skipped his Dad and I and he's got moves that no nearly five year old should have. Toss in no fear of girls and endless energy and you're all set up for a rowdy night on the dance floor.

 Yes, he really is dancing with all three of those bridesmaids at once.  I attempted to extricate him so they could dance with men their own age and they kept dragging FFM back in.

 Showing off his fancy moves with Granny Annie.

FFM had been dancing with that group of girls on the left and the bridesmaids snagged him back up again.  When we left several young men teased us and commented that now they would actually have a chance to dance with the ladies.

When we finally left his hair was wet like he'd just stepped out of a shower and his shirt clung to his back.  I'm just not sure where to take a young man out dancing, anyone have any weddings we can take him to anytime soon?  

Waiting for Tomatoes

The rule of thumb my Mom tells me is that we have to have nights consistently above 50F for tomato plants to thrive here. We haven't had that yet despite a couple hot days. I'm ready to plant some tomatoes!

The Soul Becomes Dyed With The Color of Its Thoughts

--Marcus Aurelius

My soul must be rainbow tie dyed with sparkly iridescent glitter.  I've had color on the brain.  Color is trendy and hot right now, but I've loved color my whole life.  When I lived overseas I bucked the trend of black, gray, and grey spiced up with white, and I wore Color.  I was so obviously not a local.

I am SO HAPPY!  Color is everywhere!  I can find cool colors of nail polish!  And colored pants!  And colored shoes!  and, and, colored colors for my HAIR!

OK, I did discuss this with my stylist before jumping in.  I did it the appointment AFTER we talked about it.  I did not want to look like that old lady trying to pull of a tween style.  Then I went to California on vacation (after I'd had said color in my hair for a month) and saw all stripes of life with fun color.

Purple highlights!  My pint sized photographer, and biggest fan of purple hair, did the best he could. Cutting out the top of my head was the best of the worst of his shots.

The Big Tree

This isn't new news, but three weeks of back and forth across the country have left me feeling, well, actually a little bit jet lagged to tell the truth.  It's not actual jet lag, but the effect of packing, unpacking, repacking, finding tuxedo, reordering tuxedo, dress shopping with Mom, gearing up car for 10 hour car trip, shuffling plane tickets/hotels/business trips two days before departure, family visits, and a GIANT SUPER FUN WEDDING all set to the unending background chatter of a 4 year old kind of jet lag.

Back to the old news.  We got some new landscaping.  Notice I said we GOT new landscaping not we DID new landscaping. Yes indeed.  Putting in a good sized tree is something I'm happy to pay someone else to do.  Frankly, it's just a pain in the patootie to drag a big tree home from the nursery and then to dig a big fat hole.

We picked out a purple leafed plum tree that won't get too big and shouldn't take over our house or driveway like some other unnamed trees in our yard (hint hint, giant spruce tree we have to pay large sums of money to have trimmed back every year because it's too tall to do ourselves).

That poor old tree looked kind of lonely over there in that lovely rock bed all by himself, so we added on a little DIY planting/transplanting.

The poor transplanted shrub is a little smaller than the new ones.  I hope it catches up.  We also expanded the bed by the front door by taking out one of the last antique junpers last fall.  New shrubs and plants went in this spring.  Since the hard labor was done last fall all we had to do was amend soil and plant this spring, all the fun stuff!

We still have bunnies ravaging our vegetation, so even though I only buy rabbit "resistant" plants I have to cage off ones that aren't as rabbit proof as they claim.  I do a check about every other morning to make sure they aren't chewed down to nubs.  Doing better this year than last.

Disneyland Here We Come!

I think that Disney is one of those things you talk about when you decide to have kids.  Do you take them?  When do you take them?  FFM's a fantastic hiker/walker and can last all day now, so we seized the moment.  Travis and I both asked some Disney veterans for advice since 1)tickets are spendy and 2) we didn't want massive meltdowns for anyone to ruin our time at the happiest place on earth.  We stayed in the park (totally awesome, best advice we took) and bought hopper passes (totally awesome, 2nd best advice we took).  We stayed three days, which was enough for us.  During busy season I could see spending more, but we rode every ride we wanted to at each park and even had time to swim at the resort pool for an afternoon.

Disney is prolific with their pre-trip mailings, which all seemed to have the monorail featured on them.  Couple that with the toy monorail FFM borrowed from his cousin and the ONLY thing he wanted to see at Disney was, you guessed it, the monorail.  Once at the park he figured out that there was more than just Mickey and a monorail, but he was still pretty stoked about this supercool mode of transport.

Kiddos favorite ride?  Space Mountain of course!  If you aren't familiar with Disney, it's an indoor rollercoaster totally in the dark with only the stars to light your way.  You can't see the upcoming drops, twists, etc.  We rode it four times.

 Of course we rode all the classics, too.  Teacups and Mr. Toads Wild Ride were my personal classic favorites.

 I opted for the phone app that lists all the attractions and their wait time.  We didn't really use it much, lines weren't an issue the days we were there, but Travis liked to check to make sure we were riding EVERYTHING so I'd tick of items as we did them.  When we got to the Princess Fantasy Faire I asked FFM if he wanted to wait in line to meet the princesses.  YES!  Before meeting the three Princesses of the day the Disney dude of the day asked FFM who is favorite was, "BELLE!"  Whew, good thing she was on duty that day.  She even let FFM give her a smooch on the cheek.  Wee lad turned bright red and was actually speechless.

 All in all FFM met 13 characters, and he spotted every single one of them.  I'd feel this smack on my elbow and look down to see him pointing and sure enough, there would be Pluto or Goofy or Jesse or Chip and Dale wandering through the park.

 Tigger loved FFM because they were both wearing orange stripes.  They had a bouncy dance together.

 I took a photo of the photo taken of us on Splash Mountain.  This is the least scary face FFM had.

 Woody!  We met him at Disney California Adventure, it's nice that we're all smiling and actually looking at the camera.

 One night none of us was hungry for dinner so we all just had ice cream sundaes instead.  That's what vacation is all about.  Yum.

Bye Mickey!  Thanks for a really good time!

Sand between his toes

Being born on an island must have done something to FFM.  Travis doesn't have any great affinity for the beach and I really enjoy some good beach time but I don't CRAVE it like our kiddo.  He has a nose for saltwater and is happiest with sea spray in his hair and sand between his toes.  If his skiing/beaching interests keep up some day we may lose him to California altogether.

The weather in San Diego was cool when we visited.  Not uncomfortably so, but while it was 80s back in Denver San Diego was having 50s/60s.  Not really lounge at the beach weather.  Instead of hanging at the beach for hours we squeezed in little trips between other adventures.  At the first sign of the sea FFM was kicking off his shoes, rolling up his own pants, and headed for the beach.

view of downtown San Diego from Coronado

Chilly sandcastles on Coronado beach

Legoland

Most of our trip wasn't a big surprise for FFM.  He knew we were going to San Diego, knew we were staying on the beach in Coronado, and he knew we were going to the zoo.  He also knew we'd spend the last three days of our trip in Disneyland.  He did NOT know we were going to Legoland.

As we pulled up to the gates of Legoland the chatter in the backseat changed as he tried to read the signs which were so obviously made out out Legos.  When he figured it out the chatter was replaced by whoops and hollers.

 The good news, FFM is tall enough to ride every ride at Legoland.  Which meant he could ride all the rollercoasters there.  First up, the Technic car test track.

 We checked our "ACTION PHOTO" after the ride, you know the one the park takes of you during the big drop?  FFM's face looks like pure terror.  What do you think he said the second we got off the ride?  "Let's do that one AGAIN!"

We went to a show at SD Zoo and FFM was heartbroken not to be a participant. Luck was on his side, he got picked right away to be in the Lego show.  His job?  to tell Stay the Lego dog to stay and to push the big button to turn on the alarm to call all the firemen.  Kiddo was ecstatic.

 More rollercoasters?  Why, of course!  The dragon coaster through the castle was another big hit.

Legoland was great fun, we had no lines at all so could ride our favorite rides over and over.  It was a great warm-up for Disney!

San Diego Zoo

March was our scheduled Spring Break, but our REAL Spring Break was last week.  The Moores opted to skip the crowds and take a family vacation in late April instead.  First stop, San Diego and the famous San Diego Zoo.  Someone had told FFM that the zoo was famous for pandas so he got really excited to see one as soon as we walked in the gate.

 Like always, however, the highlight for him wasn't the main attraction but the mode of transport inside the attraction.  Yes, the buses and gondola ride inside the zoo were the biggest hit by far.  Although he did enjoy the purple tongued giraffe...

 Travis had a good time talking about all the animals, and a really good time explaining the display of carnivorous plants.  Look out kiddo!

 Try as he might, FFM could not get Daddy to do silly monkey faces though.