June 29, 2006
Family of Nerds?
I don't THINK I am... but I guess I just KNOW some of this nerdy stuff... doesn't make me a nerd... (I didn't build my computer... I know some of the chemical elements because my son studied them (HIS choice, no one made him do it)...
Now Gary is 97% nerd... (and he builds our computers, takes parts out, puts them in, fiddles with this that & the other...and tries out every version of Linux he can get his hands on...) And he remembers just about everything....he's a walking encyclopedia, LOL...
And this is how Evan scored:
He had help from Micah on 3 questions: the ones about chemical elements & the one about Isaac Newton...
Swimming
If I were to toss Harrison into David Letterman's pool (for the game "will it float?"), this time he probably would! He is finally able to swim... his form is terrible, which is fine, I know that will come later...the cool think is that he has the basic idea & is keeping his feet off the bottom of the pool some of the time now, YAY!!
E&M have been regular dolphins, have been swimming, jumping & diving off the diving board & Micah has been experimenting with doing somersaults off the diving board but has yet to do a graceful one...usually does something akin to a back flop (as opposed to a belly flop)...
Reuven still needs his air tube... I signed all the boys up for swimming lessons which will start in July... they will see how the kids do and then place them in groups according to where they need to be. The gal there said they will work with Reuven on weaning from his air donut... I saw the ages of kids who've already signed up for the beginners group and most range from age 3 to 6...
As before, if you wish to write, write to patchworkgirl_at_weavingrainbow)dot(com and maybe one of these days I will have a new comment system...
June 21, 2006
Birds, art & dolphin-kids
found out a few days ago that the bird I saw is a Western Kingbird... thanks to Jane for letting me know about these links:
http://www.birdfriends.com/BrdPage.php?name=Western%20Kingbird
http://kaweahoaks.com/html/kingbird.html
That definitely looks like "my" bird and since that first sighting I have seen a few more flying around the vicinity of the swimming pool.. who knows, I may get to post more pictures of this beautiful Western Kingbird!
Water Nonsense
Well I figured we would end up being put on a mandatory water restriction because we're under a drought & 2 weeks ago, the water company asked for voluntary restrictions and since I got the letter about that, I saw that our neighbor across the street had the lawn sprinkler going for SEVERAL HOURS!! Argh! So I'm not surprised that we are undera water restriction.
On top of that, the water company said that we need to be boiling our water: last Saturday evening the power went out for over 2 hours and apparently some contamination got in... the sad thing is that they SNAIL MAILED us the information, which arrived in our mailbox yesterday (this is what, 2 or 3 days after the power went out??) and meanwhile we're cooking with this water & drinking it straight from the tap...yipes! Yesterday we bought 3 gallons of spring water from Walmart and I also got each of the kids a 32 oz bottle of Gatorade which they will use for water bottles in the meantime...each one is a different color!
I need to replace my water bottle: apparently boiling the water may not have been good enough because I had cramps last night...
Art Stuff
I've been looking around the web for ideas for doing art projects with the kids. Something sad: Harrison told me that he no longer likes to draw because they didn't encourage it in school... at the moment, we don't have a place to make a mess with clay & painting, but hopefully I can encourage him to turn that around...
Micah has been doing well with his bead projects. A friend sent a wonderful bead loom (exchange for some yarn) and Micah has been doing a project on it as well as making some other pieces!
Reuven is now 5 and when he types his name, he types the numbers 5 and 4 along with it...
Evan is busy doing stuff on the computer...
Swimming
We got summer pool pass at the local swimming pool so have been going fairly often. Hopefully Harrison will learn to swim this year. Evan & Micah are regular dolphins and occasionally will humor me & do sychronized jumps/dives off the diving board... they love jumping and diving but think that it's boring to try to do it at the same time....
June 10, 2006
yellow breasted bird & swimming stuff!
About a week ago, I saw a bird at the swimming pool parking lot while waiting in the car for Gary to look up (and write down) the pool hours... I took 2 photos of it & would love to have a positive identification of it... I THINK it is a yellow breasted chat (a type of warbler) but it didn't appear to have the markings around the eyes that I've seen in other photos of yellow breasted chats:
I included the blurrier photo for more information about shape, etc. I figured I ought to take these 2 photos right away because I figured that if I got out of the car, it would spook & fly of... I was right! Sure glad I got a photo of this bird!
If anyone knows what kind of bird it is, let me know! Email me at patchworkgirl_at-sign_weavingrainbow_dot_com. (I turned the comments off because I was tired of dealing with spammers. I'd LIKE to put in the typekey commenter, but am not sure how.
I may do a tapestry weaving experiment with the pictures of this bird. I did a few colored pencil renderings of it, so we'll see! See my knitting/weaving blog (link at sidebar) to see if I follow up on this idea or not!
Swimming
The weather has been hot, 90s to almost 100... it's time to go swimming! Too bad the pool will only be open until school starts around the middle of August. It will still be hot then!
3 of the boys & I went swimming for the first time yesterday... it was nice in the water! I stayed with Reuven the whole time because he wasn't sure about the water. I put a life jacket on him & he went from staying on the steps (shallowest water) to letting me take him into the deep water... he's afraid to get his face wet, but I'll keep trying to get him to "blow bubbles"...he loves when I swing him around! Maybe I'll see if I can get a few tips from one of the lifeguards to get him more confident in the water...the pool will be having swimming lessons in July.
The twins remembered how to swim & are regular dolphins! After I was convinced that they could handle themselves in the water & didn't forget how to swim, I let them go off the diving board... they did great & went off several times. They didn't actually dive off the board, just jumped in.
We didn't all go because I wasn't comfortable having 2 non-swimmers and 1 adult... hopefully Gary will be up to going next time we go swimming. Harrison will probably be okay with just a life jacket...
Harrison doesn't know how to swim yet. He took level 1 Red Cross lessons 3 or 4 times & never passed. The last time was 2 years ago when he was 6... maybe this year he'll grok swimming and learn to float! We shall see! I know he was comfortable going all over the pool with a life jacket on...maybe I'll get him a pair of water wings to help... we'll see!
After swimming, we went to Wal-Mart and picked up a few swimming toys since this pool allows it. The pool we used to go to did not. Gotta air some of them up before the next time we go...don't know if we'll go today or not: this weekend is the 2nd weekend flea market and they use the same parking lot as the swimming pool. We'll see!
Why Wait Till We're Grown Up?
Harrison told me a day or two ago that he wants to be a naturalist when he grows up... I told him he already IS one. He likes looking at birds & plants & such with and without the binoculars...
Time to wander over to the post office to see if there are any packages to pick up!