Stuff at Home, and a Sad Goodbye

In mid-April we went on a field trip to the Natural History Museum.  The kids fixated on the gem exhibit, so we spent almost the whole time there.  They (Connor and Elise) loved it.  They saw all kinds of crystals and gems, and learned about how hard it is to mine for Emeralds.  At the end, we were suckers and bought all kinds of rocks and a crystal-growing kit for "educational" reasons.  Evan, however, wasn't feeling it.  He had a meltdown around nap time, which ended our day a bit early.
  

  
Connor's class has been working on a butterfly garden at school.  They researched native plants and butterflies as a class, weeded and mulched the garden plot, and planted the seedlings.  Then, at the Earth Day celebration the kids got to do a booth to teach others about their garden. 
   

   
Elise made a play-doh "Mom" one day, and wanted to save it forever.  I got her to agree to take a picture that would last forever instead.  Also, she designed a flower princess outfit, and thought that should be documented, as well.  I totally agree.
   

Those are real petals and leaves taped in her crown.

  
Connor discovered my Star Walk app one night, which sparked a week-long obsession with learning about galaxies.  Too bad we live in L.A., and can't even see stars half the time!  Maybe I'll buy a telescope and keep it at my mom's house.
   

 
May 2 was the birthday of our sweet little Italian Greyhound, Portia.  She turned fifteen.  We'd been agonizing for almost a year about her, since she had been blind and deaf for some time, and it had only gotten worse in the last few months.  She wasn't in pain or anything, but she couldn't really find her way around, was constantly bumping into things, and spent all of her time sleeping on the couch.  I didn't know what to do, but it gradually became clear that she wasn't having fun anymore.  After I had made the decision to have her put to sleep, I stayed up late one night just petting her and praying and thinking of all the life events she'd been there for.  It left me with a sense of peace, and gratitude that I'd had such a great first dog.  
  
I was worried that the actual appointment would traumatize me, but it actually was much easier than making the decision had been.  The vet was super sweet and sympathetic, and after it was done, they told me there'd be no charge.  That was a nice gesture, I thought.  The kids were sad for a little while, but they'd been prepared that this would eventually happen, and got over it pretty quickly.
  

No, she's not dead here, just napping.  The heater was her best friend.

We'll miss you, Portia Brown!

Easter, and Connor's B-Day Party!

On April Fool's Day, we went outside to discover that our local bear had visited!  He got to be pretty famous, actually, and was in the news quite a bit.  All he managed to do this time was knock over our trash, and leave some incriminating footprints.
   

   
Evan likes to do school with the big kids, so I gave him these colors to sort -  he was pretty good at it, actually.
   

    
I tried to continue our Easter Season traditions from last year, and I think everything turned out pretty great.  We visited the cemetery, colored eggs, watched Easter videos, and did an egg hunt in our backyard.  We used a combination of candy eggs and "resurrection eggs" that we bought last year.  Those are one of my favorite new traditions.  You tell the Easter story, and the kids get to open an egg at various points to reveal a small toy/symbol.  We tried to do the story while they were eating the candy, but that resulted in some really sticky resurrection eggs.  I might have to rethink that for next year.

 

The kids' eggs were color-coded so we could have varying difficulty levels!

And, neglectful parents that we are, Connor finally got his birthday party in April.  He had been begging to have the Chuck E Cheese experience, so we sucked it up and agreed.  He invited his closest friends and had a ridiculously fun time.  He especially liked the "ticket blaster", where he got to stand in a wind tunnel grabbing for tickets.  (He thought "Chuck E" was kinda weird, and I would have to agree.)  Everybody went home with fabulous plastic prizes.  We love you, Connor!
   

  

Anniversary Cruise (Part 2)

One of the main reasons we picked the Western Caribbean was so we could see Mayan Ruins on the Yucatan Peninsula.  We ended up picking Chacchoben in Costa Maya, Mexico.  It's about an hour from the port, and has three really well restored Mayan temple pyramids.  This one was two levels - a staircase led to a plateau higher up, and a smaller pyramid sat on top of that.  It was crazy to think that people built all this without metal tools or wheels.
 

Strangler Fig

 
They say that any hill in this area is probably an overgrown ruin, since the land is naturally flat.  Originally, the pyramids were covered with plaster and painted bright colors - there was a little of the original paint left on this one.
 

 
That night was one of our "formal" nights at dinner.  Our table-mates throughout the cruise were from Canada, and like all Canadians I've ever known, they were super friendly.  They manufacture fancy fishing-lures up near Niagara Falls.  Pretty weird way to make a living, eh?
 

 
The next day was a sea-day, which I love.  Nothing to do but read, eat, go to shows, and hang out.
 

 
Our last day started pretty early, since cruise ships are always in a hurry to kick you off to get ready for the next batch of people.  We decided to do one last tour rather than sit in the airport for ten hours.  It was a fan-boat tour of the Everglades, and it was amazing.  We saw black vultures, alligators, and these birds called purple gallinules that are related to chickens.  They were pretty tame and came almost right up to my hand.  At the end there was an alligator show that really freaked Ryan out.  I thought the alligators looked too lazy to be very dangerous, but that was probably deceptive.
 

 
Afterwards, the shuttle took us to the airport, where we changed clothes and caught a cab to church.  That was really neat.  You forget, living in affluent communities where the Church is well-established, how much need there is in other areas.  This ward was located in a fairly poor neighborhood, where a large percentage of the members didn't have cars, and the majority were either new converts or student families at the nearby medical school.  After church we called a cab, but it was taking forever to show up, so a super nice church member offered to take us to the airport.
 
I've had our room key-cards sitting in our bathroom mirror for weeks now (I just put them away last week,) and every time I looked at them, it made me happy.  What a great trip.  Thanks again to my mom for holding everything together at home so we could go!

Anniversary Cruise (Part 1)

Towards the beginning of the year, we started to realize that if we were going to do a no-kids trip of some kind (we'd never done one), this was our best window.  Evan was finally done nursing, and baby #4 wasn't here yet, plus I was over being sick.  So, we scheduled a last minute cruise to the Western Caribbean!   It was sort of our belated tenth-anniversary celebration.  My wonderful mother volunteered to stay here with the kids for a week, which made it possible.  Thanks, Mom! 
  
We started our trip with an all-night flight to Fort Lauderdale.  For some reason, it was the only flight we could find.  Ryan naps well, but I don't, so I was pretty wiped out by the time we finally got on-board at noon the next day!  Now, the best thing about a cruise (in my opinion) is the combination of awesome food and time to relax on the ship with your sweetie.  That doesn't make for exciting pictures, though, so most of these are from the ports we visited.  Our cruise visited four: Grand Cayman, Cozumel (Mexico), Roatan (Honduras), and Costa Maya (Mexico).
   

  
The first shore excursion we did was on Grand Cayman.  We went on a smaller boat out to a sand bar full of (sort of domesticated) stingrays.  There were probably twenty different tour boats crammed into the same space, but it was fun.  The tour guide held a huge stingray up out of the water so we could touch it, and they gave us squid to feed to the loose ones swimming all around.  After that, we visited a beach and rented snorkel equipment - something I'd never done before.  It was really surprising - I figured out the basics of what to do, then started to paddle out from the beach - and it was like I was suddenly in a fish tank!  I was surrounded with fish of every shape and color imaginable, along with all kinds of corals, anemones, and other stuff I couldn't name.  Sadly, I didn't have a waterproof camera, so that day was a photographic loss.  Something I will always remember, though.
   

View from our Balcony

   
Port #2 was Cozumel, Mexico.  We visited a museum called Discover Mexico that had maybe a hundred miniatures of important Mexican landmarks.  It sounds boring, but we loved it.
   

You had to pay for pictures with the snake or donkey.  We didn't want one that bad.

None of these guys were harnessed in, just tied with a rope.

The guy at the top is playing a wooden flute.

Tiny Mexico City

   
     Port #3 was Roatan, Honduras.  We went to the "Gumbalimba Preservation Park", which was supposed to be a guided tour of this amazing wild area filled with birds and monkeys.  It was pretty cool, but the tour guide was about nineteen and didn't know much, and the birds and monkeys were basically pets.  I liked it anyway.  
   

 
While we were waiting in line to hold one of the monkeys, a loose one went into our beach bag and stole our (my) sunscreen bottle.  He took it to the top of a tree and began to try to get it open - he must have thought it was juice or something.
    

  
After our turn on the monkey bench, the naughty monkey still had our sunscreen.  He was getting more and more frustrated, and accidentally dropped it, so Ryan rushed into the bushes and snagged it.  The monkey definitely did not appreciate that, because he came down and went on a rampage through the crowd - finally grabbing someone's water bottle and drinking everything in it.  Our sunscreen had the plastic button chewed off, but was otherwise fine.