Katy Trail

This weekend Wesley and I packed up the car, loaded bikes on the bike rack, and headed out to join my family for a fun weekend of bike riding. My Dad has been telling me about the Katy Trail for some time now and we finally scheduled a weekend where nearly all of us could gather together and ride a portion of it. Sean stayed home with Greta who is still on training wheels and wouldn't be able to manage riding 20+ miles.

I took Wesley out of school early on Friday and we drove for quite some time to get to New Franklin, Missouri. We found the campsite where my parents had already set up their Airstream and my sister had set up a large tent.

My Dads cousin Phillip and his wife Wendy joined us as well.

I haven't tent camped in decades. It was fun.

My Dad aka The Griddle Master.

We woke up Saturday morning to a brisk 48 degrees and my Dad made a breakfast of champions for everyone. After that we all got on our bikes and set out for Rocheport which was 10 miles away. It was a beautiful day for a bike ride. The Katy Trail is an old railway line so the path is nice and flat, no huge hills which is great for somebody like me who hasn't been on a long bike ride.

In Rocheport we found a lovely outdoor restaurant up on a bluff. There was a winding, forested path up the hill to get there which was quite beautiful and lush. I had a delicious lunch of hummus, veggies, pita bread and soft pretzels while overlooking the Missouri river. 

After lunch we headed back to the campground. In total it was 24 miles on a bike. Wesley did awesome! My knee started acting up on the way back but that was bound to happen with my bum knees. It was a great experience and perhaps we'll do it again some day. Thanks for the invite Pops!

Exploring an old abandoned explosives storage site.

Our return trip was fueled by Twizzlers.

My parents on their recumbent bikes.

Wesley and I

Wesley about 19 miles into the experience.

Field Trip Day 2

On day 2 I went to the zoo with Greta's Kindergarten class. It was a beautiful day and the kids had a lovely time.

Greta with her fabulous kindergarten class. They are all great kids and we couldn't ask for a better teacher!

Greta had a moment with this giant gorilla. He stared at her for a good two minutes.

Greta and I fed this regal goat all of our treats. A zoo keeper came over and thanked us for feeding him, he gets overlooked often because of all the cute baby goats everywhere (which are his offspring). He's just gorgeous.

I felt very much like this meerkat by the end of the day. :)

 

Field Trip Day 1

I had the pleasure of joining Wesley on his third grade field trip last week. Then I had the pleasure of joining Greta on hers the next day. It was a long two days and my legs still ache but it was fun and we enjoyed some beautiful weather. Wesley went to a 1880's town/museum. It had people that "lived" and worked in the town all in typical 1880 fashion. I thoroughly enjoyed it, as did the kids.

They asked the kids to jump to see the scale move.

The kids were hooked up like livestock to grind the corn.

Wesley being.....Wesley.

Kindergarten Program

Miss Greta had her Kindergarten program last week and it was super cute.My parents were there and even got to join in on the fun. I shall use this video for future leverage. Hehe.

Biking, Tree Limbs & Handcuffs

I've been trying to get out two or three times a week to get exercise, sun and fresh air. Working from home, I feel guilty if I'm not working.....but then I get burnt out on sculpting if I do it nonstop. So I've found the happy medium is getting out of the house for an hour most days. I was getting bored with walking so the new bike has been getting ridden. The skinny little tires aren't real great on the dirt roads but they do ok, as long as there is no fresh gravel. The other day I was out for a five mile ride and decided to go a new route. The had just dumped fresh gravel and it was uphill with a 30 miles per hour head wind. I was bound and determined to make it and I finally did. It was brutal though.

The new route took me along a fence line with a herd of cattle with very young calves. The sweet little babies were all lying down napping when I came riding by. They would slowly open their eyes and see, what I can only imagine was, a hideous metal alien riding by. They would fly into the air in a state of panic and gallop off at high speed with their little tails in the air. I don't think they had ever seen a bicycle before. The mothers on the other hand just stood there chewing their cud. It was funny stuff.

Every Spring comes and I find myself with a huge to-do list. This year is no different. One of the items is figuring out what to do with the massive amount of downed limbs all over the property. I try and make piles throughout the winter but most of the limbs are just randomly strewn about the walnut grove. As you can imagine 200+ trees create quite the mess. My parents were nice enough to let us borrow their trailer and so I spent the entire weekend loading limbs, ratcheting them down and hauling the load off to the green waste site outside of town. I prefer this method over burning, especially since we've been dealing with wildfires at an increasing rate. I managed to take four big loads of limbs and probably cleared 95% of the downed limbs off the property. Yay, one item checked off the list.

Cub Scouts is winding down for the year and last week they scheduled a Sheriff to come talk to the boys about safety. When he was done talking they got to go through his belt and see all the cool gadgets up close. The boys were all very enamored with the hand cuffs and took turns trying them on. Wesley was adamant that I take a picture of him in handcuffs. So here he is. :)

Birthday Weekend

I enjoyed a lovely birthday weekend full of fun and family. Sean, the kids and my parents took me to go see Ratchet and Clank the movie. That's a movie based on the Playstation game that I've been playing for over a decade. It's actually my favorite game and I was so excited to see they were making a movie. The movie was true to the video game and it made me smile. Afterwards we all went out to eat and had a very good meal. It was a lot of fun.

Afterwards the kids and I went to a special surprise party for their former preschool teacher. Miss Cindy is closing down the preschool and moving to Florida so a surprise gathering of some of her former students was put together. This was done during the final graduation program for her current students. She had no idea that 60+ alumni had gathered and were about to present her with a flower and a hug. She had been teaching for 16 years so some of the oldest kids were 19 and 20 years old. It was very special and I don't think there was a dry eye in the auditorium. We sure were privileged to have her teach our kids, she is one special teacher.

Here is the video I took as the kids were walking in to surprise her.

Squishy Shopkins

About four years ago I found myself sculpting a whole set of Angry Birds for Wesley. He was so into Angry Birds and I really enjoyed making that set of toys for him. They live in a small zippered case and still get taken down and played with once a month or so. Greta often asks why I made those for him and never made her a set of clay toys. This has been asked repeatedly over the past year and I finally decided it was time to make her something.

She's had quite the obsession with Shopkins lately. These are little toys with faces on them that kids collect. She's got about 20 of them and plays with them constantly. She's even found a YouTube channel that just deals with Shopkins. They make arts and crafts among other things on that channel. She loves watching it and became interested in making a certain craft involving a car sponge and Puffy Paint. Yes, I know that sounds strange. I thought it was bizarre when I heard of it but after watching this woman make a Shopkin out of a sponge and decorate it with Puffy Paint I decided we can do that. And it would qualify as my crafty gift to her (like I did with the Angry Birds for Wesley). You know with kids everything has to be fair, fair, fair!

So I went to Wal-Mart and bought a sponge in the car section and a pack of Puffy Paint in the craft isle. It cost $12 for everything. Puffy Paint is needed so that it will be squishy and soft on the sponge. Regular acrylics would crack and peel off.

We first cut out the shapes of the Shopkins we were going to "sculpt". We picked D'Lish Donut, Kooky Cookie, Strawberry Kiss and Cookie Nut to start with. Something tells me I'll be doing more of these....it was actually pretty fun and a nice change from using clay.

Here is Kooky Cookie all cut out and ready for paint. I used the small scrap pieces to make his arms and feet. We used some Aleen's craft glue to glue the arms and feet on.

Then it was time to paint them. I didn't realize how long of a process this would be! It took many coats of Puffy Paint to cover the porous sponge. It's thick paint and I ended up just smoothing it on with a plastic spoon. This took about a week's worth of coats.

Here are the four finished sponge Shopkin creations. They were fun to make and Greta adores them.

They "squish" like a sponge.

Here are what we used for reference (so you know what they are supposed to look like). Fun crafting project!

Chicken Greta

I'm in the kitchen and look out the window to see Greta running around the side yard squawking like a chicken. Just thought I'd share.