BIG BUGS!

In late August I took the three younger kids to see “BIG BUGS”.  This event was done by a local count park district and featured 13 huge humongous insects constructed of wood and other natural materials all done by David Rogers. To learn about the project and the man behind it you can click here.

David's favorite, the butterfly

Kids under one of the many ants displayed

Ladybug

Spider and web

Daddy Long Leg

We meandered through the large multi-acred garden and took in the bugs at our leisure. Halfway through a tent was set up with people with live bugs that we could touch and learn about. Ella and David loved holding the caterpillars, Masamo though, he wasn’t nearly as thrilled.

Masamo, not so happy to be holding a caterpillar!


We finished our tour and the kids played in a play area for about 15 minutes until it started to rain. We had a great time, it’s not everyday you get to see 20 foot bugs!

20 Foot tall Praying Mantis

Gardening in Pots

I tried something new this summer, vegetable gardening. I enjoy my flower gardening and in the spirit of trying to become more “green”, I thought I’d give vegetable gardening a try. I decided to start small and plant my vegetables in pots. I already had some pretty large pots from some previous flower plantings and so reused those. Here are the seed packets of the vegetables, and some flowers that I started from seed in May.

Within a few weeks we had many, many sprouts. Once the plants looked well established I thinned them to what the seed packages recommended for each vegetable.

The vegetable pots all lined up and growing!

My first harvest was of green beans, and they were yummy!

First harvest of green beans

Our next harvest was of the small finger carrots. Ella especially loved these!

First harvest of small finger carrots

We did get a number of tomatoes but seeing as we are not a fresh tomato eating family, unfortunately they went to waste :(

Next, the pumpkin plant produced exactly ONE pumpkin for me. It ended up being about two inches around. We did get a plethora of flowers on the pumpkin vines but only one small pumpkin.

Pumpkin plant flower

The jalapeno plant produced a number of peppers which Jason enjoyed consuming and the bell pepper plant produced about 10 peppers that were in various colors. Unfortunately the bell peppers only got as big as the small pumpkin, yet they were yummy when eaten!

Overall, I’m not sure the vegetable gardening was worth all the effort I put into it. The financial investment was small but the harvest wasn’t that large either. Maybe if I had planted directly into the ground I would have seen better results but I’m not sure I want to dig up part of the yard and defend it from deer, not yet at least!

David Gets His Orange Belt!

On August 13th, David tested to get his orange belt in karate. The yellow belt moves and one steps he had to memorize proved to be more challenging to him than the white belt that he had just completed. That along with the fact that we were gone on a couple different trips made his learning over the summer that much more difficult. However, David did learn and test in the same amount of time (3 months) that it took him to learn and test from his white to yellow belt. That shows that he's improving and taking karate more seriously! Here are some pictures and a video from his testing day.

Warming Up

Getting his game face on!

.....
David stating 5 things he has improved upon at home

Testing
....

Look at the height on that leg!

....

Advancing up to an orange belt

....

Ceremony of David receiving his orange belt!
....



David and his instuctor, Mr. Patten

....

Our new orange belt!

Fourth of July

It's a couple months late but here is what the kids did the evening of July 4th. After going out for ice cream we came home just in time for a summer rain shower. Because it was not lightning or thundering Jason and I told the kids (the 3 younger) to go outside and play in the rain. They looked at us as if to say "Are you serious?" but we insisted and within a minute they were having a great time! Here are a few pictures and a video of their time in the rain.

Below is a video of the kids playing in the rain. David has a wardrobe malfunction at one point (it's PG rated) but it has to do with the fact that he is so thin and apparently I didn't pin his shorts in quite enough!






The rain did slow down a bit and it was just sprinkling by the time nightfall came. We did sparklers outside and then let the kids throw pop-its at the ground.

Sparklers while in their pj's!

Throwing pop-its

Emily was present during this all, but decided not to participate except to watch from the safety and dryness of the porch.

Just as a PS, here are a couple pictures of my garden in late June/early July. I find that this is when a lot of my flowers are in bloom and my garden is looking it's best.

The younger three kids had two fun experiences with Jason this past summer. In July they went to Monster Jam! And in August they went to the Hamilton county fair demolition derby! I cannot tell you how excited Masamo was to go to Monster Jam and see Grave Digger (his favorite monster truck) in action!!!

It was a hot night on both occasions. Jason reported that at Monster Jam David and Masamo were done watching early on in the evening but did have a good time seeing all the different trucks there. The show consisted of head to head racing, a small quad race (to fill up the time, I guess) and free style performances from each of the twelve trucks present. Unfortunately Grave Digger flipped over early on during the “free style” event and was not able to perform the rest of the evening. Despite that and the very loud environment Ella enjoyed the entire show and her favorite monster truck is now Monster Mutt. Another favorite truck of the evening was Son Uva Digger (the son of Grave Digger’s driver drives this truck).

Can you see the sweat pouring off the boys, and this was after 6pm!

Earplugs are a necessity!

Monster Mutt

Grave Digger

Son Uva Digger

Some cool free styling!

Ended the evening with smiles!

The Hamilton county fair demolition derby was not a thrilling event by any stretch of the imagination but it was Masamo’s first exposure to it. He enjoyed watching the cars smash one another up, what boy wouldn’t?! Jason took the three younger kids and happened to meet my sister Jennifer and her family there too! It was nice because the kids were able to sit with their cousins and enjoy the experience. I was told however that David and Masamo did not behave themselves very well and tried Jason’s patience one too many times. I’m just glad I wasn’t there to partake in that evening of fun!

Having fun at the fair?!

Don't let those cute smiles fool you, here is what their attitudes looked like most of the evening.