Actually the adults did most of the building. But Tanner and Micah were really good at destroying the castle.
Their favorite thing to do was to water the sandcastle. This caused Adam to make many trips into the cold water to get more buckets of water.
Micah did actually venture into the ocean a couple of times.
Here's Micah and I taking a break. It is lots of walking. If you know anything about Micah right now he is not so into walking when you have to get from one place to the next. I mean, why would you when your parents love carrying you everywhere. Actually, he did a great job and did a lot of walking that day.
This might be a shocker. Adam's favorite was the bighorn sheep. I mean really, we live in the country, we can see goats or sheep every day. I think he just actually liked this picture and how it turned out. (Adam's favorite was actually the elephants)
Here are some of us braving the sunken log in the lake to see some of the huge tadpoles that they have at Hume from what I am guessing are some really big bullfrogs. This was on our Sunday morning walk along part of the lake.
Boating on Saturday before lunch. Who doesn't have fun in a row boat (aka "slow boat'").
Playing in the mud at the lake. Most of the kids are lined up in the background and are busy playing. Everyone also loved the ducks that liked to roam around on the grass. The little kids would all go after the ducks to pet them while the rest of us watched.
Jill got to make her Smore's on Sunday before heading home. This was a must do item and when camp staff was too busy to start the firepit for us, a quick walk over to the general store for some lighter sticks and scrounging up some kindling solved the problem. Micah loved his first smore's and made Jill proud with how well he kept clean of melted marshmellow (the rest of the weekend we were not as lucky with lots of sand and dirt to deal with).
The Monday was a quick day trip up to Modesto to hang out at Nana and Pappa's house along with a bunch of his cousin's. Jill said that he was nonstop playing in the water and loved the whole time he got to play with everyone else.
Ammenities: Two roosting bars set apart to avoid pooping on each other. Water and food feeders. Next up this summer will be fixing or making new nesting boxes for eggs starting this fall. It is also good to have a closable pop door to close at night and keep out things that like to eat chickens. Since Jill's two silkies are so small and do not like to fly/jump a ramp-door was needed. Here is one of the Buff Orpingtons demonstrating. Yes they do wait in the morning for it to be opened and then try to squeeeze through all at once.
The little black fuzzball to the lower right in the photo below is one of Jill's silkies. The other chicken were this size at about 3 weeks old and now all are over two months old. Micah loves to bring them out a snack after dinner (so far avocado and rice are winners while cooked carrots and baked beans were not recieved with much enthusiasm).
Only one chicken is "slow" enough to easily be caught for Micah to pet (the golden one below). The other chickens are pretty quick to move out of arms reach and we do not run near them so that they won't become afraid of us or get stepped on.
Preview of next month's chicken update: "Am I a rooster?" and "Names"
It is difficult at such a young age to decide if it is better to go swimming or to take the wheelbarrow for a spin down the street. Micah has got it covered. After a quick break in front of the neighbors house he is up and ready to head down the street.
"Bumps" are a big favorite. Pushing toys, riding in cars, on bikes or by scooter Micah wants to go over the bumps. Even wagon rides require detours to the edge of the road or over the potholes and patches.
I am sure that the neighbors are amused by some or our evening walks and outings. Sometimes we don't get that far and end up throwing rocks into weeds or following a clown beetle (stink bug) as it crawls across the road. One of the best ways to motivate Micah is to tell him he will get to go outside and look for bugs.
Gotta get those bumps!
Micah playing with bubbles that he got for his birthday. After a rocky start with soap in the eyes from a bubble he got the hang of things and loved to chase and the bubbles.
Here is Micah and some of the other kids looking for their animals.
Adam's favorite was giving tractor rides up and down the street with the neighbors tractor, trailer and hay (hey we provided the gas atleast). This was lots of fun and a little interesting too with the trailer attached to the scraper blade that could move up and down (low-rider country style).
Micah loved the rides and went almost every single time plus the evening before and the evening after with the neighbors. We didn't think about it but they hay can be scratchy on little legs. Micah got his share of scratches but didn't care becuase of having so much fun.
Game #2 was herding the "cows". The kids had a blast chasing around the balloons. It was a bit on the windy side that day so some of the adults had fun chasing balloons too and getting them out of trees and under cars.
Micah's petting zoo was open for awhile with most of the bigger chickens out in a makeshift pen on the lawn. Here is Micah's cousin holding one of the baby chicks. Everyone had fun and all the chickens survived all of the kids.
Tractor cake. Jill made a fantastic tractor cake and also had chicken scratch (chex mix), Micah's garden (veggie tray) and pigs-in-a-blanket among other things to eat.
Here is a close up of the cake.
Micah has really enjoyed being two. Besides saying "no" all the time, he likes to say "mine", "up" (wants to be carried even if only 20 feet to the car for example) and of course on his b-day why get your own hand dirty when you can eat out of someone else's hand.
We have to have our weed control completed by May 1st when the fire department comes around so we have been learning how to use the disc with the tractor. So far we have learned how to get it stuff when the ground is both dry and wet. More importantly we have learned how to get it unstuck! Current status is stuck again. Luckily you just unhook a pin similar to a trailer and drive away so atleast the tractor itself is not stuck.
The first fun event actually happened first in March with the chipping of the wood piles that I have created in the process of trimming back and cleaning up the yard from several years of the last owner not doing proper maintenance. In addition to our fire safety being required by the fire department (maybe common sense doesn't work anymore) we also are not allowed to burn yard clippings. That only leaves several other options, most of which involve time, money or both. Due to the size of our pile (this one is the bigger of the two) we went with the chipper. We didn't know how big our pile would grow as we cleaned-up the front yard and put it closer to the neighbors house than I liked.
So, like any reasonable person I got my dad to help for the weekend and rented a "beast" of a chipper. Yes, it was loud, messy and pure manliness. You just stick a branch in and presto it is chips. This thing worked so well that we were also able to take out three trees in the front yard that I thought would have to wait until next year. This made Jill very happy since two of the trees are only green for about 3-4 months and looked dead for the rest of the year.
Lastly and most importantly, it's CHICKEN TIME!!! We are in the process of fixing the old coop that was here before us and have another month or so to do that. As a little kid my dad had chickens and I remember how much fun it was feeding them and collecting eggs. I also remember being scared of the rooster so at this time we are not planning to have one and just buy new chicks from the hatchery each spring as needed. Jill did not know what she was agreeing to and has had to put up with me researching chicken breeds and other stuff about chickens. We (I) settled on four breeds for eggs (get a few of each and it is easier to name them) and also wanted some bantams (small) chickens.
Well they mostly arrived today. Even at just a day or two old you can see that they are different breeds. Jill's pick, Silkie bantams did not arrive today and hopefully will be here next Thursday. They also only gave us 2 of 3 chicks that lay colored eggs (most likely will be green shells) and slipped a yellow colored chick in as a replacement. We also found this baby chick below wandering around our house a few weeks earlier and decided to keep it too!
For anyone who tried to count them there are a total of 14 right now, not counting the 2 they did not have when I showed up that the feed store. They said last week that they were still waiting for the Silkies at that time. It should be a fun six weeks or so watching them grow and getting them used to us before they move from the garage out the coop. We will have to see what Jill thinks in a few weeks when they get big enough to eat treats and hold for awhile.
