Spring weather bike rides

This weekend's weather was wonderful in Kansas City. We got out on Saturday with Bike Rides and birds. Videos of each girl riding bike are below.

Michaela has struggled without training wheels, but we think she is close. Sunday is supposed to be nicer, perhaps we'll get photos and stories up....the zoo is on our itinerary. Here is Malcolm's photo of a Northern Mockingbird from yesterday's birding excursion. The Northern Mockingbird is a species common in Kansas City and south but was rare in our previous locations.

 

Music Demonstration

Enjoy all or part of Danielle's Kindergarten Music Demonstration program from March 27th 2014.

Is this long winter done?

This has been a long cold winter for everyone. We did not have the extreme colds and snow of MN/WI/MI but still experienced below average temperatures and plenty of snow. One of my initial thoughts when we moved to Kansas City was to get out to a range at least once a month. The last couple of winters the golf courses around KC remained open...but not this winter as it was too cold with too much snow. As such I was happy to enjoy part of the first 70+ day last weekend at the range.

With the warmer weather we have trips to the zoo, bike rides, walks, and exploring on the schedule. A visit by Grandparents is greatly appreciated as well. We may even get back to the range again as a family.

A few of you may recognize the golf-bag that Michaela has as my first one. We have one cut down club and a cut down putter for each girl, but as you can see on the video below we may wait a while before expanding too much. If you look carefully you can even see my old-man swing.

Charades

The girls are loving a visit from Grandpa and Grandma! Yesterday Grandma watched them while I was at work and Christine and Grandpa were out shopping. When I got home we played a version of pictionary and used the same cards for charades.

 

Bad bedtime routine

Below is the one of many possible bad bedtime routines. While we were finishing supper, people stopped by to buy a few items that Christine had listed online. I stepped outside to be with her and found a tree frog, which I quickly called for the girls to come see. Danielle immediately held it and within a few seconds she walked across the yard to put the frog in the small Korean maple tree. How Danielle thought of this I have no clue, but what an amazing idea.The girls take after us a bit and ran inside to get their cameras to take pictures of the tree-frog.

 

Generally we have Danielle as hands-on and Michaela as hands-off with nature.

While taking pictures the frog jumped off Danielle's hand and somehow miraculously disappeared into the night. Bedtime should have been next, but instead the amped up girls asked for sparklers.

What would a responsible parent do at 9 o'clock, already thirty minutes past the kids' bedtime?

Who knows, we grabbed sparklers and decided to stay up even later. Luckily fell asleep everyone as soon as we were in bed!

Returning to Marshfield

This weekend we made a quick trip back to Marshfield Wisconsin. This was a piece of mind trip, and we were happy with the situation at our 'other' house and the conversation with the renters.  The trip was a chance to remind the girls of where we lived just a few years ago. Michaela remembered much of the house after seeing it, but Danielle didn't.  We showed them Michaela's first school as well as the dragon park, then made our way to the zoo and ice-cream.The Marshfield zoo and park was one we often visited for educational programs in the summer, birds in migration, and as a destination for a bike ride.

One of the new pieces at the zoo in the past two years.

Danielle was worried about getting to close to the hissing geese.

We bought another point-and-shoot camera this weekend, now each of the girls can take pictures when we are out and about.  They enjoyed the one we had before, taking many videos and photos around the house but often Michaela had the camera while Danielle was left without one. They practiced their photo taking skills at the Wildwood Zoo. Over the weekend the girls took close to 500 photos and videos on the two cameras!

Danielle happened to capture Michaela taking a photo, or as Christine put it "Michaela got in the way."

I'm not sure how close Danielle got to this goose, but I love the picture!

Here are other photos from the weekend after we returned home.

Self-portraits are one of their favorites, as are narrated videos.

Michaela took this photo.  We have a good number of apples this year, but they won't be ripe in time.

The Stockton Bucket List - Whitewater State Park

Over the past two years one of our favorite locations has been Whitewater State Park.  We've enjoyed the educational and nature programs, wildlife, birds, camping, and geographic beauty of the bluff lands.  This past weekend we took a break from the house and visited the area again.

Elba, looking into the sun, viewed from the fire tower. 

The girls and Christine hiked the Elba Fire tower. The hike is 617 steps to the base of the tower and then another 100+ to the top of the tower, with just a short flat section in the middle without steps. The girls had motivation of getting pedometers if they made it to the top without help. Christine and I both had our doubts that they would make it, but they surprised us and walked the entire way.  

The pictures give a perspective of what they accomplished and saw. The last time we hiked this Christine and I ended up carrying the girls for over half of the steps as well as most of the tower.  The tower scared us two years ago, and remained so still.

 

Skip ahead to 1:30 and watch for 15 seconds for Danielle's squirrel moment!

While Christine and the girls hiked the Elba fire tower, I was at the state park attempting to take more pictures of the yellow-throated warbler.  I was unable to find those birds again, but did find a handful of ebony jewel wing dragonflies to take photos of.  I had tried to find these beauties to show the Wallestad men last weekend, but alas did not spend enough time searching the underbrush then.