Cranbrook Science and Art Museum

Another one of our last excursions before school started was to the Cranbrook Science and Art Museums. The Science Museum was really neat and we could have stayed a lot longer. One of the girls favorite was "Stega" as they named her.

 

The big T-Rex skeleton was scary enough to keep Myka and Kyla a little nervous until we were well away from it.

 

This was kind of a neat display showing what Detroit would look like when the glacier period returns.

 

She's got the whole world in her hands! Although, Myka had no idea of what it really was, it was fun to play with.

 

Here the girls are learning that just how you dress can say alot about you, even though you are the same person inside. We asked the girls what they would like to dress like and they didn't make the choices that we would have liked the most.

 

Best buddies, Myka and Rachel, working on a puzzle together. They had a lot of really neat things for the kids to do in one area.

 

Here we are learning about how the rings in a tree can take us a long way back in history. I think this one was around 700 years old or so.

 

Nora and Kyla playing scientists. I don't think they have ever had a chance to use a microscope before. They were really interested in all the slides and finding out what they were.

 

All the girls working on a experiment in motion. They were supposed to arrange the paddles so when the ping pong came out at the top it would bounce off the paddles and land in the ring at the bottom. Unfortunately, we didn't have the patience to work it all out.

 

Birgitte took a bunch more pictures but we had trouble getting them to me. We had lunch on the tables outside and headed to the Art Museum. We decided we wouldn't go there again. The girls did really well keeping their arms folded the whole time. But it was stressful being in there with that many kids like a time bomb ready to go off at any moment. I guess I am not artsy enough of a person to really appreciate a whole room of 50+ clay pots all done by the same person with slight differences but pretty much the same, very plain pot. We did have a lot of fun running around the gardens checking out the statues and ponds though. We will have to go back (well to the Science Museum) with our hubby's sometime so we can have a little more time to investigate the experiments and displays.

Before School Fun

We tried to make the most of the week before school started, and of course had to get one last visit in at the Village.

 

They were using the percheron's on the farm to do some work so that was fun to watch.

 

I love this one of Myka walking through the breeze way headed straight for the horses.

 

Nora loving to pet anything she can get her hands on. Even big old Jeremiah the Ram. There are signs posted that say don't pet the animals, but we aren't too good at following signs. I figure they are there only for liability purposes anyway and I am not going to sue them.

 

Four girls trying really hard to be friends. We have enough emotional girls between Birgitte and I that most of the time someone is feeling left out because the others are buddying up together. This was a great picture to remind us of the times they actually do ALL get along. I can't really remember much else about the day but I bet it was great. How can we go wrong with the village and great friends like Birgitte and kids?

August in a Wrap

So after Grandma left, the rest of August was prety much spent being sick, tired, and trying to figure out how to survive being pregnant. It wasn't too hard with the girls being home all the time since they had been on vacation and on the go so much they were very content to play with their toys.

 

 

As you can see not the best time to be feeling miserable. Luckily, I was saved because a lady from the ward came and helped me with this first batch of tomatoes and Daniel helped with next batch a couple weeks later. We had about that many pears 2 more times so it was a long process that lasted into September. Daniel and I did the first batch and my mom and I didn't the second when they came. The third batch we did into all pear butter so it wasn't quit as long and involved.

 

Picking was fun-Daniel climbed the ladder and would drop them down to me. Once he got higher and higher my hands started stinging so I went and got a baseball mitt. It worked great. Kyla even went and got her mitt and was trying to catch a few.

 

 

My big helpers, aren't they cute. They actually did help and would haul all the pears to the basement and lay them out then bring us back the baskets so we could keep picking.

 

Of course the favorite part of helping was the messy part. We decided with so many pears, we couldn't just bottle them all, so we tried pear butter. It worked out pretty good.

 

We decided that moving the process outside would be a little bit better. The girls were able to be alot more involved also. I am glad to finally be back to canning it has been at least 5 years while we have been living in small, temporary housing that we haven't been able to put up much.

Playing Catch-Up

O.K. so actually a lot has been going on with us lately, but I have been a slacker with the blog thing. I am going to try eventually get things caught up on here. I guess the first thing to get everyone caught up on, is the news that I am expecting. We found out just a few weeks before we left for Utah and decided to tell everyone while we were out there. I am 11 weeks along and feeling seriously pregnant. I can't believe how little I can get done and still feel so exhausted. The due date is February 28 and everyone is excited. I still haven't been to the doctor, it will be nice to get that done and hear the heartbeat. Then I will actually know there is a baby in there making me so sick and not some alien growth. Check back soon for updates!

Grandma's last few days

We decided a fun Sunday evening would be going and watching the fireworks. We drove part way and then walked up. We were stopped in our tracks by this train. It was moving very fast and noisy so it didn't delay us for long.

 

We found an uncrowded little spot that was a great spot for watching and just as close as we would want to be. We were next to a fairly tall apartment building that the fireworks echoed off of so it was very loud. The firework show was amazing. One of the best I have ever seen. Over a half and hour with never just one in the air.

 

The next few days we were able to go to the village and the museum and let Grandma see a few new things before she left. I guess I didn't take any pictures because I can't find any of them.

 

Look I found pictures! Here is the girls in front of the working steam tractor. They start it up once a year and we caught it this year!

 

Grandma and girls with the lambs>

 

Nora getting a special chance to run the printing press.

 

Kyla concentrating very hard on following instructions exactly to make a perfect copy. It was a fun day full of new things!

Cranbrook Bat Festival

Grandma's last Saturday here we were able to attend the Cranbrook Bat Festival. This was a fun, special event for us to attend. I am sorry to say that without having the great excuse of having Grandma with us we probably not have made it there. We decided that Myka needed a nap so we didn't get up there till the evening. We got to go to a neat presentation on bats. At the end she brought out a live fruit bat, it was huge and really cool to see up close.

 

After the presentation we checked out the cool museum exhibit in the basement. The girls loved it. It was a very well done exhibit. This is Myka trying on her bat ears.

 

Myka and Kyla practicing hanging in a bat cave. We learned a lot of great stuff about bats.

 

More hanging in the bat cave. At the back of the exhibit they had wall cages full of fruit bats. It was fun to watch them fly around, eat, and land. Once the museum closed we headed down to the field where they were having a BBQ and fun music from Musical Mark. The veggie and turkey burgers were lacking much in flavor but other than that we had a great time. Then it got dark and the real fun started. They rose a 30 feet net and turned on a radio transmitter that actually picked up and amplified the chirps of the bats. It was so fun to watch the bats fly overhead and be able to hear them use their echolocation. They ended up catching quite a few Big Brown Bats and we got to have an up close view of each of them. All in all it was a great night and the mosquitos weren't even that bad; we even got a glimpse of the fireworks on the way home.