The Lake MacBride Raptor Center

On Saturday we got to have Wally's friend Joel for the afternoon. Since it was sunny, we took advantage of the weather and went to the MacBride Raptor Center. We had never been there though we go to the lake all the time. The Raptor Center cares for injured raptors and tries to re-introduce them to the wild. I don't think they had any that they were rehabilitating at the time, just several owls, hawks, eagles, etc that could never be returned to the wild.

Our favorite owl that made clicking sounds. Neither of us can remember what kind he is though.

A great horned owl.

Though Wally might be huge for a 4 year old, he is pretty puny compared to a bald eagle!

I don't remember what this little guy was, but he is incredibly cute!

We saw this lovely turkey vulture eating a rat. The boys didn't seem to want a dead rat for dinner though!?

The boys had a great time running the trails and climbing the rails. It was a beautiful day!

Who is who? The boys were dressed the same and are nearly the same height, so it was hard to tell who was who!

Bald eagles are just amazing!

This is a blurry video (not sure why that happened), but I loved hearing the eagle "talk."

We had a great time at the Raptor Center and will be out again soon. We've been enjoying watching bald eagles at: www.raptorresource.org/falcon_cams/

Totally random change of subject...

Wally bought this extension cord winder with his birthday money in August at the church rummage sale. Every-once-in-a-while he brings it out and comes up with some creative thing to do with it. The other day he used it to "launch" balls for the dogs - the balls went about 3 feet. Last night he built a Ferris wheel for his little stuffed animals. I suggested the pipe cleaner, but he did the rest. Engineer! Engineer! Engineer! (That is me cheering him on).

I like how Wally starts humming a tune for the Ferris wheel. I'll have to find one to take him on some day.

A "Quick" Trip to Wyoming

On the weekend of the 12th, Joel made a "quick" trip to Wyoming to attend his friend Todd's wedding. I say "quick" because he left Friday morning and returned Sunday night, but it was a 14+ hour drive both ways! The drive was worth it though as he got to spend a lot of time with Todd and a bunch of his high school buddies.Joel also got to spend time with Gramma Kathy and her friends/Joel's friends' moms.
Wally and I missed Daddy, but are glad he got to see his friends and "Daddy's Mommy."

Dancing - For anyone needing a smile today.

Wally has suddenly started dancing. He likes to turn on classical music in our bedroom and dance away. This morning, we got out the keyboard and he went to town dancing. I like how he changes his dancing based on the type of music.

Youth Strike 2011

I had the wonderful opportunity to chaperone a group of 6 wonderful youth on a trip to Des Moines for Youth Strike for Christ 2011.We listened to several bands. The kids even went to the front during the concerts, until they decided the bands were "lame."
We used our creativity to enjoy fellowship with other youth and to build a really tall tower with our lunch boxes.
We packaged meals for Meals from the Heartland. These rice and soy-based meals will be sent to Haiti and other areas of the world (including the USA) where people are starving. Between all the youth at the conference, over 46,000 meals were packaged.
All of the kids enjoyed themselves at the dance...they even got me to do the chicken dance!
Though I had to sleep through the Super Bowl, I had a great time. These kids are wonderful and make me feel much better about the future of our world!

The Most Wonderful Sound in the World!

Wally has been really enjoying playing computer games. It all started with Reader Rabbit from Papa Randy. He's now played games from the Library and recently he's played games on PBSkids.org. I was riding my bike this morning while Wally was playing games on PBSkids. I heard the most wonderful sound. I figured since I knew the camera was handy, I took my chance and got a video.

Mountains of Fun

Yesterday, our loop finally got plowed. They did a great job making piles of snow for the kids. Whether they had this in mind, or we just got lucky, I don't know. Right across from our driveway is a huge pile, probably twice my height easily. Notice Wally almost to the top standing upright.
But, that isn't all. If you go behind the huge pile, there are just more and more piles. And, the piles go all the way around the loop making a super-fun mountain range to hike around.

This is Wally's climbing tree. His head is probably about at the height of me and Joel's when we are standing on the ground. Wally said, "When you take pictures of me climbing the tree, I fall down." And, he promptly fell out of the tree for this picture. Luckily, he only had about 6 inches to fall, rather than 6 feet.

This is a view of our house from on top of the tallest pile. Actually, I don't think I was even all the way to the top.

Wally and I made a slide down the backside of the big pile. When he stops at the end of the video, he isn't even to the bottom of the pile yet.

I am so thankful I have a kid so I have an excuse to play on the snow piles. I had so much fun! I know some of the neighbor kids were out digging caves after Wally and I went inside. I'm heading to Des Moines this weekend with our youth group, and am rather bummed that I will miss playing in the snow. Since it isn't supposed to get above freezing anytime soon, I'll probably have plenty of chances to play in the snow.

February 2011 Blizzard

We survived what the news stations were calling the "monster storm" or the biggest storm in 10+ years (I've heard 50+ even). We were, as far as we can tell about 5-10 miles west of the center as it moved through the Midwest. It started snowing yesterday shortly after noon and didn't stop until sometime during the night. It also had consistent wind speeds of 30-40 mph. And, to Moose's dismay, there was even thunder! We all went out to start shoveling at about 7:30 this morning. When I stepped into the garage, this is what I saw... It is hard to say how much snow we actually got because it had drifted so much. We think it was 14-18 inches. But, since it had drifted it was hard and heavy. Joel worked on the sidewalks while I worked on half of the driveway. Wally had a great time playing in the snow and "hiding" in the holes that the wind made around the trees.

We helped one neighbor get unstuck from the road and back into their driveway and saw several other cars attempt to leave, only to get stuck feet into the road. I was hoping the snow plow would come by, as was Wally...

It is now 8:30 pm and no snowplow has made it into our loop. To kinda sum up the storm, we didn't get any mail today. Joel made it to work this afternoon as the buses started up after noon running on only the Saturday schedule. Joel said it was amazing seeing the amount of snow out there in piles around town. Last night I heard that the National Guard was called into Iowa City to help with snow removal and rescuing stranded cars. Here is one of the piles from only half of the driveway. It is about this tall all the way to the road.

There is a beautiful drift outside our bedroom window on the roof between our room and the porch. This picture was actually taken from outside underneath it.

Our house looked like it had been pelted with snow. I guess it was. Our bushes certainly weren't very happy. This was also the first time that I've seen any moisture under our porch and I think there are two inches of snow or so down there.

The dogs didn't know what to think of the snow. They seemed to think it was pretty fun, but then realized that it was pretty cold. They haven't been out much today.

After nap today, Wally and I went outside again. The neighbor kids had come over this morning to play in our snow piles. They made a cave that then collapsed (it was empty at the time). There was still a small tunnel for Wally though. As I dug it out a little so he could crawl through it, I found some of the original cave. Needless to say, it made my job easier. Between Joel and I, I think we put in roughly 4 hours of shovelling today, and still don't have the entire driveway cleared.

Wally has such a great imagination these days. This was his "Jewel cave" that was full of sparkling jewels. He also had to put snowballs into the cave as this is what Max from "Where the Wild Things Are" did in the movie (that he has been watching).

Joel and I hurt. There was so much heavy snow. We were jealous of our neighbors that have snow blowers, but appreciated the fact that we don't have a corner lot! Once the weather warms up, this snow should be a ton of fun!