Wednesday, June 11, 2014

Summer!

Dear Friends!
In less than a week we will be setting out on a "huge" road trip through ID, UT, AZ, CA, and OR before we move out to West Virginia (for Graduate school!). So amidst all the route planning and budgeting we are also trying to get everything ready to move because we will have an interrupted 9 days after the trip and before we move.  Whew!  It's a challenge but I'm up for it!
In an effort to educate my son, I printed and colored numbers to place on the front steps of the porch so that every time we go up or down we can go through the numbers.  He digs it cause we always end with a big "yay!" so that has been a success.
Mikey loves to spend time outside, which is why I have so many pictures of him on his little adventures.  He is such an observant little booger and quickly learned the word "bug" as it pertained to literally every little thing.  Lint on the floor, "bug".  Mommy's gray hairs, "bug".  The string on the bottom of your pants, "bug".  Fortunately he has learned the difference between bugs that move (in which case, he runs away) versus "bugs" that don't (in which case he stomps on it and tells you to throw it away).  dance, ya know, cause they rhyme and all.  Well now I call them "anties" but he still dances, so I got a picture. When he first saw ants he said, "what's this" (uts dis) and I said "ants" and he proceeded to dance, ya know cause "ants" rhymes with "dance".  So I got a picture of the process.
Montana has had a record-breaking snowfall this last winter and we went 7 months before getting a 70 degree day again so naturally what follows the worst winter is the best spring!  We have all kinds of wildflowers and it is AWESOME!  I love spending time outside with Mikey so I can see the plants grow and blossom and change from day to day.


Along with the growing flowers we've had lots of natural tall grass, which means it's harder to see the snakes hiding.  I've talked with Mikey about staying out of the tall grass and away from the bushes and he often replies with "ssss  ssss" like a snake (yea, he's pretty smart) but proceeds anyway to where I don't want him to go.  After all, to him at this point snakes aren't that scary because he's only ever seen them in his friendly illustrated picture books.  Well today we actually saw a snake slither into a bush and away into the tall grass (I played it cool and screamed "SNAKE!" and waited for my father-in-law to come).  It was a bull snake but acted just like a rattle snake (defense mechanism...wikipedia is right on when it comes to this part) and Mikey and I watched as Papa (a.k.a. snake wrangler) came to our rescue and explored the snakes defenses.  Mikey talked about the snake with a concerned tone for a while after this happened so I believe he'll think twice before venturing into the tall grass or crouching by the bushes saying "sss sss".

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