Happy Birthday Daniel

Daniel is now 6 years old. He is very excited to attend 1st grade, because he gets to go to school all day and he wants to be able to walk home with his friends. He is also looking forward to school all day so that he can eat lunch at school. He's excited now. I wonder what his tune will be in a couple of years.

He wanted an R2D2 cake this year.  I am burned out from doing a cut out cake, so this is what he got.  Being a boy, he didn't care too much.  He was just glad to have R2D2.

He finally received a Razor. He's been asking for that for quite some time.

He also got a remote controlled Hummer.

And an Iron Man car.  He's really into Iron Man.  I'm not quite sure from where since he's never seen Iron Man.  I guess friends.

Beads

Megan does the funniest things.  Yesterday we were sitting at the piano practicing.  Not very far in she says she needs to blow her nose.  I was a little irritated because I had already been at the piano for quite some time with Daniel just before, so I told Megan to just do her piano and we'd take care of the nose later.  Not long after that I hear a tinkling sound as is she dropped something.  I hadn't seen anything fall so when I asked her what it was, she shrugged her shoulders and said she didn't know (with a mischievous smile on her face).  To me it sounded like a bead that I had seen her play with earlier.  Because of the smile, I asked again what it was.  She sits for a minute, takes a breath, and blows the air out of her nose.  Out shoots a bead.  She had put a bead up each nostril. 

These are the beads:

These are her reactions after blowing the beads:

How can you be mad at this cute girl?

I'm trying to let her know (in a firm way) that putting things up ones nose is not a good idea.   I don't think it came across as being too important, since I was laughing along with her. 

Thank you Megan for always being able to make me smile or laugh when I am frustrated or angry.

It's free

Daniel also has his funny moments. The other day I was at the bank making a deposit. The bank always has suckers. Most of the time I let the kids have a sucker when I go to the bank. But this day it was so close to dinner that I told Daniel no when he asked if they could have a sucker. His reply to my no? "but they're free!"

It made me laugh because through the entire store previous to the bank, they had kept asking if they could have this or that or whatever it was and the answer to the why not, was because it cost money.

Probably a moment that you needed to be there to really grasp the humor in it, but it was cute to me.

It's about time!

Due to the recent economic recession, the government and many mortgage companies have been offering all kinds of money, restructured loans, and other uncommon solutions so that no companies have to sink because they were dumb.  Personally, I think the companies should have been left to sink or swim on their own, but that's for another day.

All these hand-outs have left many of us who were both judicious in the use of our buying power AND fortunate enough to avoid a catastrophic economic event (like serious medical issues, job loss, etc) wondering why we are not being rewarded or even complimented on the responsible discharge of our obligations.  Where's the justice?  Isn't America built to reward the hard worker?

Our mortgage owner, Chase Manhattan Bank, recently gave us a glimmer of hope that there is justice somewhere in this twisted world.  They sent us a letter offering (for a limited time only) a no-fee rate reduction on our loan.  No appraisal, no income verification.  Just reduce the interest rate by 7/8%.  I still count my lucky stars that I haven't suffered a job loss or other catastrophic economic event.  At the same time, I've had a bit of hope restored in the idea that hard work pays off.

The Bees

Last night we attended the Bees game.  Megan had not one ounce of interest through the entire game.  When I asked Daniel if he had fun, he told me "not really.  Because it was boring sitting."  It was a very long game.  We didn't get home until about 11:40. This was an exciting moment to Daniel because he's always wanting to stay up until mom and dad go to bed.

Daniel was finally able to beckon the mascot over.  It took him quite awhile, but he was so excited for that Bee. As you can tell from the pictures below, Megan was excited to go down to the bee and she was good to have her picture with him, but when it came time to actually take the picture, she didn't want anything to do with it.  That's our Megan.

Daniel was so excited to get the bee to sit with him for a few minutes.

The mascot was definitely the highlight of the night for Daniel.....next to the corn dog and fries that he got to eat.

The Grand Canyon- North Rim

This past weekend, we took a trip to the North Rim of The Grand Canyon.  WOW! What an amazing site.  The pictures don't quite do justice to the majesty of it.  The following pictures are the pictures taken from the Grand Canyon North Rim visitor center.

That same night we took a drive on one of the dirt roads not far from our campsite outside of the park.  This road had lots of lookouts according to the map, but they were quite a ways away and we were limited on daylight so we never made it to any of the actual lookouts.  But we did make it to the tower that we had heard about.  There were 151 stairs to the top of this tower.  The views were amazing and we happened to get up there in time for the sunset. On this trail we were also looking for a good place to shoot sometime over the weekend. 

The next day we took a drive to all the other lookouts along the north rim.  The lookouts included: Bright Angel Point Trail, Cape Royal Trail, Cliff Springs Trail, and Roosevelt Point Trail.

That afternoon we went back along the dirt road from the previous night to the area we found for shooting.  Daniel is the cause of this damaged milk bottle.

Later that night, we took a dirt road to the Marble Viewpoint not far from our campground outside the park.  We saw a number of animals that I've never seen before in the wild.  We saw lots of deer and lots of wild turkeys.  But we also saw a porcupine.  However, I must say that I think this is the largest bug that I've seen dead on my car before.  If you can't tell (I couldn't) it is a dragonfly.

Anyway....On to the views of Marble Point.

On our way back down we saw this deer just looking at us. 

The next day we went off roading along a trial that would take us to Point Sublime.  On this trail we saw two of the famous silver ghosts of the north rim, otherwise known as the Kaibab squirrel.

These two pictures are from a little overlook on the way to the point.

The rest of these pictures are at the point.

This last picture is of the kids making noise with their birds at the campsite.