Spring has Sprung (at least that is what all the flowering trees are telling me)

We took advantage of a nice spring Presidents' Day to have some quality family time.  We walked to Dunn Bros. for breakfast, paid a visit to the gym and Houston Garden Center, and did some yard work.  Sean, at five years old, is becoming much more useful!  Concerned readers must trust me that we did not strain his healing collar bone too much...

Children's Museum for Sid the Science Kid

Last weekend we paid a visit to the Children's Museum to see Sid the Science Kid.  Sean asked to go after seeing an announcement on TV.  Sean had a great time, however the place was overcrowded due to the weather and the fact that Sid was there.  We watched a Sid show, the first I had ever seen - I was not impressed!  I may be a dufus, but not as much of a dufus as the father portrayed on the show.  Sean's "seeing" of the costumed Sid was limited to seeing the top of his purple hair down a long hallway while I held him (Sean) up.  The important part?  Sean had a great time!

Surfing Safari

Walking back to museum after lunch at Cafe Express

Sean's New Bike

Sean finally picked up some skills at riding his bicycle, but he was starting to look a little bit like Kermit the Frog as it had gotten too small.  We bought a new, correctly fitting, bike today and it was amazing how much larger it was.  He is still on training wheels, it will probably be a few months before we try without them.

Apparently Luck Bear gets the hand-me-down bike

Rainforest Pyramid Trip

We made a trip to the refurbished Rainforest Pyramid at Moody Gardens in Galveston.  Interesting, but not worth the price of admission I don't think, except maybe for Sean who loved it.

You are not really taking my picture in this thing, are you?

Joe auditioning for the part of the cowardly lion

Checking out the birds down below

In the butterfly cage

2 Weeks Before Christmas

Catching up...

Two weeks before Christmas Santa, courtesy of the Friendswood VFD, came to check on whether the neighborhood kids were being naughty or nice...

Sean and David Play with Spreadsheets and Movies

And now we are tired.  More later.

Name	Type	Class	Food	Age	Color
billy	bee	insect	Herbivore	5	Yellow
Buffy	Buffalo	Mammal	Herbivore	10	Brown
cindy	rat	Mammal	Omnivore	2	Grey
Crabby	Crab	Mollusk	Omnivore	6	Red
dino	brachiosaurus	dinosaur	Herbivore	12	Green
Froggy Head	Frog	Amphibian	Carnivore	3	Green
Inny	Elephant	Mammal	Herbivore	2	White
Kelso	Horse	Mammal	Herbivore	1	Brown
Lucky	Bear	Mammal	Carnivore	5	Brown
pengy	penguin	bird	Carnivore	2	Black
Pudgy	Chameleon	Reptile	Carnivore	4	Blue
rachel	dolphin	Mammal	Carnivore	2	Grey
stege	stegosaurus	dinosaur	Herbivore	18	Green
Swirly	Snail	Mollusk	Heribvore	1	Pink
tim	turtle	Reptile	Omnivore	7	Green
	Lizard	Reptile	Omnivore	11	Green

San Francisco Marathon Vacation 1

We headed to San Francisco last weekend to vacation and for Barbara to run the Nike Women's Marathon.  We stayed downtown in a suite with Grandpa and Nana.  Most of our activity Friday, Saturday, and Sunday was centered around the marathon.  We had some time for sightseeing on Saturday.  Sunday Barbara ran the marathon finished in good spirits with her summer training partner.  Picasa Link

Smile after 15 miles

Approaching the Finish

Done!

Where is the finish line?

Nick's 40th Birthday

Nick, the baby of the Boyce family, turned 40 this weekend.  Nick and family are also celebrating their new house!  They are building a house a little further out in northwest Houston.  They really did some work on their current house and it has sold, too.  Soon they will be renting their current house until the new one is ready to move into.

Sunday we went to the Ashland family picnic and Moody Gardens in Galveston.  It was our first time to the water park there in a couple of years.  They now have a small wave pool and a lazy river.  Afterwards we drove around Galveston and looked at ships and oil rigs.  The Ocean Saratoga was one of the oil rigs being worked on.  Sean's Dziadziu loves Saratoga, the race track, so we took a picture.  The Ocean Saratoga was the "other" leaking oil rig in the Gulf during the Deepwater Horizon spill last year - but not nearly as severe.

Elissa helps Nick turn 40

Dave, Tyler, and Haley watch the Longhorns beat Iowa State

Elissa and Sean holding up Nick's new fence

Grandpa and Dylan chilling

For Dziadziu - a picture of the oil rig Ocean Saratoga

5 Little Butterflies Sitting in a Cage...

Here are pictures of the butterflies we hatched.  They are very frisky and Barley loves them.  She loves them so much that they spend most of their time suspended from the ceiling fan in the office - apparently the only place in the house that Barley can't get to.  Sean's revelations of the week: national catfish day is on June 25th and pteradons like canned tuna.  I think he made the latter revelation up, the former I verified on Wikipedia (which the Russians characters in Neal Stephenson's new tome call "Vikipedya." which I find hilarious.)

Seabrook Wildlife

Tonight Barbara and friend ran the Kemah bridge, but this time Sean and I hung out under the bridge on the Seabrook side.  It was teeming with wildlife: blue herons, cats behind the seafood place, great white herons, brown pelicans, and 4-year old humans. (Joe can correct my identifications if I'm wrong!)

Team in Training Marathon Coming Up!

In a few weeks Barbara will be running the Nike's Women's Marathon in San Fransisco.  Thank you to all who have donated to the cause they are raising money for - the Lukemia and Lymphoma Society.


http://pages.teamintraining.org/txg/nikesf11/bpastalani

Balancing Experiments

During a long trip to Nana's Park Sean spent the majority of time balancing the see-saws with rocks (which were easy to find since grass does not grow in Kerrville anymore!)  Sean appear to have inherited sticking his tongue out while concentrating from either Uncle Joe or Uncle Michael Jordon - we are not sure which.

Kerrville Weekend

We spent a 3-day weekend in Kerrville, which featured near triple digit temperatures and 14% humidity.  On Sunday morning Barbara did her long run (21 miles) in preparation for her marathon in San Fran next month.  Sean got to go to "Nana's Playground" 3 or 4 times, not to mention other area playgrounds.  On Monday Nana and Grandpa took Sean to the farm at LBJ Ranch and he got to "harvest" and egg from a chicken nest.  Our butterfly colony spent the weekend at Uncle Joe's, where he tried to train them with little success.  They seemed to mainly be interested in making new butterflies.

Sean sleeping in Kerrville - something that does not happen very often!

Walking with Mom after her run

Most times there is at least some water running over the dam

Nana and Sean calling the ducks

Sean's apostles

Grandpa reading to Sean. Not sure why he is sitting on Lucky Bear.

Butterfly and Reading Update

This is really an update on the butterflies, however when I went to get Sean to watch the chrysalis transfer he was in bed looking at a book on insects.  Kind of unexpected, 9 times out of 10 he is reading books on dinosaurs.  Read? Kind of.  He is doing really well with his reading level books and can recognize much larger words out of context, but only if they are the names of dinosaurs or states!

He loves the PBS Kids website, especially Dinosaur Train (which, I must admit, is excellent.)  He know the proper pronunciation of most common dinosaur names and is always correcting me.

The bed time story we are reading to him this week is really physics.  It is an iPad app called Bobo Light.  It has lots of interactive items on each page that demonstrate how each aspect of the physics of light works.  It is fun, and we are learning some things, too (mainly me, there is not much that a former 2nd grade teacher does not know!)

Back to the butterflies - they have been in the chrysalis stage for several days now, so it was time to transfer them from their original container into the habitat.  What is cool is that when disturbed they wiggle back and forth quite vigorously inside the chrysalis.