She Loves Bugs!

She loves catching bugs, looking at bugs, holding bugs... just love 'em!

We had heard about an awesome place near Bakersfield called The Insect Lore. One day when Matt was home early for work, we headed up there. We had so much fun! There were interesting bugs to look at and we got to learn about their various stages of life. We were even able to bring home 2 for the price of 1 lady bugs! Zoe had so much for with them until we released the remaining into our yard. Good times.

Given the opportunity, she'll catch most any bug to hold or enjoy. Usually they don't make very good pets, though! Here she is pictured with a butterfly she caught while in ND. (I actually snuck when she was asleep & let it out, I felt bad for it!)

Grandparents- a blessing

Just wanted to say it's been sweet seeing my girls & their girls grand parents. I'm glad they get to experience them!!

It is wonderful to see each of them love each other.

Happy summer 2010!

This Used to be my Playground

One morning, Zoe & I took a trip to my old elementary school. She is starting Kindergarten in the fall, so I wanted to show her where I went to Kindergarten.

She didn't want to play by herself so for the first time in a long time I climbed in tunnels, went down slides, walked across death-defying bridges, it was good. We picnicked at the top of the playset.

We spent some time looking at the clouds. I saw a mouse, she saw an aligator. What do you see?

When I saw certain pieces of playground equippment, I literally had flashbacks to my elementary school days. One of the things I vividly remembered was that bar in the picture above. I remember us girls would put one knee over and the other leg straight and twirl around and around. I remember envying the girls would could do it so well. SO random!!

It was such a sweet time to take Zoe to my old playground & I think she liked it too.

Water Jousting

Coming up in the 2012 Summer Olympics, Water Jousting. I bet you didn't know this fabulous sport existed.

First, you mount a water noodle.

Then, you swim towards your enemy.

Sound hard? It is. Watch for it in 2012.

She's not ready for water jousting.......................

GREEN

I love coming back to North Dakota in the summertime! Living next to a desert & in a very dry climate, it's easy when you're visiting somewhere else to appreciate how lush, fresh and green everything is! I mean, it's not a rainforest, but it's beautiful. I kind of like visiting a place and getting smacked in my face by it's beauty. It's good stuff & I'm trying to savoring it all. MMM- that's a good view.

Good German-Russian Food

The people of North Dakota have the usual mix of immigrants, and a unique people group- The Germans from Russia. It's a group of Germans who in 1709, moved to Russian to avoid persecution. Then a few hundred years later, they moved to America. I'm one of their decendants. And fortunately for me, they were good cooks & North Dakotans keep their food going!

My mom is an awesome (mostly self-taught) cook. One of the best things she cooks is her German Russian food. Below she made kneophla (dumpling) & kraut (sour kraut). It's a basic dish-- dumplings, sour kraut, sauted onion, and bread crumbs... but it's comfort food and super delicious.

There's a few German-Russian restaurants here in Bismarck, but one of the most well known is Kroll's Dinner. Good news, on Mondays, they offer Kraut Buttons (I'm guessing sour kraut & cheese buttons)!

I had dinner here and had cabbage rolls. Quite good and tasty!

ND Wonders

We left on Monday afternoon from our home to start our journey towards North Dakota. We took a bus, stayed in a hotel, took a shuttle, took an airplane, hitched a ride 2 1/2 hour ride to Grandma & Grandpas & finally arrived a little over 24 hours later. (While on the airplane, I was peed on, drooled on, snotted on and apple juiced on, but how is that different than any other day? :) )

We've already been having adventures since we've been here. Before leaving Fargo, I got some Caribou Coffee. This is always a highlight since I only get my favorite coffee once/ year! One medium white mint condition please! On the way to Bismarck, we saw North Dakota's beautiful wide open skies and drove briefly through a thunderstorm with bolts of lightning.

Grandpa Steve took Zoe to run some errands and get an ice cream cone, then came home to grill us some buffalo burgers- MM. My mom made (defrosted some previously cooked) delicious homecooked soup. Can't beat that. Sophia found the kitty, Rosie, particularly awesome. She even crawled underneath the chair to swim the toy at her and was VERY proud of herself. Zoe caught a butterfly with her own hands and some patience and was so incredibly happy. The butterfly's name? Zoe. :) We're having a sweet time & it's only been a day!

My Girls Win a Grammy

Before we came on our summer trip to ND, Grammy came out for a visit. We had a nice laid back time together. We picked her up in Los Angeles and hung out a little bit in Hollywood including lunch at Roscoes Chicken and Waffles- MM!

When we came back home, we kicked back into our mostly normal life schedule. Grammy got lots of time with the girls playing games and pretending. We enjoyed lots of good food together (kabobs, grilled chicken, ribs, enchilada casserole... and more), Matt, Grammy & Zoe went to Shrek, we enjoyed a concert, played on the slip n slide, ate watermelon and many other fun things like that.



One morning, I decided that since Grammy doesn't get to be around for most of our birthdays, that we'd have a little birthday party for everyone that night. Most of us set the objective of creating some sort of birthday gift for each other for that night. Zoe made personalized place mats, grammy made different crafts for everyone and I made a strawberry peach pie (I was pleased it turned out SO good). We sang happy birthday and shouted everyone's name in the middle. Fun times.

Thanks for coming Grammy!!