Fun at the Fruita Fall Festival!

We just got home from 3+ hours at the carnival here in town. Nothing to write home about but Emma is still young enough to enjoy the rides they had.

We met up with one of her best friends, her friend's mom and Grandma so the girls could ride the rides. We had run into them last year but this year we made sure we would be there at the same time. Of course as the girls were riding, the adults were remembering part of last year when while waiting in line, this other little girl came running up to them and just joined them! She was a very affectionate thing and at one time had all three of them flat on the ground with one of her hugs! Very humorous time.

This year we made it through a couple hours and on the last ride before Emma's friend left, they met another little girl. I leaned over to her friend's mom and grandma and commented that she reminded me of the girl from last year. Dave came back with a drink and I made the same comment to him and he took one look at her and said it was the same girl! Seemed so strange that with so many people we would run into her again! I only saw one other family I recognized all evening.

We did the wrist band for Emma and she went on everything but one ride that she was probably too small for. If she was tall enough we would have had to buy tickets for me or Dave since it went upside down and we are not sure how that would have turned out. She seemed to want to go though! She loved the coaster (which she would not go on last year) and the swings. Says those were her two favorite!

Pics coming tomorrow (I hope!)

Halloween costume part 1...

I finally finished the first part of her costume. For some reason I have not felt like sewing the last week or so. I need to go get more eyelet trim today since when I bought the trim in the photos below, there was not enough for the dress. I am going to see if Joann's has more in, if not try to match to something else there or see what Hobby Lobby has. It is not a coupon week at HL so I am not sure what I will do if they have it. Maybe wait for next week. Anyways, had one last step to do on the bonnet and that was finish sewing the top of the brim. Directions say to hand stitch but after my mentor said she would not handstitch but just do a finishing stitch, I figured that was the way to go. Was dreading hand stitching all that!

The dress is all cut out. I am hoping once I get going, I will be in the mood to sew so that it goes fast. I need the trim a few steps in so I figured I would wait until I had it in my hand to really start.

Eye opening experience with Emma's violin lessons...

Last week was a rough week for practices. Lots going on here and I have found if we do not do her practice first thing in the morning...well, it just does not get done. So she had no practice last week until the morning of her lesson. I decided to give her the final line for Long, Long Ago because I knew she could memorize it and she played through the song once before we left.

This was her second to last lesson (teacher is moving) and she passed off on Long, Long Ago like I figured. Being that there is only one week left, I figured that the teacher would just work on previous songs and give us some tips to polishing. Nope, she wanted to move onto Allegro. She played through it once for Emma and then wrote the fingers on the music. There are 4 lines but 1,2 and 4 are all the same so I felt a little better. She gave us both lines and Emma will have it memorized by next week.

Before I go into what happened next, she is learning with the Suzuki method. It allows really young children to learn and one of the most important parts of the method is the audio CD that the student is supposed to listen to at least 1x a week. We have dropped the ball on that but lately have been listening a lot. The idea is that they will pick the flow of the music up from having listened to it so much.

So, back to the lesson. Her teacher put the music up on the stand and had Emma play through it once. She does this so Emma can play once but also to check that she put the correct fingers in the correct places (instead of reading notes Emma reads either E, E1, E2, E3, A, A1, A2, A3, and D1 - E, A and D strings, open or finger 1, 2, or 3). So Emma starts playing and to me it sounded really close to how it should. Most of the other songs she gets the notes down but not how the song should REALLY sound. But, then I thought what do I know, music and me do not mix.

Her teacher picked up her violin and had Emma play again and told her to ignore what she (the teacher) was doing. Emma stumbles through it again, but her teacher played along but not exactly the same. When they were done I looked at the teacher and she explained that normally she has Emma follow what she was doing, but since Emma had it down so well, she (the teacher) played melody to Emma. She was really amazed to be able to do that. It is one of Emma's favorites to hum a long with, and I am sure that helped a lot!

As a going away gift to her students, she is taking video of them during the last two lessons and putting it on a DVD. I mentioned I wanted to get a video next week of the two of them playing together like they did during that lesson.

Of course, we need to get our act together this week. We aim for 5 practices (including her lesson) so even though we skipped today I am not too worried. Need to just do it before we start anything else.

Weekly Review Sept 13-19th 2009

Language Arts:

-Two lessons in Right Track Reading (RTR). Learned sight words "to" and "do." Added sounds ck and k.

-Visited the Library once.

-Recorded 3 books read as well as 4 chapters in Little House on the Prairie.

-Listened to a Mrs Piggle Wiggle audio book twice (just over 2 hours).

-Working to see where she is in her BOB books. Might be time to get the next set. She read through books 1-6 this week out of 12. I think she has a couple more she can do before we get to sounds we have not learned yet.



Math:

-Verbal: Counting backwards from 10. Worked on 0 and 1 addition facts.

-Singapore: Finished unit 13 - number bonds. 10 pages in text book, 9 pages in activity book.



Music:

-Lesson on Monday. Her teacher added the third line of Long, Long Ago and worked on the rhythm of first 4 notes of May Song. Violin will be interesting because she has two lessons left with this teacher (she is moving) and we have not found a new one yet. She will have third line memorized by Monday.



Science:

-Memorized all three versus to "Solar System in Motion"

-Magic School Bus video Creepy, Crawly Fun!

-Found and pointed out bugs on hike. Also saw blue heron, snake, dragon flies and lizards.



History:

-Little House on the Prairie



Art:

-Coloring

-Learned to crochet a chain



PE:

-Lots of bike riding!

-Hike



Extra:

-Co-op: Read books, sang songs, drew life size of themselves.

Glenwood Caverns

We ended up at Glenwood Caverns last weekend. With the weather looking like it might pour we started there and that took a good part of the day. More info about it here: http://glenwoodcaverns.com/

We have driven by it each time we have driven on I70 to and from Denver but have never stopped until Sat. Emma was thrilled and excited about the tram, and then about the cave, and the Canyon Flyer and about panning for fossils and arrowheads.

Loving the tram ride to the top



Looking out of the tram at Glenwood Springs



Any clue where she gets this from? I am stumped!

The cave tour was neat! It was 70 mins long and they save the best for last (as it usually is). The pictures posted below are all from the last bit of the tour.

Canyon Flyer (according to the website): Hop on the Canyon Flyer - the first alpine coaster in the United States! - with individual cars on tracks that race 3,400 feet through the trees and down the mountainside, high above Glenwood Springs. Ride alone or with a friend. You control your speed, which gives you a unique hands-on experience. Your ride is exciting and varied, with jumps and waves built into the track to add to the thrill. Unlike an alpine slide, the Canyon Flyer makes hairpin turns and can operate year-round due to its track system. At the end of the ride, you're pulled 1,000 feet up the track, through a forest dotted with wild flowers, to return to where your ride began.

Emma LOVED this (there is hope yet that she will be a roller coaster person)! I went twice and she and Dave went three times and I am sure she would have gone more if we had more tickets.

Looking up as I got pulled back to the top

Ready for her third and final trip!

Arms up ready to roll!

Away they go!

Huge smile coming in at the end! (Actually this was her first trip - just realized she and Dave still had sweatshirts on!)

It was so fun Mom!

That is what Emma told me as we were just out on our walk. Well I was running to keep up with her as she rode her bike for hte first time in the neighborhood! The plan was to go back to a parking lot at a park like yesterday but I figured she was ready for the neighborhood streets.

We were at the park yesterday for the first time in a while with her bike. When she had last been on it, she was almost there. Just a little fearful of falling therefore she was not willing to really pedal and because she did not pedal enough she would lose her balance which verfied her fear.

Yesterday my plan was to get her going and let her go, not run after her. After a few attempts of me trying to hold on while she pedaled and then her panicing, I told her I was going to go sit down for a while. I was curious to see what she would do. She tried many times to get going but could not balance long enough so I cued her into having one pedal at the top and pushing off with that foot. Many, many attempts later, she was pushing off by herself! By the end of the 2 hours there she was able to do a lap around the parking lot. This happened after I stopped taking video but she did great in the clip below!

Today she was very unsure about biking in the street and it makes me nervous as well since she is small and who knows if she can be seen by a backing car but I will be with her for a while yet. Might look into a flag for her bike too.

Once Emma got going today, there was very little stopping her. Unless she wanted to or she was about to run into a mailbox. Her speed is picking up she was bragging about how fast she can go now. Time to start working on bike safety and rules I think. I do not think it will be long before she can go on bike trails with me and Dave (paved ones at least). We might even try it with some geocaching thrown in this weekend. She has also been able to get going a lot quicker today. Usually only takes her a couple attempts compared to many yesterday. She is proud of that and can not wait until Dave gets home so she can show Daddy! (Another reason to get her riding in the neighborhood, Daddy can see quicker!)

Pics from today:

And away she goes!

sewing woes....

I am learning a lot about my sewing machine and am not totally pissed off about it. It is probably because it is not the day before Halloween (or what ever day she might need her costume for the first time). The first issue was a few days ago when the part that holds the needle flew off. Turns out Dave would have had that issue solved within minutes, but he was already asleep and he was gone before I got up so he had no issue I needed help. I solved it myselg with some help from Google. Felt accomplished with that!

Another issue pops up tonight when the machine decides it will only sew backwards... with and without me pushing the reverse button. Not much help for me. Some searching on Google and it is hopefully just that the machine needs to be oiled. I feel this is strongly a possibility because I have never oiled it since owning it. That being said, even though I have owned it for about 7 years, it was just this year that I really did anything with it, so I guess it was time. The good thing about this, is that I now know how to oil it. It has been oiled and put back together. Test fabric in... one to make sure there is not any excess oil, two to make sure all is fixed.... Press down on foot petal and.... fabric goes.... backwards still!!! ***bangs head on wall*** Back to google....

The part that really frustrates me is I have 2 steps left for sewing the first piece of her costume and it would have been done an hour or two ago.... Oh well.

ETA: I think we got it fixed... somehow. Took the entire front cover off and looked around. have no idea what that did, but it might have jarred something loose. Now it works on scraps so will get back to my project soon.

Weekly review Sept 6-12th 2009

Recap of this last week: (Need to play around with how I will record this because I am realizing this is not as smooth as I thought)

Language Arts:
-Three lessons in Right Track Reading (RTR). Learned sight word "the" previewed "to" and "do" which will be in next lesson. Added sounds h,v,sh,u,and b.
-Visited the Library twice. Once to check out books. Once for story time.
-Recorded 6 books read (started log mid way through week) as well as 6 chapters in Little House on the Prairie (again not logged until mid week).
-Listened to an Amelia Bedilia audio book twice (just over an hour each time).
-Emma read 3 of her BOB books to the neighbor while they were over for a BBQ. (not included in reading log)

Math:
-Lots of verbal stuff - for example: What temperature is it? (as we are in the car) and continuing as it drops from 103 down to the correct temp of 88.
-Once her curriculum came (Singapore Earlybird Kindergarten B) she did 25 pages (lesson 11.1 through 12.3) in her textbook and 15 pages in her activity book. We are still waiting on her review book (extra that she does each time she finishes a unit but it is back ordered).

Music:
-Lesson on Monday. Her teacher added the second line of Long, Long Ago and worked on the rhythm of first 4 notes of May Song.
-Practiced 3 days, memorized second line of Long Long Ago.
-Worked with Daddy on the keyboard. Learning the scale from C to A and where the notes on the keyboard were.

Science:
-Played with new telescope. Observed Jupiter and it moons and another night noted how the moons had changed. Watched the space station move across the sky.
-70 minute cave tour. Learned about stalagmites and stalagtites.
-"Panned" for fossils and arrowheads. We still need to sit down and sort and see what she got.

History:
-Little House on the Prairie book.
-Read and colored two pages in "Life of Buddha" with Daddy.

Art:
-Coloring
-Art at Library
-Latch hook
-Finger knitting
-Started life size Emma project

PE:
-Nothing structured this week.

Random

I just occured to me that Emma has no size 5 jeans. It became an issue today because where we are going for the day will be on the cool side. All her 4's are too short (they fit last winter so I never bought 5's) and her 6's that she got for Cmas last year are still too long. So my sewing machine was put to use quickly.

Speaking of which, a hex wrench was the solution and I drove around yesterday trying to find the right size in a set that would not put me back too much money. I plan to remove it from the set and keep it with my sewing machine. So I did not want to pay more that $5 for a set. Walmart to the rescue. Two sets (different standards) for $1. So my machine runs smoothly again and I am proud of myself that I worked through it, even though I relaized that if Dave had been awake he would have solved it within seconds. Oh well.

Emma's week review will be coming sometime this weekend. Rough form is typed out, just have not had time to write it here.

Today we are off to Glenwood Springs. That area is just amazing to drive through and we are going to take a tram up to the top where there is an adventure park (way to trap you and make money) as well as the caverns (which is why we are going up). After that, a short drive away, is a hike to Hanging Lake which is supposed to be amazing. Will get pics of course.

Pretty uneventful day...

I knew we were not going to get much done today. I am not getting up early enough. Still have just shy of a week's meds (will be 30 days by the time I am done) from a case of shingles that somehow I came down with a few weeks ago. Supposed to help not make the pain last for months or years but it sure messes me up. At least the 2 hour daily naps I was taking the first week are over!

Anywas, late start to the morning. I try to still get Emma to story time at the library on a certain Thursday. Her friend's Grandma does it and I figure she can go through this year at least. I might still take her after but she will be done participating unless enough kids do not show up. Connie does a storytime that incorporates poems/songs with objects she has in a "jacket" with many many pockets. She is known by story time kids as the Pocket Lady. They sign up before it starts for a chance to "pick her pocket" and then they match the object up with one of the poems/songs which are printed with a picture to match the objects. Afterwards a craft and small snack. Most of the kids are a good year younger but she still enjoys it. I figure if she was in afternoon K at the school she would still be free to come.

After story time, home quickly to cut my fabric for the gathering in the afternoon. Not going to post what I am doing yet. Only that it is Emma's Halloween costume. Depending on how the evening goes, I might be done with part of it tonight or tomorrow night. Of course it is the smaller piece, and I have already seen someone struggle (I mean make lol) through it so I have a slight advantage knowing her hang ups. I had someone walk me through button holes (which were in step 1 and then I walked through the rest of this piece so I made sure I understood the directions. Did not get much accomplished but I feel I learned a lot.

We learned today that Emma has been "accepted" in a local co-op here that will meet Mondays. I am not 100% sure what they will be doing but it will be good for her to be around other kids (and she knows most of them) in a class like setting as well as taking directions from someone else than me. She is excited and looking forward to it! They met last year and the younger kids classed kind of evolved from the siblings of the older kids who were in the classes.

Ended the day with a few chapters in Little House on the Prairie. I am realizing that reading outloud for an hour at a time is starting to get easier!

Well, back to the sewing machine. What happens in the next hour or so will pretty much determine whether I have anything to show soon. There is something coming up that is making me a little nervous but it is only fabric so how bad can I mess up?

ETA: Just after posting, I managed to break my sewing machine so it is off to find someone who can talk me through fixing it, or can fix it for me. Hit a pin and the part that holds the needle flew off. I think I found all the pieces, however, I can not figure out how to make the piece that fell off stay on the post... therefore I must be missing something. Oh well.

Math today

We finally had a day where we did not fly through a complete unit of math. A lot of it was hands on as well as a new concept. She is working on numbers above ten as well as prepping for addition and subtraction. They are having her group items in groups of 10s and 1s. I did a lot more than the book called for in prep for one of the pages. Some pics from today:

She had 6 baggies full of Legos. Each baggie had 10 of 1 color, a random number of another. She had to seperate the 10 into a pile on her left and the other color in a pile on the right. Then she had to glue #'s into this "(empty box) and (empty box) makes (empty box)."







Prep working getting ready to move into placing 1 in the 10's and a certain number in the 1's.






Tomorrow is story time at the library and in the afternoon a playdate with lots of kids. Mom's are getting together 1x a month to work on crafts. I am going to attempt to get started on her Halloween costume. That is if I can get the pieces cut out tonight. Fabric is washed and in the dryer.

Back in the saddle again!

I hope to make this work this time. I realize I should utilize this blog as a way of tracking what we are doing with homeschooling so I have a record. I will have a record of our hours but not of what we accomplish when.

Emma is in K this year. We are technically enrolled with the school district here. The law for Colorado states that I must notify the school district that we are homeschooling when she reaches 7, which she clearly has not. The school district here offers a neat program for homeschoolers. I am still not 100% sure about it. I mean it is a great, and I mean great program but as a homeschooler it is that much more invasion and a foot in the door for tighter laws.

With the program we are assigned a resource consultant (RC) who helps us come up with a learning plan for each semester. This is part of what the school district requires. We have to list a course description, learning resources, learner's actions and assesment of results. I actually struggled with this because the goal is to keep things vague, just provide enough information and from my schooling, I am used to going into detail. The RC had to tell me to stop thinking too much! We then have to create a schedule of when we will do what subject which was a killer for me to actually plot out language arts at 9:30, math at 10:30. Again this is just for the auditors. One thing I love about homeschooling is the freedom that if she is having a great day with Math, we can skip LA that day. Another weird quirk with the system is that they would not put Sunday down as a day to log hours, Saturday was even tough for them, and I realized the Monday, I could not click on the hours to log her school time. It is still set as a typical school mentality.

There are positive reasons I chose this program. I have access to professionals if I have questions, her learning supplies are reimbursable up to a certain amount and it expanded our resources with homeschooling families.

Her RC's background is speech which has been wonderful with Emma. She acknowledged the slight delay I have been hearing and gave me tips on how to work with her. Honestly, the thing that has worked the best is her learning to read. It has given us PLENTLY of time to really focus on certain sounds and the delay is almost gone with the sounds we have covered. She still has to focus hard but I am hearing the improvement in her daily speech when she does not think about it. Today we were working really hard on the word "three" since it came up in math quite a bit.

For her subjects, my main focus this year is a strong foundation in reading, writing and math. She also has music because of violin and PE because of hockey. Both of those will be expanded as well. Science and social studies as she shows interest in different subjects. She also has mixed media for art and community service.

Learning to read is going well. Not her favorite subject but she is getting more excited about it as she is realizing how many words she can really read. She made it through one library book, only two words she did not know but figured out on her own based on the pictures (down and up - just today learned short u so up is now covered). Her eyes lit up today right after she realized she could read the word "fish"!

We are finding a few books that she can read about 1/2 off in the easy readers. As for being read to, we are making our way through Little House on the Prairie since we finally finished Little House in the Big Woods.

Math, she cracks me up with. I have to save this until last because it is the one she wants to do. She wakes up asking to do math. She was really bummed out when she finished the first semester's book and I had not ordered the next book. So we introduced the hundred's chart and she has been having a blast with that. Her new books came today so I cut reading short and let her go at it.

Overall the math is very simple for her but I wanted to make sure we did not skip anything important. She slowed down for a bit in the first book when we hit writing 6-10. She knew the numbers but we never really worked with what they looked like. Even now, she has to stop and think but she has them.

Violin is one we do first thing in the morning because if we don't it does not get done. She is not thrilled about starting but once we get going she loves it. It is going to be an interesting journey the next few months. Her current teacher is moving and I have learned a lot in the past year about what to look for. We have met with one teacher that I really like but cost wise is more than double, but her expertise allows for it.

Things are going good. We officially started July 1st but between July and August, it was more of part time. Once the curriculum started coming, I got tired of the "Can we start yet? Can we start yet? Can we start yet?" that I just opened it up and started. Hour wise we are just ahead of schedule putting our start date as August first, but including hours from July, so it looks good. She is required to do 2 hours a day for a yearly total of 360 I believe. Math, LA and violin take care of that in a normal week!

My goal is to at least do a weekly update to keep track of what we have accomplished so I have a running history of this all. Might help even things out in the long run and see what really works and where I manage to drop the ball.

Getting ready to head to the post office...

Emma finished up her letter last night for Mairead Nesbitt, the fiddler of Celtic Woman. She became a little frustrated because it was so long but she wanted to say everything in it! So we broke it up over 3 days to write it. We are getting ready pack it up and take it to the post office. We have someone who will either hand deliver to Mairead on March 11 or will be able to get it to her through one of the other girls.

Here is what she wrote (dictated to me, I wrote it out and she copied it):

Dear Ms. Nesbitt, (my add in)

My name is Emma. I am five. I play the violin because of you playing. Why do you hold your bow above the frog? Why do you not use your pinky?

I like how fast you play and you are very good! I like to watch you move around when you play. I air fiddle and dance with you. I liked hearing your music in Tinkerbell! I want to see you fiddle on stage sometime.

Love, Emma

Her two questions are interesting because they go against what Emma is learning while learning how to play the violin. Will be interesting to see if she responds. I think it is a personal preference to be able to play the way she does.

Also adding the picture she drew and what she wrote beneath it (again dicatated and then copied).

Everyone is on the mend. Thankfully neither or Emma I came down with the flu and I think we are close to the end of the window where we could.

Emma has been busy the past couple days. She wanted to write a letter to the fiddler of Celtic Woman. She dictated to me what she wanted to say and then wanted to copy it in her own writing. The complaining started when she saw how long it was! So we are breaking it into 2-3 days. Will see how far she gets today. She also wanted t draw a picture of her playing the violin with the fiddler. The nice part is that I found someone who will deliver it for me. He has meet and greet tickets at a concert in March and just happens to be one of the people who started a forum for her fans. So he is trying to arrange for the fiddler to be at the meet and greet. So it might be a hand delivery!

Emma is still asking almost daily "When are we going to go see the fiddler on stage?!" Not sure if that is worse or if it would be if I actually told her in 2.5 months she would be.

She asked me the other day if she could have a dress like the fiddlers. She wants something for dress up and to pretend to be the fiddler when the concert is on. I looked around on ebay and the dresses are too poofy. So I am attempting something that I hope I can finish. I am going to try to sew her a dress that is similar. I am not promising anything, just an attempt. I talked with the fabric store today and they are going to help me through it. They are having me start with the top on a cheap fabric since I am not using a pattern.

Thanks to my sister, I have a good head start because we chatted back and forth today about the design and making it work. She is saving me hours of work! So we will see how it goes. Have something cut out and pinned together. Have not figured out the design for the bottom of the top because I am not 100% sure which dress we are attempting to recreate. I need to see what fabrics I can find.

I am really hoping that the fabric is what is going to make the top look right cause right now (and I have barely started) I am not thrilled, but it is a cheap white fabric. It is a corset top so once I do the back that might make a huge difference.

Start of a crummy weekend...

I guess it could be worse because right now only one of us is sick and according to the clinic it is the flu. And not one treatable with meds, so no preventable meds either. I finally found out at Emma's check up for her ear that the clinic we go to has an afterhours clinic 6 miles up the road at a huge fraction of the cost of the Urgent Care center just down the road. Guess where we will be going now?

Emma and I are doing ok but Dave is pretty miserable. Because the flu is hitting Colorado hard right now (according to the news), I made the decision to keep Emma home from hockey at least through tomorrow to make sure she (and me) are not on the way to being sick. Would hate to expose the other kids. The bad part of it all is she actually has two games tomorrow. One here at the rink and then the team was invited to Glenwood Springs (1.5 hours east on I-70) for a game.

We had planned on making a day of it. Go to the morning game, come home grab the dog and geocache our way to Glenwood Springs, but it is not going to happen.

Hopefully our luck will get better and one of these weekends will be good.

Music...

Emma LOVES music. It cracks me up when we are in the car and she is belting out Annie tunes (at times when the CD is not even in!). Dave just upgraded his MP3 player so I am using his old one to put music on for Emma. It is a tough choice what to load it up with since there is only 512mb of space...

So far on my computer to be chosen from - she keeps adding to daily:
- Her violin music she is supposed to be listening to so she knows that music. I am loading a few songs past where she is.
- Annie - will choose the songs she really gets into - Maybe, Hard Knock Life, Little Girls, Tomorrow, You're Never Fully Dressed Without a Smile (her favorite at this time)
-Celtic Woman - a few different cds
-Celtic Woman's Fiddler's solo album
-Jack Johnson (Curious George sound track)
-Johnny Cash
-Dixie Chicks
-Wizard of OZ
-Sugarland's All I Want to Do
-A bunch of old (taken from LPs) science/nature songs
-Les Miserables (she just asked for this as I was making this list)

So, I am thinking it is time to get more music from musicals for her to listen to. I am thankful that she is not into the norm for her age and older (at least not yet) like Hannah Montana, High School Musical, Jonas Brothers.... And I know Dave is VERY thankful for that!

We are working on the words for Do-Re-Mi right now.

Geocaching!

One of our Christmas gifts from my parents was a hand held GPS for hiking/geocaching. I have been wanting to try geocaching for a couple years at least now and now we can! It took almost 2 months but we finally went out yesterday. Had a list of about 10 caches we were going to look for since I really had no idea what to expect. I know they can be easy to find, others not so much.

Our first attempt took us into a neighborhood and we could not see an easy way to get to the area we needed to be without going through a yard so we gave up and filed that one to try again later. I think there was another street that we could have taken to get closer. We will learn more as we do more. It was only 5 miles from our house so easy to get back too.

The next one was just over a mile from our house. This time we made it to the spot but could not find the cache. I am guessing a micro or nano cache (think tiny) is not the best to start with. We also filed it for later since it is so close to home.

Our third attempt was just down the street from the second. They are both themed benches. You would think that the third time is a charm but we again gave up. Partly because we had no clue what we were looking for, partly because they are so close to home we can go back.

I was getting a little disappointed by this time. We headed west to our next stop and finally had luck!


There it is!





Uncovering it and seeing our first found geocache!




Emma was pretty excited to see the treasures inside!




She ended up taking a sticker and leaving a plastic spider!

So we were pretty excited to move on. I plugged in for the next geocache and it took us to an area we wanted to explore anyways. The goal was to stick with geocaches that did not need too much walking but that did not happen with this one. We were able to get within just shy of 1/2 mile of the cache... 1/2 as the bird flies lol. This area was created for trail bikers so the path to where the cache was had a lot of switchbacks. There was not that much elevation change once we got to the top and the top was where the switch backs started to give more trail length to the bikers. So we kept going and finally made it!


On the way there.




Is it here?




Here it is!




Emma is again thrilled with the what she finds! She took an egg of silly putty and left a baggie with the makings for a macaroni necklace!





Looking through the log book.



The view from near the cache. Looking down on the Colorado River.




We did not get back to the car until 5 pm but decided to go try one more that was supposed to be a quick one. It was at a park only a mile or so from where we were at the time. It was another nano cache so I had no idea what to expect.

Can you see it? Dave found this one, it looked like one of the screws. Very small magnetic case just big enough for 1/4 inch piece of paper rolled up.

updates....

First of all, there was not Friday update because we did nothing last week for school. By Thursday I was finally to the point I could walk around with out being exhausted. So we went to the mall to the safety fair. It was neat and she did pick some stuff up. It was aimed for elementary kids and I did notice some booths pretty much not talking to her or giving her a very watered down version compared to the school kids. Not sure if they thought she was younger than she is or if the fact she was not with a group, they felt they did not have to really talk with her. The fact I was still feeling yucky probably has a lot to do with my opinion too lol.

This week is going to be playing catch up. She was supposed to go back to the doctor today for a followup to make sure her ear has cleared up but it was canceled because they were behind. So they tried to reschedule for the same time tomorrow but I was able to get it moved up to right after her violin lesson which is a lot nicer to me than 3:15.

Meet Dorje

I had mentioned quite a few posts back that even though the two cats we were fostering had been adopted, that we were not petless...


Just over 4 weeks ago we adopted Dorje, a bull mastiff, golden retriver mix puppy. He was just over 6 weeks when we got him. Our best guess was at that time he was 15 lbs. He is close to 30 now. He is going to be a big dog (which we were aware of when we got him).


His name is Tibetian for thunderbolt. We are pronouncing it like Georgia but with a D


So far, everything is going VERY smoothly. He was house trained in a couple weeks. Even then, we only had a few accidents inside. When I say house trained, he was the one telling us when he needed to go out. I talked with the woman we will most likely use to help train him and asked what we should be working on until the first class (he needs one more round of shots). She said house training (done), crate training (he puts himself to sleep at night in his crate - done). Other stuff she mentioned is getting him on a feeding schedule. I need to do this instead of offering food whenever he wants.


Photos:


Shortly after we got him:


6.5 weeks old (He was a Thanksgiving baby - easy to remember!)





Emma and pup - 7.5 weeks old







Emma and pup - 10.5 weeks old (today)

What a start to the weekend...

Our weekend plans should have been as follows... Park day Friday afternoon, party for Emma's friend at Chuck E Cheese at 6 on Friday, hockey game Sat, hockey game Sun...

The way the weekend has gone so far... I woke up feeling very cruddy Friday morning, Emma came in saying she had a sore throat. So in a way I was thankful she was content to just lay around with me and watch TV. That thankfulness changed when she started running a fever. Called to let friends know we were not going to make park day and I asked if they could pick meds for Emma. They saved the day and allowed me not to have to run out.

Let Emma know park day, the party and at least one day of hockey was canceled and I could tell she did not feel well when she did not even really care.

This morning after her temp reaching 103-104 when the meds wore off Dave and I took her into Urgent Care. I debated waiting until Monday but I figur if she could be put on meds, the sooner the better. Turns out we were right, she has an ear infection.

Ok, Emma is asking to go watch videos on You Tube. She is asking for Charlie Bit My Finger. Funny if you have not seen it!