Puppy Time

Sue has adjusted nicely to the family and vice versa. He is a great dog. Really smart, well behaved and super cuddly. The girls love him and want to play with him at all times, luckily Sue likes to be around people too.

A couple of sleepy kids :)

Spiderman/Mr Pickles

This happy girl has been waiting for months to get a hamster. I told her as soon as their new room (paint/furniture) was done, she could have one. The room is done, she has a hamster. That reminds me that I need to show you a picture of their room.
Everyone was very excited to get a new pet, a new cage, and new food. It was quite the scramble trying to put everything in place so that Spiderman/Mr Pickles could settle into his new home.

Here he is, climbing into his new home. He is called Spiderman because he can can climb walls just like Spiderman. Mr Pickles is just his nickname. You can call him either one.

Awwww, isn't he cute?

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Just to be clear on my last post about the visiting cat. I really do like cats. We've had many as pets, but the last 3 have all had bad luck and caused us so much heartache that I wasn't ready to get attached to another one. We'll keep letting him visit. The hamster (in my mind) is very close to a gopher, so I don't think I'll get too friendly with him. Sorry Mae, he's all yours.

Ballet & The Stock Show

Ok, so the ballet and The National Western Stock Show don't necessarily go hand in hand but they happen to be the two sets of pictures I had on my memory card so they are sharing a post. Tilly started a ballet/tap class a couple of weeks ago. She loves it. I do believe that this is the first dance class any of the girls have taken. The older two did gymnastics but never dance. It's pretty cute seeing all the little kids in their leotards and tap shoes.

Izzy wanted to go to the Rodeo again for her birthday. As you may remember she and a friend went last year too. This year her friend Morgan went with us. We did the usual walk around the stock show grounds and then Tilly and I went home while Chance, Izzy, Morgan and Josie went to the rodeo.
Izzy was intrigued by the sheep, while Morgan (who had never been to the stock show) couldn't get over the fact that there was so much poop everywhere.

"It's the dust and the mud...

We frequently go to the National Western Stock show as a family outing as seen here and here. But this year was a little different. Isabel wanted to see the Rodeo so we said that could be part of a present for her birthday. We were planning on going down to the NWSS Friday after school, hanging out for a while looking at stuff and then Chance would take Izzy and her friend Kathryn to the Rodeo and Josie, Tilly and I would head home. Well...Chance got stuck in Durango (huge snow storm) so I asked our friends Karen and David to watch Josie and Tilly while I took Izzy and her friend. It worked out great. We had a few hours to walk around the grounds, look at animals, feed a longhorn, eat some good greasy food before we headed over to the rodeo arena. A friend of mine who works in the ticket office got us the tickets, we were in the second row behind the chutes. For those of you not familiar with a rodeo (probably many of you) that is where the broncs, bulls, and other animals get released to go do their thing. It was so fun. And, Chance finally made it out of Durango. He got to the arena about 30-45 minutes after it started, bought the cheapest ticket he could and came and sat with us since there were extra seats in our area. Izzy had a blast and claimed it was her best birthday ever! Man, we gotta get that girl on a ranch somewhere.

This is a Percheron, there were a bunch of them and they were all HUGE!

Check out the funnel cake!

This is a chute. See how close to the action we were? It was pretty cool.

This guy wasn't so lucky. But he got up and walked away, which is always a plus.

...and they call the thing Rodeo" Garth Brooks

Pancho Update::Good News-Bad News

I said I would let you know how Pancho's leg heals.  Well, his leg healed fine.  The next day he was barely limping and the day after that he seemed fine.  Unfortunately Pancho didn't come home Thursday night and we haven't seen him since.  I got a call yesterday from a woman that found his collar across the street behind our house.  I am not sure what happened (coyote, fox, car, lost...) but we haven't heard anything.  We have some flyers up around the neighborhood and have a call in to the Humane Society.  We'll see.  

Pancho

Welcome home Pancho.  Yes we have a cat (sorry Dad).  A friend of mine is a vet at the Boulder Humane Society and when I called her today asking about cats she mentioned that it was FREE adoption day.  So...off we went in the trusty family wagon to the Humane Society.  We looked around and this little guy caught our eye.  He is about 1 year and he used to live with a family that had 2 kids.  Perfect.  He is a fun and frisky little thing.  The girls are loving him!

NWSS

Yup, it's National Western Stock Show time here in Colorado. We usually go every year to check out all the new and exciting things that go on at the stock show, remember last year? This year was just as fun. The one new thing this year was that we went to a show called "Behind the scenes of a rodeo clown." It was really cool and both Josie and Matilda got to go up front and help out the rodeo clown. Enjoy the pictures!

Triathlon

Last week, OAS held its annual Iron Kids Triathlon, which is a big fundraiser for the school and a super fun day for the kids. Here's Mae on the bike course (it was way too easy for her).
Here she is finishing up the mile run. And the water part was water buckets and wet sponge throwing. Perfect for a warm day.
This is the only picture I have of Henry; also at the end of the mile run. Earlier, he went for a 5 mile bike ride and lost his chain just yards from the finish line. He ran his bike across the line in a very dramatic fashion, or so I'm told. He got to play in a pool (or swim laps) for the water portion.
The most amazing thing was this sea lion. The kids were all checking it out as it was pretty near to shore.
Then it came closer......
and closer.....
until it was completely out of the water. I guess it must have been ill or something because while we do see their heads bobbing up and down out in the surf, we've never seen one come ashore and with 30 6-7 year olds watching, no less.
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Someone called the marine mammal rescue people who came and took him away. Let's hope he's back in the ocean soon.

Froggies!

So, here we are, a few weeks later (original tadpole post here) and some of these guys have legs. Cool! Its not easy taking photos of creatures underwater, but you get the idea.
Then, a week later....front legs.
And one more week, out of the water, breathing air and very little tail left. So cute. One down, six to go.
These were even better than they look. I followed this very, very easy recipe and was very, very excited by the result. Creamy, chocolaty, not too sweet, everything a dessert should be (that is when it is not banana cake or strawberry short cake or brownies or ice cream or tres leches cake or........).