Month: July 2010

At the top of the hill in Grandma and Grandpa’s neighborhood is my “tree square” or “tree fort”. I took my cousins up to see all the hard work I have been doing. Ian kept climbing up the pine trees.

Anna helped me work on my “tee-pee”.

It got one thumb up from me! 🙂 Mainly because I locked Emmerson inside of it. See him hiding in the orange shirt behind the sticks. He is in jail! 🙂

Today we went to the Cradle of Forestry for the Woodsy Owl’s Club. The theme was “poking around the pond”. If you know me you know that there is nothing in life that makes me happier than being knee deep in muck looking for bugs! There were about 25 kids plus their adults at the meeting today. We all had to learn about Smokey the Bear and Woodsy the Owl and their mottos. We learned all about the wetlands and what we could expect to find around the pond. We then took a short hike down to a pond. We listened to all the directions and then got our nets.

Mommy helped me scoop a bunch of muck out of the pond. The teacher said I scooped too much but I found a lot of bugs including a dragonfly nymph, 3 baby salamanders, a sack of eggs and a few other things.

Getting more muck.

Some of the bugs and things that all the kids caught. My eggs are on the spoon. The teacher thought they may be salamander eggs but I told her they were too big and were probably frog eggs.

You could not pry me from this bucket unless you bribed me with more bugs!!

Grandma Jo helped me put some bugs into the viewer.

This was sooooo cool!

I enjoyed showing all the other kids the buts I put in the viewer.

Amazing that with this many people NO ONE fell in the lake and ALL the kids were so amazingly well behaved!

After the pond adventure we went back to the classroom to talk about where the different animals were living in the pond.

We each got a picture to put on the pond. I got a “Water Skimmer” and correctly placed it on the top of the pond.

They had a craft at the end (make a turtle from a paper bowl) but I had already done that craft at home with Mommy before so I wanted to move along. We loaded up the car and drove down the road to the fish hatchery. I love the Trout Farm! They have these long rows of trout with running water. for $.25 you can get a handful of oily stinky food to feed the fish.

I had a blast feeding them. I figured out that if you go to a big group near the edge and drop in the food that the fish will get you soaking wet! 🙂

When we came home and Emmerson went down for a nap Mommy gave me a new toy she had been saving for me. It is called Bizarre Builder “In-Sections” . It is like Mr. Potato head but all the pieces are bug parts and you can chose to follow the directions or free build you own bugs.

My first of MANY creations!

My next of a zillion creations.

Today we drove over to Bryson City, NC to take a ride on the GSMR train! It was raining when we arrived so we spent our time in the Lionel Tot Train Railway Museum. They had a LOT of trains moving. One had 3 separate levels of track that totaled over 5000 foot of track! AMAZING! There was so much detail.

We killed a little more time at the Thomas Train table.

Almost time to get on board. I just kept giving Mommy goofy grins when she went to take my picture. Oh well, I guess I have to live with them posted here now!

Watching out the window from the “family first class” coach. There was LOTS of kudzu. I became an expert by the end of the train trip. I could point out all the kudzu between the starting station and the return trip home. PLus I now know that they can make honey from kudzu flowers. COOL!

Despite the rain the views were pretty neat.

Chilling out with Grandma Jo.

We ate lunch on the train and had our own car attendant. She refilled our drinks and even found me hot chocolate to drink!

We arrived at the break point and got out and walked around for a while. This is where the white water rafters pull out after their trips down the river.

Heading back to get on the train to ride home.

I really liked this little waterfall.

On the way back we got to ride on the other side of the train (we all had to swap seats!) so we could see the other scenery.

I had a really great time even if I got wiggly towards the end. That is a long time for a kid to sit still! haha

We took a nice drive along the Blue Ridge Parkway today. We made a few stops to look out and enjoy the view.

Doing my model pose and showing off my new “Dinosaur on a bike” shirt! RAWR!

We went to the Cradle of Forests and enjoyed an educational and fun walk.

I was allowed to make all the noise I wanted in this tunnel! SO MUCH FUN!

I greatly enjoyed watching the lady weaving.

This man was making bees wax candles.

Chilling out after a nice hike.

Emmerson and I insisted that we had some of this liquid stuff! It is called Sugar Not. Mommy kept joking it was Sugar Snot. This was “Booger Blue Raspberry” and Emmerson had “tropical loogie”. They were actually really gross. We are not use to sweet tasting drinks. YUCKIE!

Before we headed out for more fun I LOVED playing with the blocks and “tree cookies” (a tree cookie is a slice from a tree). I made all sorts of neat sculptures!

Then I wanted to make a chair.

Mommy said I should check it out.

So proud! I worked!

Now I build up up up!

One more sculpture before we head out.

We visited the little river that I love to look for salamanders in.

Mommy caught me a fish!!!

Back to looking for more living things. I did find one blackish salamander but I couldn’t catch it. It was too fast for me!

Having a blast out in nature! 🙂

We went to downtown Hendersonville today. we had a fun time walking the streets and seeing all the neat stores. I got to paint my own pottery! I chose a BIG dragon and a little dragon.

Such a goof!

Daddy even helped paint!

Thanks Grandma Jo for getting a family photo.

We headed back towards the car and we saw a gem and mineral museum. I wanted a geode. I love geodes (thanks Uncle Matt for that one!). They had a HUGE claw to break the geode! Very cool!

After it was cracked open I got to hold it and then look at under a light that made it glow green.

Cracking open the second one.

On the way back to the house we stopped off at Bent Creek to play in the river where it joins the French Broad.

I had a fun time wading around trying to catch things in the water.

I caught a whirly-gig-beetle.

I also caught some sort of skipper type bug.

We came home and FINALLY went up to my fort. I had a blast dragging sticks around and making a huge pile.

I decided I was building a FORT. Emmerson was my helper.

Daddy helped snap a few dead branches off of the trees so I had more sticks.

More being silly.

I was walking with a huge stick and not watching where I was going and I tripped. This is the result.