Charley and Jackson: March 2012

Found a muse

Jackson has found his muse. He hasn't exactly announced it, but he's been a prolific writer this past week.

Overheard: March 28, 2012

"Hairy can never be a chemist."
-- Jackson said while filling up Hairy's water.

Searching for syrup with Grandma and Bumpa

We met Grandma and Bumpa at the nature center near our house this morning to go on a maple syrup hike.

We found the buckets hanging off the sap taps, but there was nothing coming out.

They were doing some boiling in a massive cauldron in the middle of the woods, that was cool.

There was kind of a lot of talking, but it was mostly interesting.

Afterward, we went for a little hike in some of the other parts of the nature center. We said hi to geese . . .

. . . but mostly walked and talked with Bumpa and Grandma.

Turn and pedal, turn and pedal, turn and pedal

We had little to no trouble riding our bikes without training wheels. Only turning was "tough" for us. However, we even figured that out relatively quickly. Now we just need to grow a few inches so we can get started on our own.

Up and gone

Today, the day we've been looking forward to for months, finally arrived. The training wheels came off.

Mommy barely went two steps alongside us before we took off.

Obviously we were ready, that was all we needed.

It was an amazing morning.

We do need to work on getting started ourselves . . .

. . . and we're getting better and better at turning.

Success is so exciting.

The morning was not without some tumbles . . .

. . . and some of those crashes were pretty hard.

All that riding took a lot out of us. We also needed to compare notes from time to time.

Go fly a kite

Okay, we will. Our first attempts at kite flying went relatively well.

Sean and Will brought a couple kites on our trip to the park this weekend and they taught us how to fly them.

It seemed to involve a lot of running. Up hill . . .

. . . and thankfully back down. All that running was just fine by us.

We had a great time on top of the hill trying to get those kites to fly on a day with a sporadic (at best) breeze.

When the breeze was nearly completely gone, we did some exploring in the woods near the park.

Just look what we discovered. A little ropes course . . .

. . . and the great fort-like structure made of downed trees and large branches.

And when the exploring was done, we hopped back on our bikes and headed for home.

Henry's awesome zoo

The Henry Doorly Zoo in Omaha never disappoints. We are simply in awe every time we go.

The rain forest has these great rope bridges . . .

. . . and super-dark tunnels.

While these looked like rocks at the beginning, if we watched long enough, they moved. STING RAYS! Awesome.

Just check out this massive tree. We fit right in the base of it, with room to spare.

The gorillas, on the other hand, were without a doubt the best part of our visit. If we recall, they were the best part of our visit the last time we went to the Henry Doorly Zoo.

This time, the mommy and baby gorilla were wrestling in the sheets.

It was so funny to watch them wrestle each other, kind of like how we wrestle with Daddy.

After watching this, however, we'll stick with wrestling Daddy.

We'll definitely be back for another visit, hopefully it won't be too long.

Can we just get a little nap first?

Bowlmaha

The day after we arrived in Omaha, we went bowling, because, well, it's Omaha. What else is there? We had a pretty awesome time and even bowled some strikes and spares and did some very loud celebrating.