Sand Castle Contest

 It is a beautiful June day...and our little town is having a huge festival this weekend. Really...it is like a three day long party!  They close main street and invite in a ton of vendors as well as local folks raising money.  There are pageants, contests, parades, and fireworks :-)


This morning at 9am was the sand castle contest on the main beach.  Apparently this contest has been held for the past 20 years and sounded like it would be a ton of fun for our little family to participate in.  Jude had received a big bag of beach paraphernalia for his birthday (From the aunts I think), so we had plenty of buckets and shovels.

When we got to the beach, did we have a plan?
Nope.
The rules were simple:  build a sand castle using the usual buckets and shovels and any natural objects found on the beach.  We entered in the preschool category with our two little ones and called ourselves Team Dragon, having played wizards and dragons at the water park this week.





I asked Tamlin what he wanted to build...
Tam "Build a castle. . . and a dragon"
Ok.
Hmmm...

Brian went to work on the castle.
The boys began by hauling water up and finding rocks and sticks.
I thought about how to make a dragon out of sand.
We mounded up the sand and made the vague dragon shape blob-like body.
But what about wings?
Tam came back with sticks...brilliant!  Stick wings!
Jude helped with decorating the dragon with rocks and sticks.

Dragon was looking good but something was missing.
Tamlin asked where his tail was...a tail!
We worked on sculpting a tail that swept around. Of course it had spikes all over it.
Tiny white shells became the dragon's teeth.  Tam decided on two black walnuts for the eyes.  Jude helped stick the sticks around for a throat fringe.


The boys went back and forth between helping Brian with the castle and helping me with the dragon.
They added sticks and rocks to the castles to make doors and decorations.  Tamlin added a cool warped wood piece as the wizard on the top of the tower defending the castle from the attacking dragon.


But the castle needed something too... and the boys were tired of finding rocks...



We need a moat!

Dig, boys, dig!

We then lined the moat with small rock and shell debris so that it looked like water.

Here's our finished castle and moat.  The dragon is just to the left of the photo...

swooping in toward the tower outside the moat.

 And Here's our Dragon flying in for an attack!

We waiting and played while the entries were judged...maybe 15 groups total.  There were other cool castles, a sand sunflower, a great looking fish, a giant flag, and even a living sand-mermaid!


 Everyone got ribbons for participating.
And we WON for our category!
Yeah!
Tam was so excited to get a ribbon AND a trophy!

Jude buried his ribbon in the sand :-)




As a family, this was an awesome morning.  I loved that we were able to do something fun all together...with no fighting or tears or pouting.  Both kiddos really got into the event and had a blast.
Can't wait to try again next year... Brian is already thinking of doing a city-scape with Jude dressed up as Godzilla!

Vacation at Wolf Lodge... What a Blast!

 We spent 2 nights and 2 days at the Great Wolf Lodge nearby...along with my sister's family and my mom and Dale.  Mom had found a great deal last November for this little vacation and snapped it up.  Thank you so much for this awesome adventure, mom!





The hotel has a huge indoor water park that holds pools, waterfalls, hot tub, lazy river, and lots of water slides. We jumped right into the water shortly after arriving on Monday night...then again on Tuesday morning, Tuesday night, and even Wednesday morning before leaving.  I am pretty sure we all were a little waterlogged by the end :-)

 

 I was little worried that Jude wouldn't have much to do or would be scared to try any of the waterslides...  but...

No problem for our littlest man!




Tamlin was just so excited to be playing in the water, riding slides, and hanging out with his cousin.
He went down all the slides...repeatedly!  He really liked sliding down the biggest raft slide (I think it was 5 stories high and wound outside and back into the water park.

 

I liked seeing the kiddos get soaked with water under the waterfalls and the huge spray of water from the tipping bucket located on the top of the tower.  And, I'll admit,  I loved the water slides too.

 

Besides swimming and soaking, there was other fun activities to do at the lodge.
The kids all got wands, became wizards, and went on quests searching for interactive objects found throughout the lobbies. Tamlin and I really got into this, especially when everyone else was taking an afternoon nap.  Tam had a good eye for finding the right objects based on the clues (must be from reading all those I Spy books).

The kiddos also got to choose and stuff soft animals.  And then later, they got glitter tattoos.

 

 
By the end of the stay, the kids were exhausted, but oh so happy!  I will happily admit that I think it was better than Cedar Point because it was fun all in a contained area (so way less walking).  However, Cedar Point in another couple of years, for sure.

Thank you!
And let's do it again soon!

Preschool Graduation 2014

Tamlin officially graduated from preschool this past week.  The YMCA had a little ceremony for his whole class...complete with songs, hats, rolled certificates, and handshakes. 
Oh my.  It was so damn CUTE!  Our muchkin was a ham, waving and smiling at everyone.  He knew most of the songs, but really he was great at dancing to the beat of the Elmo's ABC rap. 

 

We were able to snap a few shots before the ceremony.  Here's our happy family :-)

  

We are proud of both our boys.  Tamlin's excited about going to kindergarden in the fall.  Jude is doing great in the 3year old room; he just moved up a month ago.   Both boys still make us laugh and smile and just generally brighten the days...though they have rough moments too.

Here they are showing some brotherly love for the camera.  

I didn't get any shots with both boys smiling and not making silly faces.

 

And I learned cool new techniques in my photo editor.  The boys are holding their "first day" photos from last October, 2013.  My how much they have changed in a year!

May Showers Bring June Flowers

Tamlin drew us sunflowers :-)

Trip to the Cleveland Zoo

Thursday afternoon, Tamlin, Jude, and I headed over to the Cleveland Zoo. I went ahead and picked up the family pass, because the zoo is huge and I knew that we would be back multiple times this year.  We got there just as the kids on field trips were all leaving...so it was fairly empty :-)

The boys, of course, had to climb up on the baby elephant statue.



With our family pass, we get in free to the rain forest exhibit.  The botanical garden here reminded me of the Como Conservatory back in Minnesota...a little like coming home.  To get to the second floor, there was the option of stairs, elevator,... or climbing up a spiral staircase inside a tree!  They even have an area where it RAINS inside, complete with thunder and lightning.  There was even a huge ant colony of leaf cutter ants hard at work moving leaves through plastic tubing.  This fascinated both boys for quite a while as they "raced" ants.

It's hard to see, but there is a gar swimming on the top of the water.  Jude is looking underneath at the fish.

On the far photo, Tamlin is playing with a swimming turtle.  It was following him back and forth across the tank.

We rode the tram up to see the big cats.  Jude and Tam loved riding the tram...just look at this big smile.  We walked back down the wooden boardwalk...complete with races of ramps versus stairs.

Back on the main drag, we went in and fed the parakeets.  Both boys got a chance to hold the cup of nectar up to the thirsty birds.

Lots of giggles.

With it being much less crowded, I got to go in and see the uber cute little koala bears.

Awww...

And he was up there eating!

Awww...

We did catch a short show about birds...but the boys got squirrely after about 6 minutes, so we didn't watch the end.  However, we did catch the zoo "Pirate" show in its entirety. The premise was a pirate shipwrecked...and a scientist and her research assistant lost on an island.  (And it was a FEMALE scientist!).  They then had a parade of animals on the stage and talked about how they survive the heat and find water.  There were even trained rats running along the rigging of the ship...and a raven grabbing pirate coins (and a wallet) from their hands.  All the actors were good at working with the animals...even when they ignored them and pooped on the poop deck.  The highlight was when they asked for volunteers from our small (20ish people) audience.  Of course Tamlin had to go up there on stage!  Then they brought out the boa constrictor to drape across the volunteers...note how many little ones are up there trying to help hold up this heavy snake!  Very fun.

We ended the day walking from "Australia" to "Africa" to see the giraffes.  After 2.5 hours, the little boys were done...especially Jude and his little feet. (Must remember stroller or wagon next time).  When I asked them what was their favorite part of the day...
Tamlin "Touching the snake, sliding down the big slide, riding the tram"
Jude "Riding the tram"

Now the last time we were here was 2 summers ago.  Jude was Just a wee one in our arms barely 1 year old and Tamlin was only 3.5.  I scrounged up these old photos from that visit to compare with this one.  My how my babies have grown!

Here is Jude (3yrs) and Tamlin (3.5yrs) with their listening ears...

I love these two shots...
Summer, Brian, Jude, and Tamlin (and monkey) from 2012

And here is Me, Jude, and Tamlin from 2014.  We still have great smiles :-)
Next time we visit, we'll try to drag along my sister and family (or grandparents!)

Jude Sayings...

A few quips...

We were visiting our friends' Scott and Jennifer (and sons) at their house.  Brian and Scott, along with several other male friends, were outside putting a new roof on the garage.  The young boys were inside playing.  I ask Jude if he needs to go potty.  He says, very straight faced, "No.  There's no potty here."
What?
Yes, little dude.  They do have an indoor outhouse. :-)


As a family, we were at the local diner for brunch. After our orders were taken, we had some time to kill while we waited.  Our favorite time-waster game of late has been I Spy.  Tamlin has gotten pretty good at this.  He even informed me that he watches my eyes when I am "it" to see what I'm looking at so that he can guess that item.  (Smart little sneak).  Jude even tries to participate, to some success.
Me: "I spy with my little eye......something that is red".  Tamlin & Brian try to guess what I'm thinking of.  Jude answers with "Is it That?" while pointing to the ketchup bottle.  Good guess, right color, but not what I was seeing, which was a red jam package.
Jude: "I spy RED!"... "It's the KETCHUP!" 
Great job little man.
You'll get the hang of this game yet.


And of late, since it is warm and we are all outside more...
Jude" I fell down! I'm so Sad!  I need a kiss!  I need a Band-Aid!"
Oh the drama of the three-year-old life.
He is currently sporting at least 1 or 2 bandaids at all times, usually on some boo-boo that may or not be able to be seen with the naked eye :-)

Jude