Anybody seen this meme floating around the Internet? That's pretty much what my life feels like right now, and I'm terribly behind in blogging about it all. Over the next couple of days I hope to get this blog a bit more up to date!

To make that job a little easier I'm going to skip the boring details. You're just going to have to trust that we are indeed still covering the three Rs, along with history, Bible, science, and--by enthusiastic request--art appreciation. The girls are still involved in the church children's choir and all three continue their instrument lessons. We continue to go swimming at the Y once a week, although the girls' gymnastics class just finished up (that would feel more like a break in the schedule except now I need to find a different time to go running). Not to mention the major project the girls took on in creating an entire city of fairy paper dolls (finding images online, printing, coloring, gluing to construction paper, and cutting out). Seriously: sometimes I walk into the living room and find perhaps 50 fairies have taken over all the furniture. So much fun!

Here's the first post on the big events we've experienced in the past few weeks!

Battleship Cove

We got to tour all those ships in the background!

A few weeks ago we took a detour in our historical studies and did a quick pass of World War II (bad guys were taking over Europe; almost all the countries in the World picked sides; our side won, but lots of people died). The occasion--a visit to Battleship Cove: The World's Largest Naval Ship Exhibit. The Cove includes a PT boat exhibit, a landing craft, a battleship, a submarine, a destroyer, and a missile corvette, as well as a variety of other more modern aircraft.




It didn't have the polished audio tours that some of the other sites we've visited have had, but except for making it all non-operation very little had been modified to accommodate tourists, and we really had the run of the place. We got to clamber into gun turrets, wind our way through engine rooms, and stretch out in the racks. I'm pretty sure the girls thought this place was about the most amazing playground they'd ever seen!

Library Lizards!

Everybody wants to pet the baby alligator!

That's right--reptiles in the library. One week recently, storytime was replaced with a fantastic reptile show. As usual the crowd was pretty light, which made for a much more involved experience for the girls. The Reptile Guy brought in several big rubbermaid containers full of a large skink, a baby alligator, a tortoise, several smallish snakes, a special needs snapping turtle (he was born with a concave shell and doesn't snap), and an albino Burmese python.

All the animals were born in captivity and quite used to being handled. The Reptile Guy taught the kids about each animal (name, place of origin, food, etc.) as he brought it out, and every child got to touch them before he put them back in their pillowcases and boxes.

Bug was even brave enough to volunteer to learn how to catch a snake with a snake hook! She introduced herself to the crowd, stood by while the Reptile Guy talked about this particular snake and demonstrated proper catching technique, then he had Bug put the snake away for him. She was so excited!

Goose had her own excitement when she took a turn being draped in the albino python after the show. The Reptile Guy took most of the weight of the snake, but she thought it was pretty cool!