Ideas For New Olympic Events

After looking through some pictures from our time at Donley's Wild West Town, I have some suggestions for future Olympic events.  I'll be forwarding my ideas to the International Olympic Committee and I hope to see some included in the 2020 Olympics which I hope will be held in Istanbul.

First up is lassoing.

 (Noah discovers an easier way than trying to throw the rope).

 (Natalie saw what Noah did!)

 It's more fun to rope kids than cows, isn't it?

The next event I think should be added is bison riding.  Bison riding is not for the faint of heart!

Instead of doing traditional cycling, why not do hand cart cycle races?

And my last submission to the IOC was Conestoga wagon racing.  Wouldn't that be amusing?  My team is ready to go!

And I also offer up a suggestion to Ralph Lauren for Opening Ceremony (or Closing Ceremony) uniforms.  Perhaps he can design something similar to send off to China to make them.

More Olympic Events

We went to Donley's Wild West Town last Saturday to help one of my friends celebrate the birthday of her 5 year old son.  N2 had a great time except for the gun fight show.  Noah hated the noises and would shake.  We spent the whole show covering his ears.  Unfortunately there was no way for us to exit without making everyone move.  While we were there N2 participating in a couple more Olympic events.  I'll post pictures of other things we did there tomorrow.

N2 were able to participating in shooting events.  Noah actually shot one of the targets which earned him more corks!

They also got to try out archery.

They also did some white water canoeing.

Their favorite sport though had to be equestrian.  That was the sport that they asked to watch the most often.  Noah repeatedly asked to go to London because that's where all the horses are.  They were quite excited that there were pony rides at the Wild West town!

Note Natalie's cowgirl outfit!

Olympics: Fencing

After spending 2 days at Aunt Marcie's house competing in so many Olympic events, my kids were still ready to participate in more events.  I'm not sure how much fencing they watched on TV but they have been obsessed with fencing!  Today they both picked up their wand noisemakers that they got at Great Grandma Weisgerber's birthday party and starting fencing.  I set one rule-no hitting each other.  Surprisingly that wasn't a problem at all.  They just hit each other's "epees."  They thought this was the best thing ever and just giggled and giggled during it!

En garde!

Take a look at Natalie's form.

Take that!

The Olympics

We watched the Olympics every day, all day for the most part!  That means that N2 have seen quite a few events.  Their favorite is equestrian by far!  They also enjoyed watching swimming, diving, gymnastics (but really only swinging on the bar) and running.  Natalie really enjoyed rowing as well and would sit on my lap and we would row together.  One night, they spontaneous starting playing "the Olympics."  They would crouch down in their starting position and take off running.  They would start doing gymnastics in the middle of the carpet.  So we had a little mini Olympics (nothing as fancy as what we did with Marcie, Amelia and Megan!)  Brian set up blocks as hurdles for them to jump over.  Noah liked to just run straight through the blocks.  Brian also invented an equestrian event where they rode on their bouncy ball and had to try to jump over blocks.  It was quite amusing to see them try to jump-they didn't come close at all!

Get ready...

Get set...

(clearly Noah has a false start).  Go... (no picture-they were too fast!)

Hurdles

(Noah was warm so he took his shirt off, which prompted Natalie to do the same thing.  Then they took their pants off).

Puppy and 60th

Dan and Rachel got a puppy and brought him to Dale's 60th birthday party.  N2 were very curious about the puppy.  Luckily the puppy was well behaved and didn't go up to anyway and jump or bark.  Natalie was allowed to "walk" the puppy.  Although at one point, she let go of the leash and Dan and Rachel had to chase after the puppy whose name is Chief.

They also got to run with the puppy and help him get some exercise.

As I said, this was Dale's 60th birthday party.  N2 were very helpful at blowing out candles and unwrapping presents.  I think everyone was glad I brought party hats (ha)!

 Here are N2 with Great Grandma Weidner.

Climbing to new heights

Sigh.  What can I do?  N2 were "fixing" the kitchen.  For some reason that involved climbing on top.  But they did play together so nicely.  They shared the tools.  One of them would wear the goggles, do some work and then the other would ask for the goggles and they would switch.  Then when they got too warm, they would go take a "shower" which was located in pretty much any door frame.  This went on for at least half an hour.

Bassoonist

Brian needed a new bassoon for his school and he found one on Craigslist.  He took N2 to go pick it up.  When they got home, he needed to test it out and he let Natalie play the reed.  She could not touch anything but the reed!  Brian said she is a better bassoonist than he is.  His goal is to have her get a bassoon scholarship to college!

You can see a video of her playing here.

Marching Band Parent Preview

Brian had his parent preview last Wednesday evening.  I take N2 along with some dinner and we enjoy listening to daddy's band.  Unfortunately it sprinkled the whole time!  Luckily it was light enough rain and I had brought rain jackets!  Brian invites family and parents to stand by their child so I took N2 up so they could stand by daddy.  He let them go up on the podium this year!  They loved waving to Grandma and Grandpa Weidner from the podium.

Here's the band:

While the band was playing, N2 had a great time running up and down the hill and rolling down it.

Jicama Salad

I saw this recipe and new I wanted to try it because I want a way to eat jicama that isn't just eating it plain.  It was pretty good but I thought it had too much red pepper and not enough dressing.

Jicama Salad

1 small jicama, peeled and diced into small cubes (1/4 inch)

1/2 large red pepper, chopped into small pieces (I would do less)

1 1/2 tomatoes, seeded and diced

1 15 oz can black beans, drained and rinsed

1 cup cooked sweet corn

Handful of fresh parsley, chopped coarsely

Juice of one lime

2 tsp canola oil

Dash paprika

Salt and pepper to taste

Combine the first 4 ingredients in a bowl.  Whisk together the lime juice, oil, paprika, salt and pepper.  Pour over salad.  Add parsley right before serving.

I think I put more lime juice (maybe the juice of 1/2 another lime) but I think it still needed more flavor.  The recipe called for a pinch of chili powder and cilantro and maybe that would make all the difference.  It definitely needed more dressing flavor.  But it was a good way to eat jicama!

Mani/Pedi

I needed a new pedicure (and my mother's day present was pedicures during the summer) and I decided to take Natalie with me because the owner's daughter (who is 11) is there and paints nails for really cheap.  I was just going to have her toenails painted but she really wanted her fingernails painted too.  She picked out a pink for her fingernails and a purple for her toenails (both pastels).  She sat there so nicely and had her nails painted.

The nail tech (Amanda) even does a design on kid's toes!  Natalie got little rhinestones in the center of the flowers on her big toe!

While she was sitting waiting for them to dry, she smudged the one big toe so she lost her rhinestone and an adult had to come over and fix the whole big toenail.  (That one has already smudged since Natalie took a tumble off her bike about an hour after the pedicure-oh well!)

Raspberry Picking

So this post is only about 2 months late!  We picked raspberries at Grandma and Grandpa Dueber's house on father's day.  Noah was very enthusiastic about going out and picking berries.

He certainly enjoyed eating them too!  Natalie picked some too but wasn't sure about eating them.  Instead she fed them to daddy.

Grandma thought she had the way to convince Natalie that eating raspberries are good and fun.  Natalie was not so sure at first.

What are you doing to me Grandma?

Put one right here, Grandma.

See all my raspberries?

Yum!

And I just love the look in this picture.

Noah just ate his raspberries or if he did have raspberries on his fingers, he ate them off too quickly!