Happy little flower

I looked out the window and what did I see? Nope, not popcorn popping on the apricot tree, but almost as good.

The first crocus bloom of Spring.


You have to live in a place like the mountain west to appreciate a bloom as small as this. These little wonders always remind me of Mom and IdahoFalls where they would pop up through drifts of snow and make her (and you and me) happy.

Leapage!

Happy Leap day! Its not every year you get an extra day a year for fun! I took this picture this morning while the kids were waiting for the bus. To get the right angle I had to lay down in the middle of the street. After every shot the kids would run over and crowd around the camera to see how the leap shot looked. Must have been a strange sight to see three kids huddled around a man laying down in the road and then going back to jump off the curb! I'm sure the neighbors think we are odd. Oh well!

quick on the heels of winter

On Friday the school declared a snow day and I quickly followed suit, asking my team to work from home. Freezing rain is not to be trifled with.

Joe and I were stuck inside together. Em, Clay, Nate and Jon were stuck together at Jon's house where they were all battling the flu (Joe and I made a soup and soda delivery the night before and then got the heck out of Dodge!)

My day with Joe:

Me working. Joe designing dinosaurs. Me admiring Joe's drawing. Me asking Joe to develop a spec sheet outlining the capabilities of the newly designed Scorpiosaurus. Me working. Joe asking me to review the spec sheet on Scorpiosaurus. Me providing feedback. Joe telling me that at Daddy's house there is better cable. Me trying to work. Me going online and deciding Joe's education was worth $120.00/year MORE; upgrading cable, getting Joe Science, Discovery Health and Military. Me giving up on working after identifying to said team that Scorpiosaurus is real, with a maximum speed of 235 miles per hour.

Working from home is harder than people think it is . But, of course ..... Joe's worth it and besides that you can't go outside in freezing rain. Ask my boss ... he thought the work from home day was "soft" and was later found feet side up in the parking lot of the office building :-). His good humored retort? "I told you so is not an option Ward"

Fast forward to Sunday ... the wintry weather is gone and the flu bug along with it. Joe heads out for a bike ride. Em cooks spaghetti, Clay and Nate are back to work. Jon is thinking about getting out of those jammies and I am off to play in the mud at nearby Damascus Regional Park.

Ahhhhh joy. The cold air against your cheeks stings slightly, but the sun lures you along. You begin to believe in spring and other hopeful possibilities.

Slow! the sign at the trail head commands, followed by another that reads 15 MPH. Reason says neither of these signs are for hikers since this trail is open to mountain bikers, but I realize that I do need to slow down. I need to think. Life has become a batting cage and I do not like to miss; still no one can swing forever. I slow my pace and take out my earphones. Linkin Park gives way to the crunch of old leaves, mud sloshing about my hikers, and the gentle gurgle of a winter-diminished creek. My eyes open behind my sunglasses to a world of transformation. A small bud, brave against the chill, beginning to open. A stump, clean cut by the park rangers saw, that served as a dining table for some small creature not long ago still wears the delicate lace of a winter coat. Fungi on the side of a log mimic the shape of Maryland's most prolific seafood.

My legs stretch and reach as I climb over hills narrowly missing the bramble of tree limbs. My arms swing slowly at my side and with each step I am reassured that I will be more agile the next time a pitch is thrown in my direction; less likely to miss when it matters. And in my life, filled with so many good people and causes, virtually every pitch does matter.

"Every day is a lesson; every person a teacher" ..... this is one of the mantras I pass on to my children. Today's lesson is hope. Today's teacher is Damascus Regional Park and the beauty and order of the natural world.

Moose Love - Happy B-Day Clay

To celebrate Clay's birthday we went to Bugaboo Steak House. Pictured here are Dad, Moma, Clay (refusing to smile) Clay's beautiful girlfriend Vienna and Clay's goofy looking (but very cool) friend Vincent.

Clay was forced to kiss the moose to get his slice of birthday cake. After dinner we all played laser tag. Mom was the best. No one could beat her. Mom was so amazing at laser tag that the owner of the laser tag store .... alright. Mom pretty much sucked at laser tag.

Clay had so much fun that he is planning to have another birthday next year. I'll just betcha he'll get a pie in the face when he turns 18.

Getting Fancy in Baltimore

More Blue ....
Inspired by the color of a Maryland dawn and encouraged by Kristi's friend's brave blue wall ... Joe and I painted the kitchen blue this weekend.
For many years Joe has hoped to be elevated to "painter" .. he's been a wall washer on previous occassions, but never weilded a brush let alone the precious roller (who does not aspire to be in control of the roller?) Joe not only rolled and brushed, he also spackled washed and did an immaculate job of taping the floorboards. Anyone who has painted knows that one's measure of success in taping is obvious and hard to reverse.
I love the new color and think all the time spent photographing and matching chips to the Maryland dawn sky is worth the effort.

When Mom and Dad visited a few months ago they told me how much they liked the front door that I painted (with some fake-out stained glass paints that I found @ Joann's). My original goal was to have privacy without having to hang curtains that blocked the light. Each one of my kids has their own sea creature.

Spring Sleuths

Today Katie, Emma, Chas and I went on a drive looking to see what we could find in bloom. The most obvious were the many daffodils in bloom. We also saw a magnolia tree in bloom (although not the kind that you think of when you think of the South but a relative of that one ... I have seen it grow in Utah but I don't know exactly what kind it is ... there is a really pretty one on Highland drive in between 45ooS and 39ooS that blooms end of April beginning of May). We saw a bush with yellow flowers that I also don't know the name of but which is also an early bloomer in Maine (although in Maine it is blooming in May not February!). We saw many trees/bushes that are in the rose family. We saw lots of pansies which perhaps had been in bloom all winter. We also saw a lot of red maple trees in flower. I recognized them right away from watching Spring come alive in Maine. The picture below is one that I looked up on the web to verify that what we were seeing was indeed a red maple. And finally, perhaps one of the prettiest blooms was the apricot tree right in Dan & Crystal's front yard!

Even though Spring comes much earlier here it was fun to go out and search for and discover the early signs of Spring like I had so much fun doing when I was living in Maine!

Snow cave

I went camping with the Scouts this weekend. This is a snow cave we dug with two beds. I ended up sleeping in my tent that had more room, but the cave was nice and warm. Next time we will go earlier so we can make bigger beds.

Peek a boo ... Where is the 14000 foot Mtn?

I am in Seattle this week for business. It is easy to forget that there is a 14000 foot mountain just out of town because you never see it! I ended up waking up at 4:30 local time today. From prior experience I know that Mt. Ranier sits due east of the town I am staying in and it is beautiful when you can see it. I checked the sky and I could actually see stars so I kept the hotel curtains open. Low and behold I was able to watch the sunrise from my hotel window and there was the mountain. Mt. Ranier reminds me alot of the Tetons. It is large and just looms up from the valley floor. I was able to see it for about an hour before a thick fog came in and then the 14000 ft Mountain was gone!

By George!

Emma's class put on a play called "By George" in honor of Washington's birthday. You can't really hear the dialog but the song is cute and so are the third graders!

No Kiddin'

Our kids had two half days of school last week so it was a good time to take off on a surprise trip. When I picked the kids up from school the van was already loaded and ready to go. We waited a few minutes for Dan to get home and then said "Let's Go!" The kids asked us where and we said "oh, we'll find something fun to do." We were halfway to the state line before they started to get ansey. You may be wondering how three kids could go 2 1/2 hours in the car without knowing the destination. The answer is "Harry Potter on cd". They were so into the story that the time flew by. Dan and I kept looking at each other in amazement, wondering when they would demand a destination and complete itinerary. The video says it all...By the way, the big surprise wasn't our idea. Some friends of ours pulled it on their kids with DisneyWorld last October. It was a ton of fun to keep the secret, I almost blew it so many times. A big Thanks to Kristi for teaching me how to compress my videos and put them together!

Salty Planet

We just returned from a trip to Sea World in Orlando. We had a great time and spent 3 days down there. The kids had no idea that we were going. They had a half day of school on wednesday so we picked them up at noon and started driving. We had a book on tape going for them so it took a while for them to get ansty. After about two hundred miles the kids started to get testy and we let them in on the secret that we had been keeping since January. I put together this video of some of the things that we did. It is not complete but does give you some idea of what we did. The video is kind of long so it might take a few minutes to load.

Homework Help

Okay all of you who think you are smarter than a fourth grader, Katie has a brain teaser and needs help! If you can figure it out, feel free to give her a clue, not the answer but a little nudge in the right direction would be great. Due tomorrow and we are out of ideas! Here it goes:

What do these words have in common?

banana
dresser
grammar
potato
revive
uneven
assess

Hint: It's not because of the double letters!

Emma's basketball game

I took this video a while back at one of Emma's basket ball games. It shows her taking on the big guys for a rebound and taking a shot at the basket.

Enjoy!

Valentines Day Snow

Days after I moved here I went to the car wash in 70 degree weather and vacuumed out my car. I came to my ice scrapper and I lamented "I probably won't be using this for a while". Well ... I certainly haven't used it like I would have in Utah or Maine but we got a pretty big North Carolina snow on Valentines Day. The snow was actually still on my car after work and around town in areas where there was shade a day or two after the storm!

Happy Birthday!

It is David's birthday today! Happy birthday to the #1 Pig. Hopefully it was a good birthday in Spokane Washington. Knowing David I'm sure he was hard at work selling insurance!

Cactus Hugger

If I were in the West this is totally a race that I would want to do!!! I thought that I would post it in case any of you in the West want to do it. One of my favorite rides ever was riding up into and back down out of Zion's canyon (except for that really scary part where I passed the wild turkeys! ... really!, it was scary than it sounds, they are HUGE ugly mean looking birds) and being anywhere in that red rock country is a spectacular experience!
http://www.cactushugger.org/ride.html

Winter in Spokane

It has been a snowy winter in Spokane. The kids have missed a week of school already, and we live in the city limits. Some of the outlying areas have misted 2 weeks. They have even closed our church. It does not seem to want to stop.

This is on the trails behind our house if you weigh more than liberty it takes snowshoes or cross country Skis to go on the trails.

This should be the entrance to the trail the is at the end of our street.

Lana in our Driveway.

MaKayla's address

MaKayla is out experiencing the word, going to school in Mexico. If you would like to mail her anything, her address is

For: MaKayla Ward

university of utah

San Jeronimo 304 col. San Jeronimo

Cuernavaca, Morelos, mexico C.P. 62179

If you would like to talk to her, she can be seen on MS messenger at
wardmakayla@hotmail.com

If you would like to email her, she can be reached at makward@gmail.com

I am not going to leave the email addresses up too long as I am sure there is software scanning this blogger service for emails.

Fear the Rodent

As is a tradition for us we went to see our local groundhog on Feb 2nd. The Yellow River Game Ranch is home to General Beauxregard Lee. You can find more about Beau here: http://www.yellowrivergameranch.com/bio.htm. We have seen him several years ina row now. This year it was COLD for Georgia. When we left the house it was 25 degrees. Since it was saturday there was quite a crowd waiting for the furry weatherman. And wait we did! They rang the bell for Beaux to come out and get his breakfast and he waited 30 minutes to come out while we were freezing. In the end there was no shadow to see so winter will be over early here in GA.

While we out celebrating our anniversiary the kids made some brownies for us with a special note in the Pan.

A Day Late

Congratulations to Dan and Crystal, yesterday, on their 13th anniversary. Whatever you did to celebrate, Dan and Crystal, I'm sure it was a lot warmer than your wedding day! Nonetheless, your wedding was a wonderful day and I'm glad you're married and grateful for your three beautiful and wonderful kids.

Huntington Beach State Park

I went birding today with the Carolina Bird Club. We went to Huntington Beach State Park in South Carolina. When I met up with the group they had just spotted a bird which I cannot remember the name of. It was standing behind some tall grasses in a fresh water marsh. It was fun to stand there and watch it; hoping, with the rest of the group, that it would come out into full view. It finally did and flew across and to the other side of the causeway we were standing on. From there we followed its movements and tried to get pictures of it. Below is a video and some of the pictures I got of the bird.

Emerging from the grass

Here are some video and pictures of some of the shore birds I saw.

Sandpipers

Super cute birds

I learned some other things that had nothing to do with birds. I saw quite a few shells of horseshoe crabs which are huge and incredibly menacing looking. It is apparently a primitive creature and more related to spiders than other crabs and comes from a big family (or phylum or something like that) but all the rest of its family members are extinct.

I also learned about another primitive creature that looks like slimy brains. It is called a sea squirt and it is a primitive nodo cord creature and is apparently related to us. If I remember right, when humans are developing in the womb our neurological system begins development as a nodo cord ... but I would have to go back and check on that. When we first came upon these sea squirts I bent over to pick one up thinking that it was a rock but I stopped short because it looked a bit too squishy for a rock. I pressed into them instead with my boot because I still thought that it was a rock but feared that it might be something related to a jellyfish. They were actually pretty firm but not to the extent of a rock. There was a naturalist with us and he told us their name and their relation to us. I felt kind of bad that I had stepped on them when I realized that they were relations =). I took quite a few pictures of them because I thought that they were fascinating sea creatures.

Sea squirt with flexible coral

This is one of the sea squirts that really looked like a rock at first