Family JA3

Sea Creatures

Sand Crab

Welk

Hermit Crab

Sea Slug and Welk

Snail

The Bike Ride

We went on a WILD bike ride ... all six of us on one bike!!! We got to ride through the historical district, the wooded areas, the golf course, and then along the coast.

Saint Simon Island

Our Mascot the Cheese Balls

Moms Pet

Mom posted this as a comment on an earlier post. I thought it was so funny that I had to post it to the front! There are lots of funny comments about it under Emma's birthday.

I wish you were here to help me with my pet lizard--maybe you could catch it and put it back outside! When Grandpa went out the back door the lizard came in. That was Monday. Today Grandpa went to Denver and the lizard decided to come out and play hide-and-seek with me. As much as you like animals I think you would like my lizard. Any suggestions, anybody?

You had a Birthday, Shout Hooray!

Yesterday was Birthday #9 for sweet Emma. She got a Collie Webkinz that she has desperately wanted for months and as you can see a new Bike. She has never had a bike with a kickstand before so she was very excited to have it! She had fun riding her bike that night. Crystal made an ice cream cake that was yummy. It is hard to believe that Emma is 9 years old!

We also have a tradition of telling our kids the story of the day they were born. You should have heard the girls giggling last night when Crystal told them the story!

Mud Slide!

I was just reading Dan's ode to May post and thought I'd share a scene from my garden. That big muddy mess used to be a lawn and my back yard. Now it's just a big muddy mess. Muddy Muddy Muddy mess!

I have springs (Spring - Area where there is a concentrated discharge of ground water that flows at the ground surface) in my yard bringing lots of cold clean water which (mostly) have been a real blessing in the desert I call home. We use the water to create a koi pond, a bog garden and as irrigation to keep our collection of palms, orchid, etc. etc. etc. alive through the heat of summer. The water is great until it goes where it isn't welcome. Read: under the foundation of the house. I started the project as a means to an end, but have found two new springs and lots of new water. (See the black pipe? That's full of water.)

I've learned a lot about hydrological impacts on soil living in this yard. For example:

A spring is a water resource formed when the side of a hill, a valley bottom or other excavation intersects a flowing body of ground water at or below the local water table, below which the subsurface material is saturated with water. A spring is the result of an aquifer being filled to the point that the water overflows onto the land surface. They range in size from intermittent seeps, which flow only after much rain, to huge pools flowing hundreds of millions of gallons daily.

Springs may be formed in any sort of rock. Small ones are found in many places. When weak carbonic acid (formed by rainwater percolating through organic matter in the soil) enters fractures it dissolves bedrock. When it reaches a horizontal crack or a layer of non-dissolving rock such as sandstone or shale, it begins to cut sideways, forming an underground stream. As the process continues, the water hollows out more rock, eventually admitting an airspace, at which point the spring stream can be considered a cave. This process is supposed to take tens to hundreds of thousands of years to complete.

The most interesting thing about this research is where it's coming from. Where you ask? The dry arid west? No, the not so soggy south. GA to be specific. Our water "problem" has more in common with the drought the GA Wards are experiencing.

After the excess water leaves my yard, and there is plenty of it, it enters our storm drain headed straight for the Great Salt Lake to evaporate. If only there was a pipe from my backyard to Dan and Crystal's. There would be more than enough to share for all of us!

Jaylin 7 month

Pikes Market

Lana and I were in Seattle for a meeting last week and we spent a little time in Pikes Market. It is the one that is famous for the flying fish. Lots of fun to wander around in and a great place to get some fresh food. We had some Greek, Russian, Koren, Turkish, and of course local fish.

Idaho Trout wow $4 bucks a pound who knew we were eating that good when dad brought home fish.
This is the first Starbucks. This is like Mecca for the coffee drinkers. They were so crowded it bet it took half an hour to get a drink.
I took this one for Mike.

We plan on stopping at Pikes this October with the Sibs.

Tidewaters Nature Center on Jekyll Island

Tidelands Nature Center

On day three of the Jekyll Island trip we started out at the Tidelands Nature Center. It was a small building but we sure got a lot of fun out of it as we went round and round discovering things along the way.

Last year at the Okeefenokee swamp the kids got to hold a baby alligator. Its whole body was about the size of my hand. At the Tidelands Nature Center we saw a much larger one in an aquarium.

Happy May!

Do you remember growing up in Idaho and what May meant? It meant that schoool was almost out and that Spring was finally and solidly in place. It meant that you could wear shorts outside (at least in the afternoon) but not to school. It meant the lawn was going to need to be mowed soon. We were lucky to have grown up in such a cool place.

After spending the last 12 years in the south I've forgotten how cool May could be. The things that I used to associate with May now roll around in March!