For the Birds

A few weeks ago, we finally got some hanging baskets for the front of our house. Since they are on either side of the kitchen window, I enjoy looking at them while I wash the dishes. Last year it seemed that a lot of humming birds visited our flowers, so I didn't think much of it when I first noticed a pair of house finches regularly coming to our geraniums. They male would sit on the wire, while the female would "explore" the inner parts of the plant.

In this picture, it's the female on the lookout.

The girls told me the female was building a nest, but until I saw her with nesting material in her beak, I didn't really believe. Of course this peaked my curiosity, so I took down the basket and sure enough, there was a lovely little nest. We wonder if their are eggs in the nest, but I don't want to disturb it if there are thus no picture of the nest). Here is a more close up picture.

Not only do we have birds living in our hanging baskets, but there is a family of woodpeckers living in my mom and dad's corkscrew willow tree. The girls were very excited at this discovery and suggested that we take pictures of it. We have heard lots of little chirping noises coming from the tree. Here is a picture of a woodpecker in the tree, and another of the woodpecker working on the power lines in the backyard.

And just for grins, here's an attempt at a video to capture the noise we keep hearing of the woodpecker at work.

Lehman Caves

We decided that a big family vacation wasn't in the cards for us this year.

We're hoping to do a few small family outings instead.

Our first outing was to

Lehman Caves

I had never been to a cave before, and this one didn't disappoint.

Jane was a bit nervous when we first entered the Passageway to the actual cave entrance.

As you can see from this picture, it was very dark. Jane screamed and cried a bit because it was scary. The Ranger made it very clear that if she wasn't going to be okay, he could radio for an escort out. Fortunately for us, once we entered the actual cave and they turned on the lights, Jane was fine. Sadly though, Chelsea didn't get to finish the hike because Maddie was a bit tired (and the Ranger must not have known that stopping for long periods of time to explain in cramped spaces isn't very conducive to an 18 month old's attention span.)

Here's what we saw when the lights were turned on.

I was amazed at all the "cave decorations." Supposedly the best ones are found on the longer hike, but small children are not permitted. I was still pleased by what we saw.

Anne, Abbey, and Olivia seemed very interested and asked the Ranger lots of questions. They also commented freely. Our favorite was when the Ranger was asked how the shields (the flatter areas that seem to drip from the cave's walls, pictured below) were formed. His answer was. "We really don't know." Abbey then responded with something like "Well, that's how Heavenly Father made them."

After we finished the hike, we had a picnic nearby. Unfortunately, the weather didn't want to cooperate, so we had our picnic in the rain. It did stop for a few minutes while we made our sandwiches, and it was still tasty and fun.

After we finished our picnic, we headed to Ely, NV to our hotel with a swimming pool. We had a great time. It was really fun. It was practically a family reunion because most of Cory's family (Mom, Dad, Kevin, Amy, Craig, Chelsea, Maddie, and Kristen) were all with us.

For the first while we had the pool all to ourselves, so our girls were loving it. They got to ride on the "Craig Express" (Thankfully the pool never got too deep so all of them hanging on couldn't really drown him.) Uncle Kevin was Olivia's personal whale, and he swam around the pool giving her rides. Jane just loved swimming with whoever would hold her and help her. The girls mostly loved getting tossed by their uncles, however, on a few occasions I did hear accusations of attempted drownings. Needless to say our girls are naturally melodramatic.

Since Cory and I were both swimming too, I didn't capture any pictures, however, Grandma did, and maybe I'll be able to get a hold of them and add them to the post a little later.

We had a great time.