And the Critters Go On and On...

Our earthworm home.



Do earthworms prefer bumpy or smooth? Warm or cold? Light or dark? Moist or dry? Turns out that for a critter with few complex organs, and no eyes, they do have senses...


Getting our garden ready for Spring planting. We have friends who live on a farm with ample room for a garden and too many vegetables for their own consumption. So we're share-cropping with them. Tomatoes, cucumbers, beans, cantelope, pumpkins, peas, celery, carrots, zucchini, and lettuce.

Snail watching.

Turns out that if you get really close to a snail and it's really quiet, you can actually hear him munch when he eats! And this snail ate an entire piece of lettuce in about 20 minutes. They eat fast!

Alex kept this one and named him Slimey. He would take him out each day for fresh air and check on him every 30 minutes or so to put him back in his box because he'd always crawl? sneak? creep? slime? out. For a snail, this pet required a lot of maintenance. By the fourth day, Slimey ran away. Alex called and called, and left his box open with fresh lettuce, but he never came back. We miss you, Slimey!

Amsterdam in April

With husbands away, my girlfriend and I headed 6 hours north into the Netherlands to catch the flowers and see Amsterdam. We were a little early actually, the Keukenhof is usually in even greater bloom, but it was still beautiful and Amsterdam was totally fun. We saw how wooden shoes are made (even noticed a workman on the street actually wearing wooden shoes), how they make their famous Dutch cheese, a working windmill making peanut oil, and the beautiful canal streets of the city. Which, with all the brick row houses, reminded me a lot of Baltimore City.

We hit the Anne Frank house, so cool since Ethan and I read the book before we went. And the Van Gogh museum, which was so geared to the kids, they came away knowing all about Van Gogh's artistic style and his famous works by title.

And the Dutch, having colonized a lot of far-reaching places, has food influenced from all over... so a break from the Brats was welcomed.

Happy Birthday, Alex

In a blitzkreig weekend of birthdays, we celebrated two sleepover parties. Evelyn went friday night with a girls night and Alex had his buddies over on Saturday night with rock climbing for everyone on Sunday morning. After being forced to share birthday events for 5 years since their special days are the 24th and 25th of March, Evelyn laid it on the line. No more birthday sharing.

One kid, one celebration. It was so fun, we can't wait to do it again next year, right Ric? Ric?

Reluctant Happy Birthday Little Girl

There is a reason why I took more than 6 weeks to post this happy birthday... and it ain't just a river in Egypt, honey. Enough now, I mean it, Stop. Growing.

I threaten to stop feeding them so that they'll stay little and it's not working. They still want to eat. How dare they.

Happy, happy birthday to my FAVORITE little girl ever. You are my sunshine honey-do.