Easter Egg Dash

This morning, Joshua and I joined hundreds of other 0-3 year olds for an Easter Egg Dash.  There were 3 groups of 100 toddlers!  Joshua had a great time and totally got the concept of putting eggs in his bag.  All I had to say was, "let's put them away"!  He loves to pick up things and put them away at home and the concept transferred well to putting eggs in a bag.  Very fun.

Also, my darling boy humored me by wearing these bunny ears the entire time, willingly.  One time they fell off which made him laugh and then he wanted them back on again.  Later, he wore them while we video chatted with Brad and he pointed to the ears and said, "Hat".  Or, rather noises that resembled that word, good enough for me anyway!

After collecting the empty plastic eggs, we traded them in for prizes.  Joshua really had fun checking out all his prizes until he noticed he was surrounded by dandelions.

Note how he sees something else.

And has now found that something else, a "flower"!

High Places

Sometimes, you have to go up to get a new perspective.

The ziggurat

Here is the famous ziggurat of Ur. Sadly, this is the closest I got to it.

3/22/2010

Joshua's first Girl Scout Thin Mint cookie.  He really enjoyed this special treat.

Figuring out the spoon!  This is kind of a messy process but well worth the effort.

Even Merle gets in on the messy eating fun!  After dinner last night I had to bathe Merle and take the highchair outside to hose it off.  Taco night is messier than spaghetti night!

Joshua loves this fridge magnet toy.  I think it is pretty fun to mismatch the animals too because a cute little song plays about the mismatched set.  In this case the song would go, "You put a cow in front.  You put a horse behind.  Put them together and what do you find?  A Cow Horse!  That's silly!"  Also, when he pushes the little chick at the top of the barn other songs play which inspire him to dance along with the beat.

Disrupter Game Night!  Our battalion hosts monthly family friendly events to give us a chance to get out and get together.  I have really enjoyed the events in the past and didn't want to miss out tonight either.  As usual, we were running late but I am so glad we went and I know Joshua had a ton of fun running around with other children.  Joshua and his friends had a great time playing on the steps together.  Joshua loves climbing up and then running toward me at top speed straight off the step!  He wouldn't even consider going down any other way.  Good thing I was always there to catch him or he would have had a nasty surprise.

Bright sunny day

A beautiful sunny day in Iraq.

Random thought of the day.

When I want to make comments on blogs I am required to enter a letter verification.  I wonder if these sets of letters were misspelled words in documents?  If so, how did spell check not catch these errors?

P.S. I promise, dear readers, that you will have some pictures of a certain adorable little boy.  I just need to get around to it but am a little distracted and overwhelmed by the state of my house at the moment.  Take care and wish me "happy cleaning".

Dried mud

This is a common sight in Iraq after rain storms.

Burrows

I'm not really sure I want to know what made these holes. All I know is that they were large.

Lovely signs

I love the signs in Iraq. Do cigarettes often catch people on fire? I'm just wondering. Because if the cancer isn't enough of a deterrent, than perhaps the fire extinguisher ominously attached to the wall will cause someone to reconsider smoking. I'm guessing that public urination was a problem until they put this sign up.

Adder Gate

This is a cool gate that used to go into Adder. Amazingly, the gate isn't falling down. Many of these roadside structures are crumbling across the country.

Kuwaiti living

These tents are not fun to stay in. They're in Kuwait. Kuwait has a transient population, so people are walking in and out of these tents all the time.

More memories from CO

Special Memories with Papa and Grandma

Joshua enjoyed picking them up after skiing and then riding the shuttle bus back to our lodging.

Born to Ski!

Joshua had so much fun wearing ski gear.  Next year I hope he enjoys the real deal!

Reading with Grandma

"Helping" Grandma with her work.

Riding on Papa's foot is...

so much fun!

Figuring out the XBOX contols.  Joshua figured out how to turn on the system and open up the disc tray with the controller. 

Play time with Joshua

This is kind of an old video but you might like it anyway.

Some Pics from Vail, CO

We have had some amazing snow this week.  Yesterday Dean and I skiied most of Vail, east (Golden Peak) to west (Game creek) boundaries and top to bottom (of course).  When I say that the snow was amazing, I mean, fresh powder at 3 pm because it snowed all day. Also, we found some runs on Golden Peak that were just the right combination of challenging and fun, Blue Ox, specifically.  I have had a great time! 

Pictures of who you really want to see!  :D

Kendra and I skiied alternate days.  On Tuesday, when Kendra was on the mountain, Joshua and I went to story time at the public library.  We had so much fun listening to stories about mice and then having a chance to paint and play.

It snowed while we were at the library.  This is such a peaceful place to watch the snow fall.

Back at the condo, Joshua made sure his painting was posted on the fridge.

At the library, they had an interesting method of shelving the children's non-fiction books by topic not Dewey.  Interesting.

Joshua had some help from Papa learning to drink from a glass.

Stadium Seating

This is a once famous Iraqi stadium. Some of the benches are still functional, but most of them have been destroyed.

Places I have slept

Pure coincidence, but on a single trip, I slept in both an old version and new version of a GP Medium tent. The insides were rather nice though.

Bullet holes

This building had a terrible day. Not sure when, but I'd guess the initial invasion.