Natural Bridge Caverns

Colin and I headed north of town today to go to Natural Bridge Caverns. He's been really interested in caves lately and so the past few weeks we've gotten a lot of library books about caves and last week we watched Pete's Dragon. We've been making pretend caves out blankets and creeping through "tunnels" under the tables.

He was SO excited to see a real one with 'really big rocks'! He ran into our room this morning and said, "C'mon mama! We're going to go in a cave today!" I tried to get him to look at me so I could take a picture of him going into the entrace, but he just desperately wanted to get in.
One of the rules is that you aren't supposed to touch anything except this one touching stone. He did so well, only pointing at stuff and never touching. I didn't even have to remind him.
I think seeing the real deal helped to cement in his mind the difference between stalagmites and stalactites and before we went in, we got to see some soda straws up close at one of the exhibits.
You may notice his finger's in his mouth in a lot of these; I'm pretty sure he's cutting molars...not that he ever lets you look in his mouth.
We tried to hang near the back of the small group we were with. There was a dad with his two boys (9-12?) and they and Colin enjoyed taking their time and looking at things. There was also another 2 year old on the tour; she and Colin both did really well.
Colin was actually a little frustrated at the lights. I was afraid he wouldn't like how dark it was, but he actually wanted it to be darker. LOL! Afterward he was talking to the tour guide about somethings and she suggested we take the Illuminated Tour sometime where the only lights are your lanterns. I may try to fit in another trip up here for that one before we leave - I really think it would be worth it for him to get that experience, but I really was afraid to sign up for it until I saw how well he did in the regular tour!
My impressive little boy actually walked the whole time we were in the cave - nearly 1 1/2 hours! I only lifted him up to see specific things that he was too short to see over the edge of. I was SO stunned! I figured I'd end up carrying him through at least part of it, but every time I asked he said, "no mama, I can do it."
Here we are at the very end. The older of the boys we'd been walking with took our picture for us - they were so nice and really seemed to enjoy pointing things out to Colin.
After a yummy lunch, we went to go check out the sluice and some of the rocks. I let Colin pick out one rock from the gift shop and he chose some jasper. I tried to talk him into others, but he was set on the jasper. I chose a piece of sandstone, thinking that would make a good contrast to his.
We also found a great lightening bug book in a series we've been reading lately, "Rookie Read-About" Science. I have to say, I'm totally enamoured of these books. They are absolutely great for Colin! When I saw they had this one, I decided he needed it to take up to Grandpa and Nana's next month where he will be able to catch some (apparently they saw them, but they weren't numerous enough to catch when he stayed with them a few weeks ago).
And the poor tired boy totally crashed out on our way home after an exhausting morning and big lunch!


***And yes, I just noticed that he has on the same shirt as the post below; apparently I like this one and do laundry far too often. :)

Just Colin

Munching the last of this season's peas from the garden:
"Reading" a book off mommy's nightstand

Fun at Sea World

In line with our sort of spur-of-the-moment week we've been having, Colin and I decided Thursday morning that we would head to Sea World. We'd been out mowing and working in the garden for a few hours and we were hot (it was 9 am!!!)!
The dolphins were really being funny that morning and one of them even kept coming up to our spot and just waving his fluke in the air like he was saying 'hi'. I wish I had gotten a better picture because it was really neat. Many of them were also doing lots of jumps and splashing the park visitors.
As we were watching the fish at the aquarium, we ran into Mary, Emma, and Connor. Mary and I just cannot get over how funny Emma and Colin are when they are together. They were racing back and forth in front of the tank telling each other to look at different things! We were lucky that it was not very crowded yet. When Colin got to the sharks he kept shouting over to Emma, "Sharks, sharks, Emma look! Do you see the sharks in here?!" Again, thank goodness there were not too many people! LOL! Mary and I just stood back and laughed at them. :)
Once outside, they were back to chasing each other; one would fall in the grass and the other would fall next to them and they'd giggle so hard. I'm definitely going to miss this little sweetie; she and Colin are such a good match together!

New Countertops and an Offer

We have a new picture after the countertops got updated last week; much better! :)
In other news, we had a showing this week and they made an offer only $1,400 under our asking price! How miraculous is that?! Obviously we are taking it. If all goes as planned, we are closing on July 23rd and we will be packing up and Colin and I leaving a couple days before that! So everything is moving very quickly now and seems to be working out smoothly.

Picking Peaches & Berries

Today we drove up to pick blackberries and peaches at an orchard we love to visit. The blackberries were SO numerous and yummy. I was surprised at how well Colin did with them this year. I think he actually even got more in the basket than in his mouth and after only a very short lesson on how to check before picking, he did a remarkable job only picking the ones that were fully ripe.
Sometimes he just had to taste though. Then he'd grin at me really big and say, "I put the next one in the basket, mama."
I was also really impressed with how carefully he handled them. Here he is bringing two over to the basket. They're pretty easy to squash and he kept nearly all of them intact. Yay for fine motor skills! :)
Here he is carrying the basket before it got too full and heavy!
After about an hour he said, "come on mama, let's pick somesing else!" so we did. :)
Next we picked some peaches. I love peach trees because their branches are low enough than he can easily reach them. We only ended up with a couple underripe ones in our box - he did a pretty good job of letting me inspect before he picked them.
Hmmm...this one got rotated. Whoops!
We also got a small bag of plums while we were there and Colin had to try one as soon as we were home (even though we'd stopped for pizza for lunch - is this child ever full?).
I was a little worried since he wouldn't eat a popsicle for my mom because it dripped on him too much and got him dirty, but he did okay with the plum!
All in all, a good morning!

The House...

Househunting in Dayton was a totally alien experience compared to house hunting in San Antonio. The markets are just SOOOO different!

However, we survived and we are getting ready to close on a house! Yay! For those of you who were enough in the loop to hear about the historic, but didn't get the memo that we are going for a different one, uh, sorry! I've been really bad about getting information out this time!

So, without further adieu and in apparently completely random order (sorry)...

Side yard

Around the other side

Small deck off our bedroom

Maybe the part we are all three most excited about (I'm not even all the way to our fence line when I took this picture; you can see Michael's red shirt down on the grass). Awesome trees and totally fenced. The treehouse/fort ideas are flying around here every evening. :)

Again, random order - one of the four bedrooms

Laundry upstairs

Study for Michael off the master bedroom

Additional woodburning fireplace in basement

Half bath off kitchen

Coat closet

A two car garage that will actually fit two cars and still leave room for you to get out of them - bye bye San Antonio.

Totally psyched about a double oven! :) Michael had already said that we could put one in whatever house we ended up with, but this one had one installed new this year! Yay!

The blue countertops were replaced last week with this:

Wood burning fireplace

And for some perspective:
Entry, living room (will probably be a reading room for us) to the left (the dining room sits behind that with doors to both the living room and kitchen), hall to the kitchen you can see in the back, stairs up, door to the garage to the right (which you can see in the picture above) and also to the right is the family room with the tile floors and fireplace.