Thanks to Diane and Aunty Ivy for their hardwork; the kids had tons of compliments at church today. L put his sweater on this morning and checked himself out in the mirror; “I look like a teacher” he said. Not sure where he got his idea of what a teacher looks like.
We made a trip to the American Museum of Natural History in New York City yesterday. It was a day of trains and dinosaurs. We planned this trip with L in mind, but I have to say that I had a good time at the museum too. We started with the lizards and snakes exhibit since it is a temporary exhibit that we had to see during specific times.
This is a chameleon, but there were geckos, gila monsters, iguanas, and a few snakes. After some lunch we headed to the top floor to see the dinosaurs that L had been so patiently waiting to see at this “dinosaur museum”.
The apatosaurus is BIG even without muscles and skin. It was amazing to hear L name the dinosaurs just from their skeletons. If you look you can see L on Lowell’s shoulders for scale reference. Both Lowell and I had wondered if L would really get anything out of skeletal forms of dinosaurs, but we heard enough Oh Man’s to guess that he was having a good time.
In case you didn’t know this is the Tyrannosaurus Rex. After the dinosaur hall we worked our way down the museum’s floors. The museum has halls of peoples and animals. Even though the animals are only stuffed they are portrayed so realistically that it was almost nicer to see these displays then the real animals in a zoo.
There is also a 94 foot replica of a blue whale suspended from the ceiling in the ocean hall. It awed me. We haven’t see blue whales on our whale watching trips but the humpbacks and fin whales aren’t that much smaller and yet there is still so much animal that a person doesn’t see from the surface.
Yesterday was a beautiful day in New York City 20 degrees Celsius. We stayed at the museum until it closed at 5:45 but at that point we felt that we had spent the whole day underground. That wasn’t quite true but almost. We went outside and walked along the edge of Central Park until we found a place to have some supper. We grabbed slices of New York style pizza and headed back to Grand Central Station by subway.
We drove, rode the train, the subway and walked. At the end of the day we were foot sore, hot, tired and ready to head home, but all in all it was a great day.
I was a bit torn if I should post today after Lowell just did (from the university) regarding updates about our family, but it has been awhile and L and K have achieved some skills that I wanted to let you know about too.
Alright the update on K; after a week of a whiny, complaining little girl I think that she has figured out how to do what she has been wanting to. These days she wants to sit upright, not semi reclined, which means that she spends more time on her nose than with the toys that she is trying to grab. Sitting her in the high chair has helped a little. It also lets her be where the action is.
She has been rolling over front to back and back to front periodically this past week, I think that those were mostly accidental. Friday she rolled back to front 3 times in a row intentionally. Yesterday L was playing with some trucks beside K, she was turning on her side and putting her feet on his trailer; “What’s she doing?” L said rather confused. Lowell said “I think she wants to load her feet onto your trailer.” Then she rolled right over into and onto the trucks. “What’s she doing?” L said rather annoyed.
A personal favourite to me is that K found her feet during her diaper change today. I think it is so cute when babies chew on their chubby little toes.
It’s been rainy and dreary here the last few days, so we have been inside more than L would like. Thankfully there are such a thing as indoor picnics.
Lowell is trying to finish a paper so we didn’t do anything as a family yesterday, but last Saturday we did the New England thing and had a pancake breakfast at a local Sugar Shack.
While K has been having a developmental growth spurt L is as well. He is still a fan of letters and busy spelling words with both his bath tub letters and magnetic letters. He makes up words and then tries to sound them out. This is tricky as there are often very few vowels in his string of 10 letters. If he runs out of the letters he “needs” then he writes more on paper. He was very proud of himself when I told him to put PEN, JET and then JAM together and he successfully sounded out the words so that he could recognize them. He is very thrilled with his new reading skills. I guess he has been using these skills in the church nursery. Sarah (one of the workers) asked L if he had read that word and he give her a look as if to say “Of course what else do you do with words!” Lowell and I like that L is interested in letters on his own and that his reading skills haven’t come because we have been pushing him. Learning is hard work; one evening he fell asleep on the couch and didn’t even care that K was kicking him in the head.
For at least a month now, Pam and I have been trying to decide whether to stay here in Massachusetts till I finish my degree or move back to Winnipeg this summer and finish my degree from there. Being home at Christmas really made us aware of how much we miss it. We spent most of January wishing we were living in Winnipeg instead of here. We were also aware of how a move back to Winnipeg could negatively affect my work. It’s not an uncommon occurrence for a PhD candidate to move away from his advisor and fellow graduate students and never finish his degree. I’m not sure we were completely ready to make the decision yet, but—I won’t go into all the details—certain deadlines were looming and we had to make the call. We’ve decided to move back to Winnipeg this summer. We don’t know yet when exactly the move will take place, though, if it were up to us, we would move sometime in June or early July. We look forward to seeing all of you again. Anyone want to come help us with the move?
