US Women's Olympic soccer

We headed to SLC with a group of friends to watch the US women's Olympic soccer team play an exhibition send off game vs. Canada before the teams headed to London to prepare for the 2012 Olympic games. We attended an open practice the day before the game as well, which was super interesting to the hubby and I...not sure the kids really appreciated our pointing out how hard the players were working during practice and that there was no socializing, dancing, or cartwheeling on the soccer field by these future Olympians.

US v. Canada

 
Our seats ended up being great...we were close to the field and saw some of the goals being scored close up which was super exciting!  Seeing these ladies play (ages ranged from 20's to upper 30's!!!) was amazing.  They handled the ball with ease and grace and made the sport look easy!

The weather these two days was incredibly scorching hot! We cooled off in the afternoon following the practice at a water park where the kids had a blast. And since the water was heated, I had a blast too! Because even in 100 degree weather, when there is a wind, it really can cool this cold blooded mama down!

Watching the ladies practice the day before the game.  You can see one of the
players signing autographs out on the field in the red shirt

It also worked out that we were able to spend a few hours with our friend Alix and her three beautiful kiddos who were visiting her family in town before they head to live in Russia for two years.  I have no pics of getting to see them because my camera battery died.  I was super bummed about that.  But otherwise, we had a great weekend as a family enjoying a once in a lifetime Olympic experience!

Hot Air Balloon ride

What happens when your friends call you and ask you if you are awake at 6:30am on a Sunday morning????  You get to go on a little hot air balloon ride!  It was pretty cool even though by the time I got there ( I had been out on a run!) the hot air was about to run out and my ride was just a quick up and back down but it was still cool!

Urban Faux Farmers

Earlier this spring we saw an artcile about an "Urban Bucket calf" program that gave kids who live within city limits the chance to raise a bucket calf.  It is a 4-H program and although I did a year or two of horse 4-H back in the day, I have absolutely no experience with daily cow care.  The hubby, who Grandpa was a cattle guy, and I decided we would ask G1 is she wanted to apply to the program.  She of course said "YES".  Our adventure had just begun.

Getting the stall prepped.  A group of older kids had already come by and did the tough work of sanitizing, scooping out the old poop, etc.
This is truly a best case scenario faux farmer set up!

We went to our first Urban Calf meeting and got the gritty details.  Our group is 20 kids with mixed experiences with livestock.  It kind of seems to me like many of the people kind of have a clue.  Then there are a few of us with absolutely no clue.  Our calf was scheduled to arrive on June 19th!  We could barely wait and G1 started talking about what she was going to name him.  When the calves arrived, it was so cute. The kids were pretty excited and the calves were totally shell shocked. It was kind of nice the cows were a bit subdued because it gave the clueless folks a chance to get used to hanging out in a stall with two 30 day old calves.

Meeting his Mama

G1 decided to name her little guy "Tiny Kozmo" but somehow during his first few minutes in the stall, it got changed to "Baby Kozmo." He weighs in at 104lbs which is about average for the group. We started bottle feeding him the morning after his arrival. It is really fun bottled feeding a calf. G1 is ABSOLUTELY NOT thrilled with the fact that the cows like to lick you when you are in the stall. She doesn't like it when a dog licks her either so I don't know why I'm so shocked by this!!! 

Baby Kozmo is not sure what to think.  He looks a little frightened!

Every day, we have to go to the fairgrounds where the cow is kept and do a list of chores for him which include bottle feeding (for the first 21 days), giving him grain, making sure he has fresh water, cleaning out his stall, brushing him, taking his temp (yep...rectal temp two times a day! lovely!), and other various chore items. When we showed up the first night, we found out out neighbor had signed up for the program too so we are his stall buddy. They are great and we have been a good team so far! 

Baby finally laid down and started to relax.  It had been a long day for him!

We also have to exercise Baby Kozmo each day. G1 was very timid about the cow walking and her first night when he started bucking around, she let go of his leash and he ran away. This meant I was chasing Baby around for about 15 minutes. All I could think was "please don't let our cow die when we haven't even had him for 24 hours!!!!!" Thankfully I caught him. But then I couldn't get him to walk. He braced himself and finally some friendly horse guy came over and helped me get this little cow back into his stall! 

1st time bottle feeding Baby Kozmo.  He can suck down 4 pints
of milk in about 2 minutes!

We are one week into raising Baby Kozmo and so far it has been a lot of work but way more fun. We have some other friends who are also doing the cow program and they spent last night helping G1 leading/walking her cow around and today she had SO MUCH MORE confidence that it was amazing. I am loving all the time I get to spend with G1 while we are caring for the calf. She and I are both gaining a lot of confidence in what we can accomplish. Although sometimes I have to fake that I am not scared, many times I just tell her that I am nervous too but we can do this if we help each other! 

Getting his daily exercise.  Right after this...Baby Kozmo escaped and
we spent about 15 minutes trying to re-capture our calf.  Note to any other
future famers: calling your calf like a dog does NOT work!

End of Year Dance recital

G1's end of the year dance recital is always such a fun time.  Her studio puts on a fabulous show and it is always really professional seeming.  There are two nights...the first is for the classes who met once a week for recreational classes and then the competition teams do a few dances they have learned...usually highlighting their ballet and tap skills.  It's always super cute to see the tiny girls perform and to see G1 doing dances we haven't seen her perform before.

Ready to tap

 G1 was in 4 dances the first night and two dances the second night.  As always, the dances on the second night were amazing.  The older girls can really dance and are just so fun to watch!  Due to the hubby have to go in to work last minute, he was unable to come and watch the dress rehersal as planned and we didn't have a ticket for him to come to the second night.  Well, last minute, our across the street neighbor could watch the boys and another family had an extra ticket because someone in their group couldn't make it so it all worked out perfectly and Dad was able to watch G1 in her final performances of "Rio" and "School Days", the two dances she has been competing in all season.

Ballet

Grace and two of her friends from school

 G1 was also in a jazz dance "Sparkle" that we had to "make up" a costume for. I never got a picture of what she actually danced in for the recital but the entire outfit was made up of my old dance recital costume accessory pieces that were mega sparkly. Amazing how dance costumes really have not changed that much in 20 years!

G1's cheering section.  It meant so much to her (an us!!!) that
her friends made the time to come and watch her dance.

 We haven't really gotten a good picture of G1's competition costume "Rio" so we attempted to get a couple of good ones.  It is a really pretty costume and looks fabulous on stage with the bright colors. 

Rio

 It has been so fun to watch G1 advance this year at dance.  Her competition team, JPC, did extremely well throughout this entire competition season.  I think I heard from her studio that her team won the most overall awards than all the other competition teams at the studio.  Regardless if that statistic is exactly true it is close and the great thing is most of the girls will be returning next year so I think as they mature and get more refined technique, they will really continue to do well!  It's been a great confidence builder for G1 to be a part of this team and has taught her about team work, being reliable, working hard, and giving something her absolute best!

My beautiful little dancer

This boy is just full of ornery-ness lately.  Hoping I can survive Child #3!!!

New Glasses

G1 picked out new glasses!  I think they ended up looking fabulous on her! 

My Little Gardners

We kicked the boys out for the actual planting and had a little
one on one planting time. 

For Mother's Day a few years ago, the hubby and the kids made me a little garden where we could grow a few simple crops. It's really been a family garden with the hubby doing the soil prep, G1 and I doing the planting, all the kids and I watering throughout the summer, and then everyone kicking in to pick whatever grows.  I love doing this kind of stuff with the kids.  We put in our "crops" in over Memorial Day and also planted some flowers in containers for around the yard.   This darn cold weather has required us to get out and cover our plants....even two weeks into June!

My Early Bird
Since he is normally up around 6am, he and I go
out and water the flowers and check out the garden.

G1 is documenting the growth of our beans this year. She has a little chart made up and every day she checks to see if there has been any change. The past few days we are seeing beans and lettuce poke up through the ground so there has been a lot of excitement.  We also have a TON of strawberries this year but they are all still green.  Hoping we can keep the birds out of them!

Peony

We also have quite a few annuals we like to look at around the yard.  This is where the 85 year old in me comes out because I like to look at, take pictures of, an mess around with my flowers.

I about gave up on this rose bush....now this year it has
a bunch of blooms in the back!!!  They are so delicate and tiny!

 I would really like to pretend I know what I am doing with all these flowers around my yard.

Not the best angle for a picture but love
this particular bud.  There are about 40 buds on this rose plant.
It is GORGEOUS now they are a bunch in bloom.
Don't worry...I'm sure I will post more photos
of my roses.

 But I don't.  I just take note of what the people with pretty yards are doing with their flowers.  When they prune.  I prune.   And I wish I would have paid more attention to my Mom and Grandma's and their flower gardens.

Clemantis---this is AWESOMELY beautiful this year.

G1 is my only child who will sit by my flowers for pictures.

Loving our yard this year!!!  And it is so fun watching the kids get excited about watering and caring for all of our flowers!

Reading

G1 still loves to read.  This is how I found her the other day.  Not an uncommon sight around here.

BunBun

I feel like I haven't posted about BunBun enough in the past year.  So in honor of his 1 year anniversary of become a Kozmo Rabbit, I thought I would say that I have enjoyed this little guy more than I ever imagined! He is super soft, he gets excited when we interact with him, and he makes my G1 so happy.  Glad you are a part of our family BunBun Roger Carrots!!!!