Grandma and Grandpa's visit

A couple of weeks ago, Grandma and Grandpa Leupen came to visit. (There can be no excuse for such delayed picture posting, but if there were, it would have to do with the blogger teaching two intensive summer classes while arranging to move from two separate houses, one of which is hundreds of miles away, into a new house). Anyway, here are a few pics:

Reading with Grandma

Ben building a train car with Grandpa

Alex building a train car with Grandpa

With G&G at Quiet Waters Park in Annapolis

Ben lost a tooth! Grandma spotted it right away.

Snuggling with Grandma. Awww.

Preschool Graduation

The skit at preschool graduation was the Very Hungry Caterpillar. As you can imagine we were thrilled when Alex was given the part of the cherry PIE, though he doesn't seem as happy to be ensconced in whipped cream as a person should be. Ben got to be a lollipop. The Muslim kid was given the part of the salami, I do not jest.




Ben won the "Bird Lover Award," no doubt overcoming heavy brotherly competition, and Alex's is "Best Reader."

Cape Henlopen State Park, Delaware

Where we heard the laughing gulls laughing, saw shorebirds on the shore, heard a whip-poor-will saying its name in the night, and saw horseshoe crabs horsing around at high tide; and where Alex and Ben saw the ocean for the first time. Not content to leave the beach there, we brought back most of its shells in our pockets and most of its sand in our car.

Flowering plants at the Great Sand Dune

Digging at the Great Sand Dune

Mating horseshoe crabs

Ben's proud collection of horseshoe crab (exo)skeletons

Beach at which we saw dunlins, least terns, caspian terns, black-bellied plovers, red knots, ruddy turnstones, sanderlings, dowitchers, yellowlegs, willets, osprey, cormorants, and lots of gulls.

Ben tapping a horseshoe crab

Closeup to the hc's magical ancientness (older than the dinosaurs!)

Tent time

S'mores

Running to see the ocean for the first time.

Birding in Delaware

Excitement without stress is a wonderful combination. Yesterday we had a wonderful birding adventure at Bombay Hook NWR along Delaware Bay, where we finally saw all those shorebirds that we've heard they have at, you know, shores. And stopped by the Chesapeake Bay Environmental Center on the way home-- where we saw two fledgling great horned owls. The little one peered at us suspiciously from the giant nest: amazing! (Though too far away to photograph and anyway my camera batteries ran out).

Alex, then Ben, at the pond where we saw calling, nesting willets.

Ben climbing a little observation tower.

Blue grosbeak (right out the car window).

On a (higher) observation tower at Bombay Hook.

At the beach at the Chesapeake Bay Environmental Center.

Easter

While Daryl was off singing today, we dyed eggs and baked Easter rolls.

Ben measuring flour for the rolls

The dough rose a lot! (It's very hot here today....)

Alex shapes the dough for the rolls, or "Look Ma, flour-y hands!"

Look what we made!

The best part

This picture of Ben and Kaloo is from yesterday, but I like it so I threw it in.

Going To A Birthday Party

Before the party:

During the party:

After the party.

Mud Season Continues

Yesterday we went to the strangely named Soldier's Delight Natural Recreational Area nearby for some more mud-seeking. If two very muddy children is the cost of a two-mile walk in a neat place (a long way when you're five), I'm willing to pay. Soldier's Delight is also a serpentine barren, which is a sort of crazy geological anomaly where the earth's mantle is very near the surface, the plants are all different than you expect, and the rocks are weirdly colored from all the heavy metals in them. The birds were pretty neat too.

First salamander of the year

With Daddy

Stomping in mud...

Jumping into mud puddles...

Throwing rocks into a muddy stream...

The aftermath