Fun at festivals and with friends.

This first pic is from July. We spent the day at the Stockholm Art Fair. Lucky for Bug, the playground is right next to the stage, so she was able to play while her dad & I enjoyed the music. Here she is on what I call The 4-Tiered Spinning Tower of Death....although there were only a couple of minor falls.

A couple of weeks ago, I took Bug and 2 friends to the children's museum. Here there are working in the convenience store.



They each took a turn on the climbing wall. This was the highest that Bug has ever gotten, so we were excited.

L. almost made it to the top!

E., oldest of them all, made it all the way to the top.

Bug found an old, empty tv set and crawled inside.

This is Bug's favorite thing...the giant TEETH.

Tooth number 6

Bug had a miserable day on Sunday. The top left tooth was so loose that she didn't want to eat anything. Around midnight she woke up and it felt odd...while in the hallway it came out. She then sat down to write a note to the tooth fairy and to have a snack, as she was STARVING.




Here she is this morning with the gold coin that was left for her.

Mudboy-summer 2009

Bug discovered this statue when she was 1.5 or so and just loves it. We try to take pics of her with mudboy whenever we can. We made a new shirt just for the occasion.

Here is Bug with the original mudboy...made of mud, not bronze! We had never seen this before.

The Meat Puppets!!!

Bug's dad & I got to see the Meat Puppets a couple of nights ago. Bug was a little bummed that she couldn't go, but she did have a fun evening. Before the show, she was able to meet Curt Kirkwood, guitarist/lead vocalist of the Meat Puppets. She gave him a note listing her two favorite MP songs: Comin' Down and Flaming Heart.

She then asked him to pose for a photo. He scared her by asking her to hold this (fairly heavy) guitar while he held the matching bass. She chose to just stand next to him.

While he was checking out the acoustic guitars she went in and said "Excuse me, Curt....would you play one of my favorite songs?" He chuckled and proceeded to play part of Flaming Heart and quite a bit of Comin' Down. Bug was curled up on the floor, looking up at him. I wasn't able to get a pic, as I didn't want to spoil the moment. Let's just say that she was very, very happy. He signed her (it WAS mine...she has claimed it) copy of "Too High To Die".

The show was great! I managed to score a table with stools in front of a fan...not sure I would have made it, otherwise. It was a bit warm in there. Greg Norton, (bassist/Husker Du) got up and played a bit. That was cool to see.

Bug's book....chapter 4

Chapter four: The Funeral

Kiara and Kovu's daddy came to his funeral. "*sob* he was only 10 when *sob* he *sob-sob* died." said Kiara. "I know." said Kovu's father.

"Let's put his belongings there!" said Kiara. "I agree." said Kovu's dad. ROARrrrr!! they roared.

The next day, Kiara gave birth to a new cub. His name was Theodore, because his whiskers were bluish-white-and-black.

This is a picture of Theodore.

But after birth, a cyclone raged! It tore their stone house to pebbels. And they said that maybe the go to Noah's Ark and find help.

Bug's book....chapter 3

Chapter three - Fossil Class

One day, it was fossil class day! Kovu was very exited. "Now I can dig and find bee-ootiful things instead of pee and poop! exclaimed Kovu.

One Thursday (wich was a fossil day) Kovu was having a fever. He took H2O medicine pills and slips and check-ups, but they didn't work. He was getting worse! He was about 10 when he died.

Bug's new book... Rule-o-Lions-AND-Lionesses chapters 1 & 2

Bug has been busy writing a book. I'll post a photo of each page so that you can see her writing and illustrations. I'll also type out the text (not using her random capitals & lowercase letters, for ease of reading, but keeping her spelling and punctuation). Let us begin:



Chapter one birth of a lioness

One day there was a lion named Kovu. He was hunting and he pounced on a lioness! "Hey!" shouted the lioness. "Sorry." said Kovu. He licked his big paw. "let's play!" they shouted. but nearby, Zira was listening and snarling. She leapt in front of Kovu! "You are not going anywhere, Mr. Fuzzypants!" They left.

Rule-o-lions-AND-lionesses

A lion named Mufasa has a lovely wife named Queen Sarabi. She gave birth to a lion cub. He was named Simba. One day he drank so much that he peed on a tree.

Chapter two The Wilting Tree

One day Kovu sighned up for fossil class. "What are you doing?" screamed Kiara, a sweet, but dangeros lioness. "Signing a form." said Kovu. "What?" yelled Kiara. "I said, I'm signing a form!" screamed Kovu. "Oh...ok." said Kiara. Soon, they married.

And sure enough, as Kovu's father had said, the tree WAS wilting.

Freedom!

Bug has NOT wanted to try riding her bike without training wheels. She pretty much panics at the mention of it. We got her a new bike this spring and I took the pedals, cranks, etc. off of the littler one. She would push herself around on that and was getting really good at balancing on it. She would ride the new one around, but only with training wheels. We were given a 20" bike that we didn't plan on using until she was a bit taller. She really wanted to give it a try yesterday, so her dad said that he'd hold on and they could go around the block. They weren't even to the corner when she asked him to let go. As it was on a busy street, he told her she'd have to wait until they got to the big parking lot. He let go and she never looked back.

After they came home and told me the news, I went out and removed the training wheels from the 18" bike. (a better fit for her right now) I then took her back to the parking lot (right next door and empy...yay) for some riding and photos. She's so happy and proud of herself.

Such focus...

I suspect this is the view I'll have most often....

First baseball game.

We won free tickets to a baseball game. Bug had a pretty good time...mostly wanted to eat, although that was difficult, as she had a tooth that NEEDED to come out and she was pretty much willing it to stay in.

Here she is with the mascots. She thought that they were really cool.

Missing teeth and a beautiful butterfly.

The 3 of us spent saturday at the Maiden Rock Summerfest. The weather was perfect, the parade was crazy (I only got hit with candy one time), the food was tasty and the music was GREAT! During Patchouli's set, Bug's top tooth fell out. It had been barely there for a while and while eating chicken a little earlier in the day it had gotten pushed back up and turned. OUCH. After she told the band what had happened, they played her favorite Patchouli song for her: Indiana.




Before we left, Bug & her dad found this fluttering around on the ground. The picture doesn't capture the colors like we saw them. It was beautiful.

Fun in Lake City.

Bug and I spent the weekend in Lake City. The Boy graduated from high school and the party was on Sunday. Here he is with his "real mom" and his "cool mom" (that's ME!)

I made some socks for the Boy's mom. She loves them.

Bug has been a kitty for a while, now. Isn't she cute?
Here she is, yawning.

Bug found this mask and thought that it was VERY cool.

A nice day for a walk.

The 3 of us took a walk on Monday. We followed some trails we hadn't been on yet.

One of the coolest things we saw was this huge old maple tree. Bug was fascinated by the big hole at the base and was excited to find out that if she stuck her head inside and looked up, she could see daylight....that's when we walked around to the other side of it and saw the huge hole on the other side.

This is inside the tree, looking down from outside.

Here was Bug's view when she stuck her head inside and looked up. Pretty cool!

What has Bug's dad so interested?


FLAMES!

AND MORE FLAMES! The guitar-builder in him really REALLY wanted to take this home.

After seeing a spot on the tree where a woodpecker had been, Bug needed to draw.

The water in just this one spot was orange....beautiful, but weird.

Bug saw this frog on the trail in front of us. We stopped a couple of roller-bladers so that I could get a pic.

It then hopped off the path and showed us how well its camoflauge worked. I couldn't see it on the camera screen.

This turtle wasn't too close, but Bug really wanted a picture of it.

Near the end of the hike, Bug still had enough energy to do quite a bit of skipping. I'm glad that I was able to capture this.