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Fall Fish Tour

The first weekend in October, we wanted to go see the Kokanee salmon spawning at Taylor Creek in Lake Tahoe. As I was telling Shelley about our plan, she suggested we stop by the Nimbus Fish Hatchery, since it's on the way, and her boys used to love going there to feed the baby fish. What a great idea! The boys loved it! 

Hanging out with a Kokanee salmon at the Nimbus Fish Hatchery

The fish would flurry when we came near...thinking we had food! 

Buying fish food for 5¢ 

Fish ladder

The next morning, we headed over to the Taylor Creek Visitors Center. We love the Rainbow Trail hike. It's short enough for kids, and has beautiful views of the mountains and the creek.

First glimpse of the spawning Kokanee!

The annual Kokanee Salmon Festival was in full swing. It was a cute little event with a few games, activities information booths, Smokey the Bear, and of course, salmon to eat! We had already eaten at the Red Hut Cafe before we came, but next year we are going to have salmon for sure! 

Giant Kokanee

Tanner inside the giant Kokanee

Bean bag toss with "salmon eggs". 

Inside the stream profile chamber. The kids thought it was so exciting to see a crawdad eating one of the dead salmon!

The Naked Chef

Tanner is a picky eater. I never thought I'd have a picky eater in our house since Russ and I eat A LOT! Tanner won't eat cheese, butter, eggs, bread, vegetables, and he won't drink plain milk (just to name a few.). Feeding him has been a struggle. 

But one day he woke me up and announced that he wanted to try a hamburger. I don't know what he discussed with Russ, but after his proclamation, they zoomed off to the store and bought ingredients to make hamburgers! Ground beef AND bread? Are you kidding me? We were so excited! I forget why he is only wearing underwear while making dinner, but hey, we didn't want to ruin the momentum since he changes his mind more than he changes underwear! 

He even wrote out the dinner menu for that night...

The chef mixing the ground beef by hand. My germaphobe husband made him wear gloves. 

A Day at Wounded Knee

I pick up the boys through the back gate of the school. Today it was locked, so a bunch of us parents were waiting for the custodian to come and unlock it, but after about 5 min. I figured I could just run to the side of the school and get the boys. Of course they are both no where to be found. I go to the office where I have told them to go if I'm not there when they get out of school. The ladies in the office hadn't seen them, but one of them paged them over the intercom. Knowing my boys, they wouldn't hear, so I go check the playground. A mom said she just saw them, but a boy says he saw them going toward the back gate. WHAT?! Then I get a call from another mom saying she sees them walking with a neighbor. So I run to the gate BUT IT'S STILL LOCKED!! In a panic, I climb the fence and land, but I still manage to fall after my landing and scrape up my knee. I'm running down the street with my bloodied knee, furious at the boys for not going to the office in the first place, but thank my neighbor for looking after them. As soon as we get in the house, they get the full yell/lecture about not going to the office, how they could have been abducted if the neighbor wasn't walking with them, how it's so important to follow directions because someone CAN GET HURT (like ME!!!)! Then I point to my knee which is scraped up in two places, and I tell them, "See? This one (scrape) is named Cody, and this one is named Tanner. A reminder of the day you didn't listen to mama!" 

Are they going to write a Mommie Dearest memoir someday or what?

 

It's kind of weird... after I took the pic I noticed the scrape on the left looks like a "T" on it's side, and the other scrape looks like a "C" facing down. T for Tanner and C for Cody! 

Sharkie Visits!

Tanner's class won the Sharkie reading contest (most pages read), so they received a visit from Sharkie himself!

Tanner presented Sharkie with a Valentine from the class!

Sharkie love! Tanner said, "First he bite me in the head, then he gave me a hug!" HAHAHA!!! I love it! The valentine is even on his website (SJ Sharkie)! Of course, I didn't even know about all this until I saw the pictures on the class website!

I can't believe Tanner got to interact so much with Sharkie! Especially since I didn't even know the class was still doing the contest (and we hadn't turned in any pages read), but we DO read to him every night! hah!

Solvang Century Ride

Last weekend, Russell went on the Solvang Century Ride with his former boss & friends. They rode from 7:30 am to 4:30 pm! I can't imagine being on a bike for that long!

Pajama Day!

Last Friday was Pajama Day at Cody & Tanner's school!

It was also Dr. Seuss's birthday! I went to Tanner's class and made green eggs and ham with his class! So fun!!!