Busy Week

A brief overview of our week so far:

My birthday on Monday (actually celebrated Sunday evening with my cake made and decorated by my two favorite guys).

A busy weekend sure tires a boy out. (I haven't taken a sleeping picture in a while - Paul actually took this one!)

Today after school Rudy had swimming lessons. We were a little early so we headed to the playground for a few minutes.

Rudy is sooo happy to be back in swimming lessons. He did not want to get out of the pool or leave after the lesson was over. It's a good thing we have many more weeks of lessons left!

Oldies but Goodies

We recently figured out how to remove pictures taken on Paul's phone. I am not sure of the dates of most of them but they are definitely several years old.

Having a popsicle on the beach.

Pasta!
His favorite place - "Mithmille".
Future hoodlum.
A cold and confused Guatemalan wondering why it's so cold and why he's on the beach in the cold.
Fashionisto (I assume that's the male form of fashionista!).

Unsure of having a pumpkin head.

G'Day Mate

Grandpa recently went to Australia and brought back a friend for Rudy...

Per Rudy, her name is "Kathy. A different Kathy."

Random Rudy Photos

For his birthday/Christmas Rudy got a camera from Aunt Vincie. On the drive home after receiving the camera, he took about 15 minutes of video out the car window - of the trees and passing cars. I won't bore you with it but believe, it was pretty boring - and shaky.

I've been trying to leave the camera out so he will sometimes get inspired to just pick it up and take pictures. Here's the outcome.


The ride home with a new camera- shoes!

Grandpa's cat, Dusty, who was visiting us off and on in the last month.

The snow through a window.

Mario and Dusty co-existing peacefully.

And a recent picture of Paul.

One Crazy Family

When the grandfather looks like this:

(modeling the mosquito netting hat he wore on his recent trip around the world{more or less})

...is it any surprise the kids and grandkids look like this?

The "Wild Wild Rescue"

Since it was a beautiful day on Saturday we decided to visit the local wildlife refuge, which Rudy called the "wild wild rescue". There are paths to walk on and also a drive to go around an look for animals (mostly birds) in the waters and marshes.

Overlooking the marshes.

Paul and Rudy on the boardwalk trail. The static electricity on here was unbelievable. We shocked each other constantly and when you got near the wire fencing, you could hear the sound of the static. It was quite a painful walk at times.

Walking on a path by the boardwalk. Rudy didn't want to go in the 'deep dark forest', but fortunately, since there are very few leaves on the trees, we didn't encounter many areas like that! He also found several 'bear tracks' that he was following. And he found some 'dinosaur eggs'. It was quite an adventure.

A view of the boardwalk from the path.

The great bird watcher.

Silly face

This is while we were on the drive. Rudy is 'reading' the book on local birds and pointing to the words and telling us all about them. I think he was reading about a 'redbird' here.

Rudy checking the sign to make sure we're heading the right way.

A beautiful lake.

The explorers. I love Rudy's pose here!

This large branch was partially in front of the path. Rudy decided he needed to move it out of the way. I think he succeeded in moving it about an inch or two.

And of course towards the end of our final path, Rudy the birdwatcher was gone and the superheroes had returned.

Walking back to our car.

The Park!!!

I have been so jealous seeing pictures from some of my blogger friends at the park. Today I picked Rudy up at school and he was very upset because his class was getting ready to go outside, so I told him we had a to do a few things and then we could stop at the playground on the way home. We spent less than 5 minutes at the playground before he had to use the bathroom. Fortunately, the park isn't far from home, and he had been warned we wouldn't have much time there anyway, so we headed home to get ready for dinner.


After dinner, as Paul headed off to basketball practice, Rudy was running around the house and I decided he needed to run that energy off, so I again proposed we go to the park. It was colder and starting to get a little dark but we probably spent about 30 minutes there.


I am starting to feel that spring may actually come soon!

Rudy was pretending this structure was train and he train had many rooms - a time-out room, a toy room and a tool room.

The one time he stopped and said 'cheese' and I didn't even ask him to. Now f only he didn't have the Spiderman hat on!

He has swings at school and I think he's starting to understand the idea of pumping - he doesn't do it well, but he understands some of the mechanics. I thought the first time he did this that he was going to flip over until I realized he was pumping his feet and leaning back.

He liked swinging on the rings but is just in the middle in terms of size for them - he's too tall to just swing with his feet off the ground, and too small to be able to pull his feet up and over.