nature center part 2

It only took a month, but we finally got the bench for the nature
center! Bee wants to paint it pink, but Im not sure that we will do
that! I think that next comes the bird feeder. Give us another month.
ha ha. Now, here is an interesting tidbit for you. So you know I
teach seniors at MSU this semester, and yesterday was the first day
of class. I was going over the class list to make sure everyone was
there and to learn their names, and would you believe that 6 of my 25
seniors have the middle name Marie and 5 more have the middle name
Elizabeth? That's practically half the class!

Sen. Obama in Lansing

Senator Obama was in Lansing today to talk about his plan for energy
and the economy! My friend and I were able to get 11 tickets so that
we could take a group of youth from the GET City (Green energy
technologies in the city) to see him speak, which was a perfect
topic, since the kids have been studying energy issues all year! And
a couple of kids from our program were interviewed by CBS news so
that was exciting to see!

The day started off with a bang (literally) as we watched a police
car go up in flames. I guess it overheated and it somehow caused a
fire. It was little freaky because the heat of the fire caused the
ammunition in the car to go off and you could hear the ammunition
popping! I was for sure they were going to cancel the event.

then we watched Sen. Obama give a talk on energy issues, primarily
oil independence, climate change, and the role of new energy
technologies in transforming the economy and in global
sustainability. These are issues you all know I care alot about, and
so it was especially interesting to be able to see Obama speak on
these issues.

The crowd was fairly small - about 2500 people so even though we were
close to the back of the room, we felt like we were close to the stage!

Oh and I forgot to add that today is Obama's birthday so the whole crowd sang happy birthday to him! So while I did not get to shake his hand, I did get to sing happy birthday to him in person!

Go Obama!

Nature Center

We've decided to put in a little nature center in our background.
Well, admittedly, all of our backyard is nature. However, we thought
we would work with a part of the backyard to put in a little path, a
bench, a birdbath or bird feeder, some plants and whatnot. Its sort
of a mix of tranquility and imagination. The kids can play there and
create whatever worlds they want. We can sit there and enjoy the
peacefulness that is east lansing. So, the first picture is what we
started with. Then we cleared the the area. Then, the second picture
is the pathway we put in. We got some new york slate and put in a
pathway, with a sol y la luna step at the beginning and end. The next
step has not yet been determined but stay tuned!!

raspberries

Drum roll please....

from the little twig we planted last summer.... we figure if the
number of berries doubles each year, in 10 years we will have over
1000 raspberries (1024 to be exact)!

Gold Medal

Here is our level 1 swimmer! I think she is ready for Beijing, dont you!

having fun in columbus with mom and dad and...

Obama!! ha ha!!






For those of you familiar with MSU... Bee's summer camp class painted the "rock" near the auditorium on friday! Bee's friends call her Bee Bee, so if you see the "BB" on the right side that is Bee's contribution!

little house on the prairie

We went to the Nokemos Learning Center, sort of close to our house.
Its a recreation of an old farm village with the actual farm house,
school and general store. It was a sunday afternoon so everything was
closed but we still had fun wandering around, looking for frogs in
the lake, and pretending to be laura ingalls wilder!