Walking the dogs at sunrise

Jingle jingle
Jingle jingle
Let's me know it's time.
Let's me know they are ready to go.

No coat is necessary.
The stars are starting to fade as
the sky changes from purple to pink
to blue
Light clouds cover
Reflect the rising sun's rays.

Jingle jingle
Jingle jingle
Dogs pulling this way and that.
Sniffing to see who came this way before.
Ears perked as dogs bark in their homes
waking their sleeping humans.

A short walk to greet the morning.
Refreshing and alerting like a nice cup of coffee
But different
I wonder why I don't do it more often.

Jingle jingle
Jingle jingle
Home and ready to start the day.

Maggie and the Stars

Last night was a beautiful late summer night. We got out Maggie's trike and went for a little ride. The neighborhood is a little hilly, so she struggled a little, but still had a lot of fun. As the sun went down, we continued to hang out in the front yard and were rewarded for this by our neighbor who was trying to get rid of some tomatoes (I will be making some salsa later this week as I have a lovely tangerine pepper plant that has some beautiful orange peppers just waiting to be picked).

In the western sky, a star shown very brightly and Maggie pointed it out. Coincidentally, I had listened to NPR on the way home and a short segment from "Earth Sky" just happened to be on Venus, which was the star we were looking at. So I thought I would use this as a little astronomy lesson for Maggie.

Me: Maggie, that star is a planet called Venus.

Maggie: It's a star planet!

Me: That's right. And it's the third brightest thing object in the sky. Do you know what's brighter than Venus?

Maggie: Um, the moon!

Me: That's right! And do you know what's brighter than the moon?

Maggie: A spider!

The big moments

This week, Maggie started her 2nd year of preschool. She is once again in the Tuesday/Thursday class, as suggested by last year's teachers. However, she has new teachers this year, one who was a daycare teacher and knows her fairly well. Maggie was very excited to be with Miss Amy in preschool. Miss Amy thinks Maggie IS ready for the Monday/Wednesday/Friday class. We've started her in T/Th and will see what the recommendation is as the year progresses.

Today, Maggie started Sunday School. I was prepared to hang out with her for the hour, but after checking out the room and showing me all the animals on the rug (they have a Noah's Ark rug), she shooed me out of the room. I wasn't quite prepared -- I had even begged out of singing on the Praise Team as I didn't think I'd make the pre-church rehearsal (and also because we were skipping church to watch the opening game of the football season ;) ) -- so I made a quick trip to Albertson's and messed around with my mp3 player (and actually figured out how to do a few things). Maggie had a great time at Sunday School. They learned about Joseph and his "coat with all the colors" and Maggie got a pencil and 2 stickers!

And with these 2 momentous occasions, I did not take pictures. I didn't really think about it for Sunday School and the past 2 years of preschool I've only thought of it after the fact. Maggie goes to preschool from daycare and if we were to wait to take her in, it would throw off her schedule. I do plan to take a day off work when Maggie does go to Kindergarten and will get pictures then, so I try to not feel guilty about not capturing these special moments.

Maggie the Entomologist

Maggie loves bugs. "They are so cute!" She loves to pick them up and watch them crawl on her hand. She also loves to squish them. Saturday, she "rescued" a grasshopper from the dogs' outside water bowl. She played with him for quite sometime, until we convinced her to let him live on her flower. Maggie told Daddy his name was "Hoppy" and told me it was "Grabby".




I sincerely doubt I ever would have gotten this close to any kind of bug at her age.

Montana Livin'

It's a beautiful Saturday morning. Rocky has been walking the dogs each morning this week, so they woke us up early. Until we can figure out how to teach them to tell time, I'm afraid this will probably happen a lot. And of course, once Rocky got up, it wasn't long before I was up, and it wasn't long before Maggie was up. While Rocky was walking the dogs, I made coffee and got Maggie settled in with "Sesame Street". When Rocky got back, he turned on NPR and asked me to join him on the deck. Our deck is on the west side of our house, so we can watch the sky turn to blue as the sun finishes rising. The cows in the pasture are lowing. Mule deer are in the meadow across the ditch. The dogs are playing in the backyard and would soon join us on the deck. Hot coffee. Cool morning.

A mule doe and her fawn (still had his/her spots) were in the neighbor's yard a few mornings back. We watched the fawn get breakfast and then bound off. Wiconi watched intently. Another cool morning.

A Montana Life is definitely worth living!

Luccock Park Camp - Family Camp Weekend

This is my Father's World
and to my listening ears
All nature sings
and round me rings,
the music of the spheres
This is my Father's World!
I rest me in the thought
of rocks and trees,
of skies and seas
His hands the wonders wrought!

We spent this past weekend at Luccock Park Camp with members of our church and other Methodist Churches in the area. We all had a wonderful time and I think Maggie is hooked on summer camp! Our church has one week each summer for elementary, middle and high school kids.

We arrived Friday evening in time to get settled into our cabin, to hear a few stories and to PLAY! We were 2 cabins away from the playground and I think Maggie would have been very happy to spend the entire weekend right there. It was her first thought each morning and her last thought each night.

They had a lot of planned activites, but also a lot of free time and I did wish we had brought a few more books. The cabins all had electricity, so we were able to watch the same Veggie Tales movie "Lord of the Beans" several times -- always good at bedtime. Maggie has recently decided her favorite blanket is one my Grandma Gilbert made back in the 80s (because it is pink) and insisted on bringing it along. It was quiet warm and a nice compliment to the sleeping bags, especially after Maggie decided she wasn't going to sleep in her own bunk and bunked with me.

The service project was replacing some of the wood chips in different walk-ways through out the camp. Maggie really loved helping, for about 30 minutes (we were completely finished in about an hour). She did talk about it several times throughout the weekend. At least we are getting her into service projects while young!!
We did send both dogs to the "doggie hotel" for the weekend, but discovered many of our camp mates brought their four legged family members. Maggie thought that was pretty cool. She got to play fetch with Poncho -- she picked up pretty quickly and hopefully will not expect it of our own dogs :)

We got to do a lot of hiking and even tried to make it up to the Park Creek Falls. Maggie was game, for a while, but as she did not take a nap, she started asking for piggy back rides from me and shoulder rides from Dad. We made it about 5 minutes from the falls when Maggie decided she had enough. It only took about 10 minutes for her to fall into a deep sleep after we returned to the cabin. She even slept through supper! That evening we enjoyed singing around the campfire with most of the group. Maggie even got to play with Poncho more, which always makes something better for Maggie.

As it was our first trip to Luccock, we discovered a few more things to bring next year: our camp coffee maker, our camp cot, jiffy pop, stuff for smores, books, and maybe invite a few others to join us. We had plenty of room in our cabin: 7 bunks! We were lucky and got a cabin to ourselves. It was a gorgeous weekend and the only thing I think we missed out on was a clear night Saturday night so we could have watched the stars.