Past week or so

We've been enjoying the spring weather which seems to take so long to arrive in New Hampshire. Getting outdoors a lot and even a couple real beach days last week with temperatures of 90F! Basically the past two weeks have been spent finishing up various homeschool work and projects. Getting to final or nearly final scout meetings for the year. Getting to the lake and other outdoor pursuits. Bike riding, walks, gardening, cleaning out the pool, setting the guinea pigs up for their outdoor summer accommodation... Also the big events of Tristan's birthday, getting ready for Trevor's upcoming birthday (next week) and Freeze our now one year old puppy (birthday last week- lots of spring birthdays here!) getting neutered. My camera is out of commission so most of the photos in this post are courtesy of Hayley (thanks, Hayley!). The ones we missed included:

90 degrees and at the beach, so fun.

Frenzied Freeze fiasco's-most recent went like this: Freeze escaped...again. Freeze ran down the road with Tristan in hot pursuit. Me shouting: Tristan don't run he thinks you're chasing him. Tristan not listening and making a dive for Freeze's leash. Tristan caught the leash and suddenly Freeze is dragging Tristan down the road. We are all now shouting Tristan LET GO. Tristan, while being dragged along the ground into someones driveway (a long way down the road BTW!) shouts back "no I've got him, I've got him". Tristan disappears down that persons driveway (being dragged). We wait not knowing how it all might turn out. Freeze suddenly appears and yes so does Tristan, still being dragged. (LET GO TRISTAN!) "I've got him, I've got him..."(NO he's got YOU!). Somehow they both end up back home none the worse for wear. Since it all turned out o that one would have been fun to have on film!

Have net will travel-Colin outside the place where Hayley has Girl Scouts (there happens to be a pond there)

He caught two frogs and I don't now what else.


Tristan waiting with Freeze right before the veterinarian took Freeze away to neuter.



Colin in the car with duct tape

you never now when you'll need duct tape!


While waiting for Freeze to be neutered we stayed in the town where the vet is located since it's an hour away from home. We decided to visit local parks.



The first seemed promising but the stream there was really polluted and not much was living there.



a bridge of sorts

This is a much bigger town than where we live and it seemed the parks were polluted both by trash and also run off from what appeared to be a corn field or other crops.

We all ended up with these sticky things on us!

Colin found what turned out to be a Dobson Fly larvae, creepy bug!

Hayley, photographer extraordinaire

We then headed to a second park where Colin found a frog.

The boys were fascinated by this plaque on a rock!

back at the vet to pick up Freeze Tristan begs to adopt this cat (we didn't).

Freeze-drowsy but happy to be going home.

Later in the week we head to the lake not quite warm enough to swim but a few days later it was.

We had to make sure Freeze didn't go in since he was still healing.

Then before we knew it, it was time to go back to the vet for a re-check.

Freeze got the all clear and was happy to have a swim on the way home. Unfortunately this swamp was not meant for swimming. hat fiasco is detailed on video in the post below.

Bonkers had come along for the ride this time and enjoyed the slide with Tristan.

Freeze, wet, smelly, happy.