Koi Pond Home Tour...

Last week I picked up a local news magazine and found an ad for a Koi Pond Home tour in Lincoln. Similar to going to a garden tour, we went to the first house, paid our family fee of $15, collected our map and tour book and set out. All of the homeowners that we met along the tour were very helpful and willing to talk, and we learned a bunch about ponds. Someday we hope to have a stream and pond set up, it's peaceful and the fish are so calming to watch. Anyway....

The homes on the tour all had flags similar to this one below so you knew you were in the right place.

This was the first one we went to, very nice and natural, with a bit of a darker bottom.

We fell in love with the look of this one. He has used bright, small pebbles that are part of the filtering system, so it's very clear and also bright. He has fish in there, they are hiding under the rock shelves.

Yellow fish are a new favorite...

One of the "pool" ponds, not the look we like but interesting. The boys had fun at this house because they had a nursery tank under their patio with little 2" babies.

We did a lot of this...

The community is based around a golf course, so we saw a lot of personal golf carts. Tyler said this one had it's rain coat on.

It's hard to see it, but this one goes up the hillside that was their backyard. Very cool and long stream to look at, the lizard was pretty neat as well.

The ornaments around were fun to see, like these cranes.

They had beautiful fish that lived there as well.

This guy is my absolute favorite...

Getting closer to the natural river look...

The pictures are not doing these justice, but they were huge!

Mainly because they live in what was a swimming pool.

One of the smaller ones of the day, we liked the look of this water wall, even without it running.

We also liked that she had the small pebbles. The smaller fish worked well here.

The last house was pretty awesome.

I mean, come on! A bridge in your back yard is pretty cool.

The stream at the top...

Cheesy boy to finish...

Fieldtrip with Cody...

Thursday, Cody's class had their one and only field trip for the year, off to the Folsom Zoo and Sanctuary. The kids loved the fact that they were able to leave the school for something fun and we had a great tour. We were supposed to ride the train as well, but the man that runs the train mixed up the days he was supposed to arrive early.

Here's Cody and a couple of his friends waiting for the train that wasn't to be.

The only other shot I have is of the whole class and I didn't realized that I couldn't see Cody in the pictures until I uploaded them. Lame mom! Plus a dead batter put the stop to any more.

We were able to catch the train the next day after school, bonus that Ty was able to ride as well.

You can see Ty's little orange shirt and his big grin!

This next week is Cody's last week of school, then we move onto the big world of 1st grade. He's excited to be moving on, I think it mostly has to do with getting eat lunch at school, he talks about that quite a bit.

I'm ready for our summer break! I would like to say our schedule will slow down and we won't be on such a rigid time table, but the renewed gym membership dashed those dreams.
Busy, Busy, Busy!

Recycled Crafty...

Check out the latest over Here...

Tyler's Preschool Party...

Today we went to the OV Community Center for a picnic to celebrate the end of the preschool year. All three of the preschool classes sang songs and then all the kids were given a certificate and a book.

On stage, ready to sing...

During the performance...

Getting his certificate & book from Ms. Suzanne & Ms. Amanda...

Cheesy...

Here are videos of a couple of their songs and dancing...

Rants and Raves for the week...

Rave: After the weekend I was still at my latest goal weight.
Rant: After the week, some bad food choices, and girly things I'm back up 2 lbs.

Rave: Wed was the Teacher/Staff Appreciation lunch at Cody's school sponsored by the PTA. It went well, the teachers were delighted with the food and festivities, and I can't wait until next year.

Rave: Open house at Cody's school was also Wednesday. We were able to walk around the classroom, see the critters that live there and check out some projects. Here's what we came home with...

Farm diorama that he built with his 4th grade buddy.

The bowl is made from newspaper and tissues papers, he constructed it by himself.

Rant: Cats. We don't have cats. We also don't have a dog, which is why the cats hang out at our house. We've gotten used to them prowling our back yard, even leaving us things to pick up. They have messed with one of my new barrel planters, fixed the problem with marigolds.

Now they have gone to far...

We have a boat living at our house that belongs to a friend of Keith's. This is the cover on the boat...

This is a 12" bucket for reference...

There was a small hole in the cover, maybe a 2" square or so, it got a little worse over the winter, progressing to a fist size hole. We opened the garage this morning to see a cat coming out of the the boat. Another one came out later. I'm pissed, Keith is livid. I think it's time to call the human society and get some traps.

Rave: Today was Ty's last day of preschool.
Rant: Today was Ty's last day of preschool.

Getting ready to go for the last day...

We took these to his awesome teachers...

The rain held back and they got to play on the new track.

Sweet....

Rave: Took Belle out for a spin on the bike trail for 5.7 miles. I nice little shake down to see how things would go.

Rant: My bike shorts suck. I have to go online to find some that will fit properly.

Rant: The weather. Come on, it's May!

Have a wonderful Memorial Day weekend!

Fun at the parade...

Last Saturday we walked around the corner from the house to watch the Pow Wow Days parade. It was fun, the boys got lots of candy and it was something a little different to add to our normal weekend routine.

Before the parade, just dripping with cute...

The typical start of most parades around here: the fire truck, and the boys covering their ears.

Next was the parade of cars from the Capuchino Cruisers car club.
Grampa would be proud of this ooh & aah...

Our favorite fire truck of the parade...

Seriously, what's not to love?

The boys did a lot of this; waving at the people and waiting for the candy to drop.

Oh boy, another fire truck...

The Shriner's were out with their go-karts of awesome. They had formations and everything, very fun to watch.

I have a feeling this is in my near future
(Pershing Choir)

Big Todd pulling the Boy Scouts; kudos to Niello for the lend...

We didn't end up going to any of the other events for the weekend, but they had a full carnival with games and rides, along with different local bands. Maybe next year...

Pretty, Pretty Barrels...

The front of the house is soooo close to being finished! Today was spent planting flowers and bushes.

Flowers up the walk way...

Love petunias...

The new barrel planters...

These are all different, and hoping a bit of Miracle Grow will help to get things bigger by the end of the summer. For this year, I planted some annuals in the front of the barrels to fill them in.

The last step is getting some water to all the pots and barrels through the sprinkler system and setting them on the timer. For now, I'll just go out and water by hand.

So happy to have a bit of color again.