Robin Hood's of the Sea

The past few weeks have been filled with house hunting, travel and pirates.  Let's start with the house hunting.  Our current lease is up at the end of  August.  We were all ready to sign a year lease when we got to thinking; do we need this house?  We are not hurting, but if you know me, you know that I LOVE to save, which we have not been doing much of lately.  Therefore, after discussing the pros and cons, we decided to search for a place that was a little bit cheaper.   Within 48 hours, we looked at 4 apartments, one of which we did not even get out of the car do to the rough and tumble look of the neighborhood, and had made an agreement with a landlord of a cute little basement apartment down the road a bit, saving us few hundred dollars each month.  We move in next month.  Not excited for the process of moving, but are elated to save money as well as make a new home our home for a little while.  We will be sure to get everyone our new address.

After making the agreement with our new landlord, we got on a plane and headed to Colorado for Pioneer weekend.  We got picked up by the ever wonderful Katelyn, who dropped us off at grandma D's.   We stayed up chatting for a bit until we were beyond exhausted.  We then ventured down to the basement, excited to enjoy the coolness of the basement and a reuniting of Dallin and his favorite Papa Dunning painting (it actually scares him quite a bit).  As we switched on the light ready to collapse into bed, our eyes saw many GIGANTIC spiders scampering into different hiding places.  Seeing as Dallin is not a big fan of spiders, we spent the rest of the week in the upstairs bedroom.  Those spiders were HUGE.  Do not judge unless you saw them.

On Saturday, we did some yard work then went to lunch at Turner's with Papa and Bev.  Dallin experienced a buffalo burger for the first time, falling in love with the original taste of the bison.   After which, we met up with Katelyn and her hubby to celebrate Dallin's birthday with some italian chicken and a grandma Dunning apple pie made by the miracle maker herself.  Needless to say, Saturday was full of good food combined with very good company.

Monday, I woke up with a swollen eye do to a mosquito bite the night before.  I, apparently, have a horrible problem with attracting mosquitoes and then reacting horribly to them.  However, the Bruce clan got to experience my new perfume of vinegar and vanilla extract after receiving the bite.  Apparently, vinegar takes away the sting and vanilla extract repels mosquitoes.  Go figure!

Anyway, on Monday, we met up with Terri to experience the Natural History Museum of Denver.  They were having a special exhibit on the pirate ship, Whydah.  As we walked through this exhibit and actually read the displays (novel idea...) we realized that pirates were not really as evil as many make them out to be.  In fact, they were kind of the "Robin Hood" figures of the sea.  A lot of the pirate ships would take over slave ships and make the slaves on the ship freemen on the pirate ship with duties and rankings on the ship.  Also, many seaman would join pirate ships during off seasons (meaning no war) to make money seeing as the government would not pay them in times of peace.  This was a pleasant surprise for the three of us and has inspired me to do a unit on pirates with my little ones!

ARRGGHH!

A lady walked by haha

Oh, Captain Bellamy

Enjoyed the prehistoric displays.  Dallin would fit right in!

Uncle Sam?

Seeing the family and getting to spend some quality time with them is always a treat.  This trip lived up to its anticipation.

The night before we left for our trip, Dallin surprised me with a little special dinner.  I was locked in the back room looking for places when we he came knocking dressed like this...

Toni

He prepared a nice spaghetti and meatball meal with a personal waiter and everything.  Love that boy.

Since we have so few kids in our class this summer, I "wisely" used my time to decorate our classroom a little.  One of the projects I did was this mural in our library.  The little guys love it, as do I recieving their compliments such as "Oh Ms. Kelli!  You are such a good painter" intermixed with their stories of what happens to kids who walk into the street alone (they get hit and die, "Duh, Ms. Kelli") along with how Babe's (the pig in the big city) mom got turned into ice...they crack me up.

My Mural

One more thing.  As summer keeps warming up and my hair kept getting longer and longer and fro-ier and fro-ier, it was time for a cut.  So, I went to my darling friend, Devyn, and we chopped it!  It feels so good!  Picture of the cut to come soon.

It is not an animal.  It is all my hair!

Love you all!