LietzauFamily

Gabe and I went fishing last night at Jacquie and Carol’s.  We went for a canoe ride with Jacquie; I was in the front, Gabe sitting on a tackle box in the middle, and Jacquie in the back of the canoe.  We went to Hidden Lake rather then Sweeney Lake – Hidden doesn’t allow motorboats so it’s better fishing, at least at the time of day we went.  We caught so many fish!

Jacquie and Gabe’s poles were set up for crappie, and mine for blue gill and sunnies.  It turns out that’s where it’s at – as fast as I could cast I was pulling in fish!  So we switched over Gabe’s pole, and he was catching them too.  End of the night, Gabe caught the biggest crappie and sunny, while I caught the most fish, as well as the biggest fish – a nice small mouth bass.  Almost caught a wee little pike but he jumped off.  There is a nice variety of fish in Hidden and Sweeney Lake, and I look forward to fishing again!

This June we went to New Harmony, Indiana and stayed in the family cabins at Harmonie State Park.  It was hot – upper 90’s – and it was humid.  But it was fun to see everyone, and neat to share with Gabe things I did when I was a kid, so all and all a good trip for us.  We ended up with lots of pictures, between my camera, Katie & Tom’s camera, and some Grandpa Joe took at Grandma ‘Nita’s.  I want to give a big thank you to Tom for letting me have a copy of the pictures – he was the most on the ball of all of us to remember to actually USE a camera!  So a big chunk of the photos I’m going to share are ones he took.

The first group of pictures are ones that didn’t really fit into a category.  Shots from around the campground of things that caught our eyes, or cute kids, or what-not.  Lily ended up in a lot of pictures (cute little baby!), as well as snakes, for some reason!  Kelly, I”m surprised at how few shots everyone got of baby Shelby.  I did take some – but they ended up being little blurs as he ran by, bounced up and down, or was swung from our arms on a walk.  Very few turned out!  He just doesn’t hold still anymore.  Maybe next time.

On the second hottest day (nearly 100, full humidy, and super-sticky (what were we thinking?)), a few of us explored the town of New Harmony.  Grammy K, Katie, Tom, Lily and I walked all around town.  I’m happy to report that the Labyrinth is doing really well – thicker and nicer then ever.  The town itself is picturesque with great historical buildings and homes, lovely gardens, and quaint shops.  Definately a good town to walk around (but maybe not when it’s that hot (are you sensing a theme yet?)).

Either I’ve forgotten it, or we never went across it when I was a kid, but there is a GREAT old metal bridge.  It connects the town of New Harmony to Illinois, spanning over the Wabash River.  It’s amazing – so high, and old, and kind of rickety looking.  You have to pay a dollar to cross it – but it’s so worth it.

On the HOTTEST day of the trip we went to Holiday World in Santa Claus, Indiana.  Yep – Santa Claus is the name of the town.  It’s next to Christmas Lake, and every store and street has something to do with holidays.

It was a good day to go to Holiday World because it has a HUGE water park with the longest water ride and the highest water ride in America (so their signs say).  We didn’t go on either – but we played in a fun kiddie water park most of the time which helped us stay about as cool as we could.  We ended up with a hot sticky baby though, and had to head home early.  On the way out we saw the diving show – and they had somebody who set themselves on fire, and jumped 60 ft down into a tank of water.  It was actually pretty cool!

There you go – that’s about half the photos from the Indiana trip.  I’ll add the rest soon!

Gabe’s 8th birthday party with his friends had a scientist theme.  We got lab coats with embroidered patches with the kids’ names on each one. It was adorable:

For the first experiment we made slime.  We used water, Elmer’s glue, borax, food coloring, and glitter (optional).  This was a fun hands on expirment with a lot of gross but fun factor.  I’d definately recommend this one again.

The second experiment was called Elephant’s Toothpaste (that’s what the science teachers call it) but I prefer calling it foamy bottles, as the kids were extremely tempted to eat it or try to brush their teeth with it!  It’s made using hydrogen peroxide, yeast, water, dish soap, and food coloring (optional).  This was a hit and miss.  For some kids – it worked like a charm – lots of warm (it’s an exothermic reaction) blue foam came pouring out of the bottles.  For others – total duds.  We figured out it has to do with the yeast – some packets were more active then others.  So if I was to do this one again – I’d make sure to have lots of extra packets on hand just in case.

Our third and last experiment was the infamous Diet Coke and Mentos Geysers!  I’m sure many of you have seen the videos on YouTube, or on tv.  Gabe saw this on “Myth Buster” and knew right then this had to be part of his party.  When you drop Mentos into Diet Coke, it causes all the carbonation to instantly leave the bottle, very quickly.  We rigged up a way for the kids to do easily by drilling a hole in the cap of the bottle, threading 4 mentos onto a pipe cleaner, threading that through the hole, then attaching a stick on top.  When they pull the stick, the mentos fall into the bottle and the geyser erupts – 20 to 30 feet into the sky!

This was a huge hit with the kids – they loved this one best!  I was surprised at how many of the kids wanted to drink the Diet Coke – some even tried to drink it while the pop was shooting up (and it was flat, minty coke too – yeeeck).  You can’t really get the full effect of this experiment from photos – so we made a little movie of it:

All in all – I think it was a terrific party and I think Gabe has made some wonderful memories.  This will be one birthday we’re going to talk about for years to come!

To view even more images of the party (two dozen!) please view the album:

So sorry this post is late, kiddo!  I meant to make this nice wonderful post on your actual birthday, raving about all the cool things you do.  Somehow your birthday always sneaks up on me and this year was particularly bad – we were sooooo busy these last couple of weeks.

So thank you for be such a good kid, and putting up with how busy life gets.  Thank you for being patient, when right now, it seems everything is all about Lily.  Thank you for being such a good brother to her.  Thank you for being such a wonderful little helper.  Thank you for pretty much handling school on your own this year – you’re fantastic the way you now just sit down when you get home from school and do your homework independently for the most part (the spelling, capitalization, and punctuation still get you sometimes).  Thank you for just being you – our amazing, smart, little (but not so little) guy who’s going to grow up to be an inventor/builder extraordinaire!

Gabe got a PC for his birthday this year.  He wanted a computer when he was 4, but we told him he’d have to wait till he was 8.  Little did we know he would remember that and tell us all the time about how he he gets his ‘puter when he turns 8.  We gave him a big box full of parts though – he had to put his computer together himself (with a little help from Dad).

Pictures from his school birthday party will be up soon!

I’d like you to meet Mr. Gabe:

He can be a bit stern looking, but he’s actually quite nice.  He has a mustache, a deep voice, and often wears a brown wool hat.  He also likes to leave notes for people, inviting them to visit him for a party, or to play a game.  He sent me this message the other day:

“Find a new friend.  A new friend indeed. A robot ish friend for you and me!”

It was an invitation to see a new robot contraption he had made using a chair, a bunch of paper, wires, and his iPod player.  Very cute.

We are so antsy to get outside once the weather warms up in spring.  As soon as it does – out come the blankets – Yay!

Every chance we get to go outside, we take.  We drag out a blanket, lots of toys, and plop Lily down in the middle of the blanket.  She’s mobile now though, so every once and while you have to pull her back onto her blanket as she’s wiggled out into the grass.  She loves to scoot around – arching her back and kicking out with her feet, or rolling over onto her side and wiggling like a worm.  Silly girl!

Gabe has been enjoying the nice weather too.  He will play with Lily (he likes to blow bubbles or tell her a story – either one will thrill her to no end) and play exploring games in the backyard.

These are all the pictures I ended up taking when Katie and Tom were visiting the week before Easter.  Tom had business training in Minnesota and we were so glad we got to play host while they were both in state.  We had such a nice visit – we bought and installed a basket ball hoop, visited Stillwater and hit the antique stores, celebrated Tom’s birthday, hit the Mall of America and Underwater World, tackled the sorting out the garage, had a fire and roasted s’mores.  Such fun!

Here is a few odds and ends that happened in March.  First – Lily looks adorable:

Isn’t she sweet?  This outfit came from Kelly.  It would make an excellent birthday party outfit with all the darling cupcakes on it.  Love the polka-dot tights.  Now that it’s warming up you’re going to see Lily in dresses a lot more.  Speaking of warming up:

Bike riding season has begun!  Yippee!  We go on long walks now, Lily in her stroller and Gabe on his bike.   We plan on doing lots of bike riding this summer.  There are nice routes of both straight roads and hilly roads in this neighborhood, so we have a variety of fun biking paths!

This is a cute little bit of Gabe’s homework.  They were working on homonyms (words that sound the same but are spelled differently and have different meanings).  This one is about flower/flour.  So funny!

We have been using the baby carrier facing out lately for Lily.  She isn’t much of a snuggler – no longer is she content to stay cuddled up against your chest (unless she’s sleepy).  She prefers to see the world all around her.  Unfortunately, she also like to grab at everything she sees.  Watch out!