Pawnee Bill, Blonde Moments, and other fun stuff

Before I begin, I should preface by saying that all photos in this post were taken by my husband's iPhone.

WHY were they taken by my husband's iPhone, you ask?

Good question.

Well, first of all, because he has the new iPhone that contains approximately a 3.0 megapixel camera with actual focus ability. He was the freak interviewed on KRMG because he was at the mall at 4:30 a.m. waiting on the doors to open. He was there at 4:30 a.m. because he found a deal online where he can send in his 'old' iPhone for more than the new one costs... which is why I consented to let him get the new one...but also the photos were taken by his iPhone because I forgot...

THIS.

Grabbed the camera; promptly forgot to check and see whether the memory card was actually in it.

I should also let you know that there is no Wal-Mart in Pawnee, Oklahoma. There *is* a Radio Shack, but it's inside a pharmacy, and on Saturdays, they close at noon.

Not helpful when you get into town at roughly 2:15 p.m.

Moving on...

We spent the afternoon and evening at the Pawnee Bill Ranch. We had a great time! There's quite a bit to do between the museum and mansion, where no photography was allowed (the blogger in me resented that), the log cabin, the blacksmith shop, the teepee, and the various mini-shows that are put on during the course of the afternoon (hard to catch with an iPhone camera). But more on that later.
The teepee above was fascinating. You could actually go inside it, and they had a reenactor who could tell you about all sorts of Native American life, how they did things, etc. She was well-educated but a bit strict. She obviously had put a lot of effort into making some of the stuff and really didn't like people fingering the items, despite the fact that it seemed that they were obviously lying in the open for a reason.
This was one of the rooms inside the log cabin. It was a two-bedroom cabin, so quite a good size I suppose, and it definitely looked original, though of course I'm no expert. The beds even had old quilts on them that looked pretty raggedy. The log cabin was central to the gunfight shows that were part of the day's program - each program was different, I might add, so you could go back and not see the same thing twice. I thought that was pretty neat.

Next door to the log cabin was the blacksmith's shop, and they had an actual blacksmith outside working to make items for sale. My kids were totally fascinated by all the different tools he kept whipping out - chains, pins, hammers, tongs, etc.
They even had a kids' play area inside the museum, complete with all the good stuff you see here. It was a great way to kill time between the BBQ dinner served onsite starting at 5 p.m. and the actual Wild West show that started at 7:30. Plus, it was indoors... and therefore air-conditioned!
Obviously I have no photos of the mansion or museum, or of the show itself, since zoom and night-vision are a couple of those handy little features phone cameras don't really sport, but it was well worth it. The show was as authentic a reproduction of a wild west show that they can apparently have in modern days (i.e. no real bullets, no making fun of different ethnicities, etc.), and it was a lot of fun. M2, at one point, told me it was "the most good show I've ever seen." She fell in love with one of the characters, Miss Peach, though M1 really liked all the gunfights - typical boy ;) All the characters also had trading cards with their characters vs. the original characters on them, and the kids really liked collecting them. Bonus - they were free souvenirs!
Now... I know you don't see photos of me on here, and there are lots of reasons for that, but just this once...
I'll indulge you. The last show of the day, right before dinner so everyone's showing up and watching, put on by the "miracle worker extraordinaire," and guess who gets hauled up on stage?? I honestly thought, when he was calling me out, that he was talking to a woman standing slightly in front of me... but no... I was the chosen one. And I had to sing. And dance. And play a kazoo while bending over slightly. And hold a stick of "dynamite."
And for the rest of the night, I was recognized.
There's nothing quite like someone saying hello to you as you step out of the Port-a-Potty.
I could never be a celebrity.

OKMozart!

In our efforts to A) save money and B) explore our home state, the kids and I went with a new friend - a fellow member of a homeschooling group I've joined - up to Bartlesville today to visit the OKMozart festival today. I'd never been and honestly had no idea that there was more to the festival than just the music. Turns out, that's the expensive part! There are free demonstrations and shows on every single day of the festival. The woman that I went with, a lovely and VERY pregnant woman I'll call T, had discovered that there were three free shows going on today and organized the trip. We only wound up making it to two because the science show ran long and the kids were all worn out (as was T, after all that walking!), but it was a wonderful experience and I'll definitely be going again next year.


The first show we attended, before lunch, was presented by the George Miksch Sutton Avian Research Center. This was another surprise to me to know that we had such a wonderful facility in the state (clearly, I'm ignorant of a lot of the stuff that goes on right under my nose), but the show was fantastic. The bird you see above is their African gray parrot who was talking up a storm, but they also featured a roadrunner, a crow, a raven, an owl, a bald eagle, and many many more. There were birds flying overhead, doing tricks, and just being... birds! And no, they didn't always cooperate. It was a really neat show.

After the bird show, we decided it was time for lunch, so T led me into the heart of downtown Bartlesville so we could eat outdoors (in the shade, of course). I snapped this shot from where we were sitting in the shadow of a building. The architecture of this city is very very clean and beautiful. We did pass Price Tower, but since I was driving, I didn't think it was a good time to try to take a picture ;)

The kids enjoyed playing a little bit after they ate - my kids are on the left and T's kids are on the right. They're looking at a grate. I have no idea what's IN the grate, but apparently to these kids, it was fascinating.

After we ate, we walked on over to the Phillips 66 Musum. It was a neat little place! They offered a nine-minute video that apparently tells quite a bit about the company and the history behind it, but we were a bit short on time and so had to skip that. It was a very cute, well-done museum, and it was amazing to see the history of the company. I was particularly impressed at how well the company took care of their own. They even had their own doctor! Insurance companies today would probably just die at the thought. That, however, is another rant for another day.

The next-to-final stop of the day (and the final stop for T and her munchkins) was the science show presented by the Tulsa Air and Space Museum. It was a neat show, too! The presenter, at the beginning of his show, said that at times he would be asking for volunteers. There were well over 50 kids in the audience, I assume most of them from various daycamps around the area given the many teen counselors on hand, and M1 being my science guru, I knew he wanted to go up. Imagine my surprise when he called for "the lap girl in the pink at the end!" I didn't even know M2 had her hand up! So she got to go up front as the very first volunteer. She got to feel the blue-tinted water to see how it felt (her description, by the way, was "blue"... followed by "cool"). Then he put the beaker in a vacuum bell and made it 'boil' and then asked her to touch it again. I thought she'd freak out about touching water that had just 'boiled,' especially since almost every kid in the audience was absolutely flipping out that he'd asked her to stick her hand in there and screaming NO!!!!... but nope! She reached right in. Quite the little performer, she was. And M1 did very well and never once seemed jealous. I was quite proud of him, too.

At long last we headed toward home, but to me, no trip to Bartlesville would be complete without a trip to Windle's Rock and Jewelry Shop. It's not a head shop or anything like that, but rather a very quiant, curious little shop that I remember my parents bringing me to visit when I was a child. I learned today that 2009 is their 50th year of business, and it's just as wonderful as I remember it. There are rocks and gems, to be sure, as well as plenty of jewelry that is as eclectic as it is gorgeous, but there are also things like fossils, shark teeth (one of which M1 insisted he had to own), geodes, shells, and much, much more. I personally purchased a small cat carved in Thailand out of water buffalo horn! Sorry about Flat Stanley in the picture, but it was the last chance I had to take a photo of him, so there he be.
So far, this Oklahoma travel thing is turning out to be a great experiment. We're going on another adventure on Saturday, so look for another blog post soon!

Just quick update...

The garden still grows! I've been doing better at keeping it weeded now, even though it's about 10 million degrees outside now that summer has unofficially arrived here.


The newest produce...

(that's a Roma, by the way, and it's STILL not ripe)
Enjoy!

Let the homeschool life begin! (Sort of)

With school finally out, I (sort of) became a homeschooling mom! M1 is so excited. He is loving the fact that he'll have daily continuity and not have to worry about things like his classmates causing chaos in his life. Even for summer, he's liking the fact that I'm writing down a schedule of what we're doing each week. He checks it each day at least once so he knows what's going on. Talk about a comfort zone!

So last week, we attended our first homeschool meeting with the Tulsa Area Homeschoolers . We got together at a parks and recreation building and made Flat Stanley. Then, just to get some experience, we swapped within the group for two weeks. M1 has been hauling his around everywhere. Flat Stanley went camping in the back yard last Friday and did some other stuff today. I've been bad about getting pictures of him, but he's done quite a bit. I did snap this shot today.

The lady in the picture is M2's violin teacher! She has been begging me since about December to begin violin lessons, but... she's FOUR. Usually these sorts of whims die a merry death within a month or two. I started thinking she was serious around March but didn't get around to doing anything 'official' until a couple weeks ago. I knew I wanted a Suzuki Method teacher, but the one that my sister took lessons from is starting to phase out her students for retirement, so I had to find a new one. We found this lady, Sue Loomis, through the TAMTA (Tulsa Accredited Music Teachers Association) web site, and met with her for the first time last week. M2 fell instantly in love, and we had our second lesson today. M2 is so excited to be finally taking her lessons, and she loves the games that "Miss Sue" plays with her. "Miss Sue," for her part, seems to be a wonderful, very thorough teacher, and she's making sure that me, the ignorant mom, knows how to do the stuff, too, so that I can properly teach M2 during the week. It seems like it'll be a great fit.

Tomorrow we'll be taking Flat Stanley to Kansas to visit my grandmother in this "Little Town." I'll try to remember to take pictures this time!

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And now for the garden update. You know you wanted one. I'm sure you just haven't had enough of it yet.



Meet my first cucumber. Nine inches long, I was almost giddy! So we had to have it for dinner.

My kids said it was "softer" than a store cucumber, but in a good way. I'll take what compliments I can get.
More cucumbers, squash, and tomatoes forthcoming next week!

I have babies!

The garden has babies, I should say... it's flourishing, and I am still in shock. Oz laughs at me, but I've never had anything grow and STAY alive before, let alone actually blossom and turn into something. I planted some squash a couple of years ago and got a few flowers, but never had anything actually grow that you could eat, and it certainly wasn't the size of the plant I have now!

That'll be the squash there in the middle. When I planted it, you could step right over it and have room on either side... not so much now, eh??

This is my first baby cucumber... it's adorable! I never knew they had all those little spikes on them. Grow baby grow!

My pole beans are actually climbing their poles now... it's amazing how fast they grow once they grab on. A week ago, this thing had just wrapped around the bottom.

My strawberry plant is actually producing strawberries. I didn't think I'd get any this year because, well, they're first-year strawberry plants, but those sure look like babies to me. Fingers crossed the bugs stay out of them!

This is one of the half a dozen squash I've got growing - this is actually one of the smaller ones, but I couldn't get a good shot of the bigger ones. The biggest one is about as long as my hand already. Woohoo!

One of the tomatoes. We planted three varieties of tomatoes - four Romas (see below), one bush tomato that hasn't started putting on fruit yet, and this one, called a "Cherokee Purple." I'm curious to see how it'll turn out!

My Romas are producing a bunch already, too. I'm so worried about bugs now, but at the same time, it's awesome to see all these little tomatoes growing. Before, I was worried about pollination, but I guess I didn't need to. These babies are everywhere!

I didn't kill the okra after all, but I'm so glad it's getting warmer outside. The cool, wet weather wasn't making it very happy!

Last but definitely not least, these are the kids' pumpkin plants. They're not in the garden; I put them in the same spot that I successfully grew the pumpkin plant last year, snug between the now-dead peony plants. They're taking off, too!
I can't wait until everything gets big... I REALLY can't wait to make some homemade spaghetti sauce with homegrown tomatoes, herbs, and maybe even a homegrown bell pepper... ohh the love of gardening has bit and bit hard... I can see why people love it!

Oklahoma Travel

This year, we're not going to take a big family vacation like we have in the past. Last year, we went down to Houston. We had a blast! But the drive... ugh... and then we flew up to Pennsylvania in the fall to visit Oz's dad and stepmom. So I was 'big'-traveled out. I wanted to stay closer to home, save a few bucks on hotel expenses, food expenses, etc. So this year, instead of taking a big trip, we're touring our home state, learning about all the fun stuff it already has to offer!

We've already done stuff like the sheep-shearing weekend, the Amish Cheese House, and I took the kids down to see the azaleas in Muskogee while they were in bloom.

This weekend, we decided to go visit Oklahoma City and visit the Omniplex, though I think now they call it the Science Museum Oklahoma. It'll probably always be the Omniplex to me.

Regardless, the kids LOVED it. I had thought it would be busier than it was, seeing as it was a holiday weekend, but I guess all the crowds were headed to the zoo next door, so the INDOOR museum wasn't busy at all! Oz and I split up for a while since the kids are interested in different things, but we wound up back together at random intervals and I was able to get some good pictures.

M2 loved hearing her voice in the echo tube. I mostly think she just likes hearing her own voice. ;)

Oz couldn't resist trying everything out himself. Fidget.

M2 also loved SEEING herself. She played in the mirrors for ages.

M1 couldn't get enough of the cloud rings in the weather room.

He and Daddy also climbed into the tornado chamber together. That number on the read-out is the wind speed. M1 came out saying tornados weren't so bad. It put me in mind of that skit by Ron White: "It's not *that* the wind is blowin'... it's *WHAT* the wind is blowin'..." but I didn't go there. M1 is typically very afraid of the thought of tornados, so to hear him be okay with it was reassuring!

They also had a special exhibit at the museum that we bought passes for. It was sponsored by Odyssey Explorer, and it featured a bunch of actual treasure, most of it brought up from a Civil War era ship, though some was from a ship much, much older. One of the treasures was an actual bar of Spanish gold! It was amazing to see how well everything had survived. It was all in gorgeous condition. These are actually made of glass.

After we left the Science Museum, we visited my mom, who had fixed lunch for us, and then we took her to see the Myriad Gardens. We didn't pay to go into the conservatory since it was a nice day (and I hadn't done my research beforehand to realize we *would* have to pay - oops!), but the grounds were still lovely.

The kids loved the koi and the ducks that were scattered around the water features.

All in all, it was a great day! The kids were absolutely exhausted by the time we got home, but it was well worth it to see the great treasures that Oklahoma holds for us. I encourage you all to get out and see what your state has to offer!

Why I Have Neglected This Blog...

I haven't been posting on here for a while now - about a month, or so Blogger tells me. I haven't forgotten. I've just been busy. I have discovered that doing things by hand is definitely time-consuming, and I'm getting more of the idea of why moms a century or so ago didn't have much in the way of time. Thank heaven for children who are able to amuse themselves.

Not to say I'm doing EVERYTHING by hand...

though sometimes it seems like it, especially when I have to soak the laundry because the kids have just eaten popsicles with cherry-red coloring in them while wearing blue and white clothes!

I don't feel very patriotic while doing laundry, no matter what the colors are.

I've also been busy with THIS...

That's right. You may drool. It's homemade bread, specifically whole wheat with flaxseed in it. It took all of my willpower not to just devour the entire loaf whole while I was taking that picture. I love fresh bread.

The garden is also thriving, which mostly I attribute to all the recent rain more than any actual skill on my part, though trying to keep up with the weeds is just about a full-time job.

I discovered THESE on my tomato plants today.

These aren't the only ones, either. There are actually many many more on most of the plants. I'm going to drool over tomatoes now. I love fresh tomatoes even more than I love fresh bread.

The thriving garden... please ignore all the weeds. I *do* actually weed the garden at least twice a week, but you gotta love it... when the garden grows, so do the weeds! Note to self: Next year, invest in mulch.

See the basil? I also love fresh basil. And fresh tomatoes. On fresh bread. I need to get some balsamic vinegar and teach myself to make some fresh mozzarella. THAT would be heaven.

Again, ignore the weeds... I just had to get a close-up of the squash plant. Yes, it is the only one I planted. I have no desire to inundate people with hordes of squash.

The other half of the garden...

I've also been experimenting with drying the herbs. Turns out I can do that pretty well! This is a dried basil leaf... might handy to know how to do since I have no great desire to try to overwinter the herbs in my house.

Now... this is another example of how I spend my time these days, here in the "country." M1 ran excitedly in the house today wanting to show me a "collection" of things he'd found outside. I was thinking various weeds. Apparently HE meant a dried earthworm, a dead June bug, and some sort of squished caterpillar.

Gotta love the country life...

And now you know why I've been neglecting this blog.

I promise not to do it again. Until it happens. And then I apologize.