Anastasia opening her present from Grandpa Eyre & Grandma Lisa

Anastasia's birthday

Happy birthday to my three-year old! Anastasia had her birthday breakfast and presents yesterday morning (since Forrest was able to be here).

 Here she is in her new outfit we got her.

 Her new hooded towel, so she and Noelle can each use their own :-)

 With her new Bitty Baby doll from Grandpa Eyre & Grandma Lisa. She named it "Miss Kristina."

Black Monk football

So this is a week and a half since the actual game, but here are a few pictures from our annual flag football game against the St. Francis de Sales seminarians.
Bishop (Dean) Salmon, making sure Anastasia doesn't fall :-)














Timothy dressed up as the Black Monk, to be the mascot.














Noelle touching Bishop Salmon's hat. He's so good with the kids!














Alethea demonstrating how to use the pom-poms.


















Anastasia tries it out.


















Black Monk fans :-) Anastasia sits with Brenna (our neighbor).














The Black Monk cheerleaders...minus one, plus their "helpers" (all three of the older kids were right there with the cheerleaders most of the time).














Alane lifting high the cross, with the help of Sarah and Caleb :-)


















Anastasia and the Black Monk.














I love this shot of Forrest!










































Sarah and Anastasia.














All in all, it was a good effort by the Black Monks; though we lost, it was only by a touchdown which is so much better than last year. Here are both teams (plus our cheerleaders) at the end of the game. St. Francis de Sales received the St. Lawrence cup.














Our team and cheerleaders :-)














After the game, both sides had Evensong together in their chapel, and then we went downstairs for a great meal, provided by St. Francis de Sales.


















On the way home...this day was the first I had seen Lake Michigan since seeing it from the airplane when we flew in for Experience Nashotah last year. This isn't the best picture, obviously, since it was already dark out.














Traffic. Thankfully it wasn't bad considering this was the day of the last Brewers game.

A Few Things Since Coming Home

In September we went to the Highland Games in Waukesha, where Aunt Pari and Uncle Trevor were playing. It was a lot of fun...though it did rain quite a bit so we left earlier in the afternoon than we planned.
































Anastasia with her thistle face-painting.


















Pari Beth, Timothy and David all try archery.




























Recently Timothy got the privilege/responsibility of planning and making a meal by himself. He made beef & broccoli & noodles (a non-spicy recipe out of his Thai cookbook--it's a kids' cookbook) and couscous.














With bananas in a coconutty sauce for dessert!


















Timothy wanted to show Grandpa Eyre this old dime he has.





























In science (Astronomy this year), we got to make a balloon solar system. Of course the distance is off, as is the size of the sun; but we also got the sizes of the planets quite off also because Wal-mart (as usual) wasn't stocked well and they were out of any except standard-size balloons. Oh well, it was still pretty fun!














The boys pretending to be priests. :-)


















Our new table & chairs we got at St. Vincent De Paul. And our new, more open arrangement of the living room.
































Lovely fall colors here on campus.














Aaaand...I just realized all the kids were featured in this post except Noelle. So here's one of her :-)

Wakulla Springs

Just boarded the tour boat.





















































One of the first bits of wildlife we saw--a mother wood duck and her ducklings. So adorable!














Lots of pretty scenery on this river.














Here's a common moorhen with her chicks.














Hundreds of whirligig beetles on the water. Very interesting to watch them buzzing around on the surface of the water.














An anhinga bird. They look a bit like a cormorant. They fish by out-swimming a fish and spearing it with its beak.



















A little heron.














Another anhinga in a tree.














Our first spotting of an alligator. You can see his face in the lower-middle right of the picture.














A heron, and what I think might be a moorhen. It was super cool how many birds we saw. The pictures we took are just a tiny sample of what we saw but it covers most of the species we spotted.














This is a great egret. So beautiful and pristine!




























Several turtles in a row on a log. The tour guide called it the "shell station". :-)














A heron again.














Alligator!




























Another common moorhen.



















This (I believe) cypress is said to be 500 years old.



















Another gator.














An anhinga again.














In the bottom right corner you can see into the water...it was pretty clear most of the time, thought it was difficult to get that to show up in pictures because of the reflections.




























An alligator hiding in the plants on the surface.










































This is known as the "Tarzan tree"...Tarzan movies were done here in the 1940's. I guess this was "his" tree. More of a stump now. But here are two turtles sunning on it!
























































A whole lot of fish!














The crowning discovery for us on this boat tour: getting to see a manatee! Here's when we first spotted it. I didn't know if I would get any better pictures of it.














But I did! We came alongside it and it was right next to the boat.

































(If you haven't clicked for close-ups on the other pictures, which you should have, you really should on this one!)














The diving platform thingy.



















The boat we rode. Named for a bird called a limpkin, which we didn't see but I found out on Wikipedia that its call was used for jungle sound effects on Tarzan movies, and also for the hippogriff on Harry Potter!




























It was so hot this day (though on the boat it was not too bad since we were shaded and had a breeze) so after a picnic lunch, we were happy to go indoors to the Lodge, built, if I understood right, by Edward Ball, who bought Wakulla Springs in the early '30's.














Pretty architecture.














Beautiful painting done on the inside.














"Old Joe," a 12-foot alligator that was killed unprovoked many years ago. They found his body and stuffed it, but apparently never found the killer (?)














This movie was also filmed at Wakulla Springs!



















After some nice cool time in air conditioning and visiting the gift shop, we headed over to the playground.