Football and fossils...weekend update

I have a few pictures to share. I got a few pictures of Alex at his football game yesterday. His team did well. They have now won there 1st 3 games. Alex is doing well also. He was up against some really big kids (hard to believe how huge 3rd graders can be). He made several great blocks and 1 great tackle. I jokingly tell him every game that if he gets a bruise he no longer can play football. He rolls his eyes at me and smiles.

Today (Sunday) we went to the Rock, Mineral and fossil expo. Connor looks forward to it all year. He likes to go on the last day because that's when they mark down some of the fossils. Last year he got some good deals because one of the vendors was tired and ready to pack up. He had the same luck this year! Our friends, the Changs showed up there too.

a funny side note about the fossil show.... we were looking at the fossils and I made a couple of remarks that apparently showed my ignorance about fossils. Connor turned to me and in the most serious voice he said "Mom, why don't you go over there, there are some pretty and shiny rocks you could look at." I had to laugh, and then I proceeded directly over to the pretty shiny rocks. :-)





Alex's friend Alex came to his game.




Panning for gold. Connor wasn't going to do it at first then when Garrett pulled out a fossil, Connor started digging! haha

Connor's special day...

Sunday was a great day for Connor. His two favorite things as I'm sure you all know are Fossils and Football. Sunday morning he and Mark went to the Colorado Fossil Expo 2008 show at the Denver Merchandise Mart. We had never been before but It's part of the Gem & Mineral show, a huge show that I guess comes twice a year. Alex and I stayed home because Alex had a sleepover the night before. Connor was in heaven. He got to meet two paleontologists/authors that he had read about and seen on TV. He knows their names like we would know famous peoples names. He bought two fossil books and had them autographed by the authors...... He ended up with a great find, a Mosasaur jaw. They were selling it at half price because the show was ending. Connor used all of his allowance money he'd saved plus borrowed a few dollars from Dad..... He came home smiling from ear to ear.

The second part of his day was watching the Denver Broncos game........ and they won!! Go Broncos!! (sorry Pam).

What a great day Connor! Life is good.

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Memorial Day Weekend Part 2 "The Sternberg Museum"

We woke up Friday morning and had breakfast at the hotel... they had a really nice breakfast buffet. It was $7.50 for adults and free for kids! I know we've paid at least double that before and it wasn't any better...plus friendly service. I do miss that about smaller towns. We packed up and went to the museum. We took our time (it wasn't crowded). There was a new dinosaur exhibit they were working on and it was to open the next day. The lady working on it was really nice and said if we were careful she would give us a quick tour. She was an Art major at the college there and they hired her to do the exhibit. She didn't know a lot about dinosaurs but was learning. Anyway Connor was able to answer some questions for her, like "would these dinosaurs be together? Would this one be hunting this one?? I guess she had set some up wrong and when the curator came along she would have to correct it. She just had a few dinosaur books to go by. Looked like a hard job to me. Anyway we enjoyed the tour and learned a lot about Mr. Sternberg who discovered a lot of the fossils that were in the museum. He found a lot of them right in that area around Hays, KS. Connor wasn't disappointed.

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Leaving town...

Spent the day doing laundry, packing and getting ready for our trip to Kansas. We are leaving in the morning and driving to Hays, Ks. It is about a 5 hour drive. We are going to spend the night at a hotel that has a big swimming pool with a big slide. The boys are very excited about it. We are going to visit a museum in Hays. It's called the Sternberg Museum. Connor read about it in one of his fossil books. We've driven through Hays a hundred times and seen the signs for the museum but never knew it was anything special. (Who would think in Hays, Ks.). I quess quite a few prehistoric fossils have been found in Kansas. It used to be tropical. The museum has quite a few fossils of prehistoric sea creatures.

After visiting the museum on Friday we are going to drive on to Wichita (about 3 hours away). We are going to spend the weekend visiting with family and return home on Monday. It will be a short trip but will be nice to see everybody.

Hopefully I will have some good pictures to post when we get home. Have a good Memorial Day weekend!

Denver Museum Lecture

Connor has been reading a book called "Cruisin the Fossil Freeway". I think I've written about it before. Well the author is Dr. Kirk Johnson. The Chief Curator of the Denver Museum of Nature and Science. He created the Prehistoric Journey exhibit at the Museum. Connor has enjoyed reading about him. He was like Connor when he was a little boy. He loved fossils and rocks. He is now a Paleontologist and Geologist. Anyway he gave a lecture last night at the Museum and we took the kids. Connor was so engrossed.. Even though a lot of it was about Global warming, he touched on his love for fossils and talked about how he had been all over the world hunting fossils. The lecture was in the IMAX room and he showed pictures he had taken all over the world on the big IMAX screen! The look on Con's face was priceless. We were the youngest people in the crowd and there were no other kids.

Afterwards Kirk Johnson did a book signing and Connor got to have him sign his book. He is a very nice, down to earth man. We were very impressed with him. I told him that Connor was a kindred spirit to him because of his passion for geology and paleontology. He kind of lit up and looked pleased. He wrote a note to Connor in his book..something like "Go dig those fossils"! Connor was on cloud nine. He even let me take a picture. Alex enjoyed it too but was a little boring for him. I was proud of him. It's not easy for a 7 year old boy to sit still for 2 hours. He did great!

It's Wednesday already...

This week seems to be flying by. The boys were out of school on Monday and we had a nice day. We met friends for a nice breakfast and then went to the Aquarium (yes again). We spent a couple of hours there and then Connor talked us in to going to the Museum. We do have memberships at both places so that helps. Connor had brought along some fossils he wanted to have analyzed just in case. The people at the museum were very nice about it and took our fossils and labeled them. They said they would get back to us in a couple of weeks.


These are the fossils we took to the museum

Connor is reading a book that Grandma bought him for his birthday. It's called "Cruisin the Fossil Freeway". It was written by the curator of the DMNS (Denver Museum of Nature and Science). He is giving a lecture about fossils in a couple of weeks and we are going to try to go. Connor would love to get his book autographed..I don't know if that will be possible but just hearing him in person will be interesting. The illustrator of this book is Ray Troll He lives in Alaska and he does kind of far out drawings of nature, mostly fish but he illustrated this fossil book. Connor says "he's kind of a hippie". haha

More Spring Break fun...

We had a fun day at the Denver Museum of Nature and Science. I think Connor could go there at least once a week and never get tired of it. We met one of Alex's friends from school. We saw an astronaut show in the planetarium. Of course we went through the prehistoric exhibit. There is so much to see. We find new things every time we go.

There were a couple of stations set up through the Prehistoric exhibit where volunteers for the museum show the kids fossils, dinosaur bones...etc. It was kind of funny to watch Connor because most of the information they share with kids is very basic for someone like Connor who has loved and studied dinosaurs, fossils, rocks etc.. since he was about 4 years old. (I'm not bragging, just sharing..haha) He was very polite (I was proud of him) but they soon realized that Connor knew a lot about the subject and one older man really enjoyed quizzing Connor on different fossils and bones. He was impressed with Connor's knowledge and to tell the truth I was too. It must be nice at such a young age to have a passion for something that you just can't get enough of it.. I hope it continues. Maybe he will someday be a paleontologist.

Alex also loves the museum but I think his passions lie elsewhere, mainly with music. He loves his Ipod and listens to it a lot, especially every time we get in the car. He likes a lot of different kinds of music. Anything from 80's and 90's rock, Lyle Lovett to Hannah Montana and the Jonas Brothers. I haven't quite been able to bring him over to country music but I'm working on it!

I love sharing about our everyday life with you all. I would love to hear from you if you are reading this. Even just a quick comment would be great! Thanks.

Sunday,March 2nd, 2008

Well it's cold and snowy here today. Yesterday it was 70 and sunny. We probably have at least 4 inches of snow.

Yesterday was a beautiful day, felt like Spring had arrived. After much persuading by Connor we drove up to Dinosaur Ridge. It's a place in Morrison, not very far from us. It's part of the Morrison formation. There are visable dinosaur and plant fossils in the rocks. there are also real imprints of dinosaur tracks. We hiked up a trail and explored a little. It was nice to be outside getting fresh air.

A couple of weeks ago the boys had a science fair at their school. Alex's was a group project. He did a great job explaining it but I can't remember now what it was exactly (being the scientific person I am..haha) It was something to do with an egg and vinegar and the shell disolving. Connor did his project on, you'll never quess.............Dinosaurs! It was titled "The Cretaceous period....the deadliest time of all". He worked hard on it but enjoyed presenting it. It was easy for him to present because he could talk about prehistoric stuff 24 hours a day.