Beany Adventures

Franklin Mountain

2014-07-25T00:03:00.001-04:00

Our first hike in Texas! A quick little one mile trip to see what the trails were like.

We had hiked up to the little cave in the mountain.

We clearly need more appropriate footwear!

Growing Up!

2014-07-24T00:35:00.001-04:00

The Baby Bean, who is now a five year old big boy, just refuses to stop growing up!

Today, he decided to ride his pedal bike and did a beautiful job after just a few tries!

He has been riding a balance bike for ages so he had the balance down and only needed to learn how to pedal.

Apparently learning to pedal is much easier than learning to balance!

The mingled feelings of pride for his big boy accomplishment, and sadness at his growing up so quickly come much more regularly than I care to admit.

Out In The West Texas Town of El Paso

2014-07-24T00:27:00.001-04:00

We made it to Texas and are settling in. There are so many things to do, and we only have a year. We need to get hiking and climbing as soon as possible!

Dad checked in to his new duty station.

We were assigned housing and had our household goods delivered and taken out of the boxes. So much to sort and put away!

Introduced to a new vinegar for collared greens!

Checked out some of the pools on base.

We embraced our inner cowboy.

The Little Bean was able to endulge her inner carnivore. (She are the entire 10 oz steak.)

More pools!

And even a pool with a rock climbing wall!

Even dad got in on the fun!

Wisconsin

2014-07-01T21:24:00.001-04:00

First Snowfall of the Year!!

2013-11-27T20:06:00.000-05:00

Cash's Worst Day Ever!

2013-11-03T17:02:00.003-05:00

In this photo he is all snuggled up after getting home and having a bath.
(he hates baths)

So, there we were.....
All the Beans were walking in the woods today. We took Cash down to the creek which was super muddy along the banks. Cash leaned over the creek sniffing at something when suddenly the bank gave way. Cash splashed head first into the water and disappeared below the surface. He quickly came bobbing back up and swam to the bank but was unable to climb out because it was too steep. I tried to get him to swim to the other side of the creek or even down stream a little ways where the bank wasn't quite so steep but poor scared Cash just clung to the same spot and whined and whined. The whine eventually wound itself up into a sort of howl/yelp sound. Poor puppy boy. I didn't even know he could swim at all as he never ever goes into water deeper than his chest.

Cash is not a small dog but we had not choice but to try and fish him out of the water. As I was putting down the backpack, keys, phone, etc the kids were certain I would end up in the gross muddy creek with Cash. I braced my foot on a rather spindly tree and reached down for Cash. I couldn't reach him, but with a bit of encouragement he tried to climb the bank again and got just far enough for me to grab his collar. Did I mention the dog weighs nearly 100 pounds! It took a few minutes and a bit of a struggle but we managed to fish Cashy boy out of the creek and up the steep muddy bank.
Thank goodness the spindly tree held, the bank didn't give way, Cash scrambled with all four crazy legs, I pulled with all my strength, and the kids cheers as loud as they could!

Cash didn't go near the creek for the rest of our long walk.

A Walk In The Woods

2013-10-26T12:07:00.001-04:00

Hank and Cash decided to take a walk in this brisk cool weather. The rest of us had no choice but to join them.

We made our way through the construction site and down to the woods. Wish it were all still woods like before.

These crazy kids think the woods with their trees and vines and creek are one big playground.

Trees are bridges. Vines are swings. Spiderwebs are surprise obstacles to be avoided. Mom walked right into a massive spiderweb.

Nature Walk

2013-10-18T20:47:00.001-04:00

One of the favorite parts of visiting the aquarium is taking a walk on their nature trails. We always see tons of wildlife and even catch a few toads and frogs. The kids enjoy being down near the swamp and quietly watching for critters. We found lots of mosquitos in addition to the other fun stuff.

Taking photos of a squirrel chowing down a huge mushroom.

This was right before she realized she had lost the momentum to get her feet back on the branch. Brave girl didn't panic and did manage to swing herself back into the tree trunk.

Hank is freakishly good at spotting an catching critters. Toads are much easier to catch than those seriously athletic leopard frogs. Those things can jump so far!!

Mullets!

2013-10-16T11:55:00.001-04:00

We headed out to the mullet festival this past weekend.

It was lots of fun and the best part was that after the festival was over we found that the path back to the car was flooded out by an unusually high tide. The Beany Family were not to be deterred by this high tide and used our imagination to find a way across without getting soaked!

Monkey Babies

2013-10-14T18:25:00.001-04:00

We decided to take the puppy bean for a nice long wak today.

The wooded swampy area called to us and naturally, we answered.

There was tree climbing, swamp stomping, frog catching, and vine swinging. Cash enjoyed splashing through the water in search of mysterious monsters lurking behind trees. His courageous defense of his family was repaid with the torture of a bath to clean the stinky swamp mud from his fur. A small price to pay.

Dance Party!!

2013-07-14T19:40:00.000-04:00

The local 4th of July concert was a super fantastic fun time as you can see from the photos below!

Sophia took a few photos of the old folks dancing!

Summer Time, And The Livin's Easy!

2013-07-10T19:46:00.000-04:00

The kids have been talking about going fishing for a while, so we off we went!

In addition to fishing poles, nets were also used to catch the tiny little fish as well as shrimp, fiddler crabs, and blue crabs. Pretty exciting stuff.

Note the feet of my son. He spent most of his time wading around in the mud with the net trying to catch critters. Fishing just isn't as exciting for him. We went back a few days later and he caught a crab on his little fishing pole. No bait, just the little plastic fish it came with to help teach kids how to cast.

Sophia was super into fishing and really enjoyed sitting with the Daddy and talking all about how to fish, what they might catch, and what they would do with all the fish they caught. (they didn't catch anything)

I love this photo. It is the epitome of summer!
Sitting on a dock fishing, no shoes, no worries, just enjoying the day.

The dock is just about a mile and a half away so we have been riding our bikes out to the water. Everyone has enjoyed these little rides.

In addition to the fish, crabs, and shrimp, we saw, there was also this super cool ALLIGATOR!! We thought it was just a log for a while but when it moved upstream we were pretty sure it was a gator. It finally settled pretty close to us just across the creek from the dock and we were able to get a good look.

We also found some tadpoles when we were out walking and decided to raise them up. They grew into these teeny tiny little frogs. They are sitting on regular aquarium gravel and are about the size of one little bitty rock. The kids have really enjoyed watching them grow into frogs and it is almost time to release them.

Back To Application Trail

2013-06-24T12:14:00.001-04:00

We went to visit the Daddy during his training. The training just happened to be located in the area where we used to live a number of years back. When we lived in the area there was a certain trail we used to run on a regular basis. At the half way point of the running trail is a lovely stream where the kiddos used to play...well, the Little Bean played mainly as her little brother was just a tiny little guy.

There is nothing more fun than throwing rocks into water. We were there for over an hour and they never stopped throwing rocks!

Well, Hank threw rocks, Sophia was unable to stay out of the water. We were there for five seconds before her shoes were kicked off and she was wading through the stream.

The kids were throwing rocks from the bridge when the Daddy tells them to look closely at the water because he saw something cool. They peered over the bridge looking as closely as possible.....

.....until the Daddy threw an enormous rock into the water that splashed water all over the place.

The Daddy and Sophia were sitting up on the bridge chatting and looking at the tiny fish when Hank....

....threw a rock into the water to splash them. As I was taking this photo he ran up, doing a little crazy dance of success after splashing his sister and father.

And then they were all tired out.

Fishing Lesson

2013-06-13T18:38:00.001-04:00

While visiting Daddy we went down by the water where we ran into one of Daddy's friends.

The children were super excited to discover he was FISHING!

Hank was particularly excited and got as close as humanly possible to observe the fishing process.

Daddy's friend was trying to throw out the fish guts.

Hank watched the gutting of the fish as closely as possible.

He had to touch the poor little thing before it met its fate.

He was a very attentive pupil.

If the photos are awkwardly cropped, just click on them and they will open up and you can see everything.

May-nia

2013-06-06T23:01:00.000-04:00

The May-nia Carnival came to town last month. Nahla was visiting so we took her out to spend a super duper hot and super duper fun day with the crazy Beany family.

Love this photo. They are so excited to be on the ride all by themselves. Hank was a little scared but his sister held his hand to help him be brave.

First stop was the carousel.

The last ride of the day was the ferris wheel. The Little Bean was disinclined to join us and you may be able to tell in this photo that the Baby Bean was hot, tired, and ready to go home.

He was pretty excited to have chosen the monkey.

The favorite ride of the day was The Scrambler.

Since Nahla was with us the husband and I were able to ride one of the crazy rides. I was super excited and a little scared. During a lull in the ride, the husband looked at me and calmly asked, "are you going to scream the whole time?" Needless to say, the answer was yes!

Belle and Rainbow

2013-06-02T21:27:00.003-04:00

Introducing....RAINBOW! Not sure about the name as I recommended Herman or Hermie, his sister recommended Rainbow, and guess who he listens to. To be honest, we usually call them by the name of their owners, but this crab's official name is Rainbow.

This is Belle, or Bella depending on the day, or Jewel, or Rose, or Misty, or sometimes Sara. It just depends on the mood of the owner, the alignment of the stars, and the relative humidity.

Nahla is responsible for Belle and Rainbow and the children couldn't be happier. They have actually spent much more time with the crabs than I anticipated. In fact, we cleaned out the cage today and the Little Bean spent a really long time arranging the cage before putting the crabs back into their clean home. We discussed the fact that the crabs would immediately move everything around and make a big mess but she was undeterred. The cage looked amazing, we will see how the crabs have redecorated in the morning. They are like tiny deadbeat renters, never paying, wrecking the house and having all night parties.

They have played with these guys nearly every day so far. They lay on the floor with their arms in a big circle and let the crabs crawl around. This works beautifully until a crab touches an arm or gets near a face, then there is a bit of squealing and heebie jeebies.
The children have begged to have the crabs in their room but after we have heard how much noise the little critters make at night, we decided it is probably better to keep them downstairs for now.

I always thought hermit crabs were pretty easy to take care of, I mean they sell them at every beach shop in the US. I just thought they had a short life span or something....until I did the research. They actually require quite a bit of maintenance. From what I have read they have adapted gills that allow them to breathe air, but are still in fact gills, which means they must live in a humid area or their gills will dry out and they will slowly suffocate. Disturbing. After much research I think we will be able to take good care of Belle and Rainbow and ensure they do not die a slow painful death, but rather live to be happy old crabs.

Thanks Nahla!

Dog sitters

2013-05-09T21:41:00.001-04:00

We have been dog sitting for a friend who is moving. The children are beyond delighted with Maggie, their sweet new doggy friend. They have not been around such a small dog before and think she is just the sweetest, most delicate, perfect dog ever. There are sure to be tears when sweet Maggie goes back home to her owners.

Bowling Beans

2013-05-08T00:45:00.001-04:00

This children tried out bowling for the first time ever!

Floating Bridge - Before and After

2013-04-30T20:43:00.001-04:00

There is a nice nature walk at the aquarium near our house. It has the lovely floating bridge as you can see in the photo below. Hank and Sophia were pretty excited about the floating bridge. They walked gently on the bridge and laughed about how it bobbed in the water. All was well, until.....

....Mama thought it would be fun to jump up and down on the bridge. As you can see from the face of the boy in the photo below, he didn't think it was funny. He didn't think it was fun to be on the bridge as it bobbed up and down in the water.

Animal Rescuers

2013-04-28T19:14:00.001-04:00

The Beany Family is always available to rescue animals in need. This Sunday afternoon was no different.
First on the list, a newborn fawn. While out for a walk Sophia was following the tracks of a couple of deer through the mud. We looked around the bend...and there was a doe. Sophia was pretty excited but then excitement changed to wonder, then concern, worry, and a number of other emotions as we stumbled upon a tiny newborn fawn off in the trees. We snapped a quick photo, let the children have a look (from a distance) and then left. Sophia was super worried but we assured her that as soon as we were out of the way the mama would come right back and take care of her baby. Hank wanted to bring the baby home and feed it with a bottle. We assured him that the mama would miss her baby.

Then later a neighbor found a turtle in the road. It was just a regular old turtle so we carefully picked it up, let the children check it out without getting their fingers nipped off, then returned it to the pond near our house. The kids insisted we stay around to watch it go safely into the water.

We are like the octonauts and Diego all mixed into one!

Construction

2013-04-13T23:12:00.001-04:00

We chose our new home based on the quiet neighborhood and the fact that the entire area was tucked away and surrounded by trees. A few months after moving we looked out the back window and saw that a tractor had started cutting down the trees. This was sad for many different reason, not the least of which was that our family enjoyed hiking in the wooded area that was being mowed down.

This is the current view out the back window. It is much less pleasant, much less private, and much less quiet. Soon a four lane highway will be replacing the dirt pit of a construction site. I am sure this will make the whole thing even more unpleasant, reduce our privacy, and increase the noise. So much for choosing a quiet, private, wooded neighborhood. It would have been so lovely if the homeowners had informed us of the upcoming construction. But, they didn't.

This is our current view from our back porch. Thank goodness the yard is fenced.

Afternoon Bike Ride

2013-04-01T23:51:00.001-04:00

The temperatures are nearly perfect here at 70ish with a nice breeze.
We thought we should take advantage of such a nice day and spent a few hours outside.
Sophia is getting increasingly confident on her bicycle and can go longer and longer distances. Hank is super fast in his little strider bike but can't make the super long distances. He hops in the trailer after a few miles. Luckily his bike is small and fits in the trailer too.

Today we rode down to the river, went for a little hike and then did another four miles or so on a wooded trail. It was super fun and everyone had a great time. Hank is tired, Sophia is really tired and Cash is exhausted since he runs three miles for every one mile we go. He is currently sound asleep.

The photo of the puddle with yellow edges is a result of a recent rain shower and a whole lot of pollen.
The pile of brush is a nest we found. I thought rabbit, Sophia thinks large wild carnivorous creature. The Husband thinks we are both crazy.

Kites!

2013-03-30T15:45:00.001-04:00

The warm-ish windy weather gave us a wonderful opportunity to fly kites. Who knew a $5.00 kite could provide hours of fun.
The children ran and ran and ran with their kites and were so very proud when they got them into the sky.
The kites didn't always stay in the air and the process of running running running started all over again.
It was super fun!

Walking Around the Neighborhood

2013-03-29T13:13:00.001-04:00

Daddy made it back and the kids and Cash are beyond happy to have him home. To celebrate they all took a nice long walk.

If the photos seem to be cropped in a strange way just click on the photo and the entire picture will show up. I am using a mobile app to post and it does not allow for any control in cropping.

Running Girl

2013-03-29T13:12:00.001-04:00

We went for a run today and the little bean decided she wanted to run the whole time. She even asked that we not bring the double stroller. Very well.
She did quite well but did struggle a bit. She has been used to running a quarter to half a mile then taking a break before running another quarter to half mile etc etc.
By not bringing the double stroller she didn't have a place to recover and it threw her off a bit. But she was still excited to have done the entire run all on her own!
It was a bit over two miles and it took well over 30 minutes.
At one point she rode on Daddy's back while he ran. Too cute.

Hank continues to avoid running at all costs and insists that running makes him tired. ;)