The 4th of July was a blast this year. It was a fairly busy day. The schedule was:

8:00 AM - Pancake breakfast at Church
3:00 PM - Picnic/barbecue
4:00 PM - Pinata
6:30 PM - 4th of July Parade
8:30 PM - Fireworks Display

This year was nice. We had several families over to share the day with. We had lots of little children to enjoy the pinata and the fireworks. We decided last year that the city's fireworks were way too late for our kids to stay awake so each year we would put on a display at our house. This year was a bit longer than last year lasting around 30 minutes and $225. That ends up being $7.50 per minute for fireworks but it was totally worth it. We had quite the audience! There were around 15 kids from the various families watching. One of the fellow dads in the group used his camera to create a time lapse of the fireworks display and it can be found at:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uN6vaFB17Es

It is pretty cool to see. Cut and paste into your browser or go to youtube.com and search for 'Todd West's Backyard Fireworks'.

Here are two attempts to end the pinata!



Michael had the final hit and the mad rush for candy followed.


Here is the 'crew' waiting for the parade to start.


Jen is so prepared. The kids started getting antsy because we were early to get curb-side seats so she pulled out the ring pops for everyone.


Here are some of our favorite fireworks:

This is all that was left after the firework show.

This past Wednesday I met with a commercial grower that was 1 hour North East of Niagara Falls in NY to discuss using hornfaced bees for blueberry pollination. Since I had to go, it was family roadtrip time to go see Niagara Falls. After meeting with the grower we stopped at Lake Ontario before heading into Canada.


We stayed at the Great Wolf Lodge in Niagara Falls, Canada. This was my first time spending the night in Canada. The hotel has a indoor waterpark and was a blast.



I purchased an underwater case for my Sony camera to use for our trip to Hawaii and took it along for a 'wet' run. It was fun getting movies and pictures without worrying about the water, it worked great! This was the Woolly Mammoth ride and I was able to document that Dan did not like this ride.

This was the Niagara Rapids Run and was Sam's favorite ride.

On Thursday we had an international pancake experience by eating breakfast at IHOP in Canada.


After breakfast we headed to see the Falls and it was quite amazing. I understand why everyone told us to go over to the Canadian side to view the falls. The first shots are of the American Falls.




These shots are of the Canadian Falls (Horseshoe Falls). The picture below shows the size of the falls. The picture that follows is of the kids sitting at the top of the falls (the wall can be seen in the right-hand side of the picture immediately below).

Mike said that watching the water flow over the Falls made him feel sea sick.


On the way back to WV I asked the kids which they enjoyed more, the Falls or the waterpark hotel. The answer was a quick, waterpark.

Glow-in-the-Dark Plants

Yesterday I created my first Genetically Modified Organism (GMO). The inserted gene had a marker gene for green fluorescent protein (GFP) which causes the cell to glow when viewed using fluorescence microscopy. The picture is of an onion cell that has a gene inserted with the GFP marker gene. The bright green circle is the nucleus and the bright outside is the cell wall. I was very excited to learn how to use the gene gun that we have.

Rain, Tooth Fairy, More Baseball and Mother's Day

I have finished installing our new 275 gallon rain collection unit. I was very happy to see it filling up. I plan on keeping it full around 200 gallons so we can use it in emergencies such as for flushing our toilets if water service is interrupted.


Sam lost another tooth and is happy with what the tooth fairy left for him.


This past Saturday was opening day for T-ball (Dan and Becca) and Pitching Machine Baseball (Sam). Dan and Becca really enjoy T-ball and are really good hitters. Sam really looks like a true baseball player and had two base hits during his opener.








The kids really enjoyed Mother's Day and being able to show their appreciation and love to the best mom in the world. They picked out and wrapped presents, made cards and breakfast in bed. Dan and Becca helped finding the perfect tulip to cut from the yard to top it off.

Everything American - Baseball, Scouts and Climbing Trees

This past Saturday was opening day for baseball. Michael is now in the pitching league. Kinda scary to watch 8 and 9-year-olds pitch to other 8 and 9-year-olds. In Mike's game on Thursday night the other team's pitcher hit one of their teammates in the head when up to bat, thank goodness for helmets. Mike looks like a real baseball player. He plays center field and is a great hitter.


Wednesday night was advancement night at cub scouts. Mike earned his Wolf.



Davey Tree Company came in today for my class, Landscape Management to discuss urban tree care. During the lab portion we climbed Pin Oaks on campus. Here I am fully harnessed and limb walking.

Beautiful Weekend

I am behind in my blogging and I will try to get caught up.

These were our family Easter Sunday pictures. I twill get the rest of our Easter pictures up this coming week.



Yesterday we had one of the best weather days of the year. It was high 70's without a cloud in the sky, this is quite rare for WV in April. I spent the entire day prepping where we had our pool the past year for our new trampoline. I regraded the site, mulched and put together the trampoline. It only took me 3 hours to put it together with help from 6 children (our 4 + 2 neighbors). The last posted movie is a POV movie where I am shooting it so you can see what jumping in our backyard is like. I had a hard time getting the kids to come inside at night, as seen in the last picture, they really love the trampoline.

While we were working, a biplane flew over the house. We seem to get a lot of unique flying machines over the house here in Morgantown. We have had Apache Army helicopters (flew so low I could have touched it if I was standing on our roof, they were practicing maneuvers for Iraq), a chain of about 10 CH-47 Chinook Army helicopters (the big dual blade types), and the Goodyear Blimp all fly over our house in the past 4 years.


If the rain lets up this week I will be spreading more mulch. I am in the process of making rain barrels (seen in the picture) for our downspouts. I am trying to control the water going out into the yard but also save money for our garden as well. I am redirecting some of our downspouts to my main collection tank (not shown) which is a 275 gallon tank.

Missing Teeth and Birthdays

I love looking at Jeanette's (Jen's sister) blog in AZ, see how warm it looks while we are in a snow storm today! Anyway, yesterday was Dan's 3rd birthday. He had a blast! He finally understands what a birthday is all about. He spent the entire day telling everyone, "I is the birthday boy!"


We had a family party for Dan and we went out for dinner. Jen made a cool racetrack birthday cake. He had a bit of trouble blowing out the candle which was hilarious.

Jen and I gave him a bike for his birthday and we made him close his eyes while I brought it into the room so it would be a surprise. Jen took the next picture of him opening his eyes seeing the bike. He really loved his new bike.




Jen also found this really cute policeman hat for his birthday. He also loved his new bubble mower.



Sam lost another tooth yesterday. We are not sure how he is going to eat anything that requires him to bit. He is currently missing his top two front teeth and he just lost one of his bottom with another bottom one that is loose.