Look at the concentration on Jude’s face. Last week, with his own money, he bought a little dinosaur dig kit. He then got home and for the next couple of hours picked away at his piece of clay. By the next morning he had uncovered several dinosaur fossils and he was most excited.

Tuesday is fish day at our house. And Jude has been enjoying eating the whole fish. So Marcy would go to Whole Foods and they would pick out a whole fish to bring home and eat. These dinners have become part science experiment, part dinner for Jude as he would dig away at the fish head, poke out the eye and do other things that five year old boys like to do. Here he is with Anna as they both enjoy fish night (Anna had a salmon fillet, though typically she enjoys the whole fish as much as Jude does).

There is a field of dandelions near our house that has become a favorite of Jude and Anna. They have ridden their scooters down there several times in the past week. Jude likes to pick up the dandelion seeds and blow them into the air.

Today we had the Fergusons and Brieres over for brunch and Morgan brought along their new guinea pig. Jude was such a fan of the guinea pigs in Sydney and he was excited to play with this one (named Zipper). Here is Morgan, Anna and Jude enjoying Zipper’s company.

Last week Marcy set up the pool in the backyard and the kids went bobbing for apples. Jude was able to retrieve an apple without using his hands and he was most annoyed when Anna cheated and picked an apple up with her hands.

We spent a great deal of time at home these past two weeks which I know Jude appreciates. One of the Jude’s favorite foods is marshmallows and he also loves roasting them on the fire which we did last year a couple of times. We recently bought a Weber grill and so so after dinner last night we let the kids roast some marshmallows.

Jude also enjoys hammering nails and I admit this is not even something I think about doing with him (I never did this when I was a kid). Luckily Marcy thinks of it so this week both kids enjoyed some time in the backyard smashing nails into a piece of wood.

Jude’s interests keep evolving. While he still loves dinosaurs he is showing more interest in science. In particular he likes space travel and rocket ships. He wants to see pictures of the solar system, his favorite planet is Neptune, and he is interested in the Voyager spacecrafts that we have been telling him about. I notice these days instead of pretending to be a dinosaur, he is often pretending that whatever toy he is holding is a rocket ship doing a blast off.

This weekend we came up to Keystone for the first time in almost a year. The first day we were here we noticed Morgan’s old bike sitting in the garage. Anna wanted to take it out for a ride but we told her it didn’t have training wheels. She insisted so I took her out and held the handle bars while she rode. I even let go for a couple of seconds but Anna didn’t really like that.

Then Jude wanted to have a turn. I did the same thing and ran along with him holding the handle bars. But when I let go he just kept on riding. His balance was good and it looked like he had been riding like that for years. In just a couple of minutes Jude had graduated from training wheels. He was very proud of himself as were Marcy and I. We have said we will take his training wheels off his green bike when we get back to Denver and he said he was fine with that.

This week also marked Jude’s return to school. He was back in Morning Glory at the Denver Waldorf School where he started last year. While this is officially kindergarten, at Waldorf they have two year kindergartens. Next year is the big transition when Jude will become a “grader” by entering first grade. Here is Jude on his first day of school this week.

Here in Keystone we have had quite the active weekend. They have a bunch of kids activities set up this Labor Day weekend and we took advantage of many of them. The bungee bounce was a big hit with Jude. He bounced up pretty much as high as it would go which I estimate is at least 40 feet in the air. While it scared him a couple of times by the end he had a huge smile on his face.

When Anna was napping yesterday Jude and I went for an adventure down by the river. The river was really low and we were able to walk along the rocks for quite a long way.