I love the library

I love visiting the library. The summer reading programs they have going on out here in our area are really well done. Even for our tiny town of 3000 people. On Wednesday night this week they had a girl from the Butterfly Pavillion (bug zoo type thing out here). She talked to the kids in the "tween" program. (I can't believe Chandler is considered a tween already??) Anyhow, she thoroughly grossed me out by talking about how the FDA allows so many bugs to be in our food source. Basically everything we eat..has some bugs in it somewhere. Ketchup was the grossest though. Maggots anyone? That is what we are putting on our hotdogs and hamburgers....You should have seen these kids (3rd through 5th graders) their eyes all huge and looking a little green. To top off the evening they had the kids sample real bugs. They had three choices sour cream & onion crickets, cheese flavored meal worms or chocolate covered worms. Chandler was all over it. He lined up selected a chocolate covered worm and snarfed it up. I was trying to not gag just watching him! He later told me it tasted like chocolate popcorn. Eww!

Also this week at our library they had a tumbling storytime which Brinley loved all of the movement and stories. Addie told me afterwards that it was for babies and she didn't want to go to storytime anymore. (Sniff...they grow up too fast) . It was cute to see Brinley dancing around with 3 of her little friends while their older siblings rolled their eyes and tried to look as bored as possible. :)

The other thing they did this week was a presentation by a meteorologist at UNC about our wacky Weld County weather. He specifically talked a lot about the Windsor, CO tornado last year. Addie has been extremely fearful of clouds, stoms, wind etc ever since that tornado missed Johnstown by about 5 miles. She has nearly driven me crazy with how panicky she is over the slightest breeze or drop of rain. I finally had to ban the word "tornado", "storm" and "clouds" from our house because I just couldn't take her talking CONSTANTLY about it anymore. It was a very real and scary experience for the kids last year. Especially since where the tornado hit in Windsor is part of our ward boundaries. It caused a lot of damage to the majority of the members homes in our ward. 3 of which were completely demolished. Very scary! I hoped that by Addie learning a little more about weather and storms that she would not be so fearful. I told her when the presentation was done to go and ask the guy all the questions she's been pestering me with that I haven't got a clue about. Of course she was too chicken, but at least I tried. The one thing that I think has helped her a teensy bit is he said that someone is ALWAYS watching the clouds and the weather. He explained that because they are doing their job we'll be safe because they let us know any changes that could harm us.

As you can see, I rely heavily on our library. With student loans coming due next month I'm looking for free things for us to do to keep the kids busy. Having such an age variance with my kids can be challenge to keep my almost 10 year old happy while entertaining the 3 year old....the library seems to keep them all happy!