Stalker? Nah

The neighbor boy called me a stalker.  Makes you wonder what he is doing that he is worried about.  When I make my laps around the complex I see him all the time.  Can't be helped.  And I'm not going to look away just because it makes him nervous.  He is all of 11 years-old or so.  I think it is funny.  Unless he is truly doing something wrong like hitting a car with a baseball bat...I'm not observant enough to see it.
I try to be aware of people who aren't usual in the complex.  I always watch who is playing with my kids.  I watch my kids.  I pay a little attention to the big kids because the little kids think the big kids are so cool.  So far I haven't see anything that gets me up in arms except for Molly.  And she has every one up in arms.  Mostly the big kids are pretty tolerant of the little kids.
I try to always pay attention to where Josh is.  I like it best when he is holed up in his apartment.  And yes I see a lot of what he does and don't particularly care for it. But I just roll with it.  As long as he leaves me alone, I leave him alone.
So if the neighbor kid feels stalked I guess he will have to suck it up.  Nothing is changing until we move.

Wheels

Both of Connor's bikes are now without training wheels.  He had been riding Hunter's big boy bike without.  Hunter's seat was positioned for Hunter who is 10 years-old.  So Connor can ride his own bike much easier.
Then I repositioned the one training wheel on Audrie's bike to just off the ground and did the same to the one that was even with the ground.  So now she will have to start using some balancing.  I think she is ready, but she isn't so sure.  She did tell me she had dreamed she rode without training wheels.
I was pleasantly surprised that all the nuts used standard tools.  Didn't need John this time.  :P

Nighttime Walks

We have hit a couple of warm days.  Not outrageously hot, but warm and a little humid.  So we have done a couple of nighttime walks.  Yesterday was suppose to be a jammie walk, but then the littles opted to get dressed after their bath.  Then neither one wanted to walk.  They wanted to ride their bikes.  Made for a more productive walk for me.
Tonight they took their bikes and we went further.  Getting them ready for our bike rides on the Burnt Bridge Creek Trail.
I think tomorrow we take the training wheels off Connor's big boy bike and maybe we try Audrie and see if she is ready to attempt it.  She is only using one training wheel anyway.

Love of a House

I know no one but Dave and I love this house and this property.  We chose the house and I picked every thing about it.  Dave made his preferences known in the garage by being larger and having a drive thru door in the back.  I picked almost all of the landscaping and he made the rock wall that you can't see below the house through the grass and weeds.  He did the maintaining of the yard and did a wonderful job.
And then I moved and then he got sick.  The yard didn't get it's usual fall clean up.  And then Dave died and now the yard doesn't get anything.  It has been mowed twice earlier in the season.  It is so not loved and obviously not even taken care of minimally.  Amazingly enough no one has bothered it because even a chain across the driveway doesn't stop anyone from driving on up.
It should have been sold months ago to someone new who would love it as much as we did.  Someone who maybe would yank all the landscaping out and start over.  Wouldn't matter.  It would still be loved.

Broken Hearts

Had to take my mom to the pharmacy at Kaiser to pick up a prescription.  When we pulled up both kids got very excited.  They thought they were going to get to see Papa.  We had spent a lot of time at the doctor office and the lab  and the pharmacy with Papa.  So they associate the doctor office with him. Broke my heart and then their hearts were broken when they realized they weren't going to get to see Papa.
The smallest were definitely the most impacted by his death.  So again we talked about how much we miss him and have him in our hearts.  And obviously our hearts are still very much broken.

Mowing Wonder

Past time to mow Betty's yard again.  Managed to make all the stars align so it could be done.  Got about 2/3 of the way done and the mower overheated.  I had never even seen a riding lawn mower with a radiator before.  Turns out I didn't do anything to it.  It had done it before the last time Betty drove it.  Whew.  I thought my jinx of breaking lawn mowers was back again.

Hindsight

Dave and I had a pretty good life.  Even with all the ups and downs.  We loved each other.  And I have said time and time again if I had to go back and do my life over I would still choose him. And I would because I have never met another man like him in all the good ways.  And we take the bad with the good.
That said however.....if I knew then what I know now....things I would have done differently.  I would not have been so keen on his idea of getting custody of his children.  He was concerned about them and wanted them with him.  And circumstances presented themselves for it to happen.  So we did that.  That meant I was a full time parent of two school aged kids and all that entails. And we gave it all we had.  We went to soccer games and ballet lessons.  We did boy scouts and bluebirds.  We had family vacations and camping trips.  We did all those things that families do..
I had been warned before I got married to never marry a person with children and an ex-spouse.  Obviously I had not heeded that advice.  Living it I understood where it came from.  At the time I thought Joyce was making my life hard.  Hindsight said she really wasn't.  Well maybe a little sometimes, but not bad.  She could have been much worse.  My own attitudes colored a lot of what happened and was said.  And don't forget children learn early early (like 18 months) how to manipulate and they did. It is much easier to play parents off one another when they don't like each other.  One child kept that up into her 30's and didn't like it when her parents no longer disliked each other.
The thing about parenting that you learn when you actually do parenting is that we all do the best we can. Some are better than others but no one is perfect.  Most people don't set out to hurt or damage their children.  And bad things that happen are not your parents' fault if they didn't do it themselves.  Sometimes we all make choices that put someone in our lives that are not stellar.  I notice that all those non-stellar people from Joyce's life aren't there anymore. That says that she made better choices along the way.  Most of us learn as we go.  We do the best we can.
I have come a long way on my thinking of Joyce.  Way past the jealousy and anger that is associated with the first wife of the man you marry.  Hindsight says she would have done okay had she retained custody of her children.  Not perfect.  I was interjected into the mix and I certainly am not perfect.  I did the best I could as a stepparent with no authority.
I don't regret the life I had, but honestly I would not have put the effort, time and love into relationships that weren't what they seemed.  Although I am still pretty sure that the resentments that appeared were not there when we were all young.  I'm pretty sure they came when the children were adults.  It is much easier to blame the life choices and consequences on someone else and I make a pretty good scapegoat sometimes.  And that's all right.  As I say....karma baby.

Back To Work

It was a lovely four day weekend.  And I enjoyed it immensely.  Went back to work and actually had to do receiving.  I've been doing shipping and pre-counting for inventory the past few weeks.  So my first job is pricing jump drives.  Naturally I forgot to change the price when I started a new size.  Someone else caught it.  I knew instantly what I had done.  So glad I only messed up on 100 of them.  Got to take all the tags off and reprice.  Silly errors make me feel stupid, but at least they are easy to fix.

Dave's Voice

So last week I had to spend an hour and a half on the phone with comcast getting Mom's phone straightened out.  Seems they took her number and forwarded it to some other person's number.  Anyway we got it fixed and she is again receiving calls.  While on the comcast site looking for the number I saw how to access voicemail.  Aha.  Mom has never gotten her voice mail ever since she switched to comcast phone.  She used to insist she was getting messages on the answering machine.
I know that is not true from all the times I called her.  I just didn't know how to access the voice mail either.
So today while we were there I went through the motions of getting it all set up.  She only had 97 voice mails.  And you have to listen to each one all the way through to get to the menu to be able to delete it.  Took me an hour to go through them.
About the tenth message was one from Dave.  I was not expecting it so it really shook me.  Brought tears to the surface.  I loved being able to hear his voice.  I have often thought I should have saved some of my messages on my machine, but didn't.  Anyway there were three messages in the 97 from Dave.  I miss that man.
Light and Love Dave where ever you are waiting for me.

Grandness

Spent the morning tearing down camp, packing up and coming home.  It was a great camp out.  The kids really really liked it.  They want to go some more.  And so we shall.
My thoughts;
Dave would be proud of me.  I managed to start the campfire yesterday morning without tons of paper.  And I cooked breakfast.  Not over the campfire like him, but I still cooked at camping.
My car holds a lot of stuff and that makes me happy.  We still didn't take the tent, but if we would have had to we could have fit it in somehow.  I'm becoming less packing challenged.
I need a camp stove of my own.  I also think I should get a smaller tent for when it is just the three of us using it.  Easier to set up (although the big one is NOT hard at all), and easier to haul in a car.
All that fresh air and running around was super good for the kids.  So was the experience of being able to go go go without Nana looking over their shoulder every minute.  I noticed the bigger kids helped a lot on keeping an eye on the littler ones.  I was impressed with the people at the island.
I'm looking forward to our next camping outing.

A Whole Day

What an exciting day.  The littles continued making friends of the kids camping.  They played and played and played.  Wore themselves out good.  We found Osprey feathers.  There were six osprey who had nests nearby.  Quite a beautiful bird in flight. We listened to some fine guitar playing and Connor even helped.  Pat bbqed us a wonderful meal of steaks, lobster tails and oysters.  We topped it off with grilled potatoes and corn on the cob done on the grill.  Yum.
The kids got to go on a safari ride.  The owner of the island loaded up a bunch of them in his bronco and drove all over the island.  They thought that was so cool.
Our tent got a visitor in a frog.  Audrie was scared to touch it and yet wanted to hold it all at the same time.  We managed to get it out and hopping away.  Then later Pat's friend Manny also had a frog in his tent.  Pat's friend  Brian had to do the honors that time. Manny doesn't do well with critters in his tent.
Pat's girlfriend Alison came out for the dinner and meeting us.  We liked her right off the bat.  She made a friend for life in Audrie.  She is pretty amazing.  Lucky brother.
As the evening wore on the guitar came out again and was jammed a little bit.  Then the owner came by with his guitar and he played us a few songs.  One he even wrote about liquored up whores and it was quite amusing.  The man has no qualms about playing and singing in front of people.  It was joyous and reminded me of when our dad used to play.
Connor fell asleep on Brian.  Then Audrie fell asleep on Brian.  Guess they felt comfortable with him. They were plum tuckered out by the end of their whole day camping.

Extra Day Off

Our boss asked Belinda if she wanted to work on Friday or have the day off.  She opted to work since she had no plans.  That freed me up for the day off and I did have plans.  We got a much earlier start on our camping on Sargent's Island.  We pulled up around 1:30 p.m. which is way better than the 7 p.m. it would have been if I had had to work.
Pat was there putting the finishing touches on setting up the things he had to set up.  He had done our tent the day before.  So he cooked lunch for all of us before he headed to work.  He was asked to work overtime and he wasn't turning that down.
The kids and I finished setting up our stuff and then we just chilled.  Some of Pat's friends were there so we got to know them a bit.  I loved how John had Connor help him get firewood and cut it up.  Connor loved it.  Wait till he realizes it isn't fun, but work, then his tune will change.
John also found a sea lion dive instrument.  His girlfriend called the number and talked to a marine biologist up in Seattle.  He told her this was put on a sea lion in CA.  She is sending him the device and it will tell him where all that sea lion had been and what depths it had swam at.  Very cool.  We all theorized that that particular sea lion had died.  There was still fun and skin on the device.
The littles had some time to play down on the beach.  Another of Pat's friends showed up and he brought his daughter.  She spent time with the littles down on the beach building a sand castle and creating an artful aquarium.  The littles just loved it all.

Walk For a Cause

Today the bookstore participated in a walk for awareness.  Tom's, a shoe manufacturer with heart put on this one day without shoes to bring awareness of people around the world who don't have shoes.  They donate one pair of shoes for every pair bought.
Marti led our group after giving us some information on the project and how we can get involved.  Our walk entailed walking on many different surfaces so we could see what it was like to have no choice but to traverse things uncomfortable.  It gave us just a glimpse and it was heartbreaking.
Me, I didn't walk barefoot.  I walked in my shoes and I could feel the differences in the surfaces because I was aware of it.  And naturally I would not have chosen to walk on some of the surfaces even with shoes.
After the walk Marti and I were talking and she was telling me there are people in our county without shoes.  It is not just third world countries where this happens.  I was feeling blessed for a moment and then not.
Thank you Marti for all the information you researched and relayed to us. Thanks for leading the walk.  Thanks Monica for the pictures.

Rose Float

Betty sent us an email about taking a tour of the rose float in construction.  I thought the littles might get a kick out of seeing it before it is really a float.  So I set it up with Rich, the education of the rose float guy.  Took the kids and he showed us around.  Showed us where the driver and co-pilot sits.  Explained where the princesses stand and how they are strapped in in case of sudden stops.  He told us what the various materials were that were used thus far in the construction.  It is an eleven month project every year.  He has been doing it a long time.  It was very interesting.  It will be interesting to see the finished project and if the littles will recognize that that is what we saw three weeks earlier.

New Friend, the River and Life

We met up with my friend Katie today at Lewisville Park.  She brought Jersey and Maddix.  They are her grandchildren from her daughter Julie.  The kids played on the playground and Katie and I had a few minutes to catch up.  We plan on doing this again because Jersey likes friends and so does Audrie.
After they left we played some more.  Walked down to the river and watched little fish jump.  The kids threw rocks and sticks and leaves.  They chased squirrels.  They met dogs.  They washed their hands in the river and climbed on rocks.  Stretching their muscles and their imaginations.
They met new people and carried on conversations.  They are learning to be polite and charming.  They had a great time.  The only hindrance was Connor falling in the parking lot right at first and skinning up his knee pretty good.  We just lost the scab on the last knee boo boo two days ago.  Life of a boy.

Dreams

I have had many dreams of Dave.  I had the "he came back from the dead" dream.  I have had many dreams where he is just in it.  But lately I have been dreaming that he hasn't died yet.  It's like limbo.  We know he is sick and is going to die, but he's not sick.  So we are getting things ready.  Well the last one like that he told me to go home after I got him situated in his limbo place.  Told me I shouldn't stay there with him.  Ah.  Either he is telling me or my brain is figuring it out that this grief period is ending and it is time to let go.  It's time to be home.  And so I am.
Light and love always Dave.

BBQ Family Style

Family dinner time again and again Mom slept through it. To be fair though she isn't feeling very well and needs to make an appt. with the doctor.  We bbqed marinated pork chops and had watermelon and corn on the cob.  The corn was the best part.  Yum.
Pat brought our new tent out and we set it up.  It was way too easy and the tent is so so so so big. I knew it wasn't small, but it was a lot larger than I expected.  I don't know why they didn't come up with this design years and years ago.  But I will take it for now since I will be manning the tent by myself.  Tanya didn't think I would be able to get it back in its bag.  I did.

Odds and Ends

Making progress on our camping supplies.  Down to a tarp and a sleeping bag for Connor.  Getting very excited.  We also get to possibly meet Pat's new girlfriend.
Got paperwork from support enforcement.  It seems they have lost track of Cassie.  I find that funny since her and David's tax return was taken for her back support.  Anyway I did up the form I was to fill out and got it sent back.
Working on car stuff.  Got the seller's report done.  Really easy online.
Kim was going to come out and visit.  We were so looking forward to it.  But she had to postpone.  Bummer.  Guess we just keep looking forward to it.

Kia Soul

I've been coming to the conclusion for awhile that I needed a newer car.  I went through it last year when I had problems.  Every problem on the Mini Cooper costs at least $500.  But I kept it anyway.
Leaping forward to now.
I needed a new windshield.  Brakes are coming due as well as a major service.  Tires should last another year.  If this water pump follows suit of the last two it should be going out soon.  On and on and on. It has enough miles to start breaking down.  And I don't have my knight in shining armor anymore.
I have been really liking the looks of those Kia Souls.  I had never seen the commercials so I didn't get the reference when Elizabeth referred to them as hamster cars.  I thought she was being derogatory.  I did finally look the car up on the internet and found that maybe I could afford the payment on one.
This went on for a week.  And then I decided.  Hired a babysitter and went to the dealer.  Still tossing up between the Kia and a Dodge Dart.  Looked at the Dart first and really didn't like the trunk.  Looked at the Kia and was in love.  It has a hidey place in the back and still has a lot of room there to haul things.  Drove it. Bought it.  Well the bank bought it and I'm making payments.
And yes I paid more than I planned.  Got a 2014 for less than any 2015 on the lot and it had nice features.  It is not alien green.  Naturally I did not get as much as I hoped for my Mini, but that is okay considering how much abuse it has had.
I'm happy and feeling a bit more secure.  Now to get a hitch put on it so we can get a bike rack for it.  Ready to rock and roll and ride.

Stepping

Belinda and I compared notes.  We have been doing this for four months.  Each of us have gotten injuries along the way.  Not necessarily from the stepping but the injuries definitely impacted our ability to get the 10000 steps every day.  The newness has worn off.
When we started I got my steps every day.  And then I started increasing.  And I got my steps every day.  And then injuries happened and those days were very easy to not get the steps.  And it's all right.  I am at the point that it is fine as long as averagely I get the 70000 steps in a week.  And I always do.  I just notice the change in my attitude.
A couple of days ago it rained and I didn't feel like walking in the rain and I didn't.  Unfortunately this week the battery died in the fitbit so I have no steps for that day either.  May not hit the 70000 this week and that's okay.  Back at it tomorrow.

Blessed

Every day I am so blessed to be part of the littles lives.  I think they give me more than I give them.  I get unconditional love, snot kisses, the best cuddles.  They try my patience all the time just to find the boundaries.  They are growing and thriving.  I get compliments on the growth Audrie has shown the last year in pre-school.  She is so ready to go to kindergarten.
We are blessed in having a nice place to live.  We are blessed in having enough food.  We have a great day care that shows a lot of love for the littles.  I have a great job that always works around my schedule as needed.
We are blessed to have Grammy.  We take it as we find it and roll with it.  As her disease progresses we do that more and more.  It is a life learning lesson.
We are blessed for Uncle Pat.  Taking on the male role model role and finding his own patience and teaching Connor things.  Looking forward to camping with him.
We are blessed in Aunt Betty.  Looking out for us in a multiple of ways.  This week is festival pins so we can go to Rose Festival.  We love that.
We are blessed with our friends and neighbors who often help us in being the village that raise the children.  We are blessed for the bags and bags of clothes we have been gifted.  Really appreciating this as I cull the shoe supply and toss all the small shoes.
We are blessed with the bounty of mother nature either in food or in beauty.  We have great places to walk and hike and play.  We have great farmer's markets.
We are blessed in all that we have and we are thankful every day.  We miss Papa and how he added to our life, but he is always with us in our hearts.  We are thankful for all the time we had with him.  We will forever miss those who went before us, but we are blessed in all that are to come.

Dizzy

We have been waiting for a good rainy day to go to Dizzy Castle.  Got tired of waiting and went today.  They played for two and a half hours.  Pretty much wore them out.  No pictures this time as I actually forgot the camera.  I spent the time just vegging.
Working hard and getting tired.  I love that Dizzy Castle is a good outlet for some energy.

Nope

Well Mike has to stay in Wenatchee until the end of his probation.  His transfer was denied.  So three more months and hopefully he figures something out so he doesn't keep getting in trouble.  Tanya shouldn't have told him he could use her address if she intended to tell them he could not stay there. But it is what it is.

Uplifting

I read a quick blurb on facebook about suspended coffees.  The premise is you go into the coffee shop and buy a coffee and then  buy one or more suspended coffees.  Your suspended coffees are used by those who need a coffee and maybe can't afford one that day.  It is a wonderful concept.
So I went to their website http://suspendedcoffees.com/ and looked about and then went to see if there is a local coffee shop doing this.  Lo and behold there is.  It is called Latte Da and THIS is their website.
I fully intend on visiting their shop just to buy a suspended coffee.

Loving It

That little man is so much loving being able to ride a bike without training wheels.  Finally he is riding his own bike mostly. He likes to sneak out at night about 10 and go for a spin.  I will be sitting at the computer and watch him quietly go. He wants to ride before we leave for work/care house.
Obviously we did get the training wheels off his bike.  We had to elicit help from John.  Got the first one no problem. None of my wrenches worked on the second.  The first side was standard and the other side was metric.  Oy.  I don't have metrics but John does.  Thank goodness for John.  

A Home

Marseilles decided that she could be at home at my mom's house.  She now gets along with the dog and they stroke each other.  She goes in and out of the doggy door.  I found her today laying under a shrub.  I think she is at home.

Mother's Day

Mother's Day included cleaning Mom's house and then mowing her yard.  She thought Josh had done it, but he just weedeated the weeds and pruned a couple of shrubs.  I also got the jasmine planted and a wind chime hung. We made a big bowl of shrimp salad to go with the cheddar brats.  Pat brought Mom and I roses.  I can't remember the last time someone gave me flowers.  Connor gave me a picture he made at care house.
We made videos for Mommy this morning and gave them to her via facebook.  Nana was slacking and we never got a card in the mail.  I'm sure she enjoyed the videos more.
Mike called and he is fine.

Old Friends

I fed Bianca's cats and in return she agreed to babysit.  So I took her up on it.  It was suppose to be an Audrie and Nana night out.  Audrie opted to stay at Bianca's.  So I texted David to see what he was up to.
He met me at the Puffin Cafe and we had fish.  He said the fish tacos were really really good.  And of course I had the halibut fish sandwich which is always good.  We talked and talked.  The restaurant was really busy so we had to wait to be seated and then it took a long time to get our food.  Good thing we didn't have plans for later.  Always a pleasure to break bread with David.  I swear he is my best guy friend now.
After that, I spur of the moment, decided to stop at Chuck and Laura's house.  I was in the area and just really felt the need to connect.  Chuck was Dave's boss for awhile, but they were friends before that.  As Dave's disease progressed the friendship went away.  It was so good seeing them.  Chuck told me about the opportunities they had given Dave in his job and how so many people were pulling for him and helping wherever they could.  Some of it I knew and some of it I didn't.  Different people got to see different things.  It was good to catch up on a more personal level.  I didn't really get a chance to talk to Chuck at the funeral.  I told Laura I would scan the pictures of their daughter and send them to her via facebook.  I'll never forget the trip we took to Illinois to visit them when Mike was little.

And He Rides

At Papa's house the little man has a walking bike.  A bike with no pedals.  He could ride it all the way down the driveway with his feet up. So he had the balance down pat.  He was ready to ride a real bike without training wheels.  But then Papa got sick.  And that was the end of that.
He had a bike at our place, but he would not ride it.  I think there was something off about it.  He would only ride Sissy's bike.  So he didn't show any interest in taking that next step.  Once we got our bikes back from Papa's house he started riding again.  The neighbor boy has a small bike with no training wheels.  He left it laying on the sidewalk.  Connor picked it up.  I told him to ride.  Gave him a push and ran beside him as he pedaled and rode.  And so he rides.  Without training wheels.  Time to take them off his bike.

Camping Equipment

We are getting down to the wire.  Two weeks until we go camping with Pat at Sargant's Island. Time to get the tent, Connor's and Grammy's sleeping bags, air mattresses, ice chests and lantern.  Getting excited.  I think Pat is too,  He keeps telling me where stuff is on sale.
After we do this first camp then we will know what else we need.  At least going with Pat means we can use some of his stuff....like his camp stove.
I think we are starting a new tradition.  Pat has been inviting us for several years and I was always leary of the kids being too close to the river.  They are bigger now and I checked out the camping sight last year when we visited him camping.

Body Safety

I thought it was time that we started teaching body safety.  The littles are old enough now to start understanding some concepts.  Like the difference between a secret and a surprise.  So we printed out the safety rules and have them hanging on our door.  We have read them and talked about them numerous times.  I want to empower them to be able to say "No" when something doesn't feel right.
It seems like every one wants to push stranger danger when most sexual abuse comes at the hands of friends and relatives.  So I don't preach stranger danger.  I am preaching body safety.  They have the right to say no and get away from someone making them uncomfortable.
From my standpoint I had to come up with new ways to teach this.  We no longer have our "protector" in Papa.  So we have to be much more self sufficient.  More self reliant.  And that means them too.  They just may grow up to be strong individuals.
So far we are doing really well.  They can tell me what the body safety rules are and how they apply.  We talk about it daily.  I want it to be stuck in their heads.

Amazing Boy

After picking the littles up from care house they wanted to do something.  So we went over to Kiwanis Park.  Feels weird to be there without Papa.  It was one of our go to places with the littles.  Anyway Connor decided to climb the rock.  I told him I was not helping him since he got stuck on the top last time.  Some dad who was at the park had to help him down.  Connor was okay with me not helping.  Next thing I know he is on top of the rock.  And he helped me help him get down.  He is getting over his fear at the top.  He climbed it three times all by himself.  He was pretty proud of himself.  I was pretty proud of him.  He is amazing.

Jazzlynn is One

We had our own little party today.  We celebrated Jazzlynn's first birthday. We baked a chocolate cake and then made cream cheese frosting.  The littles said it needed to be green so we did that.  And then we ate cake in honor of their little sister. Even though she isn't here and we aren't there we still wanted to celebrate her day.  We sent her new jammies for her birthday.  Happy happy birthday sweet Jazzlynn.

Oy

So we borrowed a cat carrier from Betty to try and catch Marseilles and take her to Grammy's house.  We were successful in our endeavor.  Then the cat escaped.  Here is hoping for her return or her finding a new home.  She is pretty good at that.  After all she found us.
So we are all ready to take the carrier back when I remembered that I needed to feed Bianca's cats.  So we did that and then the kids beat me back to the car.  Connor did his scream thing and I heard a crash.  He had gotten mad at Audrie and threw the carrier out of the car.  Oy.  Cracked it.
So we spent a good part of the day traipsing around the pet stores looking for a replacement.  Didn't find one exactly like it but did find one with two doors.  Those are actually pretty slick.  And so Betty gets a new carrier and we will use the cracked one because it will still work.  As long as it doesn't take another tumble.

Hoyt Arboretum

We stretched our horizon again today.  We traipsed over to the Hoyt Arboretum and hiked a trail.  Looks like we did about two miles all together.  In between all those steps we climbed in trees, rolled down hills, walked on logs, played in the fountain at the Vietnam Veteran's Memorial and met dogs and people.  We went up hill and down hill and back the other way.
Both kids got so worn out.  He was asleep before we hit the 405 bridge and she didn't make it to the I-5 bridge.

Work Day

The joy of side jobs.  Cleaned Mom's house.  Then ran to get Elizabeth so she could babysit so I could mow.  Only took 2.5 hours this time.  Betty seemed surprised.  I think I have adapted to her mower and am able to go faster now.  Plus I'm on a time schedule when paying a babysitter by the hour.  Then it was back to Mom's to mow her yard.  It only takes half an hour to mow her yard with the push mower, but it seems like so much more work than Betty's.  It probably is more work.  Although I'm pretty stiff when I get off that Kubota after 2.5 hours.  I think I'm not as young as I used to be.  :P
My extra work for the week is done, except for feeding Bianca's cats.  No money on that one.  But I'm going to get a night of free babysitting.  I think that is better than money.

Exploring, Learning. Playing

We have had such great weather on our long string of days off.  Today after getting Connor's hair cut we went over to Uncle Pat's house and then walked down to the park.  We played on the playground and explored some of the stumps and trees.
When I was a kid this patch of land was not a park.  It was just a small forest in the middle of a neighborhood.  I was so scared of it.  I would rather go the long way around rather than cut through it to get to the other side of the neighborhood.  It seemed dangerous.  And maybe it was.  But now that it is made into a park there are trails all through it and the playground.  It is much more open and inviting.  Doesn't scare me in the least.
We are so enjoying the learning and exploring and playing of life.