all in all...

a superb weekend.

Yesterday morning I took Tim over to my parents to see the digger dig up their back yard. They've got a project going on and Tim looooves equipment. (He has even referred to my Kitchen Aid mixer as, "the equipment." Power tools, yah, yah.)

The guy dug, the bucket scraping against the outside of the basement walls, kind of a freaky sound, a little scary, a lot exciting.

Then in the afternoon, JULIA went to another birthday party. This one was at Build-A-Bear.

She BUILT A BEAR, (can you believe it!) and ATE CAKE, and it was tremendously exciting.

Last night Dan and b.g. came for supper and it was fun to be out on the patio, feeding this enthusiastic eater in the evening sun.




This morning was the last day of Sunday School picnic and party and that was a wild old time, lots of kids and noise. It's hot today and it was sultry even in the basement.

One Sunday School teacher has been teaching forever. She's a tiny, elegant woman who keeps on being nice to other people's children, year after year after year. They called for a photo of "anyone who has ever had her for a teacher," for a group photo. Most of them are taller than she is now, and I loved that. She's been so sweet to my kids.

Later, Maria needed a new oboe reed, so we went to the music store and we also found a video game of piano playing, kind of like Guitar Hero, only with a little keyboard attached to the port on the computer, marked down from $149 to $24 final clearance. That bargain made me abnormally happy.


Tim and Julia argued a while and then figured out they didn't have to take turns at all. Tim told me, "We set it to two-handed, two-players, so we can BOTH play." Julia took the left hand part, and Tim the right. As long as they're not fighting, good enough.

This is a funny Tim story. When he was maybe four? He observed the twin bed at the lake and pronounced it, "a one player bed." A double bed is, "a two player." One winter morning when t.c. was here with his dog, and the kids and I were all in my bed watching Curious George, he looked around and chortled, "This is a SIX PLAYER bed!" I guess it was that day.

Tonight Jay put in the last couple air conditioners, and after that we did yard work. The kids ran through the sprinkler while we planted plants my parents sent, weeded the garden. (Holy ...never mind. The weeds. Ugh. A really cool guy we like brought us a load of black dirt a few years ago. The dirt was full of swamp grass and nettles.)




It's luscious black dirt, all right, but these atrocious weeds. Of course I couldn't find my damned garden gloves, so I used a towel to pull the nettles. They're nasty. I have actual welts on my actual arms. (Yeah, yeah, wah, wah, wah.)

Then, as the grand finale OF the weekend, Jay smoothened and flattened a place for the new tent my parents bought the kids. (The old tent wore out--the fabric shredded from sun, so they decided to buy them a new one.) It's a great tent! It's destined for many days of fun.


At the end, it was time for Sam's bath. She was so hot this afternoon she was scaring me a little. My aunt and uncle had a Newfoundland named Taffy die from heat years ago, so I always take heat seriously with Sam, plus even ordinary hot spots aren't exactly fun.


Now it's now, and time for a bath. Our marvelous little air conditioner is blowing softly, Jay's on his pillow snoozing, and Sam's asleep on the floor, comfortable, not panting like she was before. Last night, seriously it felt like she was fogging the windows with her overheated huffing and puffing and pacing and guzzling of water. This is a dog who loves winter. Or a/c.

Onward to Monday. It's going to be a great week. love, Val