the pool and the parade

First we went to the little pool.

This is Lydia, aka Kari, putting sunblock on p.j.    Back when my oldest kids were little sunblock wasn't even invented.   If I had concerns, they wore a shirt.   None of the kids were prone to sunburn, luckily. 

She loved playing with the doll dishes, and we had to prevent her from drinking the pool water over and over.

After we'd been there a while, the kids went looking for a lost barbie doll and found a dead sparrow in the filter. 

Eeeewww!

They ran to inform the pool attendant.  (She attends.  She's not a lifeguard.  It's a somewhat gray area, but watch your own kids is the end of that story.)

She looked, recoiled, urged the children away from the filter and got on her phone.

One of the dads supervising young offspring at the pool said, "What is she doing?  It's just a dead sparrow. It can't hurt anything."

I said, "I don't know? Calling the police?"

He rolled his eyes, left his four month old in the stroller chewing on a rattle, and marched over to the filter, pulled it out, went to a far-away trash-can and threw it in, rinsed the filter, returned and inserted it.

Problem over.

Well, I dunno.

A few minutes later a city worker pulled up to test the water, add chemicals, look at the whole situation, including a dozen kids bobbing around in the pool.

This is the funny part though.  Tim was so grossed out he would not get back in the pool. He looked in the filter and saw that tiny sparrow leg sticking up and no.  No. Absolutely not.

I love that kid.

We hung around for a while longer. The others swam.   The city worker sampled the pool water for germs.  It's chlorinated water, which our friend, who is a micro biologist, says is highly effective.

Okay, after supper we went over to Heidi's for the city parade.

Here's where the fire department went by, blaring their sirens.

She wasn't even born yet when Joe and Heidi had their terrible fire. 

Still, she seems to know.

Elvis?

Yes.

That kid in the little blue jersey is the nephew of Heidi's old college roommate. He looks so much like her, like her dad.  It's pretty impressive, big dark eyes. 

And all this brings us to the end of the day, and what a fine day it was.

Wheee.

Kirsten left her dog here to be babysat, and then when she came to pick her up, where is the dog?

Hunh? Dog, you say?

Payton?

Well, some neighorhood citizen was shooting off bottle rockets so the dog was hiding--hiding as deeply as she was able.  Sidney was trembling too.

Sam was not. "What?  Who?"   We asked no further questions.

Onward.   We're past the middle of June now, and life is nothing but good.   love, Val