the last day of july

 They found this monarch caterpillar in the yard and brought it to me. We found a second one in milkweed around Joe's trailer, and put them in a big tumbler on the cupboard with milkweed and a long stick for them to walk on. 

Later Heidi moved them to a bigger glass bowl.

The day was so perfectly beautiful we went outside for a picnic lunch in the shade.

She was real lively. NOT. She went right to sleep in the breeze.

 We get to keep this curly haired one,  right? She sang me songs and was so funny in her underwear life.

The big sister didn't want to have a picnic, wanted to have her lunch inside on the couch with her tablet.

Ummm.  Let me think about that.

All done thinking.

NO!

Come outside.  You have all the rainy days and hot days and snowy days for that.  Get yer butt out.

 These lovely ankle bracelets were her sister's pony tails a little bit ago.

 And this darling canine is a first rate rester. At rest time, she runs right upstairs and starts resting immediately.

She's an angel.  Last week, during rest time the child put the Mickey Mouse ears on this dog and THEN?  She found a lint roller somewhere and rolled that lint roller all over her body.

She accepted all this without comment. She did not growl or snarl.  She's much nicer than I am.

 More resting

Yeah, this was a nice picnic.  On Monday they threw green tomatoes in their little wading pool. Then the older child took the younger child's diaper off, full of poop. She had no plan other than screaming for me.

I cleaned up Spicy Toes and then mentioned to them to rinse off their feet before they got in the pool to keep the grass clippings out.  They looked right at me and ripped up actual planted, growing grass, threw it into the pool and said they were making soup.

Okay, fine.

I give up.

It's August now, as of 18 minutes ago.

See you in the morning.

You Poopy Biapers!

Love, Grandma

awww, good bye july!

 This guy went with us to Poor Richard's last weekend and found this cool little pretend cobra. He also wanted to buy a carousel horse, an old taxidermy fish (Dannell, I objected) and three pocket watches for $110.  Non. No.

The fake cobra was it.

Last week we went back to the zoo.  The goats were adorable.

 So were the reindeer.

 The polar bear was doing fine.

 They were determined to ride the carousel again, and this thing is so loud and goes so fast. It's not easy to get pictures of them flying by at 100 decibels.

Love, Val

sweet alicia

 Happy Birthday.

I love that your birthday was spent in this squirrely place with all these insane squirrels.

 And you're married to that guy on the right and the two of you both endure and love each other year after year after year.

Oh my goodness, Alicia, what a great Jellystone birthday.

This whole family is better with you in it--you are patient and kind, generous and keep a sense of humor at all times because HEAVEN KNOWS we all need that.

Happy Birthday, Sweetheart,

Love, Jay and Val and Everybody

dan skiing

Love, Mom

always with the tubing

 The kids never get tired of this.  It goes on by the hour.

Love, Grandma, and Grandpa too