You Don't See That Every Day

Should I start with the good news first or the bad new first? That's probably one question my husband does not want to hear. Today started out like so many other days we've had this summer. My son and I got up at 0 dark thirty while the young 'uns slept in. (Because, really, why wake a 3 year old up before 6 am?) This part I consider the ugly. No one but my husband and baby girl wants to see me at 5.30 am. We drove out to my dad's farm and helped harvest enough garbanzo beans for our morning count. I managed to make it back to our house by 8.15 am and get cleaned up for the next event of my day. So I guess that was a good part. Thankfully my sister could come over and stay with the kids while I was gone. (Good part.) But as I was backing out of the driveway my terrific hard-bumpered pickup introduced itself to her little Subaru's plastic bumper. It wasn't pretty. So file that under the bad and the ugly. And even thought I wanted to stay and DO something abou...

My long, slow run this morning. 4 miles. Used to be long, slow run meant 10, but I'm okay with that. I'll get there again. So I ran by this park-and-ride on my usual route. I like to count the cars parked there, maybe think about who drives which one, see what there is in the lot. Today I saw Hondas, Toyotas, a Ford pickup, and - double-take - a Jag. What? You just don't see a Jaguar parked in the park and ride everyday. I hope it makes it through okay.

  Here are the kids working on their cars before turn-in day. We had a short time to do the work on them, and we invited the neighbor to join in on the fun. (We?! oh, yeah, it was the kids and G who did it all. I was just transportation and chef.) Saturday started bright and early. A little too early for me, after I was up late Friday night at an OSU gymnastics meet - fun times.  Here Miss M is getting ready to throw a beanbag at the pin in the middle: The two older girls had Awana games all morning. And they did awesome! Their teams placed 1st and 2nd. Here is S, preparing for a relay. She did a lot of running this year, and her legs hurt afterwards  On the drive between Awana events Little K found an innovative way to hold the lunch Mom wanted her to eat, and the snack she wanted to eat. She did manage to eat them both eventually.  She and I were able to take a little break at home, to feed the dogs and get some drinks. I just love the look ...

Can you guess what we are watching in our household tonight? My husband and I grew up watching Wild Kingdom, with Marlin Perkins. Remember that?? My kids have the Crikey! man - Steve Irwin. We love to watch his shows, "Croc Files" is the one for tonight. We get them from Netflix, and we all enjoy them. That guy was ... a piece of work. His wife is from Oregon, which is pretty cool itself. She reminds me a lot of one of my sister-in-laws, in looks and in demeanor, and adventure. We were all very saddened the day we heard the news of Steve Irwin;s death back in 2006. But we love watching the shows. I think I wrote about this once a few years back. My son had just watched some croc wrestling, and had gone outside to wrestle our huge Lab. And that dog didn't mind a bit; he didn't fight back like a croc, but the Boy had a good time anyway. The sickness has hit our household. Last week my oldest had a fever which transitioned into a bad cold. This week little K. had the ...

Can it really be a week since I posted on here? Time got away from me. Life was busy. And then my Internet went out. And the power was out too. I had a great post in my mind, made up while I was running last week, but it was one of the days I didn't have access to Internet .. and now it lost forever. Not a big loss ... The kids have been working on their pinewood derby cars this weekend. The Awana Grand Prix race is next Saturday and we have 4 kids entering their creations. G. might enter another car too. And Grandpa too. Here is my daughter, the tomato. Seriously, this is what she called herself. I just laugh and enjoy her imagination. When I saw her in all-red outfit I thought "Rahjneesh". Thankfully she thought tomato. A few weekends ago the oldest girl cut her hair. Since then, the next-in-line has been waiting for her turn to get her hair cut and sent in to Locks of Love. Saturday was the day. It was much more difficult for me to...

 The cars were finished and turned in on Wednesday. The weeks, no, the months of crafting and researching and figuring out how to make the pinewood cars run faster - have all come to an end. Today was race day! M and her friend The countdown started last night, by our son. "Only 15 hours and 22 minutes to go," he announced to us, with more updates throughout the evening. S and friend There was a crowd there when I arrived, late (it's hard to get ready to go when Baby only wants to be carried around all morning!) We even had a cheering section. G's mom was there with her husband - who also had entered a car. And my brother came to watch too. helping out Baby K was pretty well behaved during the event. She did her normal hair-pulling and wiggling all over act. In the end, it was all worth it; every penny, every minute, every late night spent poring over techniques, came down to this: A sweep of the open class - 1st, 2nd, 3rd places going to G, the boy, a...