Shopping in Reno

Unfortunately this was not a pleasure trip, one spent buying stuff for fun. this was one of my once every 6-8 week trips..... LD and I left at 7:15am. We went to Home Depot, PetCo, Great Clips, Wal Mart and WinCo. We got home at 4pm.

The only relaxing time at all was when I was getting all my hair hacked off.....here's what it looked like before:

And here's the hair the girl cut off...

And here's what I looked like AFTER I had unloaded the car and put all the food away (which took an hour & half!)

LD slept the whole way home from Reno, and when we got home, he went right in, and went back to sleep on the couch

And this, this is what I came home with:

LD still sleeping

Oh look, here's MORE of what I came home with

And from another view

And LD still sleeping

And this is what a pile of 40 bags looks like

The cat thought this was marvelous!

I still have to post about our shed project... that's what we did last weekend..... but for now I'm still recovering from yesterday's shopping trip, and being very grateful that I only go every 6 to 8 weeks!

See you in five months, Sweet Pea

Tomorrow, Beth boards a plane in Reno to fly to Denver. She is spending the school year there with her dad. Tonight, she said she wanted a picture of a dandelion being blown away..... How could I say no?

Here's a dandelion, before it was attacked:

And, here she goes!

And then there's this one:

She's just doing her part to ensure that Hector will have plenty of fresh dandelion plants next summer!

See you for Thanksgiving Sweet Pea. I love you lots and miss you more.

Randomly associated stuff

Associated because this all takes place in the same day:

We picked some wildflowers and put them in a glass:

The swallows are getting big.... and I stand corrected... I counted FIVE (not four) babies in the nest today.... I think they're getting ready to go soon, as this one was perched on the edge of the nest. Look at all those little pinfeathers!

As soon as it saw me it scooted back into the nest and was giving me the evil eye!

And, since we don't have a dishwasher, we have our own version of the pre-wash cycle.

Summer Solstice

Summer is a time for ice cream, sprinklers and so many other fun things.

Yesterday, we had a great Father's Day breakfast (chicken fried steak, country potatoes, eggs, sausage gravy and fresh OJ).

Today, because Beth leaves Friday, I opted to do the kid's yearly pictures before I completely forgot about it. Funny thing in this shot, I did NOT tell them to have this expression on their face - I told them to look like they would if Dad were going to come up, and this is what they did.

Beth says it's in anticipation of "Horrible Fun." I'm not sure exactly what that means. So, I asked her... and she is not quite sure either, but confirmed that it's most definitely a very good thing.

After that, I gave LD a haircut - he'd been asking to have it "like this" (as he rubbed his forehead), which meant shaved like Daddy's. Once his haircut was over, I filled a bunch of balloons with water for them. Now, we learned a very valuable thing today - regular balloons are NOT water balloons.  But, in our little town, you get lucky that the gas station up the road has balloons of any kind.

Because they start out larger, they take MUCH more water to fill to the point where they burst easily. Unfortunately, this also means they're VERY heavy when filled completely, so heavy that LD couldn't lift them.... As a result I could only fill them about 1/4 full -  which means you have to find a place with a rather rough ground and basically break them against the ground hoping to catch the other person with the splash.

Otherwise, they do this - look carefully at the back of LD's shirt - Beth says there's an angry face just above the balloon, which by the way, did NOT break upon hitting him, nor did it break when it hit the ground:

And, you also find other "creative" ways to get wet with these abnormal water balloons....

Don't let the balloon fool you, this girl is ruthless!

This was hilarious - after the splash was over, there was water coming out her nose!

After the water balloons were all popped and the mess cleaned up, the kids decided they wanted to play in the sprinkler for a while:

Does this kid have a HUGE head or what? I know we've been over this before but HOLY COW from THIS angle??

Good grief this girl has LONG appendages!!!

This is what we've begun calling Tubby Tank... look at the cute little piggy!!! He's a bit OCD when it comes to water being sprayed or splashed. He has destroyed more than one child's wading pool... and he was throwing quite a fit when they were doing the water balloons earlier.

This is "Soggy Bottom Beth" who's skirt became so heavy with water that jumping on the little trampoline caused it to, well, leave the premises:

And finally, because every kid, at one point or another, has a picture from their childhood, in their underwear after playing in the sprinkler in the yard..... This was one shot of many where he was doing a little dance....I'm both enormously amused and more than a little disturbed by this image:

I hope everyone is enjoying their summer as much as we are!

Babies!!!

There's just something about babies... their skin is so soft, and they smell so good!!! Today, dad's friend Sam came to visit with some of his family. However, it was Shelby, the bringer of the soft and smell good baby things mentioned above, that stole the show:

The BEST part? I got to snuggle and hold a 3-month old baby, take in her wonderful soft skin, and her wonderful baby smell. Even better than that? After a few hours, baby went home... it was just the baby fix I needed. And no, no urges to have any more babies here! Thank you Heather & Eddie for letting me snuggle your little girl, she's terminally cute!!

We ALSO have some native babies!! The mud swallows have finally hatched - there are FOUR of the little suckers in this little nest - and they were chirping up a storm first thing this morning.