BUSY MORNING

Jamin headed over to help John and Cathy with their barn again this a.m. I was to pick him up at noon.

Mike has the day off and is working through his home repair check list before he leaves on his all-expenses paid trip. He has Josiah and JARED helping him. Jared a LOT. Josiah has to work this evening so Mike seems to be going easy on him. {g}

I decided this would be a good day to take the 4 little ones to go see the Water Lily collection. They liked it. It was VERY hot. They did notice a small turtle in the ponds that I’d not noticed. I discovered it was hard to take pictures with Stacia in the sling.

We had 40 minutes when we were done at the lilies and I didn’t want to run home for that little time. We went to the main library. My plan was to find the DMV (which I was told was in this building) and pick up a driver’s manual for Jamin. They had an ELEVATOR – my littlest ones thought this was cool. BTW there are NO escalators in our town. We were directed to the “dmv”. You walk in one door and they herd you through the room until you are out the other door. Zander said, “Wow! That is cool!” I’m thinking about designing a kitchen around this model {G} Anyway, they did NOT have driver’s manuals and told me I need to go to the DPH or some such thing to get one…..guess I’ll be looking into that soon.

On the way back down I thought Zander would get a kick out of pushing the buttons. I dimly remember our older ones thinking that was fun at this stage. Of course….Zander has not been ON many elevators. I said, “Push the button” and he did. ::::snort:::: The big red button…and we began to ring and clang…. Of course, a child would go for the most obvious button. I told him from now on to push a button with a number if someone tells him to push the button in an elevator. We nonchalantly exited the elevator and entered the library. We picked up a bunch more really wonderful books on math concepts….I’ll have to let you know what we think after we read a few of them. The kids played on the computers for 10 minutes and then we picked up Jamin.

Back home we discovered our men covered in insulation and climbing up and down to the attic from the big boys’ room.

I desperately need to go get some whole milk for Zander today. We thought he could survive some BHT laden milk for just “one night” but it’s obvious that he can’t. Mike looked at me a few minutes ago and said “This is Alex without Feingold” and I realized…he’s right. He’s had over a month of no meltdowns so we are getting there…He even had ice cream at Baker’s street on Sunday and didn’t seem to react….but he’s been chug-a-lugging this milk all night and morning….I think I should buy a cow….the neighbors may frown on this plan but then I’m sure Mike would let us drink th raw milk and we wouldn’t have this homogenized/BHT problem…..LOL

Ah….Zander is at the bottom of the ladder saying over and over “Dad, do you need some help?” “Dad, do you need me to come up there?” “Dad, do you need me?” He aims to please….

Four youngest at the Water Lily Collection
Even the bees like the lilies

Long Day....

Showing off her teeth

BIKE RIDING

YES! Mike put my back tire back on this a.m. Then he ran and I rode. It was wonderful to be back on the bike again. I did choose a route with very little traffic…though in the last three weeks a major portion of “my field” has been cleared for houses. I’m telling you this area is starting to look like a scene right out of “Over the Hedge”.

Mike even replaced my kickstand…..I will not make the 500 mile goal by the end of July. I’d like to think I’ll make it by the end of August – but with our upcoming leave…..whooBOY – I’ve got some serious riding cut out for me.