4 Miles

We’ve kicked off summer with a bang!

After a fun Memorial Day weekend, we’ve had some busy days–not by design, they just happened (my favorite kind of fun days!). Wednesday we took a meal to some people from church and then visited a new park on that side of town. We had so much fun I promised the boys we’d go back again on Thursday with a picnic lunch and we’d stay ALL morning. And we did. It’s an interesting park/garden. First, it’s only been developed in the last two years, so all the trees are small. So it’s a good cool weather park. It has a great kids area that has a giant sand area (it looks like a sandy riverbed with an island in the middle for parents to watch kids), houses for the kids to play in and some cool tunnels and play areas. After we played awhile we put everything in the car (including the camera so I didn’t get any pictures of the second part) and went exploring. They have an ampitheater there with fountains around it and the boys had a great time playing around there. It’s such a cool park I took lots of pictures and since I put so many pictures in the last post, I thought I’d just link to the Picasa album. Then you can see the pictures bigger and read the comment explaining some of them (like why my darling son is in jail!).

Cox-Hill Gardens

Today we got to go to the zoo with some friends (who are members with 2 free passes so we got in for free! And the Indy Zoo is so expensive, that’s about the only time we can go.) Schools are wrapping up but still doing field trips so we agreed to meet there right at 9 am when it opened. So it was an early start this morning! It worked out very well though–it was still cool and not that busy this morning. (Our zoo also has lots of sunny areas and not as much shade, so it’s better to go on cool days.) We got to see the new Koala Bears (on loan from another zoo) and the brown bear was rather active. We went to the savanna exhibit and the zebras were active, the giraffes had just been fed (and one tried to eat the grass right by us so we got a great view of the BIG tongue), a lioness was sitting right in front of us (until she left and kicked the male lion out of the way and laid down in his spot) and Will enjoyed seeing the rinos. We then moved quickly past the elephants to see the dolphin show. Both boys enjoyed that–Will remembered that from last year and declared dolphins his favorite animals.

Speaking of remembering from last year, when I told Will we’d be going to the zoo he started telling me about the sharks they had there. He told me they were dog sharks–I was surprised he remembered that. He then told me “You can try to touch them because they won’t try to eat you. They don’t eat anybody. They don’t even eat dogs, that’s why they’re called dog sharks!”

After the dolphin show we at an early lunch and then visited the sharks. This year they seemed more used to the crowds and were much more willing to swim up to you. Both Will and I were able to touch them! Then we went to the butterfly exhibit. This was the part Alex rememebered and told James about (though it came out as “bluterbly”). Our friends had to leave then, but we stayed a bit longer and explored the gardens.

Indy Zoo

I do not plan on keeping up the level of activity at this rate all summer (Will asked what we’re doing tomorrow and I’ve warned him it’ll be a work at home day), but it’s been fun to enjoy the warmer weather and that both boys are old enough to enjoy these kinds of activites.

Alex: Mommy, you put on my crocks? (actually pronounced "docks")
Daddy: I don't know if they'll fit.
Alex: Yes dey fit!

The above quote was from Will, on our drive home yesterday. And I thought it was a good summary of our weekend. 

After we got all our projects done on Saturday, the next two days were day to relax and have fun. Sunday after church we drove up and met my parents, brother and sister in Munice, for my dad's birthday lunch. The boys did rather well at the sit-down restaurant, considering they were pretty tired from church + the drive up there. Alex seemed to enjoy his taste of calamari. Will didn't try it (no surprise there!). We then headed for home for cake and ice cream.

We had beautiful weather for the weekend. That evening we lit the fire pit and had smores. Will enjoyed roasting marshmallows. He is patient enough that he could get it a good light brown cover. Alex enjoyed eating. He wanted to roast one but he was a bit to careless with the roasting stick.

We did have a laugh when the one marshmallow Will was patiently roasting suddenly caught on fire. He sat there for a second and then said "Oh dear! NOW what're we going to do?"

We also had fun playing games, eating, playing with Aunt Heidi and Uncle Doug and just catching up.

It was a fun time…we left Monday night. Driving home, Alex pointed out "The sky is moving!" (Or, "the dye is booving" is how it sounded… his repeating "the dye is booving past" (fast) helped clear that up.) The clouds were moving really fast, and we got a laugh out of his description of it.

Oh, and Grandma Lo, right now AOL has blocked our E-mail address as SPAM. We're working on getting our name cleared, but until then we can't send to any AOL users. But we tried to send you several!

This morning James and I got to go see the new Indiana Jones movie. He was given tickets by a company his office uses to maintain the servers. It appears they rented out the theater for an appreciation show for their employees and clients.  I say "appears" because when it became obvious all the people in the lobby buying food wouldn't get there in time for the show they paused the pre-movie "stuff" until we got everyone in. The president spoke for a minute and then we started up right away on the move (no more commericals or previews). It was a fun action/adventure flick and we enjoyed the time. The boys had fun with the babysitter, they loved having someone playing with them ALL morning. After nap time, it was time to get some work done outside.

Will helped James spread the wood chips in the back play area:

Alex "helped" in his own way as well:

Once the wood chips were spread, it was time to spread mulch over the areas I had been weeding. Will loved earning money for filling up his own wheelbarrow and transporting the mulch to parts of the front yard. By the time James got to the back yard, Will was done earning money.

Once they were done, we grilled some pork chops and had our FIRST Outside Meal of the Season. It has been such a cool spring we've put off eating dinner outside. While James was waiting for the coals to get hot enough, he took a break with the boys and they had some snuggle time on the swing:

A nice snuggling picture

Silly faces

We have had SUCH a cool spring. Here are a few picutres of one of our sunny (but not much warmer) days last week:

Yes, more playing in the wood chips!

Whew, I feel we need to dust the old blog off or something! I guess not blogging for a week isn't THAT bad, but I feel the posts before this were pretty quick. I was looking on the camera and seeing all kinds of pictures I'd taken that I want to share as well, so I'm going to put those on as well.

I'll start by giving you just a run down of the weekend. And then I'll be putting up various pictures and comments about them throughout the day–since the pictures seem to take longer. 

This weekend I got to go on my Reward for Being Done Teaching. I went on a weekend scrapbooking retreat. It was SO MUCH fun, I had a great time catching up with my friend Krisha, a great time eating yummy food, and of course, scrap booking! I got some great progress done on Alex's First Year book I'm doing for him. (He didn't get a baby book, just a calendar that I wrote his "stuff" on, so I'm making a first year book for him. Then I'll be back to just doing a general family book.)

James spent the weekend installing a dishwasher. Saturday he had to create the hole for it, which involved cutting out some drawers. Sunday he worked on hooking it up. There were some issues with parts not fitting and so he didn't get it done last night (the stores closed before he could get the final part he needed).  This morning he ran out and got that last part, hooked it up and I am typing as the dishwasher is washing its first load of dishes. Now my job is to rearrange the kitchen cupboards to get things in place to make unloading the dishwasher easier. AFTER I update the blog, of course!

In an effort to keep things in order (for future scrapbooking purposes) I'm going to put the next few posts below this one–so scroll down and check out what we've been up to for the last week or so!

Last week we borrowed my dad's pick up truck so we could get several loads of mulch and woodchips for the yard. I took the van up when I gave my final and drove the pick up truck home. Both boys were REALLY excited about seeing Grandpa's truck in the driveway the next morning. Alex kept saying "Druck! Grandpa's druck! Why Grandpa's druck?!?"  They also wanted to play in the bed and pretend to drive in the cab.  I kept having to say "No, we're not playing in Grandpa's truck today!"

Wednesday night, James took Alex with him to ride to Lowes to get the dishwasher we had picked out. Will went to his last Friends Club (the Wednesday Night program at our church) and Alex enjoyed the chance to do something fun. James said he kept asking about the "field". When they pulled into Lowes, he asked if that was the Field.  When they got home and he started to get Alex in his pjs, Alex started to cry about wanting to go to the field. We're not quite sure what he was talking about (maybe he heard James was going to go to the Landfill and got confused?) 

Thursday, James took the day off to get all the materials (we've had a series of cold rainy weekends and he knew I'd be gone the next weekend, so it had to happen during the week).  Will got to ride with him in the morning to take a load of things to the dump Landfill Refuge Transfer Station (things like the crib they broke last month and the carpet we'd pulled out of the dining room) and then to get the first load of materials. Alex SO wanted to ride in the truck. When he saw James take out his carseat and put Will's in, he started to bawl. We told him after his nap he'd get a turn. And he did–TWO turns. Each boy enjoyed the time riding in the truck with Daddy, and then they both enjoyed "helping" unload the truck.

I love Alex's shovel. It was even funnier when he'd try to dump it and end of flinging the chips or dirt back into the truck.

After all the dirt and woodchips were unloaded they were excited to see the BIG PILE they could play with!

It was soon time for supper–an annoncement that was met with tears. Will was VERY concerned James would spread the pile of wood chips. I told him he could play in the wood chips tomorrow. He was then worried Daddy would spread the chips either that night while they were in bed, or the next day when he was home for lunch. We both convinced him the wood chip pile would be there for a day or two. Then the boys got a bath, supper, and both fell asleep very quickly that night!

If you look closely at the pictures of Alex, you'll see his hair has gotten rather long and shaggy. We were wanting to see how curly it'd get if we let it get longer. About two weeks ago, at dinner, we were talking about how curly/wavy it was getting.  Will told us that when his hair got longer it would get curly too. I told him he would just have straight hair. 

That night he came home from Friends Club with the picture below. It's a picture of him singing and he pointed out his long curly hair. 

A few Saturdays ago, James was getting ready to mow the lawn. Before he did that though, he hooked the bike trailer up to the lawn tractor and gave the kids a ride.