Flies Time

Where has my baby boy gone? Just yesterday he was army crawling around our apartment. Then it was on to running (and me chasing). Suddenly there were two to keep track of, and a puppy that Mr O tried to take care of. The 30 minutes that lasted a lifetime out on the vineyard when Mr O and tail wagger disappeared, and were found at the neighbors about a half mile away. Several moves later we are in our new house, and Mr O is proudly riding his bike without the training wheels! Yes! Finally! But...Oh where is the cute little boy that snuggled for hours on end? The boy who drew pictures for my recipe box? Where did he go?

Toot! Toot!

While we were visiting, we got to ride the train! It was fast, electric (quiet), and lots of fun. Mr O tried to lean out over the tracks to see when it was coming, and Peaches stood far back so that the wind wouldn't blow her. Cute kids! They did very well, considering it was only the second time that they have been on public transport for any length of time. The ride took about 20 minutes from Aunty's house all the way to the zoo. We saw lots of stuff going by the windows: people walking, people riding bikes, lots of cars, trees, a few horses, and two tunnels. Lots of fun! We also got to ride the train at the zoo. It only went about 5 miles an hour and took about 30 minutes for the whole loop. It was a nice chance to sit down for a bit of a break. We got to pass the other train from the botanical gardens on the loop, and that was fun waving to all the people. The kids especially enjoyed looking over the edge and seeing how far up we were. It sure was pretty!

A Visit

So we had a very busy weekend. The kiddos and I took off on the road to visit with some family. We spent a glorious two days visiting, hugging, laughing, playing, and enjoying being together. On Thursday we went to the zoo. We saw all kinds of animals, but the true highlight was spending time with our "Alaska cousin" and his daddy. In true kid fashion, we were dragged from place to place, not really even getting the chance to read the signs before it was time to move on. The bald eagles were a favorite, as were the penguins. Four hours later, it was time for a break, at least for us adults. So we discussed matters and decided to meet up at the local Chucky Cheeses. Once there, it was a free for all! The kids went in all different directions, coming back only for handfuls of tokens to run the montage of games. They went crazy! It was fun. Three hours there, and we were finally out of tokens, and it was time for bed. Each kid picked out their prizes and we hit the road for Aunty's house and bed. Waking up the next morning we were accosted by two kids "when are we going to OMSI?" Over and over and over again. OMSI (for those who aren't familiar) is like a combination of a children's museum where everything is hands on, and a science fair with lots of cool facts and things to learn. Oh that was fun! We learned about sound waves, ocean waves, air currents, dinosaurs, bugs, and much much more. Everything had several examples so that we could touch and learn about that subject in different ways. Really really cool! The Alaska cousin chose me to wander with for a while and we talked about everything. "How does it work? Can I do that? Come over here! There's something way cool!!" We raced the air rockets, tried our hand at a water rocket launch, and talked so much that I got hoarse. He was tons of fun to chatter with. He's a very smart kid, and knew about a lot of what was on display. He taught me a few things. Once we were there for a few hours Mr O and Peaches had reached their limit of endurance, and we hit the road for home.

All In a Days Work

Growing up we went blackberry picking every year. Mother would gather all the buckets that she could find, we would get our grubbiest jeans on, grab long sleeved old cotton work shirts of Dad's and away we would go. A half hour later we would be parked in some out of the way location, in the back of someones field. Our cousins and us would pile out of the vans, grab a bucket, and start picking. Our picking never lasted long, I think I may have contributed a half of a bucket one year, and then we would play. Hide and seek, lots of pretend, and tag were among the favorites. We would be there until every bucket was full of berries. Then we would pile our sweaty, tired, selves back into the vans for the trip home. Mom would put the berries in the fridge, and start making jam the next day. I never really understood how much work that really was for my sweet mother until just recently. Peaches and I don't really care that much for strawberry jam, so since blackberries are plentiful in this area, we took our buckets and went picking. It seemed to take forever to just get one bucket full! We picked for (what seemed like) hours. Getting scratched, poked, and asked every few minutes if we were done yet. We managed to come home with two brimful buckets of berries. Immediately putting some into a crisp for Handsome, the rest went into the fridge for jam. Oh. My. Word. Jam is hot, sweaty, and very fulfilling work! I got three batches out of those first two buckets, and then an additional four batches out of the next picking (another two buckets full). I had twenty four pints of blackberry jam adorning my counter for a short time. Oh, it looked good! It honestly isn't a ton of work to put up jam, just hot. You have to stir and stir and stir until it is done, otherwise you get scorched jam, which is garbage. So I did it, and we ate fresh jam on our sandwiches today. MmmmmmHmmmmm! I really can cook, at least occasionally (if I have a very specific recipe to follow). Good stuff!

With a Cluck Cluck here

There is just something about fresh eggs. I'm not sure if it is the taste, the color, or simply the joy of collecting them. But they sure are good! Miss A has been kind enough to share with us the fruits of her farm. Mr O and Peaches love the chickens. Especially Mr O. The business of the chickens matches his own business levels, and they get along great. We have been privaleged enough to feed the animals a couple times now, and the chickens are Mr O's job. I scoop the food, and he goes about the pen, scattering food for the birds and they come running. They follow him until he is out of food, scattering with the grains of food to eat their breakfast. After the feeding, comes the watering. That is Peaches job. I lift the lid and she holds the hose inside the watering bucket. The chickens gather for this as well, and she is immediatly surrounded by excitedly clucking chickens gulping down water as if we're in the middle of a drout. In reality they are never really out of water, I have yet to ever see their can empty. I guess they just really like the fresh cold water right as it is coming out of the hose. I can't fault them for that, I like it too. Once their water bucket is full, we turn off the hose and look for eggs. It isn't much of a hunt. They have four nesting boxes inside the coop where they lay. Peaches and Mr O gather the eggs like they are made of gold. Shouting out each find, bringing it to me to show me, and then going back for more. On a typical day the hens will lay between eight and a dozen eggs. The eggs differ in shape, size and color. Some are dark brown with speckles, light blue, green, white, and even light brown with white speckles. There are lots of chickens. Each of them a different color like the eggs that they lay. Some are the same breed, but differ slightly in color, so that there is a veritable pallet of different shades of browns, blacks, whites, and a couple blondes. The roosters are so much fun. They crow and crow and crow, trying to sound all tough, but really sounding quite cute. The cook-a-doodle-doos get answering crows from the neighboring chickens. They converse back and forth for quite some time before they will stop, apparently hoarse or just tired of talking. As we move toward the gate, there are always a couple chickens that follow. It is almost as if they are sorry to see us go. Either that or they want more food...

Come on in for some Free Fun!

We took a trip down to the mall. We parked next to a store with lawnmowers outside.

Lots of lawnmowers.

The kind of lawnmowers that beg to be tested.

So we sat in each one, made the required bbbrrrrrrrmmmmmmm bbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbb noises that lawnmowers make, and mowed yards.

I think we must have mowed every yard in the neighborhood before we were done.

Yeah, and I'm the Crazy One

We went out for a playdate with a dear friend of mine and her son recently. Every two weeks we get together alternating between a few indoor places that have good toys for them to be wild on. Turbo is very similar to Mr O in that they both have a hard time focusing on given tasks and tend to go a bit wild when presented with too much fun all at once. Turbo and Mr O went nuts at the play place. Not wild, not even crazy, just nuts. The controlled kind of "woohoo! We're free to be nuts-o" kind of nuts. There were a lot of additional kids at this place, since it is still summer vacation, but even with that both boys did remarkably well. Peaches and Turbo teamed up and went screaming down the black slide more times then I could count. And Mr O found a patient older child (probably about 10) that allowed him to tag along. They played for hours, stopping occationally for food and drink, but mostly running nonstop. By the time we gave them the 5 minute warning, they were about ready to call it a day by themselves. Straggling out to the cars we said our goodbyes. And we're already counting down the days until next time!!