Summers in this region really are fabulous. I can say this with enthusiasm right now since the number of 100+ degree days have been few (most so far were while we were in Alaska), making the weather very tolerable and our desire to get outside insatiable.
The entire family wants outside. Skadi is a grump? Take her outside, it cures her.
I was comparing this past weekend to prior colder months regarding progress on my monthly cleaning and organization goals. It has taken me nearly 6 weeks to get my Master bathroom and closet picked up and organized. And it wasn't *that* bad beforehand. Two weeks to do my linen closet? Really... it isn't that bad... it is that we are just never home anymore.
On Friday I picked Leif up from preschool (Skadi already being home sick with AB... I will avoid going into details of that day since in staying home for my four hours in the morning I came far too close to telling off a co-PI who decided to ask me that I "make sure my kids aren't sick on Tuesday". Because she either thought I was lying, would rather be home with a sick kid instead of working with her in the lab, or should find something else to do with my sick kid rather than stay home with her. Anyways...)
We made a quick run by the fire station to check out the details a second time before the birthday party the next morning. Then we grabbed dinner from the Korean place and ran home.
Saturday morning Leif had his birthday party at the fire station. I was quite pleased with how it went and how well we were able to keep things flowing. The kids and parents seemed to enjoy the tour and I, for one, learned a lot. (Did you know that 80% of the calls are medical?) After the tour we had pizza on the back lawn, a pinata and then cake (ice cream was forgotten in the cooler). The kids ran and played. Leif only had a few turkey moments. I will post pictures later.
We went home and put Skadi down for a nap and hoped Leif would nap. It was silly to think that he maybe would I suppose. Not like AB and I weren't near complete exhaustion ourselves.
Once Skadi woke up we headed out to the Art in the Park festival. This is one of my favorites every year. And every year I think about in 2004 how very pregnant I was and how very hot it was. We wandered through the artisans booths. Had dinner with a guy I work with and his "5 3/4 year old" daughter (who took Leif under her wing) and just had a plain good time. AB took Leif to play on the playground equipment while I wandered the last 1/3 of the show with Skadi. We did, however, get stuck at one booth. "Me and Mom's Hats".
After painstacking decisions, Skadi has two hats for this fall and winter. I loved the brown beanie with the big pink flower, but also fell for the bluebell hat as well. Skadi could care less of the bluebell hat, but loves her brown beanie with the floppy pink flower. If I put the bluebell hat on her she rips it off and puts her beanie on. She was a kick at the booth and the artist told me she hadn't had such good advertisement all day, as Skadi tore through her hats, pulling them randomly (and sometimes two at a time) onto her head and oogling, "ooooh!"
We left the park as the show was closing and managed to keep the sleepy kids awake in the car so they would fall asleep in their beds at home.
On Sunday we let Leif open his presents from grandma, Bompa and my sister over the webcam. He was thrilled with the fishing pole. Skadi was thrilled with the tackle box once she got all the tackle out and could replace it with her Little People and AB and I were thrilled with the huge box of Lincoln Logs. I also hope Leif will come to love the Richard Scarry's Greatest Storybook Ever as much as I did - many thanks to my sister.
After the present unwrapping we loaded into the car and headed to the orchard to pick donut peaches. Unfortunately they were still a week or so away from prime picking, but AB (being his normal inquisitive self) did manage to purvey a bunch of cherry and apple wood for his smoker. Since we had packed a lunch we didn't see any reason to head home.
Instead we drove around looking for open houses (not many on this boat race weekend) and houses and lots for sale while stuffing food into the kids in the car.
We found two houses that if we actually got the guts to call an agent we are very interested in seeing. Very interested.
But I am just scared of heading down that path again when we aren't completely ready. I am afraid of falling in love with a house. Our intention is to go out and get ideas for eventually building our own since we had pretty much decided on buying a lot at the end of the year and then building. The one that really has me stopping though is seeing a newly for sale house in the small development containing the lots we like. It is the style we like, 4 bedrooms and TWO pantries. And affordable. Reasonably. At least it is within the range we are eyeing.
AB is waiting for me (I think) to say I want to look at it. I do, I really do. And then I don't out of fear. So I am trying to ignore it exists for now.
Trying.
So we realized that no good could come from house hunting and headed home to put Beaner down for a nap. While she napped it dawned on me how many times I have declared needing an external hard drive to back up my photos. Suddenly while I was printing up pictures for Leif's birthday day at school, I was overwhelmed with a fear that my hard drive was going to crash any second and lose every single photo I had ever taken. As soon as I mentioned wanting a hard drive, AB jumped on the opportunity to go to Costco.
We ended our Sunday outtings with the trip to Costco (also examining the treadmills there) then AB and Leif went to fly a kite at the park since it was awfully cold for swimming, while Skadi and I got groceries.
And after writing this, I think I am dead tired all over again.
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