Feeding the ducks

Jason had to work 2nd shift one day last week, so after dinner I took the kids to our neighborhood pond to feed the ducks. It's hit or miss whether there are any out there and thankfully we were in luck this particular night. They were friendly ducks, too. They saw us from the opposite end of the pond and swam right over. Typically the ducks tend to go away when we show up, but this time they were even coming out of the water to walk around by us. The kids loved it. Of course I have no pictures of the ducks but lots of pictures of the kids. I can't help myself.

Is it July already?

Last week went by really quickly. It started with a lovely evening at my aunt and uncle's house. They usually host a family cookout two times each summer and the kids love it because they get to play with their cousins and we let them eat junk. The weather was great and we stayed until dark.

And what color do popsicles make YOUR tongue?

We walked to our neighborhood pond one day to feed the ducks. The kids especially like it if there are duck babies. Xander also found some pinecones to bring home.

The rest of the week I forgot to take pictures. But we went on a play date with our moms group, where Jordis ran into another girl, then fell and hit her head on the concrete. Luckily no stitches but some lovely scrapes on her forehead and eyelid. We also went on a picnic dinner with my friend Catherine and her boys one night. With jackets on, mind you. It was definitely not warm enough to use the pool last week, and I loved it. We even found some time where Jason and his mom were both not working at the same time, so we went to visit his parents for a few hours. It was a busy week, the kids definitely wore me out.

Florida Day 2

Monday in Florida was pretty uneventful. The weather was beautiful though, and had we known what the next two days were to bring we probably would have gone to the pool. But I digress. Our goal for that day was to take the kids to The Peabody Hotel
to see the march of the ducks.

Each of three Peabody Hotels keeps five mallard ducks in the penthouse. Every morning at 11 a.m. they ride down the elevator, walk the red carpet to the atrium, ascend the stairs and jump into a fountain. They swim around in there all day until 5 p.m. where the process takes place in reverse.


We thought the kids would really like this so drove over there to check it out. We were there a little early and had a nice table by the red carpet. The kids had some snacks and we watched a hotel employee vacuum the red carpet. We were anxiously awaiting the royal fanfare, John Philip Sousa's King Cotton March, when all of the ducks came running by before I could even get any video or pictures of it. Apparently, the duck master stated that someone forgot to turn the music on.





So, we kind of missed it. But what we saw was still neat. We also found out that you can call in advance and have someone in your party be the master of ceremonies. Something to keep in mind if we ever decide to travel to Orlando, Memphis or Little Rock. On the way back to our car we saw this and to stop and watch its gracefulness.

And my favorite building in Orlando, purposely built to look like it's upside down.

After treating ourselves the kids to the pizza buffet we went back to our room and had some dessert on the balcony.

This is the little girl I see every day, not the scowling and frowning one everyone sees in pictures.

We took a little walk around the resort to find the pool....

...then my dad and step-mom took us out for a belated birthday dinner.

It was a nice and relaxing day.

Mother's Day

So Mother's Day was going smoothly...the kids had been behaving, Jason got up early and fed them lunch and they were quietly coloring at the kitchen table. Enjoying my lazy rainy day I was still in my pajamas and halfway asleep on the couch when "it" happened. If you live here, and you know me fairly well, you know what I'm talking about. Yes, the tornado sirens went off. My mom has always said I have selective hearing, but I think a tornado siren could bring me out of a coma.

At first I thought it was routine. Our old house was in Franklin County and they test sirens at noon on Wednesday, but our new house is in Delaware County and they test on Saturday. So I thought that's about right, it's lunch-ish time and it's Saturday. But then I remembered that no, it's Sunday, and it's after 1 p.m. Surely, I thought, there couldn't be a tornado when it's not even 60 degrees out, the dew point is low and there's been no heating of the sun in the atmosphere since it's been raining all day. I'm a connoisseur of weather, always have been, and I've hung out with Jym Ganahl www.nbc4i.com/midwest/cmh/authors.Bio.-content-midwest-cmh-authors-jim_ganahl.html enough times to know that even though tornadoes can be sneaky, the conditions just weren't right.

But true indeed it was, as I turned on the TV and saw the giant weather-map, the one they force you to watch the whole entire time the storm travels until it reaches the next closest state. Because we all know that whoever broadcasts the weather the longest, and shows you the most videos of the impending death (be it tornado, flooding, snow, what have you) is the best news station in town. So anyway, I had a slight panic as Xander starts asking "what's that noise" and Jason's in the driveway looking for funnel clouds, when I realized that the storm isn't even coming towards us. In fact, if anything it was starting to get a little sunny, so I couldn't even take any good scary sky pictures. It was going towards Jason's parents house though, so luckily we had been there the day before because they don't have a basement and things would not have been pretty had I been there for that. And speaking of which, we had a lovely cookout there and then we took the kids out to the neighborhood pond to race remote-controlled boats. There were some baby ducks at the pond as well, so the kids had two things to get excited about.





Once the storm hoopla was over things got back to normal and the kids were none the wiser. They both took nice long resters and I spent all day on the couch. Made myself some tomato soup for lunch and ate it in the family room. Then I finished reading my all-time favorite book that, for once, was actually not checked out at the library -- "From the Mixed Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler." If you're familiar with the book, which I know some of you are, don't laugh at me, I'm quite aware that it's children's literature. But I've loved it since the third grade when my teacher, Lynn Thompson, read it to us. I love the idea of it, the mystery of it, and the fact that sometimes what you find on the journey is more important than what you were looking for. To my credit, it WAS a Newbery Medal winner, and I'm not the only adult who enjoys it. The comment section at Amazon is full of other grown-ups who still love this book. www.amazon.com/Mixed-Up-Files-Mrs-Basil-Frankweiler/dp/0440431808 So to those of you teachers who sometimes feel like you don't make a difference, you never know what your students will remember 24 years after they leave the 3rd grade.

After my book I labeled some photos in an album from last year's vacation. I've come to terms with the fact that I will never ever get around to scrapbooking them, and that's okay. So I wrote on all the little tabs next to them in the album while I watched the "Jon & Kate Plus 8" marathon. tlc.discovery.com/tv/jon-and-kate/jon-and-kate.html If you've never seen this show it's about a family who had fertility treatments when they couldn't have a baby. They had a set of twins and then wanted another baby and ended up with six. So this show follows them around and on bad days with the kids I just have to watch one episode of this show and it makes me realize maybe things could be worse. Though there have been days when all of their 8kids collectively are behaving better than the two of mine. Oh yeah, and I ate a Cow Tail without having to hide from the kids in the laundry room.

Jason and the kids got me very nice cards and our combined Mother's Day/Father's Day gift will be painting the office and putting up shelving. Jason was going to make steaks and baked potatoes for dinner but the rain kind of put a damper on that, so we fed the kids and then after they went to bed he went and got us a late dinner, my choice. I went round and round of course because I can't ever make decisions. I kind of wanted Bob Evans breakfast food but thought it's really too much money to pay for breakfast things I can make myself. I always want Chipotle and Jason would have gone to get it because he loves it, too, but I couldn't justify sending him on a 40 minute round-trip when gas is $4/gallon. Oh wait, sorry, it's only $3.95. Finally I decided on Donatos. I got a Big Don sub and a small cheese pizza, ate half of each and then had yummy leftovers.

Tonight my mom and step-dad took us to dinner at Max & Erma's which was tasty as usual (best tortilla soup EVER) and the kids were fairly well-behaved. I got them to pose for pictures there on various chairs in the lobby and before that we had a nice time at the playground outside of Jason's work while he was there attending a meeting. Xander put on a great show of singing and dancing on the outdoor stage, but sadly my new phone apparently doesn't E-mail high resolution videos.



Xander, being the ham that he is.



I was in a bad place to take a picture with the streaming sun, but the kids were side by side and strapped into a cart at Home Depot, so it was a rare opportunity to get them together without Jordis trying to run away.




Jordis didn't want to share the chair at Max & Erma's, so Xander sat on a stool and scouted the parking lot.



Thanks to everyone that contributed to my Happy Mother's Day. I think I got more E-mails, cards, phone calls, texts and MySpace posts than I get on my birthday, and I appreciate every last one of them.