Hot.

Oh my gosh. It is SO HOT today. Emma has spent the entire day flopped under the ceiling fans.

We had book club last night at my house. It was a warm night, so we all crowded into the front porch. Juanito added a fancy handle to the porch door, which prevents Emma from just pushing the door open and running straight out. I moved our comfy outside chairs into the porch so we'd have somewhere happy to sit. And then we added twinkle lights, and now the front porch is all happy, and we can leave the front door open and let Emma wander in and out of the porch. I've already spent quite a lot of time sitting out there, reading and enjoying any breeze.

Wednesday

We (mostly Katrina) have been guinea pig sitting for a friend's guinea pig for about a week and a half. He's been living in Katrina's room, and she's been loving having him to cuddle. It was especially fortuitous last night, when she was absolutely devastated about Boshsquash's death. She came downstairs at almost midnight last night, weeping and unable to sleep, so i suggested she try to snuggle Puff a little bit to see if that could help. When i went to bed later, i found them curled up together, both happily asleep.

I moved Puff to his cage, just in case Katrina rolled over or something. This morning, i asked Katrina if she'd noticed that he was in his cage, and Katrina was all, "Yes. I thought he just crawled back there by himself."

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We've been spending the past couple of days doing some spring cleaning. So far we've completely cleaned the front porch and the upstairs landing. This all makes me very happy and the kids...somewhat less happy while we're cleaning. Now that they're totally clean and organized, though, they're all happy about it. Plus, we've uncovered several of Zane's games, so the rest of the day was spent playing with games and toys that haven't been seen in months.

Everything that's been happening this past month

I mean... I can't seem to write more than once a month lately. I have no real excuse. Nevertheless. Here we are.

It's been an eventful month - the end of the school year always is! Field trips and graduations and all of the hoopla that goes along with school ending and summer beginning. Yay! I took a million pictures and narrowed them down to my favorite 140 for a slide show...and then realized that that was way, way too many pictures for most people to want to actually look at, so i narrowed it down again to the bare bones, and those are the ones in the slideshow above. I will, if anyone in the world is interested, put the long slideshow down under.

So! Without further ado! Things that have been happening! (In order:)

1. Juanito has been building shelves and cabinets in our front room, and they are getting closer to being finished. It's all being made from old pallets, and he's doing a beautiful job. I can't wait until it's finished!

2. For the past 14 years, we've had at least one child in the baby/preschool/elementary area of church. Every Sunday, we've had to check a child in and out, and for most of that time, that included wearing a paper armband with the child's number. This month, Zane graduated out of the elementary area, up to Fifty6, and thus our time with the little kids area is finished. Henceforth, all of our kids will be sitting in church with us and then going to their individual areas on Sunday evenings.

Our church makes kind of a big deal out of the "graduation," and Zane was totally excited about participating. They did a whole graduation ceremony, at which they gave each "graduate" their own Bible (Houston and Katrina were totally jealous of the Bible!), followed by a family breakfast.

For weeks, Zane had been complaining that he didn't WANT to go to Fifty6. Couldn't he just stay HOME? Whyyyyy???? And i know why he was so opposed. It's because Houston was never a fan of Fifty6 at all. I tried to convince Zane that he would like it, that HE was not Houston, that Katrina liked it! He was not convinced. And then they had a Sunday where all of the grades moved up to their next group, and Zane got to experience Fifty6...and suddenly he LOVED it and started asking just how soon he'd be able to start going. He's now very disappointed that he has to wait until September.

3. Katrina has been using a school flute for the past couple of years, and she desperately wanted one of her very own. As the end of the school year got closer and closer, marking the point at which she'd have to return her flute for the summer, she got more and more desperate. She started looking up flutes, trying to figure out if there were any - ANY - that she could afford. She found a brand of flutes that were not only reasonably priced but also made in colors. Colors!

At first she totally leaned towards pink, but then she reasoned that she might outgrow pink, and really she likes blue just as much.... And so she spent some of her vast savings and is now the proud owner of a lovely blue flute, which she absolutely loves. (She does have to play it using slightly different fingering for one note, because otherwise the key doesn't press down all the way, but she adapted to that very quickly.)

4. For the first time, we were all able to attend the Great Salmon Release. This was Katrina's very first release, and rather than releasing one fish and then quitting, she made up for the previous years missed by releasing 5 salmon, all of whom she named first (Fred, George, Hermione, Sally, and Bob).

Every year, for the past three years, the kids' school has gotten salmon eggs. The kids get to watch the eggs hatch and grow until they're ready to be released in the spring. The first year, Juanito somehow got pulled in to helping parcel out the salmon into baggies, to hand to kids, who then released them into the river, and since then, he has been one of two guys who's been in charge of that job. This year we also helped with transporting buckets of salmon from the school to the river. And, of course, i take pictures, because...i'm me...and since i know that the teacher in charge of the salmon (who was both boys' teacher in third grade) likes pictures, i sent them to her. A week or two later, i was in the school to pick up the kids, and i noticed that there was a display of giant poster-sized pictures of the salmon release. I was all, "Oh, cool!" and then, "Hey! I took that picture!" and then, "Hey! I took ALL of these pictures!" I'm practically famous. Except for y'know...not.

5. The Sunday before Memorial Day, when it was fairly warm, we went to my sister's house for dinner so that everyone could go swimming in their pool afterwards. The kids were all in heaven. Most of the adults were much more rational and stayed dry and warm.

6. On Memorial Day, Beth, the kids, and i walked around downtown. It was a somewhat surreal experience, because it was absolutely deserted. We went down into an almost always completely full parking garage, and it was empty. Completely, utterly empty. Zombie-apocalypse-level deserted.

7. We went to see Verve Pipe at a free outdoor concert with Beth and Stephanie. It makes me happy that we're able to see them live fairly regularly. I think this was our third Verve Pipe concert. They started out with their kids' songs, which...i actually know and love more than most of their adult songs, and then finished off with stuff for the grownups. Juanito and i sang along with songs like "Cereal," "Wake Up," and "We Had to Go Home," while Zane pouted about having to be there at all and Katrina and Houston half paid attention and half read their books.

8. The fourth grade had their annual field trip to the YMCA camp. When Houston and Katrina had this field trip, it was an overnight, but this year they shortened it to just a day trip. It was a long day - we left school at 8:15 in the morning and got back at 8:00 at night - but i'm pretty sure that we did pretty much all of the same things we did when we were there for two days. There was canoeing and archery and rock wall climbing and crafts and candle-making, but Zane's favorite part was the "fur trading," where the kids had to run around in groups trying to find carpet squares with random animals written on them.

Again, there was archery! And canoeing! And rock wall climbing! But Zane preferred searching for hidden squares of carpet. Weirdo.

In the archery portion, the kids each got to shoot three arrows. When it was Zane's turn, his first arrow hit the dirt far before the target. His third shot went way over the target. But on his second shot, Zane hit a perfect bulls-eye. It was amazing. And nothing but sheer luck. Zane spent the rest of the day telling everyone he could find that he was really proud of himself because he got a bulls-eye.

In the past, the chaperons have been allowed (and encouraged) to go canoeing with the kids, and we were allowed to canoe basically wherever we wanted to on the lake. The rules have apparently changed, because this year adults weren't allowed to go out with the kids, and the canoes had to stay within a fairly small area. It was disappointing that i didn't get to canoe with Zane, but it was especially disappointing that the kids didn't get to really enjoy themselves as much. They spent most of their time just trying not to run into each other. Sigh. Rules.

We were the last group of kids from our school to get to do the rock wall. There are two walls the kids can choose between, one of which is quite a bit harder than the other. Most of the kids chose to do the easier wall, but about a third of our group decided to try the harder side. The guy in charge told us right away, "Just so you know! Nobody from the other groups has successfully reached the top on this side." Most of the kids chose to stay and try it anyhow, and every single one of them that tried made it to the top. It WAS hard, and they needed a lot of encouragement, but they all got to ring the bell at the top. Zane was the very last one to go, and everyone except for his teacher and i had already left for the next event. He was a bit disappointed to not have everyone there to cheer for him, and he had a hard time trying to figure out what to do with those long, long legs of his that got in his way, but he made it to the top and was completely impressed with himself. As he should have been.

9. Festival of the Arts! I told Houston beforehand that he was really just too old to do the paint-in portion this year. It's supposed to be for kids aged 12 and under, and we let him sneak in last year, but this year he's 14, and ... no. And so he decided just to stay home altogether, because he "only likes the painting and otherwise doesn't enjoy it." (????) So the rest of us went without him.

Beth and i looked at the schedule ahead of time this year and actually planned out what we wanted to see and when we should go. I wanted to see dancers, and she wanted to see "The Mines" playing, and there just happened to be a dance group right before the Mines were on, so we chose that group. And it was, absolutely, the very best dance group i've ever seen at Festival. It was a pretty large group, with kids from about age 9 all the way up through high school, and every single routine they did was as fun to watch as the one before it. I wish i could remember their name so that we could make sure to see them every year!

10. Houston went on a class trip to Chicago. It was an overnight trip, and they packed it full of fun things. They went to Navy Pier and took a boat tour and went to Medieval Times on Thursday night, and then they spent all day Friday at Six Flags Great America. He had So! Much! Fun!

11. Zane had his end-of-the-year field trip/party at a park. (Not a park right nearby like you'd expect, though. A park 45 minutes away, because....?) There was sand castle building and water balloon tossing and general playground-playing. Zane and his friend Finneas had both worn their fedoras, so they invented a new game called "hat ball." It was a very low-structure day, which was lovely.

12. We had a graduation party for Houston. It wasn't anything super-exciting - just cake and ice cream and family - but he loved it.

13. Katrina had her end-of-the-year beach field trip/party. It was not the warmest of days, and it threatened rain all day, but most of the kids ended up swimming nonetheless, and the rain held off. So! Success. We went to the most ridiculously strict beach/park i've ever, ever been to. Before you can even get in, the guy at the gate grills you about the rules, of which there are legion. (No running. No flotation devices of any kind, unless it's USCG approved. Goggles are okay, but no face masks. If you build a sand castle, you need to knock it down when you're finished.)

Katrina's at that age where kids are all at completely different stages. Some of the kids in her class still look like little kids, while others look like they could be 18. The boys are almost universally shorter than the girls. Some of the girls ran around in their bathing suits completely unselfconsciously, while others never changed or just kept giant coverups on the whole time.

14. Houston graduated. I already covered that.

15. The sixth grade band never did have a concert, so the band director decided that "anyone who wanted to" could come play at the graduation. Katrina was all excited that she was going to get to play during graduation. She practiced and practiced. (Her: "I'm nervous, because i just don't know if i'm doing this right!" Me: "Well, when you play with the group, are you able to keep up?" Her: "We've never practiced this!" They all went into it completely without every once playing as a group or even practicing that song. What?)

We got to the church for graduation, and she talked to the band director, who was all, "Oh, there's been a change. Instead of playing during the graduation, we're going to play out in the lobby beforehand." So...everyone there was sitting in their seats, waiting for graduation to start, which meant that NOBODY was out in the lobby. The entire audience consisted of Juanito, Beth, my parents, my sister, and my niece. And maybe two other people, but they weren't actually paying attention.

The band, meanwhile, was made up of 10 people, including the director, who played the trombone rather than actually directing. And yet! Everyone who had also been to the 7th and 8th grade concert agreed that they were significantly better than that concert had been. They sounded great, ESPECIALLY considering that they'd never once practiced!

16. Last day of school! Woohoo!!! Of course, Houston hadn't had school for almost a week, what with his class trip and then graduation and all. We went and picked up the kids, and then met Beth at Steak and Shake for end-of-school celebration shakes! Yay!!!

17. Juanito took a couple of days off, and so on Thursday we went to the local Frank Lloyd Wright house for a tour. The kids and i had gone last year, and last time we were almost the only people on the tour, and it was really cool and informative. This time, we apparently picked the busiest day of the year, so there was a giant crowd on the tour with us. It was still interesting and the house is beautiful nonetheless, but the kids and i were disappointed that there wasn't more interesting information. I think there were just too many people for the tour guide to be able to throw in lots of interesting side-bits.

18. We went to Saugatuck to celebrate our 22nd anniversary. We were about halfway there, when suddenly the front right tire spectacularly exploded. (Honestly, it's just so fitting that we should have car trouble on our anniversary! Our entire marriage has been filled with one random car emergency after another!)

Juanito spent approximately 20 minutes trying to figure out how to get the spare tire off of the bottom of the car (there's a tiny hidden compartment inside under the floor mat), and then had the jack nearly tip over, but he got it changed! Yay! (For the record: I know how to change a tire, but i don't think i could have actually changed this one.)

This was the first time Juanito and the kids had been in Saugatuck, and we had a fun time wandering around. The kids all wanted to buy all the things, and Zane did get a walking, squeaking pig, and Houston got a Doctor Who shirt and a book, and we all got friendship bracelets.

This was the anniversary that marks the point at which we've been married for exactly half of our lives. (Or nearly so. I guess that for me it'll be exactly halfway in a month and a half, and a bit longer for Juanito, but the NUMBER is halfway.) It's also completely crazy to me that when we got married, we were only 8 years older that Houston is now. Crazy!!! But i still think we made the right choice, and i'm so happy and lucky to married to my favorite person.

And there i stop. I need to remember to write more often. This was insanely long. Sorry.

Things that have been happening

Over a month, eh? Time for a "Here's what we've been doing" post, i guess.

• Travis and Brooke, our friends who used to live around here and then they moved away to plant a church in New Zealand (sniff), came home for a visit! And we got to see them! We actually got to see Brooke and their kids a few times - once for an entire afternoon! - which was completely fantastic. Their kids are pretty significantly younger than our kids, but Katrina painted the girls' nails, and Zane played dress-up with them, and it was really fun to just hang out and have a chance to talk for hours.
  
  And then, when Travis finally got to town (he came a couple of weeks after Brooke), the two of them came over in the evening, along with Beth and Keren, and we all sat around and talked and laughed and talked for several hours. It wasn't quite the late night that we used to have (back when Tuesday nights were a thing, and everyone would stay until 3 or 4:00 in the morning), and we could have spent hours more, but it was just so great to see them again!
  
• I had a birthday. We celebrated it on Saturday, because Sunday (the actual day) was completely booked solid. So on Saturday afternoon, Beth and i went out for lunch (fun!). Lunch with a friend is always a happy start! After lunch, we came back home, and Beth and Juanito decorated the delicious cake that Beth had made.
  
  It was supposed to be a warm and sunny day, but instead, it was cold and rainy. Our plan to have a picnic and then walk around Meijer Gardens (a membership was my birthday present!), and we DID have a really fast picnic, shivering all the while. We almost exclusively walked around inside Meijer Gardens, though, partly because it was freezing cold and totally raining by then, but also because it was the last day that the butterflies were there! We walked around in the warmth, remembering how Katrina used to be terrified of the butterflies.
  
  And then we came home, and Juanito made delicious steak and chicken on the grill. We ate dinner and cake, opened presents, and then Beth, Juanito, and i played a round of the game that Juanito made for me for my birthday. Yay!
  
• A few days later, when it was actually warm and sunny, we all went back to Meijer Gardens and got to walk around the new Japanese Gardens. It's beautiful and serene, and i'm sure we'll be back many, many times!
  
• We've lived in our house now for 17 years, and it's been that long since we painted the front room. Back then, we made the very questionable and terrible decision to paint the room a hideous pink color. It stayed that color, mostly because we were too lazy to repaint it...until now! We painted it golden yellow, which i'm really, really happy with. It's so bright and cheerful!
  
• Juanito is building giant desk/bookshelves/cabinets, which will replace my desk and the DVD rack and the table-thingy, and will hopefully look prettier in the process! He's finished the desk tops and the DVD shelves so far, and it looks amazing. I'm totally looking forward to seeing the finished product!
  
• The school had band concerts for 5th, 7th, and 8th grades, skipping 6th grade altogether. The reason given was "the sixth grade isn't ready." I asked Katrina if that was true, and she said, "Yes. We are totally not ready. We don't have any songs that we sound good on at all." Sad.
  
  Less than a week before the concert, Houston came home and announced that his saxophone wasn't working because someone had broken it when it was at school. Juanito looked at it for a while, trying to figure out what was wrong with it and if he could fix it, and eventually Houston explained that there was this one button? That made it go between higher and lower notes? And that was totally what he was having trouble with? I wrapped a hair tie around it to hold the button closed unless it was actually pressed, and ... totally fixed! Woohoo!
  
  The concert was actually quite pathetic. The seventh grade had less than half of their members there, probably because we were given exactly five days' notice that there was even going to BE a concert. I felt so sorry for the poor little seventh graders who were supposed to have a whole section and instead ended up playing a solo.
  
  The eighth grade sounded significantly better, but they were still missing half of their band. (I've complained about this after every single concert, but the choice of music is always absolutely horrible. It's consistently tuneless and slow and boring.) Afterwards, my mom commented, "Well, on the bright side, the saxophones sounded great!"
  
• Katrina has lost four teeth in the past two weeks. Four. I think they're all on the top too, so her little smile has giant gaps and is all adorable.

And i think that those are the highlights. At least, those are the things that i've taken pictures of, so i remember that they happened. 

Visiting with Karen, Saturday, and Snapchat

Today was absolutely perfect weather - sunny and in the high 70's and just wonderful. The kids all spent hours playing outside. They played baseball and explored the "forest" and generally enjoyed being outside.

I took advantage of the lovely weather and the fact that it was a Saturday by forcing everyone to do yard work. Our backyard has been an absolute disaster all winter, and the front yard has slowly become one as well, because our neighbors seem to believe that our garden is a perfect spot for throwing trash. Add to all of the trash and random stuff lying around the many, many leaves and sticks that were never raked up, and you have a giant mess.

I had the kids pick up garbage and wash the tables and chairs, and i raked a million, million leaves, and Juanito woke up when we were halfway finished, so then he helped as well, and we eventually got rid of a ridiculously huge amount of yard waste.

When Juanito came out, one of the first things he did was to start a fire in the grill, wherein to burn some of the random wood he's had lying around. And lo, the kids were all thrilled and would have stood around gazing at the fire for the rest of the day, but i am a mean meanie and made everyone keep working. At one point, Juanito, Houston, and i were in the front yard, and Katrina and Zane were carrying the table and chairs back to the backyard, and Zane suddenly called (in a not-panicked voice), "Um, guys! You should come back here! There's something you need to see!" I...kind of ignored him a little bit, because that's the same thing he says for things like woodpeckers and squirrels and cute little birds drinking from buckets. So i ignored him...until he added, "The fire! Is burning! On the ground!" At which point we all kind of leaped to attention and rushed to check it out. Sure enough, some of the wood from the fire had fallen out of the grill onto a pile of wood on the ground, and it was all on fire. I was all, "UM! Fire! Where it's not contained! Stop it from burning down our house!!!" because i am totally calm in emergencies. Juanito, on the other hand, simply walked over and shrugged and started putting it all back in. Katrina grabbed a bucket of water and stood by, eagerly hoping that she'd get to help put the fire out. (Juanito let her put out the fire in one little pile, but it wasn't actually necessary.)

Anyhow. The (tiny) fire was put out. The leaves are gone. Our yard looks so much better! The garden looks like a garden again! Yay!

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My friend Karen D. was at a conference in Grand Rapids on Thursday and Friday, so we got to see her! She and i went out for dinner on Thursday night, for an early birthday celebration. It was so great to get to see her just by myself, without the distraction of kids and dog and food preparation and everything that would have gone into having her here that night. We had delicious food and awesome conversation.

And i got presents! Fun ones! Karen got me a Zoku popsicle maker, which i'd never even heard of before, but you basically stick the thingy in the freezer until you want to make popsicles, and then when you're ready you just take it out and make them in about 10 minutes. We tried it out on Friday night, and it works really well. My kids thought it was the greatest thing ever, and if it were up to them, we'd have popsicles constantly. Sadly, they have to wait at least 24 between times.

Friday, Karen came over for pizza and games. And popsicles. The kids were thrilled and all wanted her attention. They might be older, but they still have that "Look at me! Look at me!" mentality in a more grown up kind of way. Now, instead of "Look at the funny face i can make!" it's "Watch me play the flute!" and "Look at this funny video!" and "Let's do a face swap!" So it was fairly chaotic, but lots and lots of fun. We played Catch Phrase and ate delicious pizza and just had a really good time.

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For a really long time, i rolled my eyes at Snapchat. "Why would you want to take pictures that would only exist for a few seconds?" i asked. And then i was persuaded that maybe it would be fun, so i started using it, and...it IS fun! I use it mostly for two purposes: To say hi to friends and give them little snapshots of what i'm doing randomly, and to take ridiculously hilarious pictures and make each other laugh.

Recently, Snapchat added this feature where you can use filters to make your face look weird in various ways or even to face swap. It's quite amusing for adults, but it's like crack for kids. Hence, there have been many, many hilarious snapchat pictures sent back and forth between me, Juanito, Houston, Beth, and sometimes my mom and Keren. (I don't want to pester people too much....) Some of the filters make you look all beautiful. Most make you look crazy. For one day, there was a filter that turned your eyes into two more mouths. That might have been the craziest, most disturbing filter so far. The face swap pictures always look quite creepy, but they're brought to a whole new level of creepy when it sees something else as a face. Houston, in particular, has Snapchat mistake his nose for a face often, with hilarious and sometimes horrifying results.

Allow me to share some of the many:

Two of the things i did today

Katrina's been really wanting me to teach her how to sew. Me: "Maybe we should wait until after ArtPrize, when we'll have more time?" Her: "I'm a fast learner!" So today we got out some scraps, and i showed her how to thread the machine and sew a basic seam. She sewed a red tube-type thing, with very wonky seams, and she's very thrilled with herself. Her goal is to help make a blanket out of some really, really soft material she bought in Shipshewana.

Meanwhile, Zane's room has been a disaster (seriously, DISASTER) for ... i was going to say most of the summer, but it's probably more like "forever." Or at least since i cleaned it up for him as a Christmas present in January. So. Nine months then. It's gotten to the point where i'm just unwilling to let it go any longer, and so he's on "almost no fun" restriction until that stupid room is clean. The problem is that he's just so distract-able! I'll send him to clean it and come up half an hour later to find him sitting on his bed playing Legos, with nothing having been cleaned. Me: "Zane! You're supposed to be cleaning!" Him: "OH! I forgot!"

Tonight i brought Charlotte's Web (which we've been reading) into his room, so he could clean while i read. Except that i had to keep stopping every page to say, "ZANE! Don't play with the stuff! Just pick it up and put it away!!!!" Katrina finally sighed, "This is just not enjoyable."

And so eventually i tossed the book aside, cleared a space to sit in on his floor, and ordered him to haul out everything from under his bed. He was all, "Wait. Everything? Even these little things?" Me: "EVERYTHING." Half a ton of junk later, we got down to the tiny pieces of trash that really just need to get vacuumed up. His room is now even more of a disaster. (Although it's better than it was. We started making a dent in the giant pile of junk.)

Insurance

Our insurance provider suddenly decided that they were no longer going to be providing insurance to actual people. They're focusing on businesses (or something like that) instead. And so we needed to switch our insurance over, which is just a hassle. Both Juanito and i hate anything that deals with things like...money and numbers and the business side of anything. (Seriously. We're the worst, worst couple as far as that goes. Neither of us has any business sense whatsoever.) So we just kind of...ignored it for as long as we could.

Except that the deadline was the end of July, and here we are at the end of July, so! Naturally, my first step was to turn to Google, because ... that's just where i get all my answers for everything, mostly. And Google utterly failed me, with a million insurance companies and their need for all of my information before they'd tell me anything at all. I'm pretty sure that all that's going to do is put me on every single telemarketing and junk mail list ever, so...no.

Step two: Call our current provider and ask if she has any guidance. Here's the thing about our current agent: I kind of hate her. She always sounds exasperated with me when i call, and she's not actually helpful with things like "getting us the best deal" or "being nice." So i talked to her, and she was all, "WELL. Your last day of insurance was actually yesterday, so you've lapsed, and now you're uninsurable. But i'll LOOK at one place, just to see how much they'll charge you. SIGH."

Step three: Mild panic attack. Text Juanito helpful things like, "I'm pretty sure i'm going to die before she calls back." Clean the toilet (in case i have to throw up, because ... panic!!! I do not do well with stress. At all.)

Step four: Get too nervous to wait anymore, and call our old, old insurance provider who we loved, who also changed who they were doing insurance with and so dropped us. Ask them for any ideas, please, please, please. Get super-nice, incredibly helpful agent who is all nonchalant about the fact that our coverage ended last night and who immediately offers to give us insurance. FOR $750 LESS PER YEAR THAN WE WERE PAYING.

So. Yay!

While i was waiting for her to run all of the numbers and send someone out to take pictures of our house and all that, i used up some of my nervous energy by making the kids help me get rid of some of the thirty bazillion weeds in the backyard. I'd post before and after pictures, but we can't grow grass, so the after pictures would look hardly any better. But in real life? Much better.

At about 4:00, i realized that Katrina hadn't been seen in a little while. I checked her bedroom, the backyard, the front yard - nothing. I asked the neighbor kids if they'd seen her, and they were all, "She's up there in her bedroom," pointing to my bedroom. And there she was, curled up asleep. She took a good 2-hour nap. Because even 11-year-olds need naps sometimes.

Just another summer day

Zane and i were at the dog park today, when a huge hawk swooped down to try to catch something right by us. Both of us gasped in awe and watched it land on the fence just on the side of the fence separating the big dogs from the small dogs. And then it just sat there, watching us.

Zane: "It's an owl!"
Me: "No, it's a hawk."
Zane: "I'm pretty sure it's an owl."
Me: "Um...definitely a hawk. Look at his head."
Zane: *skeptical look.

We stood there watching it for a moment, and when it became clear that he was just going to sit there looking at us, i walked over to the fence to get a better look. And Zane exclaimed, "I need to go tell the others!!!" and ran off to do that. And that right there is a perfect picture of the difference between the two of us. He eventually moved into the small dog area where there was one lady by herself, sat down next to her, and proceeded to talk to her for the next 15 minutes. Which is really what he does every time we go. He knows lots of the dogs by name and has long conversations with their owners. Such a social kid!

And then this afternoon, Zane made friends with all of the neighbors that could possibly live nearby. A couple of them gathered, and then he brought the guinea pigs out to show them, and more gathered, and eventually there were about 10 kids in our backyard, most of whom i've never seen before. Yay!?

Meanwhile, Houston and Katrina spent the better part of the day working on crafty stuff. They watched videos about how to make different kinds of bracelets with their Rainbow Looms, and then made a whole slew of different kinds. Katrina also made a couple of Minecraft squares out of perler beads for Zane for his birthday. So much craftiness! I love it!

When Juanito got home, we set to work getting the carpet into Katrina's room. We are definitely not professional carpet layers, but it's there and i think it's mostly pretty good. And as long as everything needed to come out anyhow, we completely rearranged Katrina's room. She's now sleeping on a mattress on the floor because her bed frame wouldn't fit where she wanted the bed, but she's completely happy.

AND THEN Juanito discovered that our pipes are completely rebelling, so while he was at zumba, i went to rent a roto rooter so that he could try to snake out the drains, and he did try for about 3 hours, but the stupid roto rooter that i rented is all disfunctional, so it's completely not working. Poor Juanito. So he'll have to do that again tomorrow, i guess. Sad.

Carpet

Years ago, before we had kids, we painted Katrina's room in super-bright colors, and then had friends come over and paint their feet and walk around to make footprints. It was weird, but i loved it.

When Katrina was born and we realized that we were going to have to use that room as an actual bedroom for these kids that we were having, we started thinking about making it more bedroom-friendly.

Step one: Carpet! Which, sadly, meant that the footprints were covered up in all but the closets. The carpet came from someone who was getting rid of it - i want to say...my parents? - and we just threw it down, trimmed it a little, and called it good.

Step two: Paint! I'm not sure why this was step two and not step one. Regardless, we did the paint after the carpet, and in the process, a whole can of paint was knocked over right in the middle of the carpet. And so, for as long as we've had that room as a bedroom, basically, there's been a giant stiff blob of white-ish paint right in the middle of the carpet.

And that is why, when my parents' bathroom flooded recently, resulting in new ceilings downstairs and new carpets upstairs, and they offered us the only-slightly-stained-along-one-edge carpet that they were ripping out, we were all, "SURE!"

So Katrina's getting "new"carpet. The boys are all jealous. They're going to be even more jealous when they realize that she also gets the padding underneath, so it'll actually be soft.

Today: get rid of the old carpet. Tomorrow: hopefully put in the new stuff.

Spring Cleaning, sort of

It was WARM today. So warm and lovely. When we went to work in the yard, the kids were all wearing jeans and long-sleeved shirts, and i was all, "You're overdressed!" And within 20 minutes, they'd all changed into shorts and t-shirts. Because it was WARM. And lovely.

And so we started spring cleaning, sort of. The yard and the garden, which were drowning in leaves, are now nearly leaf-free. As leaf-free as we could get them. We can see the growing plants and the little flowers that are coming up, and they all look so much happier.

The front porch, which has been collecting junk since last fall and basically had one little path that you could walk to get from the porch door to the front door, is now totally cleaned out and empty but for the things that actually belong there.

The back porch is clean.

The guinea pigs have a whole new set-up. Boshsquash is just a bigger guinea pig than Luna or Buttercup, and she couldn't fit through the tube that led upstairs. So, rather than try to somehow enlarge the tube, we just cut out the upstairs altogether and made a cute little set-up with a slightly higher area along two walls. Plus we changed things around a bit to hopefully make it much easier to clean the cage. Yay!

Meanwhile, Juanito worked on the coffee table he's making, the Lego table he's making for Houston, and his speaker. He fixed the gate to the backyard so that it's tall enough that Emma can't just jump over it. He put new wheels and tires on the Rio.

I feel like we accomplished a lot, and that's a great feeling.