We enjoyed playing in a splash park in town for an hour, then joined friends for lunch and swimming. It's such a treat to go swimming in the Texas heat, especially since we get to escape our hot house (only 4 more days until our dead AC is replaced! Yahoo!)
We also spent hours this afternoon at the doctor's office. Sarah was diagnosed this summer with scoliosis, which was totally out of left field. There is no history of scoliosis in our family, so we didn't expect to hear this. So today we met with the pediatric orthopedist and made a treatment plan. Sarah will have a body brace made next week, and she'll have to wear it all day, every day for the next two years or so. The brace will go from her hips to her collar bones. Not so fun, but at least we dodged the bullet of back surgery (for now). We're thankful things aren't worse.
Matthew and I made bread pudding and granola today, and homemade yogurt is brewing in a crock pot right now. Breakfast will be homemade Greek yogurt topped with homemade granola- it should be pretty yummy. Matthew loves to cook, and today at lunch time he dressed up like a chef and made lunch for everyone. He made lovely menus with all the options then sent a waiter to collect orders. Joseph later tried to copy him, so he folded a paper in half and brought it over to me and asked what food I wanted. He made a careful, but wobbly, 'X' each time I said anything. He remembered exactly what food item was represented by each 'X', and made a tiny little 'x' when I ordered ice in my water. So fun.
Matthew and Daniel found eggs all over the farm to day. The hens seem to think the laying boxes are taboo, and they aren't all laying in the same spot. So. It's like Easter every day again while we find brown or green eggs behind (what seems to be) every single bush. The pesticide guy also found a couple of green eggs on the porch, and he was pretty excited at the discovery. Such fun.
Sarah is working busily to convert a small pole barn into a rabbit house. While we were out of town on The Big Trip, Nathan built several large rabbit hutches for her. She worked with him to suspend the hutches from the ceiling with wire and mount a watering system high on one wall. Today she spent some time hauling bricks to the barn so she could build a low wall around it to discourage predators who might want to burrow under the barn wall. She is so excited about this new rabbit project.
Yesterday in the Nursery class at church (kids ages 2-3) I taught the children how to play Follow the Leader. Everyone took turns being the leader. When it was Joseph's turn to lead, he led people in circles around a big table. The funny thing is that the line of children was so long that in encircled the table entirely. When Joseph saw the last person in line right in front of him, he thought they were trying to be the leader. So he'd run past that child so he could be in front. But there was somebody ELSE in front of him, so he'd run past that person as well. This went on as he got more and more worried and tried to pass up the next 5 people in the line. The teachers had a good chuckle over this.
The fourth of July holiday was such fun. We joined Nathan's coworkers for the traditional party at the Sriikantham home. There was oodles of delicious food, giant bubbles for the kids to create, plenty of fireworks, and a little magic show. We had such a good time and loved creating memories together (and blast it all, I left my camera at home accidentally!) Sarah and Matthew found kindred spirits among the guests- there were 2 other girls who had a similar love for the Percy Jackson books. So they spent the night animatedly talking about their favorite characters.
Oh! I found these pictures I neglected to post from our summer journey. This was during our visit to Montana. (Okay, these first pictures are actually from Spokane, when we were traveling from the Washington coast to Montana and needed a lunch break at a local park.)
We camped overnight in Billings, Montana. This was the park in Montana that we enjoyed for the morning before hitting the road again. Such a creative design! The entire play set was dragon-themed and full of all sorts of turrets, hiding places, and dungeons. The kids had such a blast.
The carousel was the highlight of our Montana leg of the trip. Rides were fairly cheap, and we all thoroughly enjoyed playing the ring game. I'd never seen this at a carousel before util now. There is a carved dragon hovering above the carousel, so the riders on the outside edge all can try to reach out and snatch a little ring from his mouth. After a few dozen brightly colored rings are collected, the final ring is brass. It's the coveted ring because it grants the winner a free ride. We had SUCH a great time playing this game and won several free rides.
This carousel was unique because a local man donated it to the city, then the city all worked together to build the carousel house and adjacent play ground. So many things were generously donated and the carved horses were designed by different fundraising groups. Each horse reflected the identity of it's foundation: the librarians designed a horse with books in his saddle bag, the Lion Club designed a regal horse with suns and lion heads on his bridle, the Children's Hospital had a teeny pony with pet frogs riding along. Such a neat neat place!
We ascended into the Bitteroot mountains and were graced with startling vistas that stole my breath away. There was deep snow everywhere, and the kids begged me to find a safe place to pull over and play. We finally found a little dirt road off the highway.
We played for several minutes, it didn't matter that the snow was sort of slushy with a crust of ice on top, making it hard to scoop up. It was still magical for Texan kids.
This is the spot where we saw a grown wolf trotting across the road. He was very gorgeous, but we ran to the van immediately since he was close enough to be a potential threat.
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