last week

Ok, so before I'm late with posting about THIS week, I figured I'd post some photos from LAST week. That way I don't get more than two weeks behind....

We had one last swim playdate at our lake with Lori, Justin and Russ before the beach closed for the season (SOB!) at the end of the week. We got there every day but one last week, though, so I feel like we did our best to let the lake know we love it and will back next year....


Despite SCORCHING temperatures and MELT YOUR BRAIN CELLS humidity, the boys insisted on keeping up with our morning walks. (I did talk them out of it one day, but had to hear about it for DAYS to come, so decided it was easier to just sweat and let them walk than to be mercilessly harassed....). That's Grace, who is almost not a puppy anymore, according to J. The reason he knows this is because 1. she's almost a year old and 2. she's trained enough for him to walk her without it turning into a dog sled race. J says Grace is his favorite dog in the whole world. Given that Grace pretty much thinks J is the best kid in the whole world, I guess it's mutual.

J sent his PlayMobil elves on a trip around the world.

AKA Geography lessons via the little people.

This particular visit, to the southern half of Africa, was inspired by our listening to "The Gift of the Tortoise", a CD for kids about South African musical traditions, which we've been listening to on drives the past couple of weeks. (We use a lot of these sorts of musical story CDs for "vehicle rest time" -- in other words, when we're out driving during what would normally be our rest time.)

A sea of blue boys at Stratton Brook State Park, where we landed for a playdate with some friends. The pond was full of about 20 boys, and I kid you not, they all had blue shirts, blue swimsuits, and blue boogie boards. I wound up going in with my clothes on simply because there was no other way to keep track of which kids were mine!

Zoo Boy got to meet the new Skink at the children's museum while J was taking a class in Taxonomy (classifying plants and animals). J loved his class. And Zoo Boy loved this Skink. (And I'll admit, it was a very pretty lizard at that.)

Hurricane Bill passed off the coast and brought us an interesting red sky and funky lighting on Saturday morning. We got some periods of heavy, tropical rains and a little bit of wind, but nothing damaging.