The Next Chapter in the Book . . .: Chapter 341

Look at all that glacier melt! Although it's pretty to look at, but I hope we have enough water to last through the summer.

Awww, there's our old PT Bruiser. I almost miss that car. The people that own it honk when they see me. They must like the car because they honk when we pass in town and it's a friendly "beep-beep" and not an angry "HONK!".

Tuesday I met Carissa, Reagan, and Chris at the Point Defiance zoo. While I waited in the parking lot for them to arrive, I see that there was an opener animal before we went in to see the real thing.

While at the zoo, Chris and I saw this pretty thistle flower. It reminded me of when we went to Scotland for Kyanne's wedding and it makes me think of our wonderful trip to see their wedding.

Reagan runs through the zoo with the familiarity of her own home. Reagan knew she wanted to go see the goats in the petting zoo. As with everything, she had to hug all the goats. The zoo provides brushes so the kids can brush the goats. How much fun is that?

Although Reagan thought she wanted to see the camel, when we got there it was "No camel!". Carissa coaxed her into reasonably happy coexistence with the camelus dromedarius as long as they didn't orbit too close to one another.

Please refer to previous reference to the fact that Reagan loves to hug, well, everything. Even this brass snake statue at the zoo. I notice Grampa Book wanted nothing to do with this snake thing.

Reagan has not been too happy about the carousel so far. This trip to the zoo, although unable to ward off the some of the manifestations of toddler intolerance due to molars erupting, she pulled it together long enough to take a carousel ride. We're proud of you, Reagan.

Reagan looks pretty satisfied with her successful carousel ride.

We had chickadees rent our birdhouse on the patio. Last time I looked, it had been furnished but there were no eggs in it. A couple of weeks later when I looked in, there were two little creepy looking chicks. I'm not clear sure Mom chickadee was too thrilled about me violating the landlord-tenant rules and entered their space without permission. Next time I peek in, I should see two less creepy, more bird-like critters. Stay tuned.

I don't know what's in our wonderful looking soil, but this is the second split carrot I've had so far. I don't know if that's normal or if I have a mutant carrots of carrots.

So, Carter's birthday is Saturday and I wanted to head down and celebrate with Carter and check out Kyle and Jenna's new house. (Which is stinkin' cute by the way.) So through the magic of Amazon, Bob's limited woodworking skills, and my silhouette cutter, I made a construction dress-up kit for Carter's birthday. I got some bolts and painted them to match the sections of the storage container,

I used the Silhouette cutter to put his name on the bolt kit, and his name and Oregon ducks on his hat...

...and on the board Bob cut out and I painted to match the different sizes of bolts in the bolt kit.

After the paper has been torn and the kids have moved on, the grama's swoop in to tidy up the scene of the crime.

That dark period of summer is upon us. The time of the year when folks start pawning their surplus zucchini off to unsuspecting neighbors. In this case, several large zucchini destined for zucchini bread to most likely be distributed to equally unsuspecting family members in the usual tradition.

Carter really enjoyed his "tools" and took them to bed with him when he took a nap.

After Carter's nap, he was right back at playing with his "tools" again with Payton right along side him.

As the rain threatened, a group decision was made to go for a walk around the neighborhood. Since Jenna and JoAnn live so closely together we walked to Jenna's and mobbed around their neighborhood. Kyle and his friends used to live in this neighborhood and as we walked, he pointed out Payton's principal's house, teacher's houses, and where each of his friends used to live.

As part of our impressive tour of Albany, we were toured past this parking space. JoAnn said when she volunteers at Payton's school, she used to park in this very parking space so Payton and JoAnn could make a quick getaway before all the parent pickup traffic and buses crowd the streets of Albany.

After our walk we all piled into JoAnn's house for pizza and playing. Payton and I colored sunflowers after lunch and it was nice that Bob had sent me pictures of the sunflowers in our garden opening so we had colors to copy.