Chapter 446

In

Happy Birthday to Scott!

Happy Birthday to Chelsea!

Editor's Note: Thanks to Mary Lou pointing out that I didn't push the "Publish" button last night, all my Mother's Day wishes are a day late, but they carry no less weight. Happy Mother's Day.

Bob is slowly adding to Reagan's slide and the first project was putting bars on the platform on the top. That way I won't have to stand up there with a leg on each side sweating bullets that Reagan will not want to look out the sides and just go straight down the slide. Next project is a real steps. Uncle Ryan's hand-me-down ladder works fine, but it would be nice to have something easier for Reagan to use...and cut down on the parent panic as she climbs that narrow aluminum ladder.

So my friend Mary Lou and I went to Costco in her little yellow Mercedes convertible, top down and radio playin'. Actually we didn't need the radio because we were too busy critiquing our fellow drivers on Highway 18. Since Mary Lou's car is ultra-tiny, I volunteered to hold her pack of paper towels on my lap on the way home. No big deal. Funny looking, yes. But still no big deal. Actually, it was a big deal. As we left the doors of Costco with our cart, it started to P.O.U.R. We swam to the car and threw the stuff into it as fast as we could. Darn my generosity! Now I'm stuck with this wet 12-pack of paper towels inside aforementioned teeny little car. Since I didn't want to walk home from Costco leaving the towels to win, the paper towels and I squeezed into the passenger seat. We kept our collective mouths shut thus ensuring both of us a dry ride to my house.

I have an awesome neighbor! Not only do I get a steady stream of fresh eggs, but I came home to some of these huge chocolate-covered strawberries. It was the size of my palm, I didn't even know there were strawberries that were the size of small apples! I suppose they are from the Hanford area. Obviously they were yum*my!

We had some weird sky stuff going on in our area. This was really quite creepy to look at. I don't know what the ring around the sun means, I thought maybe it was a sign of the rhapsody.

Then we had POURING rains the next day. It was bouncing up off the patio and pouring off the roof. As hard as it was raining, I thought it just might be the rhapsody!

We got a new transmission teardown table at work. We had a student put it together then he drove it into the classroom, proclaimed he was done, parked it in front of my desk and walked away. Seriously? He couldn't have asked me to come out to look at it? Did it have to be one more thing just dumped at my desk?

I've managed to lose both pair of my prescription sunglasses and a couple of over-the-counter spares. The last I remember, the last pair made it home from San Francisco. Today Bob washed and vacuumed my car and found all of these under the passenger seat. Apparently I make my left turns a little too aggressively...

We took the greenhouse off the gardens today and everything is off to a great start. It's nice that I raised the seeds to this size early in the season so I can kill larger plants and not just seedlings. 

We went to Kingston to see Carissa for Mother's Day and was outside playing with Reagan. I crammed myself into her playhouse and made a coffee stand. You know that kid is from Washington when she drives her bike through the coffee stand and orders an Americano "with room". Then drives her bike away with one hand while holding her coffee.

Mother's Day morning I was greeted by Reagan bringing Mozzie in to see me. That Mozz is one patient cat and didn't seem to mind in the least that most of him was dingle-dangling in space. In fact he was purring when he got to me.

The closer he got, the lower he got. He is not a lightweight. (No cats were hurt in the process of Reagan and Mozzie wishing me Mother's Day.)

Mozzie got back at her by snatching her markers out of her coloring cart. 

 He's looking for just the right item to steal.

We took Reagan to Fish Park, a park named for Poulsbo's historical fishing industry. It has a driftwood fish prominently perched on the hill. This is Reagan's backyard and she knows every nook and cranny. She is marching up to the fish to drop one of her painted rocks for someone to find.

We had a nice walk in the woods while we got exercise, gave Mom a break, and looked for more painted rocks to refill her stock.

On our way home, we stopped for a Geocache that we've been meaning to get when we go to Kingston. It was Reagan's first cache and it couldn't have been a better first cache for her to find. It was next to a doggie daycare and was a cute little doghouse with a stuffed dog in it. The dog had a backpack with little toys in the pack. This was a cache that the owner keeps stocked with toys for their little cachers. Reagan was excited to pick out a little green plastic snake. 

Since it was such great weather, Carissa got Reagan's slide out and put a hose on it and she had  instant summer fun.

Reagan held hose between her legs and thought it was the funniest thing ever. She laughed and laughed as the water sprayed down the slide. I thought I left this kind of behavior behind when I left school on Friday.

Reagan loved sliding and, apparently, is a spectator sport. Kyanne and Bob were continually trying to increase the length of her slide with any plastic that they could find.

We stopped at the nursery in Silverdale on the way home from the kids. They had a fun Geocache