Visits

Molly with Grandpa, in one of the rare moments in which she had clothes on. Hey, it's been hot.


In other fun, we've been trying to give our old bunny some outdoor time on a leash -- something he's never had in his life until last week. He likes it, I think. Sometimes he sticks his nose up in the air and sniffs the breeze. Sometimes he tries to hide under the car. Molly wants to take him for walks, but he mostly just goes where he wants.

Crazy vacation

So for anybody who hasn't heard the story, our little vacation week got a little rearranged after the crazy day we had last Wednesday.

First, I took our car in for an oil change and found out the catalytic converter is going to need to be replaced soon, it needs new tires and also a new sensor or something -- meaning it might be time to trade her in and get something new.

Feeling a little sad, I drove home and realized it was too late to head over to a local children's museum to meet up with some of the neighbors and their kids. Instead we went to the library. Driving home, some guy in a big red truck pulled out from a side street and hit our car. Nobody was hurt but the back bumper of our car was dragging on the ground and Molly was all freaked out.

So we spend the afternoon dealing with the insurance company and comforting Molly.

Then at bedtime Jim found a tick on Molly's leg, so we had to sneak in to her room in the dark and pull the thing off while trying not to wake her up too much or scare her.

It was all minor stuff, but we spent the rest of the vacation week picking up the pieces -- taking the car to the body shop, seeing the doctor about the tick (Lyme disease is rampant here, but the NP said the tick wasn't on Molly nearly long enough to transmit disease --PHEW!!!).

We did manage to get to that little children's museum by ourselves the next day. Of course, we didn't get there until late morning on a day when rain was predicted so it was overcrowded and the parents were insane!! Molly had that kind of overwhelmed look on her face most of the time. We didn't stay long.

One cool part was the face painting. I thought Molly might be scared but she sat very still for the guy. The little girls in front of her in line wanted a lollipop, a rainbow and hearts. Molly looked at the page of options and chose a basketball. You could see it in this picture if her hair wasn't covering it.


She did get into the water table for a while.

This was a tube attached to a wall with a switch that turned on a little bit of air inside. She asked me to crouch down so she could "blow dry" my hair.

This is the big dinosaur outside.

Not Eaten By Bears

We survived our first family camping trip Monday night and returned home without being eaten by bears. We did however come to understand why they don't allow two-year-olds on space ships, submarines, or other small enclosed spaces. We all had a good time despite a little rain later in the evening that confined us to the tent (it was near bed time anyway). Here's a few highlights.

Setting up the tent

Swimming at the beach (and looking at tadpoles)

Picnic Dinner (hot dogs in a lighter-fluid reduction)

Playing with fire

Toasting marshmallows

Molly's first S'more (try them with strawberries sometime!)

Hiking by a stream Tuesday Morning

Molly walked almost the whole loop herself, but kept stopping to throw sticks, rocks, and pine cones into the stream

Despite the rain, the weather was great, and the rain actually kept the mosquitoes and flies down, so who can complain.

Self Portraits

Baa baa black sheep

Here's a project that kept us busy for a whole week at the end of May. I'm just now sorting through the pictures.

We got a huge, stinky, wonderful bag of raw wool from David and Anna to stuff in our trunk for our drive home, much to Jim's joy. I've never washed raw wool before. It was really gross and really exciting. I can't wait to do another one.
Here's what we did.

Dirty wool, right off the sheep:
After picking through it with rubber gloves, throwing away nasty bits, and washing (cringe) in the washing machine with dish soap and drying it in the sun, we got this. Look how white!

Molly helps card the wool to get it ready for spinning.

And models the yarn.


Then we decided to dye some of it in the microwave with Kool-Aid.


And we get this:


I can't wait to make something out of all this wonderful wool!!!

Farm field trip

We went to Davis' Farmland yesterday with Family Partnership -- only $4 for both of us to get in when usually it would be about $32. Molly was a little confused on the way there, thinking I said "David's farmland" and asking if Lucy and Freddy would be there. :)

She was a lot more into the animals this year than last year, so that was cool. Most of the moms I know didn't go, though, so it was a little lonely from an adult point of view. I spent a lot of time sitting on benches watching Molly play. At one point she found a little toddler go-cart track: no kids, about a dozen Little Tikes cars and a plastic gas pump. She proceeded to carry the gas pump to each car one at a time, put the pump in the tank, put her arm on the roof of the car and look around for a few minutes, then remove the pump.

Here's Molly feeding the goats.

The best animal experience, I think, was the baby cow pen. We were the only ones in there with five very friendly cows.


Toward the end Molly gave them hugs and kisses.

We finished the day in the splash park. I was kind of avoiding this but it didn't look too crowded so we tried it. I'm glad we did. Molly had a great time.

She fell asleep in the car at 2 p.m. and napped until 5:30. I think she's a little burned out from all the activity lately.

Videos

Just catching up on some things I've been meaning to post.

This is Molly and Eve hanging out at Lex's birthday party. Can you believe Lex is 5 already??? Of course, I didn't get any good pictures of the birthday boy, but Molly and Eve did spend quite a while off by themselves "reading" and singing and talking and who knows what else. I snuck in and got a little video.



This is Molly dancing at the wedding.



Last night she was doing some wild new dance moves, inspired by a new CD that just arrived in the mail from Ganny and Pappa. I think the song was something about "the tag goes in the back" and Molly was holding the rail of her bed and shaking her head all around. We actually had a little argument over the volume level -- she was blasting it so loudly that I felt the need to shut her bedroom window so as not to disturb the neighbors.