What a Great Family!

Diane and her family came down from Oklahoma to spend a day at Six Flags Over Texas and another day at Hurricane Harbor. We'd previously agreed that I'd feed them Sunday night (after their five hour drive down) and Monday night (after their day at Six Flags). They wanted to hit the road after Hurricane Harbor, so I never even got to ask, "Was it fun?" It hadn't occurred to me that the kids might not really like what I cooked for dinner (Husband's Delight casserole and cheddar beddar stew casserole with a peppery salad), but it didn't bother me, either. Em and I ate the leftovers for 3 days and I didn't have to cook! Chicken tacos with corn on the cob seemed to go over real well with the kids on day two, so keep that in mind when y'all think about cooking dinner for children.

Sunday evening, No. 1 was available, ate dinner with and accompanied us to the local park so the kids could run off their "road aches". We left Steve home with Em to watch sports on TV and just chill for a while while we did the park. Diane seemed a bit surprised to see Nellie hold No. 1's hand to cross the one street separating us from the park, as she's going through that "stranger anxiety" phase. Those two seemed to have a good time, to me, though:





Diane and I didn't get any "get to know each other IRL" time on Sunday, and everyone was pretty tired from a full day at Six Flags, so after dinner on Monday I laid pillows and comforters around the living room, turned on "Nemo" (in your honor, No. 2!) for the kids to watch and sat at the kitchen table with Diane. Em busied himself cleaning up after dinner while Steve watched Nemo and the kids in the living room. Nellie, of course, gravitated towards mom:

I didn't even clean before they came because I thought, "Who would clean BEFORE 5 kids come in the house? Clean AFTER 5 kids come in the house!" But, I could have/should have cleaned, because these kids didn't moan, didn't whine, didn't mess, just behaved like every parent's dream of how their kids behave in someone else's house. WHAT A GREAT FAMILY!



Part of the reason why I offered to feed these people on their stay down here was to pay back Diane for her generosity in sending me (a total stranger) plants and seeds to get a garden started last year. She didn't begrudge me the payback, but brought supplies to make both No. 1 and me custom-made hula hoops, so now I owe her AGAIN! Damn that woman!

Here's the stuff she brought before she made them for us. That darlin' in the front is Charlie. She has 4 boys and 1 girl, but Charlie is the TOKEN BOY being pictured alone on this blog. Just goes to show: We're all about girls around here. (j/k) I spent a good hour talking to Cody, though, and he's quite the nice young man, as is Isaac.



Never got a chance to get to know Duke, and every single picture I took of him was blurred. Sorry, son! Next time.

On that hula-hooping, check it out:



Skirt-hooping is pretty awesome, too:



That wasn't skirt-hooping. Damnit! Maybe one of these is of skirt-hooping, because I thought that was pretty cool, too. [Think of the exercise possibilities, No. 2!] You really need to join us in hooping!





Diane's talkin' about makin' the trip down a more frequent event, so it's conceivable that I have more chances to bungle things. Bring it on, Diane!

Happy Birthday, No. 2!

Earth celebrated the 26th anniversary of the birth of a wonderful woman yesterday. Em and I celebrated in an Oklahoma casino while some folks in Illinois offered up a cake and decorations. I think I can say that a good time was had by all. Luv U, Sweetie!

Damn hot around here lately!

Forget those goals I had about not using the AC! It's ON and struggling to keep the house temp somewhere near 84 degrees. The guy nextdoor had his AC set to 78 and woke up one morning to 82 just to learn that his system has a leak of some sort. Here in North Texas, when your AC goes in August folks send you sympathy cards as though someone died in your family.

No rain lately, either, so I've been forced to water the garden, which will henceforth be called the "for what it's worth" garden. BOTH tomato plants which seemed so healthy a while ago apparently have blights and what I'd thought to be zuccini volunteers have turned out to be cucumber/canteloupe/watermelon volunteers.

There's some talk of a slight coolfront for the weekend, but I'll believe it when I see it. It would be great, though, because Diane and her family are coming at the beginning of next week to partake in the last week of Six Flags and Hurricane Harbor. We're hoping to feed them a few times while they're here.

So, since I can't be as environmentally conscious as I'd like this month, I'm turning my activism towards the war in Iraq while keeping environmentalism on a side-burner. I've never seen a war that I liked, but this one in Iraq is particularly frustrating to me, so I'll be in Fort Worth on September 1 expressing MY opinion about it. Interestingly enough, it seems that Darth Cheney Vader expressed HIS opinion about a war with Iraq in 1994, as seen here:



Is his CRS disease worse than mine? I dunno.

In other news, I've really enjoyed the writings of a young blogster (Chris) who is trying to incorporate environmentalism with settling in to a new (for her) apartment, so I've asked for and been granted permission to include a link here to her blog. I encourage y'all to check out some of the things she's done/doing at Apt*, paying attention to sublinks such as Bag-a-cork and Girl Guides. Who knew the Canadian version of girl scouts could do something other than sell cookies? She's got worms (to compost her trash) and devised a bandana-purse of sorts so she wouldn't need to use paper towels in public places; quite creative, if you ask me! She gives pause to the "but I live in an apartment" argument.