Family Weekend

It's not often that Cathy is home for a full weekend. This weekend she was home both Saturday and Sunday. We took full advantage of this by not doing a dang thing around the house. The chickens continue to have only small 6'x3' section of outdoor space to escape from the rain. (Well, they could also go in the coop of course!) The grass did get cut but the basement floor still needs to be bleached before it can be painted. The basement walls are framed and the "lovely" wood panelling has been cut to size but still need electrical outlets, heat vent, etc holes cut before it can be put up permanently.) So what did we do?

Well. Saturday was this.

Lots of hula hooping. Lots of good music. Lots of garlic foods, mostly local. I had a great spinach burrito with hot salsa and roasted garlic. We all tried garlic ice cream. We had popcorn that had been grown by a group of 4-h type kids. It was "safe" as Logan said, "from garlic."

Eyeing the wares.

I seemed to end up carrying these two an awful lot. Everyone but Finley got their face painted. Meryl was insistent she be spiderman. The people doing the face painting tried to talk her out of it (this was the sort of place where commercial cartoon characters are frowned upon. Just the fact that she *knew* about spiderman showed just how awful I was doing as a parent!) but she held her ground. I was quite pleased with her stubbornness in this situation.

We finished the day with everyone zoning out in the car with their non-organic, non-locally harvested, full of food coloring lollipops. No garlic in sight!

Sunday was this. First annual event in which I hope we can participate for years to come. Avery rode her bike to the event with the rest of us but participated in the event in my bike with the little girls. She then rode her bike home the event just fine. Go figure. The kids were just happy to have skipped going to the parish house for services.

The afternoon was Avery's soccer (Her team was slaughtered, but since they don't keep score it doesn't matter. She had a grand time but is getting frustrated that she isn't the best on the team. And she is not the best. The assistant coach has a kid who is far, far, far beyond where Avery is. I think it was better when Avery couldn't tell who the good kids were. But Avery is far better than most of the kids. This is a situation I've never been in as a parent. Usually I've got the pathetically miserable kid who doesn't have a clue. It's more fun to be good!), playing with neighborhood kids and an unexpected visit from my parents.

Life is good. It would be better if the chickens were dryer and my basement was done but it's okay. Plus I've got plans to eat some chicken with a lot of garlic in my near future.