Oh Happy Day!

Lately, Chad's been taking Chloe to the park while I make dinner.  The other day, she came back with "fighter sticks," shooting people, with the sound effects.  Chad said "she played with Rex (neighbor from church), can you tell?  She played with a boy!"  Funny stuff.  She has stopped shooting people has been collecting "fighter sticks" ever since.  

We've had several rainy days that got me a little bummed.  One day, Chloe asked if she could go outside in the rain.  I told her no, but Chad said I should let her.  Hello, why not, we did it all the time growing up.  So I did, and we had a great rainy day!  The kids blew bubbles and all of the spills just washed away.  Chloe got to use her special umbrella, and Everett loves bubbles.  We made "callapeters" for craft time and just had a surprisingly good day.

Friday I tried out some cleaning tips I happened to find on the internet.  Vinegar.  My iron has had a lot of gunk built up in it for a long time.  And I just happened across a tip that said to put vinegar/water in the resevoir and then iron a towel to clean out all of the mineral deposits.  I had to fill it 3 times but you wouldn't believe all of the funk that came out!  I couldn't believe we used that thing on Chad's nice work clothes!  So I'm using it in every wash cycle of my washing machine too.  Hopefully it will help fight off some dry rot from sitting in storage this summer.

Friday was also Chad's last day of work!  Oh happy day indeed!  He has not enjoyed this rotation, and we get to have him around for a while now.  It seems unreal that it's over.  We've been doing the school thing for so long.  Neither of us will really believe it until the diploma's in his hand.  But Chloe and I decorated our door and hung "congratulations" banners for him.  He got home early catching us in the act.

Today was really fun!  We got a beautiful day and the chance to check out Leonard Springs nature trail.  It's only a few miles from our house.  Who knew?!  It's really bitter sweet that we would find out about this place the week before leaving.  It was beautiful!

Every few steps Everett had to hit something (if only the path) and make a sound effect.  He's such a goober!  I love having a boy!  He did great about keeping up with that little green car the whole time.

This is the root of a fallen tree.

I had no idea she did this until I uploaded my pics and started editing them.  She never used to put things in her mouth as a baby.  Only now, when she should know better, does she feel the need to lick everything.  What can I say, I have strange children.

She idolizes her daddy!  I love that they have such a great relationship.

He loved splashing and popping bubbles.  Though I wish I could upload all of our pictures because you can't really get a feel for how pretty this place is.  A few feet from where we're standing here, there's a waterfall.  This is a big torrential creek that just oozes out of a few rocks at the top of the hill, the start of the trail.  Crazy.  We'd stop every now and then just looking at a cool rock or tree.  There were a couple of caves too.  The weather was perfect, and bug free!  And it all leads to this lake at the bottom of the hill.  Unfortunately, we didn't make it to the end of the trail though.

Chad and the kids blew dandelions.  

Everett pulled random grass to blow like a dandelion.  And then he stood up...

And Chad had to jump into the lake to save him from drowning.  Eugh, that boy!  If there is nasty green water around, he will find his way into it!  Poor kid came up coughing and sputtering pond sludge.  I happened to have a diaper with me (due to his relentless and untimely blowouts) but no clothes.  He was cold, so we stripped him and Chad.  And he wore Chad's shirt home.  Of course, our hike back is when every other family in town showed up too.  Oh well.

It took almost an hour to get all of the mud cleaned off of everyone and their shoes.  But even with all of that, we all had a great time!  Even Chad loved it; he usually just humors me on our family outings.  It took him back to his scouting days.

After lunch and nap-time, Chad took Chloe to "free comic book day" and they picked out some new ones to read together.  They came home quickly though because she got sick.  She never actually threw up, but threatened to.  Poor girl ran a 103 fever this evening!  It kinda put a damper on the free comic book day.  She seems to be on the mend already though, we'll see.  Weird though.