A good day...

Today we accomplished much.

Brian got both the lawn mower and the rototiller tuned up and running well.  He mowed the lawn and I started turning over the soil/leaves in the garden beds.  The original soil is still high in clay, but we had quite of bit of left-over soil from the potato barrels and leaf litter to turn in.  We also have two barrels of compost to add and our land-lord wants to bring us straw/manure too. 

The boys helped "water" the new lawn seed and had fun with the garden hose.  We even put it on their little slide so that they had a waterslide.  I then had to chance them around the yard trying to spray them with water as they ran squealing out of reach of the spray.

Everyone relaxing on the swing and enjoying the sunshine and breeze. We swang for a bit and the boys sang me songs about rock-a-bye baby, on the waterfall (interesting renditions created on the fly).

Tam, Jude, and I cleaned out the inside of the car.  Tam helped with the vacuum and Jude helped wipe everything down. Quickly, Tamlin grew tired of vacuuming and joined Jude with the wet cloths.  Both boys had a grand time crawling all over the car wiping all the surfaces.  It made me smile that they wanted to just help and be with me...and they actually were helping.  I am pleased I can see the floormats of the cars again.  I am sure it will stay that way only until the kiddos start bringing toy back into the cars for rides.  We then went to the local quarter car wash to clean the outside.  Both boys had a chance operating the spray hose with moderate success.

We celebrated our busy day with cones from the Dairy Dock and hot showers.

Left to do...
Turn in topsoil/compost/hay into the gardens and let them rest for a couple of weeks.
Plant the plants.
Get ready for a soon-to-be four year old's birthday.
Get ready for summer camping.
And oh so many more things, but they can wait for another day.

I had the day off...

So Brian, Jude, and I went to a few mom sales and then the ZOO!
This was a nice day to spend with out JuJu while Tamlin was at school.  The Cleveland zoo is so large, that we tend to focus on only seeing one or two sections of it during any single visit.  Today Jude wanted to see the lions, the bears, and the penguins, and ride a train (of course).

The lions were the first stop and they were lounging out in great poses.

We then hiked on back to the Northern Trek animals.  Here the grizzly bears were out to be seen. Jude was vaguely impressed...but had way more fun jumping over the cracks in the pathways (the cracks are traps).

The main attraction was the penguins...a temporary exhibit for this summer.  The penguins were cute little guys.  One even humored us by jumping into their swim tank and having a languid swim around while we watched.  They were pretty fun and oh so cute :-)

Our next stops were for Jude...a trip up to the huge carosel for a short ride.  Jude rode a penguin!  Then a stop in the kids natural play area.  We had a grand time laying bamboo and pipes to get a water stream to flow around the rocks.   There were also stick huts to explore and tunnels to crawl through, even if they were a bit of low clearance for me and Brian.

As always, we needed to ride the tram...which I think is Jude's favorite part of the entire zoo experience.

We stopped to see the elephants and the meerkats before we left.  Both creatures obliged us by posing for some great photos. 

After about two hours, Jude was done and we headed home.  I love that we have a pass so that we can come back again and again and see different parts of this huge zoo.

Guess who's got glasses

I like them.
I think he looks a bit modern Buddy-Holly-ish.

Brian has always had better than average vision, so when he started having problems reading, I knew something was up. Yep.  He's just a little bit far-sighted and now rocks the bifocals.

Spirograph

I grabbed this jem at a mom sale this week.


It is a simplified spirograph set.  I remember having a spirograph set when I was young and loving it.  I loved using the multi-color pens to make the spiro-drawings. 

Tamlin got the jist of this really quickly.  He had fun trying the different shapes.
Jude had a rougher time, being a bit less coordinated...but he loved his half circles and mis-shapes too.

I good fine for a bit of evening entertainment.