Dinner Table Discussion at Our House

Let me give you some kind of idea what sort of discussions take place at our dinner table....

Abigail: "When I get married I'm going to be a mommy and not have any kids."

Nate:  "When I grow up I'm going to be a fork."

Micah: growl

Ashley: "Is it bedtime yet?"  "When I grow up I'm going to be a full time vacationer."

Our Adventure with Daddy!

First of all Ashley had to work today, so it was Daddy DayCare all day.  Which, if you know anything about how I watch the kids, you'd know that Daddy DayCare is nothing short of AWESOME!  I tend to spoil them.  Well, we had a showing scheduled for this morning.  Our house is on the market and so we have to be willing and ready to slip out for an hour or so.  Fortunately we get a pretty advanced notice, so we can be prepared.  So Daddy took all his chil'ren to the park for a picnic breakfast this morning.  Simply for the fact that it is already hard to keep a house in "show" condition with three preschoolers.  Breakfast is one of our messiest meals of the day.  So it was up, dress, shoes, and out as quickly as possible this morning.  No playing, no eating, no breathing...until we went outside of course.  We had a great time.  We went to a park right by the library.  After we finished our breakfast we found out it was "Library Day" which involves an interactive story time for kids.  So  needing little persuasion, I took the kids to Library Day.  Abigail and Nate are pros at it, so they were excited about being able to go.  It was a lot of fun.  Today's stories were about boats.

Well, the showing was supposed to end around 11, but it wasn't near 11 yet, so we needed to play more after our library excursion.  The park was pretty full, and all two of the swings were taken, so we decided to go to a different park.  (Prior to having families, singles bar hop...Daddies, they park hop!  Oh yeah!)  So we went to Rolesville Park, which is one of the best parks around.  We practically had the whole place to ourselves.  We shared it with the tame squirrels who would get a little too close for comfort.
We hadn't stayed long when the temperatures were reaching about 100 and it was past 11 enough for us to return home.  So we loaded up the truck and we got all settled to make the drive home...and the truck wouldn't start.  Now imagine if you will, being in a hot truck (over 100 degrees) with three preschoolers, no cell phone, no lunch, and no way to get home.  Oh yeah, and I'm not supposed to carry the one year old just yet because of a recent surgery.  Needless to say, I was a bit perplexed as to what in the world I was going to do.

I decided it was too hot to sit in the truck, and since we did have graham crackers we went over to a picnic shelter and had a little snack as we plotted our plan for survival.  There was no way for me to communicate with anyone who could help us.  There were some fast food places within walking distance (Abigail liked that option).  I was just going to borrow their phone to call Uncle Andrew who worked not even two miles from the playground (but since he does landscaping he probably wasn't anywhere close to work).
Finally I asked some of the other park patrons if they had jumper cables.  No one did.  But neither did I, so I guess I couldn't get too frustrated.  Finally, a family who happened to be in a minivan which happened to have three empty seats which happened to have built-in carseats, asked how they could help.  So we put our heads together and decided to run down to Auto Zone for some jumper cables.

Got the cables.  Came back.  Hooked them up.  Nothing worked.  After about a half hour of trouble shooting we finally get the truck started (for all the guys reading this - and are still awake - first of all congratulations on having a great attention span, secondly, it wouldn't start because it wasn't all the way in park...well it was, but there is a bad connection in park...it started in neutral.)
So the family refused to let me thank them by buying them lunch, so we returned the cables to Auto Zone.  By this point I'm soaked in sweat and the kids are just about worn out.  But you know what, even though they'd been through that, they really weren't cranky.

On the way home we drove past a home my buddy is renovating and he gave us the grand tour.  Then we finally made it home and at lunch around 12:45.  We gulped down our chicken and mac 'n cheese and we all went down for a nice hour and half nap....including Daddy (by the way, they never sleep for Mommy).
And you know, one of the best things about it is the kids didn't fight, didn't argue, didn't whine or complain, and didn't have to go potty five times in a row...until Mommy came home.

Who's yer daddy?!  Daddy DayCare is awesome.

Some of my favorite things...

I'll let the pictures do the talking in this post.  This is how we water the grass.  I guess you can say it's a family event.  Notice who is holding the hose most of the time!

Keeping the Tradition Alive

Cow Appreciation Day should really be a national holiday.  I don't know about your town, but here in Wake Forest, the town all but shuts down for the best chicken sandwich in the world.  We did this last year and loved it.  So we decided to round up the Erdherd and do it again.  We let a couple of brave souls join our herd this time around.  They made it all the more fun.  We missed Nana and Papa this year, though.  The one in the referee shirt was confused, I think.  He looks more like a zebra than a cow.  But when asked why the ref shirt, Daniel responded that he was a "jersey" cow.  Stick to singing, Mr. Daniel! ;op