First Family Home Evening of the Summer

Okay - I know it has been over two weeks since Byron packed ALL of the boys into the bug and headed off into the desert. In case you haven't seen us recently, he did in fact return safely - although he broke down and had to have the bearings in both of the front wheels repacked, but that will be another post. The bug is nearly complete - it is only missing the new steering wheel which should be here this week. Then I will post "the evolution of the bug" for your viewing awe and amazement. In the meantime, I have been sick and life still goes on. On the plus side, I am very pleased to report that despite my illness, we have managed to stick to the schedule and the house has stayed clean! Hurray for us!


Tonight we decided to home FHE in the back yard which has begun to look enough like a jungle that the snakes have started decorating. Sooooo, we put Ginny on Byron's back, told Robert to make sure Josh and Ben didn't put their hands down any suspicious holes, and tromped off to collect as many goatheads on the bottom of our shoes as we could (I got the most, of course). As luck would have it, the neighbor kids came to the fence and completely distracted Josh and Ben from looking for any "wildlife" and freed up Robert to help the grown-ups (he was just thrilled). Once we got about 1/3 of the way finished, we decided that we had expended enough effort on the "service" lesson (that and the trashcan was as full as it could hold) - thus ending the weeding project.
Since the eveing was so very nice, we ended with a walk to the park. Joshua got to "ride" his bike for the first time. The only trouble is that he still thinks that the pedals are just for decoration (possibly some relation to his father's view of turn signals?). It is amazing to see him just "walk" the bike and just take the bruises to the shins. Ben has decided that the ONLY shoes to be worn are his Sunday shoes and is proceeding to wear them out as fast as possible. He decided that he was going to run to the park. Robert took the scooter and decided to race with Ben - it was close.


At the park, we found that Ginny can now climb the steps all by herself! She climbed to the top, but did not want to put herself on the slide - so Daddy helped. She loves sliding and I love how her wispy straw-like hair ends up standing on end with the static.



She heading back to the stairs for round two, but got tripped up and managed to split her lip - Daddy was much more concerned about it than she was, tough girl. Of course, I'm not sure if he was more concerned about the fact that she was bleeding, or that I asked him to use his shirt to wipe it off (I was wearing white!) ... we may never know.


After the tumble, we decided that swings were a bit safer - so Ginny joined Ben and Josh came over to help Daddy push. Once the camera came out, Robert wanted to help push too - such a ham :-)




On the way home, the hospital was watering the lawn and I decided to introduce the boys to the sprinkler. They got the hang of it almost immediately and I really wish we had a lawn at home so that we could just run through the sprinklers this summer - they were so cute to watch. Ben decided that Robert was his guide on that journey and ran around yelling "Bobear" at the top of his rather considerable lungs - much to Robert's embarrassment.


It was a lovely end to a rather long day and a great start to our summer season.