Two views from above. Before too long the tomatoes will overgrow the pretty crossed-square design that John built from leftover trex board from the deck. The garden is never as neat and tidy later as it is in the spring. 'Course it's a lot neater and tidier this spring than usual because of the hardworking Amy and Jamison. I was especially glad they were here spring term while John was gone.
Here's Claudio. He's shy. And here's Hero "What? Me? Of course I'm totally not nibbling on your potted ornamental grass!"
We had a party at our house and played outside after dinner:
John and Brett talk
while the babes play soccer
and Ethan and Betsy sit in the swing.
Hey Mom, where'd you go?
Hero sits on her perch by the grape arbor:
Happy Birthday Brett!
I took the babes to The Farm last Friday while we were babysitting for their mom and dad, who went to Hawaii for a weekend getaway. I forgot to take photos of the picnic or the cows or anything else, but I thought this pic was fun, of Colette with Damien and Kelli's puppies.
Johnathan had his birthday party at the Hogle Zoo. He had a double birthday cake, with blue elephants, by mom Nicolle, and TRAINS, which are also vitally important.
Party favors for the kids included elephant backpacks made from conductor hat cloth, also by Nicolle...
...filled with candy from an elephant pinata, invented and constructed by Rob from recycled pop bottles (as he said). Because Johnathan may have been traumatized at the prospect of bashing an elephant pinata to get at the candy, Rob designed it to dispense candy from the nose when shaken. The kids then put their candy in their elephant/train engineer backpacks to take home.
But of course we didn't go home yet! We had lunch and then we (Amy, Jamison, Betsy, and Ethan) went to look at the zoo animals.
We saw giraffes,
Tigers eating,
and the reason for the zoo party anyway, the baby elephant!
Then Ethan, Betsy, Amy, and I went for a ride on the carousel. Unfortunately the train was closed.
