Benefits of having a spontaneous mother.

Today, after dropping off the dog at the groomer for his annual hair chop, the kids and I decided to go for a bike ride.

Well, this bike ride turned into quite an event - We rode the B2B route from our house to Zingermans Deli in Kerry town and back. That ride is 17 miles. 17 miles that my awesome 7 year old completed. Without a peep of negativity or complaint he took the challenge on with the heart of a super trooper. The bean rode shotgun on my bike and also embraced the event with enthusiasm. She saw it as a good time to practice letters and sing rubber ducky (solo mind you - shhe nixed mom joining in the singing).

About half way through the ride home I was wondering if the monkey was hanging in ok. I stopped by St. Jo hospital for a break and decided to call my mom for a kid pick up and as soon as he heard what I was doing he hopped back on his bike and said he wanted to ride. He got his second wind.

He got a blister, another owie on the bottom of his other foot, scrapped his ankle on the petal and plowed on through it all.

He dropped his chain on the path behind my neighborhood. He said that it was a nice break. I tried to fix it then two nice ladies were walking by and they stopped to help.

It was a good day. The dog is lookin' good. Sam is feeling enormously accomplished. So am I and the only bad part was the sunburn on my shoulders from not expecting to be riding for 3.5 hours. Whoops :)

Cocktail of the hour

fresh squeezed raw rhubarb juice (sugar added)
with fresh squeezed apple and carrot juice
on ice
with Jack Daniels
and melon pieces
with a straw

The Big Trip

In three days we will be going on our first family trip. We have taken small trips to Bad Axe to see the in-laws and the like but nothing like a true family vaca.

We are leaving Thursday on the high speed road trip to Massachusetts for one day of the North American Amphibian Conference and back Monday for me to go back on call.

We will be going via Canada to see Niagra Falls. That has been the first destination on the "take the kids" list. Thursday evening we will be staying with some friends in Buffalo.

Friday morning we will be up and off to Massachusetts to camp for the night. The camp site says black bears are common visitors to the site. Big daddy told the kids and now they are a wee bit freaked out. I must admit I am too a bit tweeked but I am trying to be rational about the fact that they will most likely leave us alone even if they come around.

Saturday we will take big daddy to the conference to suck in some knowledge, schmooze a bit and get some new creatures for his collection. The spawnlings and I will go to the hotel to dink around for a bit. Maybe check out some local museums or attractions or just play in the indoor pool :). Big daddy will join us sometime later that night.

Sunday we are off to see the dinosaur tracks south of Erving Ma. The monkey is super geeked about it! Then we round it back home vis States side, maybe staying Sunday night in Buffalo at our friends or driving straight through. Not sure yet.

Whew! Home again Home again jiggity jig.

And I go back on call until September.

I Love Dirt!

For my fathers birthday yesterday he took my kids for the day and over night. It was his idea. They came up to see his soccer game (they got creamed again but they had fun), we went to Aubree's for pizza and off they went.

For my free afternoon I had made plans to go out and work on my friends garden. They had 10 beautiful acres and are working a big plot this year for vegetables. Maybe adding an herb garden at some point this year. The long term plan is for a hearty farm going in a couple of years. She has other awesome ideas for the land that I am excited to see grow. For two hours we weeded about 300 sq. feet and planted about 80 tomato plants. I got so dirty, it was great.

I got home, we grilled up some chicken with out North Carolina BBQ Sauce (we may have converted to the south side), lit up the fire pit and later watched the rest of LOST. We are now officially caught up and have to wait months upon months for our next installment.