My Landscape Beautification Project

Dear Residents, Visitors, and People passing through Palo Alto,

My yard? It is not a landfill, please do not deposit your garbage here. While I appreciate that it is not beautiful, I do put some effort in mowing down those weeds to give it that lovely look of a scraggly lawn.

You people walking by while I'm mowing said weeds? Do not shake your head in disdain at my loud, ancient mower with the broken wheel. It's performing a much needed service.

Helpful man who warned me about the dangers of chopping ones foot off using a power mower? Thank you for your concern.

Residents, visitors, and people passing through Palo Alto, if you feel my yard is not up to snuff I will gladly accept donations of labor, plants, gardening, and/or money to fund this enormous project. Should we ever find ourselves in the position of having surplus food, water, clothing, and housing, I can assure you we will attempt to divert a portion of our cash flow to fund this project myself.

Until then a smile, a friendly wave, a knowing nod, etc. are all welcome "greetings" while I am laboring away at the battle of the weeds.

Sincerely,

Somewhat sweaty, grumpy me

24 hours as a new kindergartner

Preparation for the first day of school starts the night before. Who are we kidding? It starts months before, probably even years. For the purpose of this post however, we'll start the night before.

The uniforms are all ready: Jumpers and shirts hanging on hangers,

Sweaters and pants neatly folded in drawers, and shoes shiny and new and waiting to be worn.

Their new alarm clock (complete with ceiling projection) is set for 6:30 A.M., yes 6:30 A.M. Ugh.

The girls have a bath and head to bed for a good nights sleep. Afterall, they have a busy day tomorrow.

Daddy makes blueberry pancakes, bacon, and deviled eggs, orange juice, and milk for breakfast their first day (He was worried about having enough protein.) Their lunches were packed and ready to go.

A quick photo shoot with Mommy and @aktse, (with much silliness) then into the car, and off to school they went.

Once at school there were many things to do starting with a scavenger hunt (Daddy read the list). First they had to find their cubby, and put their things inside.

Then they had to find the bathroom, the calendar,

and the under the sea reading area.

At this point the girls split the list. Riley went to the rug, and built a design with the shapes while Sam found a book from the rack for Daddy to read. Soon Riley joined Daddy and Sam to hear the end of the story.

Then it was time for the kids to sit on the rug, and for the Mommies and Daddies to leave, and begin their long wait (2 hours) until the end of the day.

Waiting...

waiting...

still waiting...

Spying on the class as they take their class photo (this was taken through a volleyball net with my telephoto lens (thus the blurriness). The two short ones on the right? Those are mine.

waiting some more...

and still waiting...

Finally, it was time to pick them up. They were patiently (and quietly) lined up at the door until they were released,

and then out burst a group of excited and happy Kindergartners. A hug and kiss for Daddy,

a short stop to peek in on another mysterious room of the school, one last drink from the fountain,

and a quick goodbye to friends until tomorrow, a snack,

a peek in the science room, and it was finally time to head home, and prepare for day 2.

That first day was just 2.5 hours. 3 weeks later and they're up to 6 hour school days. Wow!

They're also just as interested in everything about the school, and they love their friends. I love the enthusiasm.

One set of carseats has become two

Since the girls were born we've always had a single set of carseats. They went in the Tahoe as it was what we deemed our safest car for them. (Our other car at the time was my Jeep Wrangler. Not really kid friendly.) It went without saying that the person with the kids had the Tahoe as well, so we swapped cars back and forth, as troublesome as that was.

This past spring we suddenly realized that we were going to need a second set of carseats since Bill would be dropping them off at school and I would be picking them up. His current place of employment is over 45 min away, which really doesn't make for great car swap possibilities, so we invested in new carseats which we installed in the Tahoe. We decided to use the older seats in the "blue car" as the girls have dubbed it. Now the blue car needed new tires, breaks, an oil change, and to have the AC juiced up before we could install the seats. Amazingly that has taken us all summer to accomplish, but finally the blue car was ready, so I installed the seats last night. Thank you Britax and thank you people who invented LATCH for a quick, easy, SAFE installation.

This morning the girls were SO EXCITED that they were going to get to ride to school in the blue car. A hug and kiss for me, and they were off, excitedly running after Bill to get into the blue car this morning. This is now a total of 4 cars they have ever been in during their little lives. They were so cute sitting up very proudly as they drove off to school.

See you this afternoon girls.