June 13

Today was another rather adventurous day.

We intended to meet up with other homeschoolers at the park this morning, but by the time we all had something laundered and were ready to go, we got in the truck and Maddie's carseat wouldn't snap. We (Eric and I) tried and tried to get it figured out, but the mechanism seemed to be dead. So off Trev and I went to get her a new carseat. Which put us behind.

"Is Skunk Beard the most famous, deadliest pirate of all?" (That's the second or third mention of pirates in the last few days.)
"I've never heard of SkunkBeard. (giggle) I've hard of Blackbeard, Bluebeard, Long John Silver.... and that's about all I can think of."
"Well, Blackbeard sailed The Seven Seas. And he stole the last coin of all, then swash-buckled back to his ship and sailed away to his island. Where he buried all the treasure."
"Oh!!"
"Does that sound good? Does that sound like a good story?"
"Yes, it does!"
"It's a good explanation?"
"It makes perfect sense to me. I think Blackbeard is in Treasure Island. (Which I was wrong about - Long John Silver is in Treasure Island.) Maybe we should start reading it. We also have a pirate book at home that we can look at. Want to?"
"Yeah."

After picking up Maddie from home we headed to our favorite lunch place, and sat outside by the stream. And dipped our bared toes, braved perilous waters, and watched birds bathe themselves.
Deciding that our fellow homeschoolers (not The Mama's, but a local HS group) were probably not still at the park (as there were lots of fun events happening around town today) we decided to go ahead to the farm for the festivities to be enjoyed there.

Which was all about bouncing and climbing and running and snowcones and sticky and no soap in the bathrooms and getting lost a couple of times and a train ride and running into friends and much much fun.(there's that pirate business again)

When the special occasion fun was over, we drifted around the farm and pursued more gentle and quiet activities - investigations, ducks, rabbits, the treehouse, pigs, turkeys, roosters, cows, pony rides, a wagon ride, and watching rats scamper back and forth. Which freaked some people out as we got their attention by talking about it (we were sitting in the hay-wagon -sans hay- waiting for the tractor to pull us) but we thought it was very cool. Interesting, that there are rats there. Big ones. :) Templeton, we said. Well, Mama did. Trev said something like "Rats don't really have names, Mom."
Hmph. If you say so.

After our wagon ride we went over to a part we've never been to, this huge gnarled old tree that's really grand for climbing.
We spent about an hour and a half there, I think.
'Til their Mama started gettin' hungry.

"Can we go to the park, now?"
Sigh. Shoulda seen that comin'. "Well - do you wanna go get something to eat, and take it to the park?" (Sheesh, we left the house before lunch, now it's suppertime!)
"Yeah!"
So now we're home.
And it's like walking into a stranger's house.
Ew. Who lives in this messy (dare I say dirty) house?
Looks like someone just comes around long enough to cook something, dirty up some laundry, take a bath, and then leaves again!!

Somebody should really do something about that.....
But not today.
And not tomorrow, either.
There is more fun yet to be had....