The Grass Is As High As An Elephants Eye...

We came home to an unmowed (is there such a word?) lawn. Thigh high to be more to the point. It's ok though. We couldn't find anyone to mow it and we gave up in April figuring that it's only grass and we can deal with it. Well, we are dealing with it.
For the first week home we decided that we needed down time and every day I took a nap. I needed some recovery from packing up our apartment and from Mom's birthday party. Now I feel recovered and am ready to face the idea of doing things here. Yesterday was yard cleaning day. We all spent the day weed wacking, pruning, raking and few minutes to jump into our new ponds. I sat outside with the girls and it was wonderful. I got some good Mommy juice watching them play in the water. We made some steps on one of the sides of the our ponds and they sat on the steps catching tadpoles and daring each other to jump in. Artie was the bravest and went for the first plunge. She jumped in and landed on the next level of steps. We had forgotten about those! She didn't hurt herself...was just surprised.
Last night we went over to the community center and watched a movie. It was "Fleeing By Night". A Chinese film with subtitles that Michael read to Xan. Very good movie. It seems that we have to travel 3000+ miles and take a ferry to an island to get some culture.
Another travel story...
At the beginning of our trip we stayed with our friends Ken and Cassie in Appleton, WI. Appleton seems to be about the same size as Saratoga Springs. It has a very hip downtown. We walked downtown on a Saturday and went to an Art Show. It was a show of 35 ceramicists from WI. How nice for Michael to get a chance to walk around and look at other peoples art!! Next to the show there was an Art Center and they were having a gallery show. It was all recycled art. It was "way fun"! I particularly liked the "cereal box woman" made out of cereal boxes. We saw lots of instruments that the kids could bang on. Max (Ken and Cassie's son) really liked the bang away on part. It was a great day!! Our time with Ken and Cassie was too brief. They have a daughter who is 7 months old and really loved Michael and I. She would make all sorts of smiles at us. Of course we couldn't pick her up. Xan and Artie could..but not the grown ups. Only Mommy. Not Daddy or Michael or Victoria. Ah well we'll be visiting them again....
Blessings.....V