Sometimes I jot down notes about things to blog about so I don't forget them. Here's the current crop:

swapped curtains
first Arnold Palmer of the season.
House debugging
Billy Mays?

Gerard visit: Jumble Jong, Dr Horrible, Umbrellas, Star Trek, Train Town

Making ice cream, but ice cubes are taking longer than expected to freeze. Ice cream maker is tantalizingly visible, but inaccessible behind doors that are behind a stack of random stuff. Getting a lot of use out of the snow-cone machine. Time to buy some more syrup, in fact.

Made a radio with Zack. Didn't work.

...At this point, I'm thinking meh. Too boring. I'll elaborate on a few things, though. When we heard Billy Mays had died, neither Ken nor I knew who that was. I was confusing him with Willie Mays, and Ken was thinking of Billy May. That tells you a bit about us, right there.

Jumble Jong is a really fun online game. It's part Mah Jong, part Scrimmage. Check it out, Mom! (I'm trying to get her to branch out from Free Cell.)

D. Gerard stayed over last weekend; we watched TOS (Spock's Brain, The Enterprise Incident) and Dr. Horrible. He recommends the film "The Umbrellas of Cherbourg," which is strikingly gorgeous and also entirely musical. I'm surprised I'd never heard of it before. Someday I might work up the brain cells to watch it, but am currently very satisfied watching Avatar. Season 2 is really getting interesting!

Not much else going on. I moved my cactus (night-blooming cereus) to a sunny part of the garden this summer, and in return it's putting out three flower buds, the most ever. I'm watching them like a hawk; they only bloom on ONE night, so if they look like they're going to pop I want to try to get out there and catch it.

Huh; I just read that cactus link all the way through. I haven't gotten any fruit yet! Usually the flowers just wilt and fall off. Maybe this time they'll develop further.

 
Ken took these pictures when he went along on Zack's class' field trip to the Natural History Museum. Kind of an inadvertently good one on the left! What's that weird finger sign that kid is doing? World of Warcraft? Also, butterfly pool.


Zack at the museum, peeping through his hair. (He got a haircut just a couple days ago.) And is that part of a whale skeleton in the background?


Zack with his classmates at the school concert. They sang selections from "Fiddler on the Roof," "Mary Poppins" and "The Sound of Music," among others. They memorized two minutes' worth of over two dozen songs; it was pretty impressive, actually.


A scrub jay, back when it was "Aww, look at the cute bird peeping into the house!" It quickly became "Aaaiiii, those creepy birds won't leave us alone!!" Thankfully, they've moved on now. I guess fledgling season is over.


Ariel models the carrots for Mommy. I've just started harvesting them. They're short but sweet. Tonight we had carrots sauteed with fresh dill cut from the garden.

 
Our recent trip to Modesto. Breon and Zack play the world's smallest game of croquet. In the background, which I didn't see until tonight, an action shot of Grandma and Grandpa enjoying happy hour.


 
I can't resist these shots. The afternoon light makes the backyard glorious. And now, a fashion show. Ariel sports her favorite top, a tutu, Mommy's socks that were going to be made into fingerless mittens, and Zack's belt as a bracelet. My desktop pattern is this one.


  
On the left: bonnet, Zack's old boxers, and slippers. Oh, and Ken. On the right, underwear on head, inside-out dress, and a whole lot of attitude.



Swim goggles, Zack's shorts, and two of Zack's belts.

 
Here are a couple shots of TJ's house. Can you say spectacular?

More news in the next post.