Dallas and Back (A Family Photo Journal): Part 2

Dallas and Back (A Family Photo Journal): Part 1

And The Rest Is A Muddle

Other than the ducks and the fish, and visiting with family, the trip was a muddled bunch of rest and down time.

The kids learned that when you're stranded in the middle of nowhere with nothing to do, you have to make your own fun. Like flying down hill in a wagon until you crash into the grass at the bottom. The hills kept getting higher and the crashes harder throughout the week, but they never tired of it. For five days straight they crashed wagons and came home with the bumps to prove it. It was a satisfying, pure kind of fun. The sort of thing only kids could think up.


We also stretched our imaginations. A go-kart was built (to save the wagons, I believe). And, as I mentioned, we came up with hundreds of future children's books about the various careers of ducks.

It wasn't all play. We did a whole lot of resting and snuggling. Mostly snuggling. With that many people crammed into one small cabin, I wouldn't call it a napping house. But it's a good snuggling house. Mom and daughter snuggling. Cousin snuggling. Sister snuggling. And grandma snuggling. All important for a well balanced mental state.


And finally there was a lot of exploring. Exploring nature. Exploring the future town of my sister and brother-in-law. Exploring what grows. Exploring great-grandmas old shed for treasure. Exploring my heart. We all needed to do some exploring. It's good for body, mind, and spirit.

And that was our muddled bit of rest. It was a wonderful break from our normal. And we loved sharing it with people we love and who love us. Thanks for the visit. Thanks for the hospitality. Thanks for the rest.

And Then Came The Ducks

On Tuesday my mom decided to take the kids to the hardware store. They were going to check out the baby chicks and maybe pick up a few more plants for the garden. Apparently somewhere between the chickens and the vegetables they got a little distracted. And then we had what I'm going to call "a grandma moment". You know the kind. It's when your adorable grandchildren think something is cute or awesome, so you buy it without really thinking through the repercussions of the purchase.

And that is how we got ducks.

I was sitting on the porch reading when Chris ran through the door with a box. At first I was sure they had bought chickens. My mom has been talking about getting chickens for awhile now, so a chicken purchase made sense, sort of. I mean she still had no where to put them, but a chicken coop could be built. But instead, he opened the box to reveal two fluffy little ducks. Yes, ducks. There was also no where to put the ducks, and a pond is not so easily built. As my mind is reeling with, "Oh my word, why in the world are there baby ducks in the kitchen", the kids had moved on to playing with the ducks in the kitchen. And my, they were really cute.

So we played with ducks all week. And, with the exception of having to blow-dry one back to life as it's body temperature had plummeted from being put in icy water, it was a fun experience raising ducks for a week. (Yes, I used a blow dryer on a duck. Like I said, this purchase was not really thought through so we didn't have a heating lamp. So I improvised with a blow dryer.) The kids named them Fluffy and Puffy, which I thought was so Beatrice Potter and that of course made me love the ducks even more. The ducks actually became fond of the kids and began jumping from their "pond" into the kid's waiting laps. And luckily for the ducks, a friend with a real pond offered to take them when we left.

All in all, a happy ending. We got to play with ducks and the ducks got a new home. The end.

*A note to the grandma's: Seriously, The End. Thanks for the Beatrice Potter experience. I can now write beautiful children's books about a girl and her duck, a tractor driving duck, and a boat captain duck. But we will only be accepting stuffed ducks of the plush variety in the future.

Mr. Owl!?

"Mr. Owl, how many licks does it take to get to the Tootsie Roll center of a Tootsie Pop!?

A good question. Let's find out.
A One... A two-HOO... A tha-three..(crunch sound effect)
A Three!
How many licks does it take to get to the Tootsie Roll center of a Tootsie Pop?
The world may never know."
-1970 Tootsie Pop commercial

Mr. Owl, how many snaps does it take to get a good picture of four kids!? More than three, that's for sure. Try ten or so, plus another person using another camera taking ten or so more at the same time. Then if your lucky you might get one, one I tell you, where they are all looking at the camera, and, if the sun is really shining down on you, they might all be smiling. But we'll call "all looking at the camera" good enough. Because if you stand there too long you have a full blown child mutiny on your hands and they'll threaten to throw both of your cameras in the shark tank. After all, they're already wearing matching outfits for you and sitting calmly on a bench pretending to really like each other, when what they really want to do is spill chocolate ice cream (or pureed carrots) right down the front of those beautiful matching outfits. So good enough is, well, good enough. Luckily, good enough is pretty cute.

And On Friday, The Aquarium

I love aquariums. The darkness and the water. The amazing and unusual creatures. The calm and the excitement of it. The colors are so vivid. I could sit in an aquarium for hours. However, children don't sit anywhere for hours. For them, the most exciting thing in the whole place lies in the next tank. Luckily we had enough slow walking adults to balance out the running kids so that we kept a somewhat leisurely pace and all was seen and enjoyed.

("Yes, yes the jelly fish are cool, but seriously check out my shoes!")

So maybe fast paced excitement is for older children. I guess we all enjoyed the aquarium in our own special way.