Ariel funny and Hidden Oaks.

The kids always steal our mail. Rachael had a coupon pack and discovered a Red Robin ad detailing a contest where kids can design a burger that could go on the menu as a gourmet burger. So my pajama clad children and I were lounging on the bed, I had "Journey to the Center of the Earth" all open and we're ready to read our chapter. But, this ad is so glossy and thrilling that we simply MUST first discuss the fine art of burger making. So Rachael has the floor and she's designing her burger. We listen raptly as she tops her ground beef with lettuce, tomatoes, onions, ketchup, mayonaise (which she hates), mustard, cheese and meat. There is a moment of silence as we contemplate this masterpiece. Then Ariel adds a topping in her teeny tiny voice: "And pants." It was so out of the blue, such a serious comment- this adding of pants to the gourmet burger- that I thought I misunderstood her at first. "Pants, Ariel?" I queried. "Yes, pants!" No explanation why. And we all cracked up. And we couldn't read our book, which is way too full of silly words like "stupified" and "indignant" and "manometer" and men speaking very formally to each other about the formation of rocks and whether or not they are still 80 leagues under Iceland. So I sent their silly giggly selves to bed for Trevor to read them a story, which he is upstairs at this very moment doing. I think pants on a burger will be a joke for a while, though.

AND-- on a MUCH more serious note, we went to Hidden Oaks Nature Center today. We haven't been in a while so this was a fun excursion. All pics are from my iphone so they are not the best quality.

Smelling a huge pretty flower.


Sitting on the butterfly bench.


Inside the nature center is all kinds of cool stuff to do- this is a leg thing that shows (I typed shoes! lol!) all kinds of bugs and how many legs they have.


There are also lots of costumes to dress up with. The girlies dressed as snakes and then jumped on Trevor the bird. heh.


There was this shelter thing behind the nature center. It wasn't there last time we were there and there was nothing around it. It was cool. Trevor is holding a magnifying glass the kids got from their coupon book through the library's summer reading program.


After being inside the Nature Center for a while, we head out to the many trails outside. We once hiked back there and I got completely lost. Thankfully, this time we didn't get lost. But I wore completely impractical hiking shoes.


I guess they knew their favorite color. or the air speed velocity of a swallow. heh... AURGHHHH!



NOW which way should we go guys? We ended up trekking back up to the playground and played for a while. But the wasps kept bugging me. I was wearing a black shirt and all I could think of was that time we were geocaching and Ray disturbed the wasp nest and they chased him forever until he ripped his shirt off. Turns out wasps like black shirts. So I was all super paranoid and twitchy because the wasps kept freakin LANDING on me and crawling around on me. Normally wasps don't scare me. But landing all over me does kind of make me nervous. So after wasp filled minutes in the woods, and wasp filled minutes at the park, I was ready to head out. So we went to the ever exciting grocery store.


This is Cooneyisle's Chaos Magickian. He regularly sits like this on couch arms, chairs, the table. Chaos runs the house.


THere's Reznor under the table. Rez is the laziest puppy I have ever seen. He literally spends most of the day sleeping. He gets up to eat food off the floor as I cook. Honestly, I think I need another cat and perhaps another dog. ;) Shadow doesn't come downstairs until later.