An easy going summer weekend

Saturday R made himself into a robot using the packing material from my new arbor. B was kind enough to put it together for me and it is quite lovely. It will go into the front to replace the old one, which had been knocked down quite sometime ago by a wicked wind storm. It was absolutely gorgeous before it fell down. Look, I actually found a picture of it at its height. It had been anchored into the ground and absolutely broke my heart when it fell over. For too long now my roses have been kept small (about three feet high) with nothing to climb up.

Well as you can see from the photo of B, the new one is darker wood and I totally love it. B promised he'd get it anchored into the ground well enough so that it doesn't fall over again. This one is much better made so it should stay on its feet. Plus it's got a bench in it so hopefully that will add some stability. Now we just have to wait for the cooler weather so I can transplant my roses next to it. Since it has a bench I'm moving it forward several feet from where the last one was, so we can pass behind it to get into the yard.

I spent the whole day Saturday working on the CT Homeschool Network website. I'm completely redesigning it, right down to the logo. See the old ugly one here. The old one is quite gruesome with dead links all over the place, and the side menu different on every page. I'm really excited about designing the new one and will post here when it's up and running.

Sunday we went to a Tractor Cruise-In at the Durham Fair grounds. I'm so bummed I forgot my camera because it was like nothing I've ever seen before. We watched tractor pulls and took a tractor-pulled hayride. We wished we had gotten there earlier to participate in the Kids' Pedal Tractor Pull in which kids had to pull weight in a cart a certain distance using their own pedal power. That was lots of fun to watch. Another highlight was the Tractor Slow Race, where tractors lined up to see who could go the slowest. The whole thing was quite an experience. Testosterone was flying everywhere. Things like this always leave me feeling so blessed that we live in a place where goofy things like this occur, and that we are raising our children out of the city environment I grew up in.

We stopped at Lyman Orchards on the way home and picked a bunch of apples. Then Nagy Papa joined us for dinner.

This past week E has become a nightmare. I started getting all upset and fell into the whole "how am I going to make it through the next 15 years" thing. We're talking way more challenging than usual. He is incredibly disagreeable and downright defiant. So, while B drove to the tractor thing I read my copy of Your Six Year Old, the subtitle of which is actually "Loving and Defiant". Thank goodness I read it because now I'm prepared. It's going to be a challenging six months or so for us.