The last week in March

I wish I had time to write every evening, but unfortunately it doesn't always work out that way. So this week I'll try to remember back...

Monday we stayed home. Aahhh. I love staying home. I did an obscene amount of laundry and finally got my seeds into starter and under lights. I'm only doing flowers this year. I have zinnia, pansies, and carnations. I've been moving things around in the front garden, and need some new stuff, so rather than buy plants I went for the seeds, which are a lot cheaper. I'm a week or two behind in starting them, but so what. I also have some seeds (cosmos and statice, for example) that I'm going to plant directly into the garden once it's warm enough.

Tuesday I can't remember. There is nothing but chores listed in my date book; mail a card to Uncle E for his birthday; do R's eye exercises, and a bunch of phone calls. Oh yeah, I did play a game of Risk with E. And I've been trying to spend time planning our vacation in April. And R had his last indoor soccer practice from 5 to 6 pm.


Wednesday I picked up my new glasses at Sears. R doesn't like them because now I look like everyone else. He liked the big black square ones because they were more unique. I like the big ones better because I like to see. I prefer having a wider range of vision. I had actually gotten the progressive ones, which are no lined bifocals with a mid-range which allows for good computer vision, but man, the range of vision out of those things is ridiculous; I felt like a horse with blinders on. I can't believe they even let people drive with those things; I had to turn my head to see clearly out of my side view mirror. Anyway, I exchanged them for lined bifocals, so things are back to normal and I can see again. But I do look like everyone else.

After picking up my glasses we headed to playgroup. We have some school friends who got out early on Wednesday, so they joined us. It's interesting to see how they kids are starting so segregate themselves by sex.
All the boys continue to play as usual, but the girls are starting to sit off to the side and watch. It's ironic that all the girls get to that age where they sit aside and think about boys, and the girl many of the boys like the best is the one who actually still plays with them.

After playgroup we went over to our school friends' house and hung out for a while until they had to go to parent teacher meetings, and we had to leave for E's last indoor soccer practice. They were nice enough to feed us too, which was awesome. We all had an enjoyable time; the boys having fun running around with their friends, and my friend and I catching up as well. We are looking forward to camping with this family this summer!

I've been enjoying listening to podcasts on my iPod during soccer practices. Eventually I'll write a post on my other blog about all my favorites.

Thursday was our return to our classes at the Beardsley Zoo. We took a few months off for winter, and it feels good to know that spring is here and we have returned.

This time they talked about rain forests. They also kept the older kids together with the younger kids, so the group was quite large. They brought a parrot and lizard and a hissing cockroach into the "classroom" for everyone to look at. I was glad to finally get a photo of R touching an animal! We also had new instructors this time. I don't know if that will be a permanent thing or not, but the new guy is really relaxed and very refreshing.

After the classroom portion, we all headed out to the rain forest exhibit. The woman in charge of that area met us and was not prepared to present anything, so we basically walked around and looked, and asked questions if we had them.

Then we returned to the classroom and each child had the opportunity to make his or her own animal exhibit. E did an excellent job making one for monkeys, and R worked with a friend to make one about the Ocelot we had seen. He was thrilled to reunite with his friends from the fall, and is looking forward to restarting our classes at White Memorial next week.

The zoo provided lots of great materials for the kids to work with, and they all made terrific exhibits. R got to bring home the one he made with his friend, so we now have two on display in our living room.

After the zoo we stopped at the library and got a few books on The Great Smoky Mountains, the civil war, Davy Crockett, and slavery; all topics we will learn about more on our vacation in April. We also got a few videos to watch.

Friday we were home again. My car was being worked on all day, so we had a friend come by for a few hours. J and the boys had lots of fun sending matchbox tracks down from the second floor to the first, then down to the basement and up a ramp, and finally into a giant box. J's mom and I had a nice visit too.

I was happy to see the surveyors at work on our property as our friends left; now we know whose trees are whose. After they were done I took photos of all those posts. I'm sure our back neighbor is not too thrilled that we had to move furniture to mark our property.

Today R went to the Cheshire pool with one of his soccer friends. The rest of us went fence shopping.