The End of April

Friday after school we picked up Ryder for a sleepover and the boys had a good time as usual.  I just pottered around the house.  Heather had a small get together at the campground for Brigid's birthday and though it threatened to rain, it held off.  Brigid and Delaney shared the huge birthday plate and I am sure they ate less than half of everything!  

Ice cream cone cupcakes with six candles.  

Baylor was a bit off all afternoon and was more himself when it was just him and Connor playing together.  The water was freezing but Connor bravely took a few floats down the stream.  Baylor could not be convinced, which is good because he was out of dry clothes and it would have been a cold, wet ride home.  

Sunday morning Baylor slept into almost 9 am.  He has never done that before, and it is a record for him!! In the afternoon I finally was able to mow the grass.  And found my dog.  Baylor and I had a nice Mommy and son day, hanging out together.  It does not happen as much anymore with his friend network.  It made me happy when he asked me to just have a day with just the two of us, and the dog and cat of course.  We played video games, watched TV, played outside.  It was a good day for me and my favorite little guy!  

We Spend A Lot of Time at the Dog Park

Baylor spent the night and most of Saturday at Ryder's.  Diane was home from NM and we spent the morning at Saturday's Market (I have not been there in over five years!), Sharp Shopper and the Asian Market in Harrisburg.  We had fun there, me for the food and her for the dishes.  She has an Asian shelf at her house with bowls and chopsticks.  We had a good time and when we got home she wanted to take a nap and I took Jake to the dog park. 

Even in the rain, I try to get Jake out to play but not a lot of other dog parents feel the same because he was the only one there.  And so he waits, looking for someone to play with.  Only this time he was looking at the birds in the swampy area on the other side of the fence.  

Eventually he started to follow me out and we went for a nice walk instead.  

I headed out to get Baylor and on the way home we were stopped by the train. I  have not seen the train in several weeks.  It was a long one, 113 cars.  

I took Baylor home, Diane stayed there as well and Jake and I tried another time.  It was just three Husky/Malamutes there and the little one, Storm, and Jake played for about an hour.  

Sunday was a better day weather wise and I took Jake to the park before I headed to Baltimore to take Diane to the airport.  When he is not the happy humper, he is a friendly, pesty dog who loves everyone.  

I picked up Baylor at Landon's after the airport run, which included a stop at Trader Joe's, and we had nice evening.

Monday was rainy again but I saw that the huskies were coming so we went into the park to wait from them. 

Jake loves to pest the older dogs that don't play.  He licks them and sticks his face in their mouth.  For the most part the dogs just growl back and take it.  

Gloria took a picture of me with the boys in the evening.  He is my shadow. 

The train again, twice in one week!  

Baylor likes to go to the dog park with me.  He does not play with the dogs too much because they usually play together. If he can find a ball fetcher, he is a happy boy.  Otherwise he entertains himself being silly or walking around. 

Most of the dogs are shades of brown so Jake stands out.  

But there is a bigger black and white and a smaller black and white sometimes all there together.  

Volunteer Day

Thursday morning was a bit different than most mornings because I was off for the day to help with packing lunches for the Special Olympics being held at Messiah College.  I took Jake to the dog park in the morning but he was the only one there.  He is not much of a ball or Frisbee fetcher but he humored me for a bit to at least get him some exercise in the morning. 

I took Baylor to school as a parent drop off because I had to be there the same time he did.  Parents had to wait in the library, sitting on their little chairs at their little tables.  Then we were assigned our four or five kids to watch. I was assigned Baylor, Ryder, Abigail, and Taelyn.  The kids all had gray shirts and the parents had them as well.  The three second grade classes boarded two buses and headed to the track.  

On Wednesday at school the kids all helped to make ham and cheese, turkey and cheese, and cheese sandwiches. So today we formed lines, team ham and team turkey.   I was on team ham and the principal was over there on team turkey.  The first station was the paper bag and napkin, then the sandwich (I did sandwiches for most of the time until the bag mom got a hand cramp), then baby carrots, sliced apples, a bag of cookies, and a bag of chips/cheesy poofs/popcorn.  Then a parent rolled down the top of the bag and the kids took the bags to the lunch tent and then made another round. And again and again and again and again.  For a few hours!  We started with one bag each, then two and by the end our kids were doing four and five bags at a time. We had over 3,700 bagged lunches to make and team ham had more sandwiches than team turkey and we ended up helped team turkey finish their sandwiches.  

 The sun was right on my face and with my side bangs and sunglasses on, I got an amazingly funny sunburn on my face.  I tried to make it fun with the kids, playing trick or treat, asking them why I keep seeing them here, just trying to make it fun because it was a lot of work for them.  

 It is hard to see but the line of people in the middle are the people in line for lunch.  I tried to show the kids that all their hard work was for those people waiting in line. It was a hard sell for to a bunch of seven and eight years olds.  They really wore down towards the end but walked and bagged until we were out of sandwiches.  

Finally we were done and cleaned off the tables and we passed out the lunches the kids packed earlier.  They were allowed to go to whichever sandwich line they wanted and pack their own lunches.  The kids also packed parent lunches.  

We got in line to get drinks from the Turkey Hill truck, full size drinks mind you, not the little cardboard half pints! 

The kids were still hanging in there but were very hungry!  They are used to sitting on the chairs all day, not running from table to table collecting food in white paper bags.  

We were told to hang out on a grassy hill to eat and the kids ate and horsed around and were kids.  

Ryder and Abigail are a thing apparently.  He asked me to take a photo of them and send it to his mom so she can see what she looks like.  

Mr Kartikey was in another group but after eating they were able to play and be silly kids. 

My little group of kids.  

Me and the girls.  

A photo for Greeva.  Sadly the kids never were able to see any of the Special Olympic events which many of them wanted to see.  That was a shame, that all they did was make lunches but never see who they were making lunches for.  I know time is a factor and we had to get back to school so the buses could start to pick up the middle and high school kids.  

I went home and took Jake to the dog park again and this time he had someone to play with.  He ran around for about a half hour and we went to pick up Baylor together.  

The kids love to play in the playground on parent pick up afternoons.  Akshat was there to get Kartikey and I sent the photo to Greeva to tell them all the kids were playing.  

Then it was back to the dog park where Jake had more fun with this doggy people.  

When we finally made it home I remembered to pick some lilacs before they are done blooming.  Many of my lilacs came from the farm and I love having them bloom in the spring.