Leap Year Extra Day

The sunrise was beautiful on this extra day of 2016. 

When I picked up Baylor he said they had to write about what they were going to do with their extra day.  He wrote he was going to ride his bike and asked me to join him.  The weather was nice so I pulled out my bike with his and we peddled around the neighborhood. Or at least the turn around.  

Gloria bought him a new bike and he was excited to see if he could ride it.  For being too big for him and having to get used to handle brakes, he did great, no wipeouts! I did good too! 

How Much Rain?

Seriously, 5.5 inches of rain overnight? Yes, that is what we got!  

Labor Day

Mom and Dad came over for Labor Day lunch.  Heather was in Ireland so we just planned something at home.  Gloria's parents were not able to make it down which was a bummer.  Baylor and I trimmed dead branches out of the trees and we had a nice fire going when Grandma and Buddy arrived.  I had it going all day!  

Baylor and Buddy went swimming and had a good time with the water guns and torpedo diving for Baylor.  

I cooked the food on the gas grill, but we did roast marshmallows after lunch.  Baylor was a great firestick breaker and maintained the fire with me.  

Three 'smallows on a stick is the way to go.  

After Mom and Dad left, Gloria watched TV and Baylor played video games.  I stayed by my fire with the marshmallows and chocolate.  It seemed like it would be fun, but it was actually lonely.  

So I entertained myself by making the fire as big as I could without catching the trees on fire.  

Last Day at Summer Day Care

After picking Baylor up from his last Friday at Mrs Mary's I took him to Oak Grove for Ice Cream and Vietnamese egg rolls.  Both items we both love!  I picked Chocolate Chocolate and he picked a Rainbow swirl with banana yellow, raspberry blue, and cherry red.  

He got the last two egg rolls and loved every bite of them.  

A River of Rocks

Baylor and I spent the morning at the creek collecting rocks, playing in the water, playing with a dog that belonged to a family also playing at the creek.  The dog was a chocolate lab who loved playing fetch, over and over and over and over and over. You get the picture.  Baylor did not tire of throwing the ball either so they made a good team.  The rocks were for a summer project I have been working on and thinking about finishing before Fall.  

I made one creek bed storm drain a few weeks ago and started on the second one for the back yard with my new rock collection.  It took over one bag of concrete for this one and a lot of rocks.  

The blackberries are starting to come in!  I am so excited.  I have had the patch for many years but we have never had much of a yield on the young vines. This Summer I put in a big support system and the vines took over.  There are red berries all over the place waiting to turn black and tasty! 

I love these orange day lilies and I think I got them from Molly's porch.  They look lovely with the black-eyed Susan's in the background. 

The blue bottle tree has not caught any witches this year but that must mean it is working keeping them away.  

Some Fun on Sunday as Well

Sunday was another stay at home day and we did pretty much the same stuff, sans play date.  While in the garden I found my 10th mantis egg case.  We will be crawling with babies soon!  Which is a wonderful thing to be in my opinion.  

After lunch we headed to the creek for our first trip in 2015.  We had fun in our usual ways: throwing rocks, sticks and whatever else we can find in the creek, and some splashing around.  The water is a bit high so no walking out to the other side but there was still the rocky beach area to enjoy.  

A few selfies out on the rock.  

He wanted to build a little dam and one of the rocks he handed to me was cover in eggs.  Not sure the creature they will become but we placed it back into the deeper water so they would not dry out.  

Working on his damn. 

More like a little lagoon.  

We also gathered up a wagon load of rock for our gardens.  While we were doing that Baylor gathered up the 'litter' and asked if we could take it home.  Thankfully we did not find what was formally inside the wrapper.  

Back at home we had more water balloon fun.  If you try to make a water balloon out of a big 'air' balloon, you get a water ball for a few tosses.  

Eventually, they do break.  

Which is the whole point of them anyway!  

Tuesday is Cinco de Mayo and I planned to make chicken tamales.  Which I did but my pan was too small to steam them in so I had to use my canner.  I have never made them and never even eaten one.  I watched about 10 videos on how to make them and then made up my recipe.  Hopefully they will be OK but I am taking two in for Bob on Monday to test them out.  

Before steaming for two hours: 

And after: