Knock Knock..

Who's there?

Ben..

Ben who?

Ben wondering how you were doing.


Okay, so I've been gone for a while. Not physically gone..just MIA. Since the summer arrived last month, I'm lucky if I see the inside of my house until 8pm (the time Critter comes in from outside to calm down and get ready for bed). The weather has been fantastic and we've been outside enjoying it.
That's the thing about Texas. You have to get outside and enjoy the nice weather before the really hot weather settles in. We've been in the low to mid 90's for the last 2-3 weeks and while that's hot..it's not as hot as it's going to get. Nor is it that bad because it doesn't get that hot until the afternoon. It's when it doesn't cool down over night and you START at that hot of a temperature first thing in the morning that's the killer.

So what have we been doing you ask? Well, as I mentioned, we've been outside a great deal. Mostly the Critter has been running around, swinging on his new swing set (the big project that I mentioned in a previous post, but never got around to taking pictures of yet), swimming, bug catching, or playing in the dirt. We've been working on getting the boy to ride his tricycle all on his own as well as going for lots of walks. At the beginning of this month, we had a garage sale and there was a few weeks of prep to get ready for that. Who knew I had so much stuff I wanted to get rid of considering I'm the furthest thing from a pack rat.
We took a weekend trip to Texas hill country about a month back now as well. It was part work trip for big Daddy, part family fun weekend. We went to the State high school track and field meet to cheer on a boy from our neighbourhood as well as to just get away before Big Daddy had to make a visit at a plant down in that area. For Mother's Day, Big Daddy and O took me to Fredericksburg, Texas..a small German town in hill country. What a lovely day that was! We ate authentic German food and toured through the downtown, which was FILLED with tons of kitchy shops. After a short recess on a downtown park, we drove about 15 miles north to see this really neat natural rock formation just outside of town. It's called the Enchanted Rock. It's a big, huge, dome shaped piece of pink granite sticking of the earth. It goes up a few hundred feet and for a fee, you can camp, hike up it, and visit the park. We didn't do any of those things, however. It was something like $15/person..even for a short visit like ours would have been..just to get some pictures. So I took some from a distance instead. There is always next time though.

Lately O has been requiring a great deal more attention. He seems to be losing his independent streak and is wanting us to play with him more. As best we can tell, he is needing and wanting more kid interaction. We've (meaning me specifically) been busy trying to give him just that.
Speaking of which..I've had to start and stop writing this post several times (over several days even) because the boy is wanting to play. Even now, he is wanting just that so..I'm going to cut this post short I think, and take my boy outside.

Write you soon, kiddies.