We had an adventure yesterday. My friend Tammy took Bryan (her son) and me and the boys to Columbia yesterday to the zoo. It was great! We had a good time doing everything. We started out with Slade running through the line into the zoo without paying because he had to get to the bathroom. I'm glad there were 2 adults. I couldn't have gotten him there before an accident and this way we got him in while someone still payed. I didn't bring a stroller so we got one of those 2-kid strollers that they rent. (Wonderful! I had forgotten how heavy the diaper bag is.)

We saw the birds, the monkeys, the snakes and lizard things, the fish, elephants, tortoises, penguins, orangutans, etc. We got to pet the big turtle. It was posing and stayed there by the fence so the kids could pat it's back or touch it's legs. We also saw flamingos. They are cool. And probably the brightest thing around. The boys both loved the fish the best. Slade ran away in all three different houses- the bird house, the monkey house, the fish place. He is crazy. Needless to say he was stuck in the stroller for awhile, not able to get out. I wasn't gonna give in on that one. There were lots of people there. I'll bet there were more kids under 12 than adults. It was crazy. The last thing we did at the zoo was ride an endangered species carousel. Scott and I rode a tiger. Tammy stood by Slade. She made this day so much better. And Bryan gave us the tiger because it had a bigger saddle for a bigger bumba. (Scott and I make 1 1/2 bumbas.)

After the zoo we went to the Columbia temple. My boys have never seen a temple before. Not that they would recognise or know what it was. Bryan hadn't been there either. We got to walk around a bit and see the white and pretty. I love the calm. If you ask the boys whose house the temple is Slade will tell you it's Heavenly Father's and Scott will say Jesus. I love my boys.

On the way home Slade and Bryan decided that Slade would stay the night at Tammy's house. Tammy said it was OK. Slade adores Bryan and Bryan loves to have someone to hang with. When we got home Scott started to fall apart because he wanted to be with Slade. It ended up that Tammy (poor Tammy) took all the boys to her house and I stayed home alone. I prepared lessons for church to be responsible but more than that I just was calm, and alone. Sam didn't get to be part of the adventure of the day because he was working/ sleeping/ working. It was quiet at our house and I think Tammy had her hands full. I sure owe her a ton. We had fun. I think next time the boys will stay at my house though.

Slade, the Adventurer

We've had some fun with Slade lately. He sees the world in a different way than Sam and I do. I think it was about 2 weeks ago he got an etch-a-sketch from a friend. He was excited and was drawing on it. It's not easy to make really distinct pictures on those. He brought one of his drawings to Sam and was telling him all about it. The story went something like this-'On this side are the bad guys and the angels are on the other side. The angels are throwing pies at the bad guys.' Now we really haven't seen or been to any carnivals or any other place that you see things like that (that I can remember) but he was sure the bad guys were going to lose because of the pies being thrown at them.

He also got to say his first prayer in Primary. He was very excited. And he wanted to go up and talk at the end of the last testimony meeting, but it was the end. I didn't feel guilty about not taking him up.

He has become very confident about his going to the bathroom himself. I have asked a couple of guys to check on him in the church bathroom a few times because he won't go into the girls bathroom. But he does good.

He was swimming at the neighbor's house and decided he had to go to the bathroom. I didn't want to have him dripping all over so I sent him behind our shed to pee. I think I said "Go over there then." Well, he didn't understand it. I went to check on him after he had been back there for along time and found him just playing. He hadn't peed yet and I told him he could pee in the dirt. He was confused. You can tell Sam hasn't taught him all the things he could learn out in the yard.

Sam was helping finish up in the bathroom the other night and Slade told him that his friend, Ross (don't ask me where he picked that name), was stuck in the toilet so he couldn't flush yet. Hello. Sam asked him to help Ross out because he was going to fluch in 3 seconds. Slade saved Ross. Don't ask me where he went from there. Slade has never introduced him to me.

This morning was a new adventure. Slade and Scott like to play with the flashlight and most of the time it's not a big deal. I heard alot of noise this morning though, coming from the bathroom. So I went to check on them. Slade had the light in the bathtub. I took it away. It was all wet.
"Whey are you guys playing in here?"
"It looks so cool in the water. We were just shining it in here."
"You were shing it in the water? In the toilet?"

Maybe Slade has a thing for toilets. He also threw our bathroom cup into our toilet in our bathroom this morning. I think they said they were trying to throwing things in and taking them out. Needless to say, the bathrooms are off limits except to go to the bathroom.

On a clearer note- we can see the bottom of the pool we've been cleaning for a month. And we can still see it after we start vacuuming/scooping stuff out. That means it's getting close to done. I'm excited. It's crazy that such a small bit of joy takes so much work. Really it wouldn't take so much work if we kept up with it all the time but that's hard to do.

Well, Slade says I've written enough and I need to go get him and Scott some raisins. I'm off.

Life flies by. Just like birds, huh. Okay- bad joke. But I thought I might write a bit. Scott is talking a ton. My friends who haven't seen him for a few weeks are very impressed. He was talking to Sam's mom the other day on the phone and afterward she asked me what Slade said. I told her she had talked to Scott, not Slade. She was excited that he could talk that good.

Sam and I have been working on the yard. Well- Sam has been working on the yard and I help once and awhile. We have a pile of branches and grass and pine needles and leaves at least 6 feet high. The crazy thing is that it doesn't look like our yard has been newly trimmed. It's weird how much/quick things grow here. We have also been working on cleaning out the swimming pool. That takes dedication. We finally have it cleaned out enough that there is good circulation. (We started out with about 1 foot of pine needles at the bottom of the pool. I'm not exagerating.) That circulation helped our skimmed catch some goggles yesterday. Weird.

Here's the funny story for this blog. I cut Sam's hair today, just a basic buzz. I used one of the length chooser things for his do. I was cleaning up and he came back in and asked if "this spot" was longer than the other spots. I decided to just cut over it to make sure it would be the same. Well, I forgot to put the length thing on. So I shaved a small part of his head. We both freaked out. "You just shaved it!" "Oh, I forgot the..." You should see him. He decided to wear a hat to work. This is the second time we've had an episode like this. The first time I had really low sugar. I think he needs a real barber. Oh, well. I'm off.