playing catch-up

we really have had nothing major going on, which i'm thinking is a good thing. we've just been doing the daily stuff with a few little extras thrown in.

we have a bird feeder in the yard, which has become a squirrel feeder lately. if birds do get to have a snack there, it's usually those darn blue jays that are so mean nobody else can get to it. i walked through the kitchen the other day and saw max throwing rocks at the squirrels. he was tired of them i guess. glorified rats that they are.

the youth group had a car wash the other day. they're raising money for their dominican republic mission trip next summer. i know that blake and luke are really looking forward to that experience. i can't wait to see how God uses it to work in them.

the boys thought that barker (luke's turtle) was looking a little forlorn yesterday so we got him out of his box for a little field trip in our side yard. poured some water on him so he'd think it was raining, and then he sat in that puddle for a bit. he must have been refreshed because off he went. he had a nice little hike and luke thought he must really be sad in his indoor captivity. so after scouts luke rigged up an outdoor enclosure dealie for him. so he could still have a turtle but the turtle could be outside. worked great until this morning when luke went out to check on him and discovered that barker was a.w.o.l...i heard him tell one of his friends today "barker ran away"...that statement cracks me up for obvious reasons. you should hear all of the scenarios he's come up with to explain what happened to the turtle. we're figuring that the fox that hangs out behind our house may have had a tasty (?) little morsel during the night. luke's not so sad. he figures he'll be able to use this empty aquarium for a lizard or two later on. at least that's what he's lobbying for.

there was a brother sleepover last night. took quite a while for the sleeping to commence.

blake found out he gets his braces off next month - yay!

after i dropped the boys off for their preschool VBS helper jobs, greg and i went to starbucks. we found it to be all decorated with stuff trying to convince us to try some new vivanno concoction. they were all wearing tshirts about it and kept telling us how great it was and how good for me they are because each one has a whole banana in it and lots of fiber and not so many calories. i hadn't had any coffee yet so i didn't really want one, but why would i want to be left out on the next big thing, right? so i let myself be coerced. i got the orange mango banana blend and greg got the banana chocolate blend. they're really just smoothies, and they were good. and then before we left i went back for my hot caffeine.