another good one =)

we didn't get into a whole lot yesterday, which made it pretty relaxing, which made me pretty happy. nothing in particular to wake up for, so everyone rolled out of bed when they felt like it. sat on the deck for awhile then had an invitation from max to do a little hot-tubbin', so i did. and greg did. and as blake and luke got up, they did too. 5 in a hot tub is pretty interesting. good as long as no one's too wacky (met luke?) and as long as everyone gets along. we made it through! go-karts were on the agenda for the day so when everyone was cleaned up and ready we went in search of the one that looked the best. ended up at one that had 2 tracks, one track was like a parking garage wind-up, just continuous circles up. and it had some pretty good steep downhills for the way back down. greg sat out because he was afraid the bouncing cars would hurt his post-op back, but the boys and i drove. i'll just lay it out here right now that this was my first go-kart experience and i S-T-I-N-K at it! i've spent too many years driving safely(ish) - i'm too safe for my own good apparently. naturally i brought up the rear, since i spent most of my time wondering things like why is this supposed to be fun? / man this car smells bad / gosh my kids are 2 levels above me on this thing / wonder how the way i'm bouncing up and down will look on the pics greg's taking? (notice there are none included) /is it over yet? / and (on the 1st downhill, which for some reason surprised me) CRAP! where's the brake?? (answer: big red pedal by my left foot). i tried to weasel my way out of my ticket for the 2nd track but did it anyway, mainly because my sons wanted me to. they thought it was funny that i was so bad at it, i think. the 2nd track was kind of kidney shaped, one tight curve, which (you guessed it) i played it safe on. don't want to spin out you know...ha! the boys smoked me again. blake and luke almost lapped me, matter of fact, but i refused to let that happen. next time they better look out. i might have something to prove..

next we went to the old mill area and walked around in a few shops we like. there's a kitchen/cooking kind of store i like to go in that is a hit with the boys because there are always food samples out of the things they sell. next door is a toy shop, which this trip is luke's favorite destination. lots of "old" toys from way back when i was little. greg found one of those little dogs that you pull around with the plastic red cord in the front. all these years later, i still remember the sound it made when it was pulled. there wasn't one out for me to play with. i found some crazy sunglasses and wore them around the entire time, to max's dismay. =) max bought handcuffs, luke bought a potato gun. nice. they spent the rest of the day handcuffing each other. luke had to wait til we got to the grocery store to buy some ammo, only to discover his tater gun doesn't work so well. next stop was the candy store. made a point to inhale in there - yummy smells. didn't do too much damage in there but did buy a little. it's chocolate, why not? had an earlyish supper at the old mill restaurant, went to the grocery store for luke's potato and for supper fixins for tonight and came home. hit the hot tub one more time (again, all 5 of us) and then hit the sack. so far today, only 3/5 of us are up. luke's awake, we saw him on facebook - but i think blake's still asleep. greg's reading a non-preacher type book, max is blankied up on the couch watching espn, and i'm blogging. good morning so far. today's plan is tubing on the river, an afternoon of creek/rock hopping and then home where it doesn't matter how we look (or smell) for grilling burgers and another supper on the deck with these gorgeous mountains.