2008 Spring/Summer Tour - Day 6

We went out and got some groceries, then stopped at a park so the girls could play and we could all get some fresh air. As we approached the playground, we noticed four kids who were throwing around a Gatorade bottle filled with dirt. It appeared that they were throwing it really hard at each other, but we realized as we got closer that they were trying to knock out a soccer ball that was up in a tree. One of them climbed into the tree and was shaking it, but the ball wouldn't budge. Roseann said, "Why don't you just climb up higher and get it?" And then she went and did it herself... It wasn't really that much higher than the one kid had already climbed and the branch was more than sturdy enough. She knocked the ball out, the kids cheered and one of them said, "Gee, we've been trying to get that out for two hours now." I think they were exaggerating the time, but regardless, it was an amusing example of being too close to a problem to see its solution. Roseann walked up with a fresh, outside perspective and solved the problem right away.

We were looking to fill up our tank and I noticed one place had gas for $3.59. I gasped and said, no, let's look for a better price... With a tank the size of ours (60 gallons, I think), even a few pennies a gallon will make a big difference. But as we drove around, I was seeing nothing but $3.71 and higher. I told Roseann, I never thought I'd look at $3.59 a gallon and think that was a great price. Of course, I recall saying the same thing at certain points over the last two years about prices like $2.87 and $2.43.

We picked up a few things at the store and wanted to get a couple of new toys for the girls. When we're traveling a lot, we like to cycle around some of their smaller toys to keep their rotation fresh. We found some cute rubber stretchy animal toys and thought Evee might like a couple of those... she loves to play with little toy menageries and make up voices and stories for each of them. There were several choices, including a turtle, a dolphin, a whale, a dinosaur and a few others. She ended up choosing the rubber dinosaur and... the rubber chicken. I was so proud! She named the dinosaur 'Diney' and the rubber chicken... get this... 'Bawky'. Again, I was so proud.

We went back to Steve and April's for some great conversation, some taco salad for dinner and some yummy chocolate chip cookies for dessert, and now we're headed to bed early.

Here's Evee and Bawky...