::the 4th part 2::

After the parade we went home, relaxed and watched some bike racing. Then in the late afternoon we headed outside to start cooking our delicious hot dogs. The temperature was so nice, and it was fun to spend time out back. Really it's amazing it wasn't pouring outside, the 4th was one of the first non rainy days we've had.
Kris picked up poop. Which, contrary to (Max's) popular belief, he does do. See, I have photographic proof. Just for the records.

We played a little ball.
Max is getting better at catching, though I don't have much photographic evidence of that, unfortunately.







And if anybody is wondering what I was doing, I was taking pictures. Just so you know.
There was some work being done. Some diet coke drinking being done also.

And some companionable relaxing, evidently.

Then there was some trampoline jumping.







(Max, momentarily contemplative. Why? Who knows.)

Then it was dinner time.
The Trader Joe's hot dogs are so dang good. They're the best hot dogs I've ever had. And add in some of their relish? Wow, that's a delish dog. And watermelon is a must on the 4th.

Sultan thought they would be good too. Please overlook the weird bread slicey eastern buns. They're weird.
Bad Max came to dinner.
He's usually not invited, but I made an exception since it's a holiday.

We were so glad to have Ken and Kathy with us for the holiday. It was so fun. We love having family around!

And the fact that he posed for this photo means he deserves to have it posted for all the world to see. So world? Enjoy.

::more stuff::

Another reason to love Trader Joe's. $1.49 for a little bundle of daffodils. $1.49 for a little package of sunshine? Who could pass that up.
The tags say they came from England, but I'm going to pretend that half of them came from our old neighborhood in Kansas City. I loved that place and I miss it. The other half I'm pretending came from my parents house.
Daffodils are so happy.
They're having a little trouble opening fully because it was so cloudy and rainy today it was almost like the sun never came up. Hopefully we get some sun tomorrow.


On another note. Who's better to snuggle with during Kung Fu Panda, than a Panda?

One with a karate suit on nonetheless.

Thanks for the chubby panda grandma!!

::november::

I can't believe it's already November. Seems like it was just yesterday we were hanging out at the beach.
I can't believe that Murphy has already served almost a quarter of his mission. Wow.

We found out a couple of days ago that our poor red Land Rover didn't make it through the accident. The insurance company declared it a total loss. It looked like there wasn't really that much damage in the pictures, but there was some underlying non-obvious stuff that wasn't in good shape. And the cost of Rover repairs is high, and since our "value" was relatively low because of tons of miles and the age of the car it was a lost cause.

So we're car shopping. Against our wills. We loved that car and we didn't want to have to get rid of it. But oh well. C'est la vie, right? What happens happens, and at least we were ok. That's the important stuff.

The bummer is in all this is that we only have our rental car for a very limited period of time--through this weekend. So our car shopping is very rushed. But hopefully we can find something that works, and not completely stress ourselves out in the process.

In other news, we now have a:

not too far from our house. Can you read that? If not it says Trader Joe's. For those of you that don't know, Trader Joe's is a well priced grocery store with a lot of healthy food. Max likes it. We've been a couple of times and gotten some yummy frozen dinners that were pretty easy to cook up.
Do you see the little sad faces there in the drawing? Those are there to represent how Max acted at Trader Joe's today. Yeah, he was bad. Bad enough that he knew he was being bad. Anyway, I thought those little sad faces were pretty funny. He copied the letters from the bag in the car. He's getting really good at writing his letters.

And to finish off tonight, I have a little teaser. Melissa and I took the boys out on a walk yesterday and parked them in somebody's leaves to take some fall pictures. They turned out awesome.
Like this:

and this:

and this:

I have lots of other good ones. Tons. I'll show you all some later. But that's all for now.
Happy thursday!