Dog Days of Perfection

Slow transition back to having Sophia back in the house and she is equally slow in transitioning back to life in civilization. Overall she enjoyed camp and we are still spending the evenings with campfires and old stories, but now Sophia shares her camp stories and we sing some camp songs from the song book she brought back for me. Merrick still requires multiple hours of hockey a day and we are playing often. Merrick is quite focused and continually tells me that he is working on his stick flex so he can shoot faster, and then laughs when he smokes it past me. As the calendar year starts to draw to an end I realized I wasn't going to meet my flex plan spending and thought maybe Merrick should learn how to jump his bike. I should be cashing out on the flex plan in no time. It is actually a riot as he rides over the jump and then asks if he "got sweet air." We spent about four hours on Friday at the new 'bouncy' house in town with some friends and the kids had a riot, then everyone ended up back here for a little swimming. Sophia is working on hemp jewelry and we hit the hobby lobby to pick up some new beads for her to use on her anklets, bracelets, necklaces and key fobs. Weather has been great and Merrick and I picked a nice bunch of root crops from the garden, blue potatoes, fingerlings and carrots. I even got him to try a couple and but some hamburger in his mouth. Sunday morning found us on the river again, fishing with friends and then a brief stop at the park. We were also fortunate enough to watch the staging for a tractor parade and saw some really old machines that had been restored into near works of art. Sophia made some dough for all of our pizzas and the rest of the time was filled in with friends playing, bike rides and of course hockey time. Merrick easily talked me out of taking him for a run and instead suggested that ice cream was likely a better idea, as we near the dog days of summer I had to agree with him. The week started out with a surprise visit from Grandma Nancy arriving with both car candy and cheese. She spent most of the day with us balancing her attention between both of the kids and managed to sneak in a trip to the candy store as well. We rounded off the night with a trip to the watch a New Orleans style jazz band in the park with some friends. The kids ran around on the grass, near the band playing in a large gazebo, tossing frisbees and balls to each other. With the wide open spaces there was plenty of room for gymnastics but the tall grass and Queen Anne's Lace were tempting distraction as the kids made trails and collected caterpillars. It was quite dark as we pulled the bikes and rickshaw into the garage and with the crickets chirping we grabbed the flash lights and spent some time searching for some "Mitch Morsels." We polished off the EC cheese with some Ritz crackers and called it a day.