Friday

The chilly weather knocked out our swimming plans for the second time this month!
We chatted about what to do instead last night and decided to just go to Katy's and make grilled cheese.

Chan was at Brit's house, Ben was already at Katy's and we had been hosting Evan, who's here for a few days now that school is out for him.  So we set out a little early to gather Chan on the way and pick up some doodads to share at lunch.

Saw this and wondered briefly if Suzette had bought a truck.

At Katy's, the kids spent about 4 seconds deciding what to do and then ran around like crazy people all afternoon.  I love that they can still be so physical and just PLAY.  Katy certainly has the place for active kids.  They played on the swing, the zipline, the trampoline, just ran around and played with Mars.

Inde gave me a hat to keep the sun out of my eyes.

We made a ton of grilled cheese sandwiches and had chips, fruit, cookies, La Croix, Caprisun and picked stuff from the yarden to make a big salad and have fresh herbs on our sandwiches.  Loads of chatter and mostly laughing our heads off at Bird, who is quite the ham at 21 months.  I took pictures, but his mom does not want me to post pics of him or Didda online.  Just trust me, he's SO cute.

After lunch, we lounged a bit while the kids ran around and around then Matt, Katy and I went for a walk and Amanda headed back to her neck of the woods to get ready for the weekend.  We are all headed off together next week!

Right below Katy's house.

Indian pink

Mint, Monarda family

Resurrection ferns

Don't know.  The plant grows like raspberry

That's mostly Virginia creeper, but there were about a zillion poison oak plants in the mix.
I washed everything I had on when we got back, including my shoes.

We had to make tracks back home, our movies were due by 7!  I wish there was a drop box, that would make my life so much easier sometimes.

The blue jays were going NUTS attacking Nia and screaming like all get out when we got in.  We finally went to see what was going on, Nia was under the pine looking up and they were swooping her like fighter jets.  She was sitting ON a baby jay!!  She is SO horrible, I mean the worst kind of dog.  I have looked out more than once and seen her perched on a cat, it flat on the ground and her rear end squishing it's head.  She even drags the cats to where she wants cushion sometimes and THEN sits on them.

Matt took the jay away from her, we thought it was dead and everyone was all teary eyed and then he gathered up the FLAT baby and it became bird shaped again!  It was not wet or damaged, she just sat on it-no mauling.  I wish I knew why she did that...

I lined a small basket with paper towels and we put the baby in it and wedged it back up in the tree.  The parents took over immediately, though they were both livid and tried to kill Cleo when she was making her way to her cat bed in the shed.  That poor cat, I am not sure she's had a good day in her whole life.

We have gone to check a couple of times, debating on if we should bring it in.  It's COLD out there, under 50, I am not sure the parents will snuggle the baby if there are other babies in a nest elsewhere.  I know I will barely sleep, I am afraid to bring it in in case they abandon it totally.  I hope it was not shocked too much by our horrible dog, that could kill it, too.  It was panting for a while, but was quiet and fluffed up last time we checked.  Okay, I can't stand it, I am going back out to check.