Milo was too young the first time I read him The Hobbit, so I’ve started again. He’s paying attention this time. The words are soothing to my ears, too. I can recite sections of that book verbatim, from an audio version we had on cassette tapes as kids.

It was a nice warm afternoon, not even windy, and the kids got started washing off the chalk they hand-printed on our house bricks a couple months ago. The game progressed from washing the bricks to throwing buckets of water at the wall to spraying the hose in the air to spraying the hose at each other and dumping water over their heads and down their undies. This is why we have two kids–this afternoon the comradery worked out well.  I even got an hour or so of Zealandia work in while they played.  

Post wash, Milo spent a good hour airing out his willy, lol.  That’s not Jenny he’s petting, it’s Duke, a friendly neighborhood cat.