Summer Rain
What could be lovelier than to hear the summer rain
Cutting across the heat, as scythes cutting across grain?
Falling upon the steaming roof with sweet uproar,
Tapping and rapping wildly at the door?
No, do not lift the latch, but through the pane
We’ll stand and watch the circus pageant
Of the rain,
And see the lightening, like a tiger, striped and dread,
And hear the thunder cross the shaken sky
With elephant tread.
Elizabeth Coatsworth (1893-1986)
Babysitting a toddler is hard work! The girls are very thankful for nap time.
I do not say this enough; I love Allan McGuire!
Before the color run, they were selling extra bags of chalk. Someone offered us an extra bag free for each of the children. We brought them home so the kids could have fun playing with them.
The last time we were downtown, we started our summer challenge of finding Seward Johnson’s sculptures. We found another one!
Just after the Color Run.
Three years ago, Allan, Mark, Audrey and Megan did a 5K Color Run. For assorted reasons, we have not done one since. This year, Allan said that work would sponsor us if we wanted to run it again. So, this morning the whole family joined in the run. It is not a race, the goal is just to finish the course. But my kids wanted to race it.
The organizers split everyone up into groups. The older kids were in the first group, the runners. They do not know their times, but Mark came in sixth. Audrey was the first girl and one of the first ten across the finish line. Andrea came in a little slower, but was the twelveth or thirteenth in. She was one of the first five girls in.
Allan ran with Adrian in the second group. Adrian enjoys running and probably ran the first mile before needing a break. Allan said they ran most of it with short breaks.
Megan and I “ran” in the last group. Megan easily ran half of it and would have ran more if I could have kept up with her! I have never enjoyed running, but she kept encouraging me, “come on Momma, you can do it!” She also insisted I run through all the color stations. I maybe jogged a fourth of it.
It was fun and we enjoyed doing something completely different than normal this morning!
We have been enjoying having Jonathan over this week to play. Everyone is enjoying babysitting. Megan is “in training” and learning the very basics of babysitting a toddler.
I am not sure what kind of bird this is, but it enjoyed playing hide and seek for a few minutes with Adrian and me.
Can you see what is missing? The first one disappeared unexpectedly 25 May. Then when Megan was supposed to be in bed sleeping the other one disappeared (12 June).