"Man"-ning the fort

(Post written by a guest author)

This weekend Amy spent her first night away in years (from most of the kids) as she and Strider were in D.C., so I (Pete) was home with the three younger kids for three full days.

One of our fun adventures was going to the zoo. The highlights were the gorilla- and penguin-feedings, and the kangaroos and the giraffes. Colsen, especially, was thrilled and talked for the next 2 days at every opportunity about the animals he saw. (Phone calls to Amy were very enthusiastic.) Unfortunately, our one camera was in Washington with Amy, so I have no pictorial memories of our field trip.

We also did some building projects in the garage. I worked on replacing the front screen door, and Colsen built a wooden "house" of his own -- specifically a "roof that I'm building a house with" he says. Rayna was my personal shadow everywhere I went.

The weekend was not without its unexpected adventures as well. For example, at one point Miles climbed up and got into the spice drawer in the kitchen. He opened up a bottle of curry powder and spilled it all over himself and the floor. For the next 10 minutes, his nose ran curry. I vacuumed up the mess, and now anytime we run the vacuum, the house smells like curry. This morning as I was vacuuming the muffin crumbs up off the floor, Colsen said, "Hey, it smells like that stuff Mommy puts in chicken salad!"

The most challenging parts of this weekend all centered around mealtimes. There were lots of tears, tantrums, and messes. Thursday night I got so distracted, I ended up leaving the grill on outside. It ran until the tank ran out of gas.

All in all a fun weekend with the kids....but life at home is much brighter and much smoother with Amy's presence and calming influence.