Oscar Stew

Thanks for joining us on this momentus occasion. We are gathered here to inaugurate a glorious and exciting summer season ahead, which we are celebrating today (well, two days ago, before the rain monsoon arrived) with the traditional turning on of the sprinklers!

Rowan was very excited, and dressed appropriately for the occasion.

What she didn’t anticipate was the heat that would be generated in the backyard. The kind of heat that makes you sweat. Disco sweat. Sweatin’ to the oldies. Where is Richard Simmons? Go Brinley!

AirDrew is a seasoned veteran of this celebration. And in honor of his experience he made certain to wear his shoes on the wrong feet. Some habits die hard…

 Looks like we’ve caught this fair beauty by surprise! The idea is to get wet!

Not just wet, Brinley says. Completely soaked! Nice job! 

This soggy boy is going around for another lap. It was only after he stopped running that he got cold.

Meanwhile, Daddy was in the front and side yard attempting to contain the geysers that erupted without warning. Ah, the joys of home ownership!

Mommy and Elea-snort needed some uninterrupted nap time the other day, so I rounded up the troops and headed out in search of two-purpose activities. Two, you ask? Exactly. Why only have fun or just work when you can have fun and work at the same time? It’s the man’s version of multi-tasking. My first target was easy: Sally was sitting in the driveway just begging for a good scrub down. And so it went… 

Keeping track of three kids in a carwash stall while documenting the momentous occasion proved to be rather difficult. As soon as I had Drew set on a task, I had lost Brinley and Rowan was looking mischievously at the ground.

My worst fears were realized when she stuck her hands in the mud and then rubbed them all over the car.

I actually didn’t have to look for Brinley. She was whining for her turn to hose down the van. Turns out she not only sprays well, but a beam of sunshine comes out of her forehead for quick dry results. A sunbeam…a sunbeam…

It was becoming apparent that both big kids were going to end up victims of friendly fire with Rowan holding the trigger…

If the van didn’t get clean, the stall and the drain pipe sure did.

As well as Rowan’s shoes.

Ok, no more fighting over who gets a turn. Drew you squeeze and Brinley you aim. Looks like they’re both satisfied with this compromise. Riiiiight.

Eventually I had to actually get the car clean. The monkeys seemed able to take care of themselves while I did the heavy scrubbing.

The iPod helped though, as they were drumming the beat and singing along while I rinsed away the evidence.

D&B must have chosen a song that wasn’t a favorite of Rowan’s.

Mission accomplished! Car is clean and nobody got run over. Off to the promised land!

Ahhhh! Sweet reward!

We’re settled in and mostly unpacked now, and figured it might be time to open the valve on the backlog of photos that are piling up. An extremely big thank you goes out to all those who helped us jam almost all our stuff into that tiny storage unit! So, how did it go? It goes like this…

Dog of Destruction pauses for a drink during her WWE debut on Spike. Notice her jammies are still zipped and snapped up to the top. How she pulled her arm out of the sleeve and through the neck remains a mystery. 

The toys disappeared but this space ranger still provided plenty of entertainment.

The house is empty, I’m bored, hungry, and want to leave. That’s what the belly told me that the baby said.

Cheddar was thrilled about his upcoming 9-hour Rocky Mountain Tour.

Edgar really seemed to enjoy it. He was allowed out of his box, so that may have had something to do with it.

It wasn’t long into our adventure that Rowan was disappointed with the tour. She had seen all this scenery before, and the snack bar wasn’t really satisfying. She took Daddy’s snacks and stayed awake until the last 15 minutes of the drive. Woohoo!   

There was another lump of flesh in the back of the car, but it didn’t make a sound for hours.

And it came to pass that the youngest generation was a loud and stiff-necked people, who set their hearts upon the things of the world… 

I know what your thinking, Drew’s head is on backwards. That tends to happen when you have two first days of skoo in the same year.

Drew’s first day at his new school happened to be “backwards day.” Way to be on top of it Scoob!

New desk. New teach. New friends. New fun!

Same old reward for doing well. If it ain’t broke don’t fix it!