Pictures!

Something exciting happened! I got a little doohickie for my computer that allows me to directly load my pictures from the card. Due to the many ridiculous nuances of hair pullingly frustrating technology in my household, I have had to load the photos into a nearly terminal computer, not our almost reasonably functioning one I usually use, resulting in only being able to pull one or two photos up at a time.  But now, thanks to The Man for finally mentioning that you can get card readers that you plug into a USB port, you all get to enjoy a serious overload of random photographic imagery, much like a vacation slide show, but without the vacation or the slides.

Ready?

I present: The Walk Downtown Over the River that is Experiencing a Minor Amount of Flooding with The Childs and Neighbor Boy.

As you may have heard or be unfortunately experiencing, a good deal of people were evacuated from their homes over the past few days in Alberta due to river flooding.  A couple hours south of here was hit the worst.  Our Red Deer river that runs a stone's throw away (if you pick up and re-throw your stone a dozen times) rose enough to cover some trails and turn a few backyards into popular kayaking spots, but overall the greatest danger to us was all the citizens racing down to the unstable river banks to have a look and rubbernecking while driving over bridges, almost causing traffic accidents.

One positive thing about the high river is it brought a lot of people out walking to try to see what was going on.  In a town full of drivers, it was nice to see people using their feet.

Including us.  The kids were more than happy to make the forty minute walk downtown if it meant they could go check out the river.  The walk is usually half that time, but when you've get to play pooh-sticks with entire trees, it can slow the travel time down considerably.

Plus, there is a whole lot of distractions.  This is boy child stroking the wheel of a jeep at a garage with whom he had a brief but intense love affair.  It ended abruptly when he realized that it was not, in fact, carrying missile launchers.

Carbohydrates help with heart break.

Our downtown has made some serious efforts to create a more pedestrian friendly atmosphere.  One favorite feature is the public piano, which has undergone a paint job for this year.  (Most of the walkways shown in the link are now underwater.  Sigh.)

The distant look you see above in boy child's eye is because he is listening hard to what he is doing.   I think that he is a very talented and intentional maker of disjointed and random music. 

City hall park is another favorite spot downtown.  Once the Neighbor Boy got over his disappointment that that 'park' doesn't always mean 'playground', the kids played hide and seek until they were nearly dead from heat.

This is boy child counting.

And that is girl child choosing a brilliant hiding spot.  Honestly, it worked.  Took him forever to find her... might be time to get his eyes checked again?

We were extraordinarily pleased to introduce the public library to Neighbor Boy.  It didn't take him long to find his favorite subject and a comfy spot to peruse the material.

My kids find it odd to meet children their age who have never been to the public library.  Given that they have pretty much grown up in libraries (that and coffee shops), they have a hard time comprehending what life would be like without books (and coffee).  As do I.  Would it be forward to start offering to take neighborhood kids down to the library once a week, do you think?  Would their parents mind, if I promised not to feed them caffeine?

And then home again on the bus.  With sour candies.  That was for my entertainment.

I have you've enjoyed my little picture show. I actually have quite a few of sewing projects I've been working on but haven't been able to share.  I will get them up soon too.  Until next time, adieu.