Reading: I'm still reading Gotham, but only in bed at night since it is a huge book that does not lend itself to being toted around. I downloaded Tarzan of the Apes from Project Gutenberg and then downloaded it to my Zaurus, so I'm reading Tarzan in the little bits of free time I get while riding in the car or waiting in line at the grocery store. It's not the ideal way to read a book, but I hate to be without something to read.

Not Watching: Sports Night. For the second Tuesday in a row, I've forgotten to turn on the TV and have missed it. Drat.

On Walks

On our walk today we noticed baby horse chestnuts that have fallen prematurely from the tree down the street. They are tiny, green, and soft to the touch right now. In another five months the horse chestnuts will be large, brown, and prickly. In the fall, the boys like to collect the nuts from inside the spiky shells, but they don't want to prick their fingers on the outer hulls. They step down hard on the hulls to make the chestnuts shoot out. Then they fill their pockets with the smooth, shiny brown nuts and carry them home. I don't let them bring the chestnuts inside, so they pile them up on the steps outside the door.

Things I've Learned on Walks with My Boys

Walks are much more fun when you have a plastic car to ride on.

Every season brings treasures to collect: dandelions in spring, bird feathers in summer, horse chestnuts in fall, pine cones in winter.

It's fun to throw stones in puddles and watch the ripples. It's even more fun to splash through the puddles.

It is as important to stop and visit with the pets in the neighborhood as the people.

Every flower is worth stopping to smell. Clover has a faint, sweet scent.

My father and his wife, Bunny, arrived last night from Maine. They will be staying at Nana's house until Friday. We've invited them over for pizza tomorrow night. Daniel is excited about showing them his K'nex space station and a new project he has just finished: a sports utility vehicle with a trailer hitched to it. Tab suggested the trailer could be hauling a boat, so now Daniel is working on a catamaran to go with the ensemble.

I've been sorting through packets of snapshots to find pictures of Daniel's kindergarten class. His graduation from kindergarten is next week--cap and gown and everything!--and they are putting together a yearbook. I also needed to come up with a baby picture for the yearbook, and I found this one of Daniel at eleven months that I absolutely love.

While gathering photographs for Daniel's yearbook, I sorted through the pictures from the infamous zoo trip last month. I'll try to get a few uploaded tomorrow.

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