The Misadventures of Me!

Saturday I was so excited to take a ride with my fam on my shiny new bike.




Departure time was early, but we were rearin' and ready to go. All aboard Amma and Pappa's car, bikes in tow, and off we go...errr, I accidentally just locked our keys in the house.

Quick change of plans. Hurry, and remove every screen on the windows, break and bend a few, whatever it takes to get in the house. Finally made it in, with a promise to hide a key for next time.





Pappa and I stop off for a quick donut my mom and I love. Ooops, they don't have them. Just buy the others. Just kidding, have the donuts, buy them both. Pappa thinks I am a royal dork!

Down to Provo we go. Up the trail for only minutes. My gears aren't shifting like they should. Finally find a few gears that work and we are OK. Bryan's brakes are struggling. Stop, fix, we are OK. Brooks having multiple meltdowns, already. The grapes are stuck in the pocket on the side of the trailer. Stop to help rescue the grapes.

Finally, we are really moving. Now more than halfway up the trail. Happy Brooks. . . Heavy Brooks. . . "Erin, you have a flat tire." Can I crawl in a cave, please?



Poor Pappa. Rides down the trail to find a patch and his pump. Poor Pappa. Rides back up the trail, fixes the flat, sweating like crazy. Oh, the forecast shows 101.

We continue on our ride up the trail, as far as we can go until we are stopped by the rangers. Fire. Back down the trail. The best part. Downhill the entire way, not a single stop.

Ends up being a great day. There is little more I could do to ruin it at this point. Finished the day at Red Robin, yum.

Independence Day, Revisited.

I know it's a little past due, but we had such a wonderful time over the 4th of July, I had to get it in writing. This year we went with my family up to the condo at Wolf Creek. We stayed up there for the weekend and escaped some of the heat. We had such a great time with Amma and Papa, Paige and Mike. I will always remember this year.

We hit the festivities in Huntsville, and it was a hit! A darling small town parade; kids bike parade, a lama pulling a wagon, an entire brigade of vintage tractors and "happy 50th anniversary, Rob and Janet!" Can't get more Americana than that. Brooks loved it, especially the tractors.









The other highlights were the bike rides, swimming, movies, relaxing, a rousing game of scewie louie (thanks mom,) and my dads famous chocolate ice cream which is always a favorite.

But for Brooks there was nothing better than throwing rocks in the river, taking walks to collect rocks to throw in the river and watching the rocks in the river. Catch my drift? Pure heaven.

A Day For the Birds

After running a couple of errands yesterday, Brooks and came home and took our lunch out on the patio. As soon as we walked outside, I noticed a not so little bird laying under the window, looking rather sad. He wasn't moving and I wasn't sure what to do. Now this isn't the first time we have had an incident like this. We have a large window that confuses the little birdies. I think they see their reflection and think it's another bird, so they just keep flying right into the window.

Anyway, we have had about four other birds make thier way into the glass with only one fatality until yesterday. I was with Brooks, who was fascinated by this sweet creature struggling on the ground. I ran in and got some bread and water. Why that didn't work, I have know idea. Then I went inside to get a shoe box for the bird. I gave Brooks specific instructions not to touch the poor bird in case he was diseased or something. Well when I came back the bird was now on it's back about two feet from where I had left him. Only now, he wasn't breathing. It was sad. I carefully nudged him into the shoe box with a piece of cardboard and discarded the box later. I tried to have a short conversation with Brooks about life and death, somehow, I don't think it sunk in. All for the better, I am sure. He is convinced the bird crashed and is just really, really sad in that box. But he did say he would be happy soon. I am sure he is.

So, later that evening I was trying to mend some of my hot and tired hanging planters. I grabbed my trowel and was ready to go to work, when to my utter surprise, there was a mass of fluffy substance in my planter, right where I was going to dig. I screamed and made Bryan invesigate.

Wouldn't you know it...five baby birds. I knew a certain bird, apparently a mother, loved to hang out around this planter. Little did I know she had moved in and brought her family too. These poor birds have been watered all summer and somehow managed to survive. So has the plant, sort of.

Other than a little frightened by the crazy lady with the shovel, the babies seem to be fine and are happy and with their mother once again insid my begonias. It was sort of a sweet end to a crazy day for the birds.