The Professor and Mary Ann

Sebi tries out the new floors for the zooming of Matchbox cars. They pass. So last Wednesday, Rob rented a jackhammer and took out the [exceedingly ugly 70's] tile in our entry. The rest of us fled around the corner to the Buskirks' place, and we returned to find that we had a new crushed gravel path . . . inside the house. After two inches of plywood and soundboard, a dump trip (1226 lbs), and some colorful language ("slab-sided, Dutch-built landlubbers!" is Will's current favorite), we now have hardwoods in the hallway and library/guestroom/self-storage unit. This is a picture of our broken Rob, on his floor, and with the 'whanger' he uses to install the flooring.

Maddie Lou fell in love with the bollywood version of Pride and Prejudice, called (confusingly) Bride and Prejudice. She and Rob decided to have a bollywood birthday party. These are pictures we took for the invitations. Isn't she a lovely?

By the beginning of July, our garden is beginning to produce edibles. We've had tons of rhubarb, lettuce, radishes, basil, dill, sage, oregano, raspberries, cherries, and now apricots and one (very small) tomato. This, by the way, shows the garden ornaments in our apricot tree, because why should evergreens have all the fun?

We had a warm up session with the Buskirks the night before, and it was a good thing to acclimate Sebi beforehand. He would run away whenever you tried to hand him a sparkler, and the flowers absolutely panicked him! Hannah and Sebastian decided that the fireworks were too loud and took matters into their own hands (or Opa's as the case may be). Rob and his brother Rick decided to relive their glory days when they sent their turtle (a red-eared slider) up on a kite and watched him wiggle his legs around as he went up higher and higher. So with the help of their father Roger, they attached fireworks to a kite and after a few attempts they managed to fly the kite and light the fuse at the same time. It made a spectacular swinging pendulum kind of explosion, and they only lost the tail of the kite. But we didn't get a good picture of it! Rob also contributes a haiku to the celebrations on the Fourth: patriotism eating blackened hamburgers making stuff blow up

We got up early and watched the hot air balloons take off and fly around Provo trying to drop bean bags onto giant "X"s around town. We still haven't figured out how they managed to steer the things. One actually landed next to us and they asked Rob to hold onto it so it wouldn't fly away! When we got up close, the balloon turned on the flame blower (that is it's scientific name) and Sebastian nearly jumped out of his skin. This Stars and Stripes balloon just about whacked off a swamp cooler as it tried to come in close for the bean bag tossing.

Here is Will with his teacher Moe. He was surprised that Moe was a girl -- when he heard the name he said "Oh, like the bully in Calvin and Hobbes." but Moe has been great for Will's floating and diving to the bottom of the pool. She says that he's a good swimmer, but he doesn't like the deep end. He's much more independent now in the pool though! Maddie has become a really good swimmer this summer. Now she can do front crawl, backstroke, elementary backstroke, breastroke, and she's working on sidestroke and butterfly. She and her class stay in the deep end the whole time practicing the armstrokes and kicks.

Our friends the Armantrouts came to visit for the weekend. Will and Grant renewed their friendship and found they had iPods and Schoolhouse Rock in common!Meanwhile Maddie got to go with Brok, Sarah and Katie to the Mayan restaurant where they have live divers jumping 60 feet. Maddie was so impressed!