Getting Started, Hail, Games, and Family Life

My daughter reads my blog. Within moments of my post last night, we engaged in the following text conversation.

This morning at 9:51am we did our first walk in the cul-de-sac. The steps measured 913 for me. My step length though is small as my 5‘2” height is mostly torso. These legs only stretch so far!   Still, I DID something. I started! I appreciate her being my walking buddy and it was nice to have a bit of  one-one-one time with her to chat.

We took Rufio who does not like to walk with Joe and Pan. They walk much further – one mile in the morning and another mile in the evening. Rufio is older than Pan and has the aches and pains to go with being older. Kind of like me. Heck, I can’t keep up with Joe and Pan either. The kids can though! They will sometimes walk with Grandpa Joe and Pan.

After the walk with Megan and Rufio, I spent a few hours researching mattresses. We did not move our mattress from California to Minnesota because a) it was time for a new one; b) we knew Megan already had a mattress on the bed in our flat; and c) it is costly to move mattresses when using a freight company with the cost calculated per pound.

While I was busy with research, Joe was busy playing games with Charlotte and Caleb. I took this photo recently when he was playing Checkers with Charlotte and Chess with Caleb, simultaneously. This time Charlotte won the Checkers game and there was a draw in the Chess game. It made my head spin watching Joe go back and forth between the games. However, I think Joe may have found a good way to exercise his brain and stave off dementia.

We had back-to-back hailstorms this afternoon. Joe took a photo during the first storm.

The hail portion lasted around 20 minutes and then there was torrential rain for a good thirty to forty minutes. The storm opped for about ten minutes and then started up again. The second hailstorm only lasted about 5 minutes with more rain for fifteen to twenty minutes. Lots of lightning and thunder as well. Megan was so concerned about our car that she went out in the first storm and moved our car into the garage in Jeremy's parking spot. Jeremy was driving home from work so his vehicle was already being pummeled. Another major storm is expected to arrive later tonight. 

Tonight, was the first night of Rockford River Days. The event opened after the second rain; however, we opted to go out for dinner and get ice cream instead of going to a park where it would be wet and possibly muddy. The entertainment for the kids is bounce houses. The alert from the event staff was to bring extra clothes as the kids would get wet. All I could think of was the kids jumping in wet bounce houses and possible injuries when they 'slipped' into another child. I don’t care about them getting wet – I do care about injuries. Megan said she thought the same thing but was also envisioning mud on everyone!

Charlotte wanted to know the color of her tongue after she ate her ice cream. I took a photo so she could see. I absolutely love this picture of her. In case you can't clearly see the color of her tongue, we all agreed it was green.