Full Sunday

 We took on a lot today - and conquered ;) hehe.  I took Esme out for school shopping early in the morning, with a brief (and I do mean brief) runby the park on the way back home.  Mark was canning tomatoes while we were out, and we returned home just in time to watch him setting up the last run of about three gallons worth.  We tackled the old aquarium, emptying out the old water and cleaning it up.  We gave it to a friend who had helped us out last January with the truck, for their snake that had outgrown their old one.  We brought the partially washed gravel to Esme in her kiddie pool to pick out the 'terasure' of jewels, marbles and large agates into another container.  She enjoyed panning for treasure like a pirate :)

 Garden harvest.  That is volunteer Glass Gem corn, which I will try to dry out.

 Mark with his canned tomato sauce!  We will be using this all year.

Esme's pink truck in Minecraft.  It has a bed for having picnics in and a cab with glass and a strange 'vertical' hood thing going on.  Over to the side of it she has a recreation of the beach we went to on the Fourth of July - with stairs down and sand.

Little bits:  The other morning Esme woke up and asked why we were downstairs by her room being so noisy.  We told her we were checking up on the alligator Daddy had found and put in the bathtub.  She went and looked tentatively..worried... There's no Alligator, Daddy!  'Oh - really?  Did it get away?  Where did it go?'  She got even more worried and went back into her room to hide for a bit.  We laughed!  She came back out as I was washing my hair and poked her head in... convinced herself it was all a joke, and then brought me her Kindergarten start book with a picture of an alligator and said she had finally found it and everything would be okay. as a way of telling me she knew we were pretending.

I saw her on the porch hugging the goat by the neck the other day.  It was very sweet - they both seemed to be commiserating about being lonely.  I think they both miss Tink, the kitten who died.  I think they also miss having the puppies running around the yard.  I miss them, too... it is strange to walk over the ground between the garden and the house and not have my heels chewed on.  We think the older dogs have mostly forgiven us now for giving them all away... but they were pretty upset we took their entire pack of hard work and training and 'lost' them in the town that day.

We let Esme play a bit in the small wading pool at her friend's house when we brought the aquarium.  I told her she could wade, as we hadn't brought other clothes for her and didn't intend to stay long.  A few minutes later she was entirely soaked and still had not done more than 'wade'.  She jumped and sat down - stood up and yelled 'Sorry Mom!' across the yard.  Her friend's parents asked 'What was that for?'..  I told her she couldn't swim, just wade.  Oh, at least she said sorry, about it *giggle*... I told her it was okay, she could swim a bit now.. and they immediately started cannonballing each other and spraying the hose over each other.  After about ten to fifteen minutes we said it was time to go .. she did get ready to go reluctantly.  At home we filled up her pool again and she brought a little plastic doll out there to be her 'friend' until it was time for supper.