Missing card reader

I can't find the card reader so no new pictures tonight. Thought I would go ahead with a little update, though, and then try to add pictures later.

The 3rd of July, we went to visit Greg and Alice out at the farm. Heather met us out there, too, and we ordered pizza and drank wine and generally chilled in preparation for the race on the 4th. Greg and Alice have an entire menagerie -- dogs, horses, who knows what else (they used to have a very grumpy minature donkey). The boys had a great time. Allan absolutely adores the horses. Can not get enough of them. Griff is a little more reticent, but he gets in to it, too, eventually. We should have some good pictures of them.

Alice put on some vintage Madonna to see Griff bust a move and no one was disappointed. I thought that she and Heather were going to wet themselves watching Griffith putting on his best moves. Allan wasn't having any of it -- he was too busy exploring the house which has a sunken living room and stairs that are just Allan-sized for climbing up and down.

Griff hadn't taken a nap, though, so by the time we got home, he was completely worn out. Actually Jay is doing some work for G and A so he came separately and about ten minutes behind us. Ten LONG, LONG minutes. Griff howled like a banshee for his daddy, daddy, daddy. Inconsolable. When Jay finally turned up, the relief was palpable -- for Griff and Momma.

Jay and I were supposed to run the annual 4th of July 10K at 7:30 the next morning. The forecast was 50/50 on thunderstorms, but I couldn't hear anything during the night. I was up at 6 and got ready. The babysitter was to arrive at 6:45. At 6:20, Jay got up and I realized that it was raining. Ever so gently, but persistently. Do we call Ana and tell her not to come ?? Let her come and we'll see what happens.

What happened was that it was still raining at 7. Jay elected to walk down to the race start and run. I elected to go in to the basement and clean. Anything sounded better than walking a mile in the rain, running 6 miles and walking a mile back.

Dad did great. Ran it in less than 56 minutes. Then he called to see if we would come to Jim and Montell's and have breakfast. And, oh, yes, by the way -- could we bring a shirt and shorts and underwear and shoes, too? And drive him home? Sure.

Still, it was a good effort for the whole team. I got a lot done in two hours in the basement (took 6 large garbage bags out, 8-10 white garbage bags to the Salvation Army along with a car load of babygear that we can't use, and a box of toys for the children's hospital. And a pile of cardboard for recycling.

Dad is crazy busy with work so we got home, got the boys fed and he headed out to work. The boys took decent naps (as did I) and we got ready for company for dinner.

Jim and Montell came over as did Markus, Hannah, Alan, Michele and (eventually) Matt and Nicole. The weather turned stormy for our grilling but covered deck served us well. We stayed out all evening long. At first the boys were daunted by the weather, but they both eventually got over it.

Jim kept encouraging Griff to take off out in to the rain which he did. What Jim didn't expect was that Allan was going to insist on going, too -- with Jim's help. Serves him right.

The boys ended up completely wet, filthy and exhausted. So much so that they hardly stirred all night despite the fireworks. (Jay kept saying that we should expect people to put off fireworks in the parking lot across the street. I finally pointed out that it was usually US doing that and, sure enough, no one filled the void.)

So, all in all, a good 4th of July. Not as wild and woolly as some, but we aren't complaining.