September Rains

It's been a little surreal how much rain we've had this summer. Dan and I figured yesterday that we haven't watered our garden for weeks--and yet the squash, tomatoes, cucumbers and eggplant keep growing. Also Hungarian peppers. We have lots of those and have yet to figure out what to do with them.

Yesterday and today have been no exception, though we don't have it nearly as bad as areas up north. My parents' neighborhood has had some homes flooded, and there were several feet of standing water in downtown areas there yesterday. Crazy. When you live in a desert you don't expect floods.

Anyway. Our weekly recap:

Monday, we splurged and got an annual Parks pass, and used it for the first time to go on a short hike in Kolob before heading south. We'd hoped to stop at Costco, but apparently labor day is one of the few days it's closed. We still had fun: we took the kids to the splash pad and for once it wasn't unbearably hot. Oliver loved being able to crawl around in the water, rather than being dependent on someone else.

The middle of the week was busy with school and work. Andrew has been driving us (and probably his teacher) a little crazy with his reading. His teacher gives the students a sticker for each 20 minutes they read; when they've filled a chart, they get to choose a small reward. So Andrew, with his usual tendency to throw his whole competitive self at stuff, has been reading as much as he possibly can. Last week he turned in 680 minutes (or 34 stickers worth). He tells us, "I read more than anyone else in my class!" Somehow, we're not surprised. He's a little obsessive. (Okay, more than a little). I wonder where he gets that from . . .

Yesterday both the kids had soccer games--5 hours apart. At least the rain came between their games and not during it. Andrew played really well--he scored about half of his teams' goals--but he's still working on sportsmanship. When it was his turn to sit out and the other team scored, he told me, "If I'd been in, they wouldn't have scored!" (A fact that was patently untrue, as Andrew had been playing back-field earlier when the other team scored.)

Friday night, Dan and I went to see Peter and the Starcatchers--I thought it was very funny, Dan was just mildly amused (I think he has higher standards for humor). But it was nice to get out without the kids! Dan spent most of the week growing out his beard/mustache to take advantage of their "Stache" offer--50% off tickets with a mustache. The beard look is a good one for Dan; the mustache, not so much. Friday morning, Dan shaved off the beard. He took a razor with him to campus, and as soon as he'd purchased his tickets, he shaved off the mustache too.

And, for the last of our eventful items: last night Dan and I had a chat with Andrew about the "facts of life." This was precipitated by our neighbor's mentioning they'd had the same talk with their son, who's only a few months older than Andrew, and who walks to school with him on a regular basis (and who's the sort of kid who likes to share interesting/odd scientific tidbits). We figured that we'd rather have this discussion with Andrew now than have him hear it from someone else. On the whole, it was much less alarming than I'd expected. Andrew already knew most of it, except for the physical mechanics, and he was much more interested in how this applied to other animals than to himself. (Our conversation ended up covering bizarre side-topics like asexual reproduction and hermaphroditism in frogs). We ended the conversation by reminding Andrew that he shouldn't talk about this with other kids at school--they need to hear it from their parents, just like he did.